Chamber and committees

The total number of public bodies from 1999 until the present day has been captured in the following table.

Please note that prior to 2010 it was not common practice to capture Executive Agencies, Non-Ministerial Departments, Other Significant National Bodies, or Parliamentary Commissioners & Ombudsmen as part of the list of public bodies. Data prior to 2010 is limited to Executive Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs), Advisory NDPBs, Tribunal NDBs, Health Bodies, Nationalised Industries (no longer used) and Public Corporations. The exception to this was in 2007 when a more extensive collation of public bodies was completed as part of a Simplification Programme. This included all of the aforementioned classifications of public bodies as well as 7 proposed public bodies yet to be established. The inclusion of proposed public bodies yet to be established to the total is unique to 2007.

The Scottish Government and its enterprise agencies have provided £1,354,000 for the development of carbon capture and storage technology in 2025.

The Scottish Government has committed £2m of grant funding support to the National Gas Transmission SCO2T Connect Project and to date, £1,345,000 of this funding has been provided.

The Scottish Government remains wholly committed to supporting the development and deployment of CCUS, including the Acorn Project and the Scottish Cluster. Unfortunately, the UK Government continue to delay making a final decision on the Acorn Project which is risking billions of private sector investment and thousands of jobs.

Community benefits from renewable energy developments are voluntary arrangements between communities and developers. Despite the powers to mandate community benefits being reserved to the UK Government, Scotland has made significant progress with a voluntary approach through our Good Practice Principles. Over the past 12 months, renewables developers have offered more than £30 million to local communities.

We are currently consulting on our Good Practice Principles for onshore and offshore renewable energy developments, to ensure we continue to support sustainable and meaningful outcomes for people in Scotland. This includes seeking views on local, regional and national approaches to community benefits. The consultation closes on the 11 April and we will consider all responses as we work towards updating the guidance by the end of 2025. We want to gather a wide range of views from across communities, industry, the third sector and public sector partners, and encourage everyone to take part.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people living in Scotland with musculoskeletal conditions can access the best possible care and support.

While there are no current plans to develop a musculoskeletal digital pathway, the government has commissioned the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) to oversee a Rheumatology Specialty Delivery Group. This group includes multidisciplinary representatives from all Health Boards providing rheumatology services.

Scottish Government officials and the CfSD national planned care team meet monthly with the Chief Operating Officer and Acute Directors from all mainland Health Boards to assess performance and delivery across all Planned Care specialities, including rheumatology. For island Health Boards, these meetings typically take place every two months.

Improving gender balance and tackling inequity within STEM learning and careers is at the heart of the Scottish Government’s STEM Education and Training Strategy. To support schools challenge long-established stereotypes, a range of resources have been developed by Education Scotland, based around understanding bias and highlighting the impact of inequality.

Education Scotland also work with organisations, including Tech She Can and Code Club, to promote female role models and provide professional learning for Computing Science teachers. In addition, the Scottish Government has provided over £800,000 to Scottish Teachers Advancing Computing Science (STACS) to promote Computing Science as a subject for all, helping to challenge gender stereotypes.

As a result of the STEM Education and Training Strategy, SSERC continues to deliver the Young STEM Leader Programme which enables young people to inspire, lead and mentor through delivery of inspirational STEM activities. Since its inception, over 20,000 young people have engaged with the programme, with 51% of awards being completed by female participants.

The Scottish Government is also investing in programmes designed to increase the engagement of young people in STEM activity. This includes £70,000 of funding to Digital Xtra to support their work on the development of digital technology skills and over £90,000 to support Edinburgh Science’s ‘Generation Science’ workshops and Prosper’s ‘Stemovators’ programme.

Through the Curriculum Improvement Cycle we have established a systematic approach to curriculum improvement including in respect of Science and Technology. This exercise provides a further opportunity to ensure STEM subjects are attractive to all learners, particularly girls.

There are several measures Scottish Government is taking to assess AI-related industry activity in Scotland, in terms of size, location and specialisation. These include the Scottish Government BICS survey (with data on AI adoption for business and industry) and Scottish Government is supporting a suite of programmes driven by Scottish Enterprise which regularly assess AI activity in Scotland. Scottish Enterprise completed research in 2023 about AI and business and are currently preparing research that assesses the economic opportunities for AI in Scotland (i.e. the size of the market). They will also soon publish a report including assessments into AI activity specialisation and location in Scotland.

VisitScotland fees paid to influencers 2020 – 2024.

Please note:

• Lower spend in 2020 and 2021 was due to COVID-19 related travel restrictions.
• Lower spend in 2024 was due to in-year return of marketing budget and pause on marketing.
• Increased spend in 2022 was due to the growing impact of influencers on travel and booking habits and the opportunity to reach new audiences at a critical point in the recovery from COVID-19.

To evaluate influencer partnerships, VisitScotland review content performance such as view rates, comments and sentiment, shares, saves and other metrics.

VisitScotland’s Net Economic Impact (NEI) assessment looks at the incremental influence and impact of marketing activities on visitor spend. This is reviewed annually and reported in VisitScotland’s annual performance report. In 2023-24 VisitScotland’s holistic consumer marketing activities resulted in an NEI of £56.7m.

Currently, a breakdown of spending returns on AI business support is not available as it is challenging to break down elements of work that are specific to AI and their impact as it is implicated in so many wider business impacts. However, recent research indicates that private equity investments were up by a third in 2024, with VC investment in Scotland rising by 14% in the last quarter of last year indicating a strong investment growth into AI in Scotland. We continue to work with enterprise agencies to identify where the Scottish economy is benefitting from AI and SE are soon to publish research on the economic opportunities for AI in Scotland.

Although the regulation of AI as a technology is unfortunately reserved to Westminster, Scotland can and has indeed been taking action for years to influence the national and global development of AI in a responsible way that reflects Scottish values. The purpose of Scotland’s 2021 AI Strategy is to make Scotland a leader in the development and use of trustworthy, ethical and inclusive AI. The actions to deliver this vision include multiple, complementary interventions from education, with our foundational Living with AI course, supporting our business ecosystem, with the AI Playbook geared towards SMEs, and collaboration, through forums like the monthly public sector AI Taskforce and a strong public engagement programme led by the AI Alliance. Scotland’s position globally continues to be influential with Scotland being the first country to mandate a public sector AI Register and our unique Children and AI programme, which was featured in the brochure of last month’s AI Action Summit in Paris, the most important and selective global AI event since 2023 – and to which the Head of the Scottish AI Alliance was also invited. We engage closely with the UK Government to influence UK AI Policy, and internationally though membership of multilaterals such as the Disruptive and Emerging Technology Alliance (https://detalliance.com/).

The Scottish Government are supportive of SaxaVord Spaceport and their efforts toward reaching their first launch, which is currently understood to be later this year. This milestone will contribute significantly to Scotland’s launch ambitions and deliver end-to-end capability for the sector in Scotland.

The Scottish Government maintain regular contact with Saxavord Spaceport, however, as a private enterprise, the spaceport is responsible for managing its own communications and disclosures.