Chamber and committees

The following buildings have dedicated cycle parking spaces:-

The Retail Strategy Steering Group was established to guide the content and recommendations of the Retail Strategy and operated for the duration of the strategy’s development.

The Steering Group was Chaired by the then Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, Tom Arthur, and was made up of members from bodies across Trade Organisations, Public Sector Bodies, businesses, and Trade Unions whose expertise and insight helped to shape the Retail Strategy. Actions and recommendations arising from the Steering Group were progressed through a number of thematic workstream groups chaired by members of the Steering Group and comprised of business, policy, and delivery experts.

Three workstreams were identified – People, Place and Sector, which transformed into a set of actions within the Retail Strategy. Following the publication of the Strategy in March 2020. An Industry Leadership group was established to drive and support the delivery of these actions. This group has agreed an outline Delivery Plan, identifying the group’s priorities as well as a critical review process and timelines for measuring success.

The Scottish Government continues to work in partnership with the sector, trade unions and employees, whose experiences are crucial, to help the retail sector in Scotland become an exemplar for inclusive economic growth and play its part in creating a wellbeing economy and a fairer, greener, and stronger Scotland.

I can confirm that funding for the Scottish 4G Infill (S4GI) programme is fully committed to building and activating 55 masts across Scotland and that no remaining funding is available.

The Digital Productivity Labs pilot programme currently has over 250 businesses participating with over 1100 combined tasks on their action plans to support the implementation of their digital projects. The Scottish Government will provide a final update on findings of the programme later this year once it has concluded and next steps can be agreed.

The International Trade and Investment budget funds the delivery of three key plans. These are: A Trading Nation - Scotland's Export Growth Plan; Scotland's Inward Investment Plan and Scotland's Global Capital Investment Plan. Together these work to deliver economic growth as well as a stronger, fairer, greener Scotland that benefits everyone. They enable Scotland to be a highly productive and innovative place to live, work and do business on a global scale.

Evidence shows that our plans are working:

In terms of Inward Investment –

• The EY Annual Attractiveness Survey 2022 showed that Scotland has been the top performing region or nation of the UK, outside of London, in attracting FDI, for the past 7 years.
• Scotland’s FDI projects outpaced Europe and the rest of the UK – Scottish projects were up by 14% from 2020, compared to 5.4% increase in Europe and 1.8% per cent increase in UK.

In terms of Exports –

• Comparing with the previous year, when oil and gas are excluded, Scotland’s international goods exports increased by 20.5% in 2022 compared to 2021. This compares to a 13.3% increase for the UK.

International Trade and Investment’s budget for 2023-24 will be targeted towards the next phase of delivery which will:

• Set the direction on new Market Opportunities to attract high quality inward investment (and associated spill over benefits) and the technologies required to deliver our ambitions in areas such as Energy Transition, focusing on Scotwind and Hydrogen, Space, and Decarbonisation.
• Scale up Scotland’s trade promotion, international reach and profile; promoting Scotland on world stage at key events such as COP28.
• Continue targeted support to enhance our firms’ export capacity. In particular, delivering three Sector Export Plans (SEP) – Life Sciences, Technology and Renewables and the development of a Hydrogen SEP to support the growth of renewables exports from Scotland and identifying new and critical markets
• Push forward our capital plans to support the economy, including exceeding our commitment to the annual capitalisation of the Scottish National Investment Bank, and renewing support for the enterprise agencies and delivery partners.

Local authorities are responsible for the administration and enforcement of landlord registration, and are the data controllers of the information held on the landlord registration IT system for landlords in their area.

The Scottish Government works with Registers of Scotland to provide local authorities with an online platform to prepare and maintain their registers.

The Scottish Government receives monthly aggregate information extracted from the system, including the total number of active registrations and the number of properties that these relate to.

Publication of information about the Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry’s costs is a matter for the Inquiry. The Inquiry has decided to provide quarterly reporting of its costs on its website at https://www.covid19inquiry.scot/inquiry-costs .

The Scottish Government does not hold the specific information requested. However, through our mainstream Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP), we have supported many community controlled housing association developments across urban and rural Scotland. Each year, since 2008-09, an Affordable Housing Supply Programme Outturn Report is published which sets out the organisations which have received funding through the AHSP. Specifically in rural Scotland, since the introduction of the Rural and Islands Housing Fund in 2016-17, 44 community-led rural projects have been completed providing 152 additional homes. The fund play an important role in offering support to community organisations and others to deliver affordable homes, while complementing the delivery through our mainstream programme by Councils and Registered Social Landlords.

We can confirm that build work for the Scottish 4G Infill programme masts at both Skerries and Foula (sites named Bruray and Ham respectively) is now complete and activation is currently expected to take place by end of July 2023.

CalMac ferries continue to plan recruitment around the latest delivery date provided for the MV Glen Sannox and recruitment is currently ongoing. The recruitment process is continually monitored to ensure any risks and issues are identified and managed. Recruitment plans are also continually updated to reflect required changes.