Chamber and committees

This Government is committed to building a vibrant, sustainable, and inclusive rural economy.

We are widening participation in entrepreneurship, giving more people the opportunity to start, grow and scale their business. To date we have supported a range of programmes, including the South of Scotland Enterprise regional Pathways Pre-Start programme and the Pathways Funds. We are investing a record £6 million to support further Pathways implementation in the current financial year, transforming the number of women who start and scale businesses and widening participation in entrepreneurship.

Alongside this, we are supporting rural entrepreneurs through our Ecosystem Fund, which has invested a total of £2.6 million across 75 innovative projects since 2021, through our Techscaler network, through our wider support for our enterprise agencies, and through delivery of our National Innovation Strategy.

The Rural Entrepreneur Fund was a 2021-22 Programme for Government commitment to invest £20 million over the lifetime of the current parliament. However, in light of the challenging financial environment, the Scottish Resource Spending Review prioritised investment plans to ensure that they were deliverable, impactful and affordable. Consequently, there has been no money invested in the Rural Entrepreneur Fund to date.

The Scottish Government is committed to advancing women’s entrepreneurship and fostering an inclusive business environment, through implementation of the recommendations of the Pathways report on women in entrepreneurship, which consulted extensively to identify impactful measures that would address the gender gap.

To date we have supported a range of programmes including the South of Scotland Enterprise regional Pathways Pre-Start programme and the Pathways Funds. We are investing a record £6 million to support further Pathways implementation in the current financial year, transforming the number of women who start and scale businesses and widening participation in entrepreneurship.

The Scottish Government has set the goal of establishing Scotland as one of Europe's leading start-up economies, fostering an environment where innovation and high-growth businesses flourish. Within this parliamentary term it has spent over £60 million to aide these ambitions with at least a further £23 million committed by the end of the Parliamentary term.

These figures do not include spend from our Enterprise Agencies or Entrepreneurial Education. In addition this does not include spend for financial year 2026-27 due to our single year budgeting process.

It was not possible to support all of the submitted projects within the available budget. There is currently no scope to support the reserved projects however should additional budget become available this will be considered. As part of the pipeline approach reserved projects can be considered for support in future years, subject to annual budget availability.

The Lease for the Inch Cape Offshore windfarm was signed on 24 January 2025.

For offshore wind, as part of the environmental assessment processes undertaken for the updated Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind Energy, a cumulative assessment considering existing, consented and proposed impacts on protected seabird species is being undertaken and will published for consultation this Spring.

For onshore wind, at present, a full cumulative impact assessment across all onshore wind farm developments has not been undertaken.

The Scottish Government, along with our tourism agency VisitScotland, acknowledges the significance of community tourism. VisitScotland has teams strategically located throughout rural Scotland that are instrumental in collaborating with regional stakeholders to identify local needs and opportunities.

Community Led-Tourism

• VisitScotland fully recognises and supports the unique role of community led tourism in Scotland. Community-led tourism enterprises deliver many visitor experiences and services across Scotland, making them an important part of the wider visitor economy. Such enterprises encompass a variety of inclusive ownership models and provide opportunities to generate community wealth. Partnership and collaboration is at the heart of the work that VisitScotland do to grow Scotland’s visitor economy including their work with Scottish Community Tourism (SCOTO) Community Tourism Network CIC, the organisation which connects Scotland’s network of community tourism enterprises.

Business & Experience Development

• VisitScotland’s business support programme is accessible for all tourism and events businesses in Scotland – including SMEs (majority of businesses in the sector) and community-led tourism organisations. Over time, VisitScotland will continue to give community tourism organisations access to practical information and resources to build capability and develop.
• Community tourism is integrated in the Scottish Thistle Awards programme, which celebrates and spotlights the best in Scotland’s best tourism and events sector.
• VisitScotland also promote enterprises of this type through their integrated marketing approach, showcasing the unique and enriching experiences visitors can have by engaging with communities.

Place Development

• VisitScotland’s focus on place ensures that the experiences and welcome offered by industry and communities in destinations are combined with the appropriate investment cases and infrastructure to address issues of quality, sustainability, inclusivity, capacity and drive net zero.
• As part of the place development work, VisitScotland manage the Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund (RTIF) on behalf of Scottish Government. The fund aims to improve the visitor experience in rural parts of Scotland that are experiencing visitor management issues. In particular, it aims to help address pressure on local infrastructure or any negative impacts on communities.
• Since 2018 RTIF has awarded £20 million of grant funding to 75 projects. While RTIF criteria and assessment processes consider community issues and concerns arising from visitor pressure points, the purpose of RTIF is to fund visitor infrastructure which addressed visitor and community pressures arising from visitor numbers as opposed to a community fund to support purely local community needs or asks. Only National Park Authorities and Local Authorities can apply for RTIF funding, however more than 63% have done so in partnership with local community groups or third-party agencies and charities (RSBP, FLS, NTS etc.)
• Where community-based organisations are involved in RTIF projects, there are further opportunities to engage with those organisations, to assess the community tourism development opportunities associated with the creation of new tourism infrastructure. This would allow more community benefit and opportunity released from investment, in turn benefitting both visitor and resident.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-37556 on 21 May 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

No funding has been provided to any private business this parliamentary session to pilot a 4 day working week and there is currently no planned funding for Private Sector Pilots. The Scottish Government recognises the environmental, health and wellbeing benefits, and efficiency gains that a four-day working week could bring and have taken forward unique pilots in public sector organisations in Scotland.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes an annual report on Research and Development (R&D) expenditure by government departments. The latest report was published on 9 April 2025 and can be found at: Research and development expenditure by the UK government - Office for National Statistics. Please see Table 14 for data on Scottish Government purchased R&D (or funding provided for R&D) by receiving organisation for the 2023 financial year.

Comparable data for the 2022 financial year and the 2021 financial year are available at the following links. Earlier years data are not strictly comparable due to the reclassification of a research performing organisation.

2022 data:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/researchanddevelopmentexpenditure/datasets/scienceengineeringandtechnologystatisticsreferencetables/current/previous/v11/goverd2022.xlsx

2021 data:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/researchanddevelopmentexpenditure/datasets/scienceengineeringandtechnologystatisticsreferencetables/current/previous/v10/rftgoverd2021.xlsx