- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Christina McKelvie on 4 October 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many organisations applied to develop pilots for the launch of the Culture & Business Scotland Marketplace in May 2023; how many organisations were awarded places beginning in May 2023; how many organisations had, in addition to the pilots, or the launch of the Marketplace, developed and tested programmes ready to be rolled out across companies, and which of those organisations had the resources to do so; whether any of the organisations that were subsequently awarded places in the Culture & Business Scotland Marketplace had previously been turned down for funding or had funding reduced by Creative Scotland; if so, whether there has been any communication between the Scottish Government, Creative Scotland and Arts & Business Scotland or Culture & Business Scotland regarding the Marketplace, and how many organisations had informed Arts & Business Scotland or Culture & Business Scotland by January 2023 that they had already developed and tested programmes that had a wealth of evidence to show their effectiveness, and had teams of practitioners who are leaders in the field of arts-based wellbeing and development.
Answer
Culture & Business Scotland (C&BS) received 39 applications for the Marketplace pilot programmes. 24 of these were successful and awarded places in the Marketplace pilot. Three of the successful applicants to participate in Marketplace had developed one of their proposed products to a business before.
C&BS state that they do not ask applicants to Marketplace about their contractual relationships with funders, and therefore they do not know if applicants have previously been unsuccessful for funding or had funding reduced by Creative Scotland.
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 4 October 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what the total budget has been for Scotland Innovates in each year since its introduction.
Answer
FY 2022-23 - £150k was spent on internal development costs for the website. In the FY 2022-23 - £15k for hosting and support, we anticipate 2023-24 this will be £25k. Costs of c£5k was paid for misc. services such as legal advice, security certificates and promotional items.
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 4 October 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many submissions to Scotland Innovates have started the development process, but were not taken forward, in each year since the scheme was introduced.
Answer
In total 63 submissions have been closed – 36 were closed during the 2022-23 FY and 27 have been closed during the 2023-24 FY so far. Of those, 45 have been deemed “unsuccessful”; 27 in the 2022-23 FY and 18 in the 2023-24 FY so far.
For the purposes of Scotland Innovates the following defined closure reasons have been considered “unsuccessful”:
Closure Reason | Number of Submissions |
Closed – Duplicate Submission | 4 |
Closed – Innovator did not respond | 17 |
Closed and assessed | 8 |
Closed at Innovator’s request | 1 |
No assessor interested (no current interest from the assessor group) | 5 |
Not applicable for public sector | 1 |
Not business ready (not currently in a business readiness state) | 4 |
Not innovative (many solutions and/or services of like on the market) | 5 |
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 3 October 2023
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how much of the Scottish Industry Emerging Energy Technologies Fund has been allocated, and for what purpose.
Answer
The Emerging Energy Technologies Fund (EETF) is a £180m package of funding up to 2025/26 that will provide capital support to accelerate low-carbon infrastructure projects and unlock private sector co-investment that will be essential to deliver net zero.
Through the EETF, we have committed up to £100 million to renewable hydrogen funding this Parliamentary term. I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21610 on 29 September 2023.
The remaining up to £80m has been made available for Carbon Capture Utilisation and Support (CCUS). Due to the unfortunate delays from the UK Government in confirming Acorn and the associated emitter projects, it has not yet been possible to deploy support from the EETF for CCUS. We are committed to supporting and accelerating the deployment of the Acorn project and the Scottish Cluster but until the UK Government award Acorn and the emitter projects, it is not possible to move forward with investment decisions.
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
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 3 October 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on the proportion of undisputed invoices to each (a) of its directorates, (b) of its agencies and (c) non-departmental public body that was paid within five days, in each year since 2011.
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to paying its contractors promptly, and has a commitment to pay all valid invoices within 10 days of receipt, going beyond the contractual responsibility to pay within 30 days. Systems and processes are in place to monitor and maintain performance data against this 10 day prompt payment target for each Director General area within the core Scottish Government and where payment services are provided centrally for relevant agencies.
Since 2014, the Scottish Government has also maintained a top level figure for the percentage of valid invoices paid within 5 days across the whole of the Scottish Government and its agencies, as shown in the table below. However, as systems are calibrated to report on the 10 prompt payment commitment, it is not possible to break this down further into directorate or agency reports.
Financial Year | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
% paid in 5 days (inc EPC)* | Not reported | Not reported | Not reported | 77.8 | 79.6 | 79.7 | 79.7 | 84.6 | 83.8 | 78.4 | 75.2 | 80.3 |
% paid in 10 days (inc EPC)* | 96.8 | 97.6 | 98.5 | 98.5 | 98.4 | 98.6 | 98.2 | 99.0 | 98.7 | 97.6 | 97.1 | 97.3 |
*The figure shows the percentage of payments made within 5 and 10 days, inclusive of payments made via the government electronic procurement card
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 25 September 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 2 October 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many public sector grants have been awarded since 1 July 2023 without requiring recipients to provide appropriate channels for effective worker voice, broken down by the value of each grant.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21629 on 2 October 2023. 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
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 25 September 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 2 October 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many public sector grants have been awarded since 1 July 2023 without requiring recipients to pay the real Living Wage, broken down by the value of each grant.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21629 on 2 October 2023. 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
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 25 September 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 2 October 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many public sector grants have been awarded since 1 July 2023 without requiring recipients to pay the real Living Wage or provide appropriate channels for effective worker voice, broken down by the value of each grant.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21629 on 2 October 2023. 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
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 21 September 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 2 October 2023
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the implementation of the recommendations of the Pathways: A New Approach for Women in Entrepreneurship report, including, as stated in its response to the report, progress on the (a) allocation of "funding to support the report's key recommendations" and (b) development of "proposals for the report's core recommendations on pre-start centres and pop-up business supports".
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the recommendations of the Pathways report.
In this financial year we have:
- Continued to provide funding to Women’s Enterprise Scotland, Investing Women and Business Women Scotland to allow existing programmes to continue ahead of a shift to competitive funding in future years;
- Renewed funding to Scotland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, with a further round of the Scottish Ecosystem Fund, widened to offer support to projects that address the Pathways review’s key themes; and
- As the first phase of work to develop Pre-Start and Pop-Up business supports we have launched the £1.5 million Pathways Pre-Start Fund allocating funding to projects that offer pre-start support and advice to individuals or groups, with emphasis on widening access to primary carers and under-represented groups.
The Scottish Government will work with our agencies and delivery partners to further develop proposals for the report’s core recommendations on pre-start centres and pop-up business supports, incorporating the knowledge gained from the Ecosystem and Pathways Pre-Start funds with the intention to allow broader services to commence in 2024.
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 25 September 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 2 October 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many public sector grants have been awarded since 1 July 2023 that require recipients to both pay the real Living Wage and provide appropriate channels for effective worker voice, broken down by the value of each grant.
Answer
As Mr Johnson notes, the new requirement on grants has been in place since July this year. We are currently focussed on supporting all government portfolios and public bodies across Scotland to implement the new conditions.
Monitoring compliance with Fair Work First principles, including the requirements to pay workers at least the real Living Wage and provide appropriate channels for effective voice, is the responsibility of individual grant managers across government and of relevant funders across the wider public sector. It takes place within existing grant assurance and monitoring processes, as with any other condition of grant, such as agreed outcomes.
Where exceptions to the mandatory grant requirements are applied, grant managers are asked to record these. This information will be requested and collated at the end of the financial year.
