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The Scottish Government made available a £500,000 fund in April 2020 to support local carer centres and young carer services to transition to working remotely during the pandemic. A second round of the fund was opened in May 2020 to ensure all services had a chance to apply. This has ensured carers have been able to access information, advice and support online or on the phone whilst centres have been closed.

We also ran a national marketing campaign at the end of 2020 to encourage those with caring roles to self-identify and access the support available to them, including through local carer centres. The campaign was promoted on TV, in the press and on social media.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-34671 on 29 January 2021 for further information on other additional funding investment in the Time to Live fund.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Local Authorities and Integration Joint Boards have statutory duties to support unpaid carers under the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016, many of which they often decide to deliver through local carer centres. Ensuring carer centre services are adequate is a matter for them, through their normal commissioning arrangements, taking account of the Scottish Government’s statutory guidance on the Act.

Local Authorities and Health Boards also have a duty to jointly prepare a local carer strategy covering, among other things, support available to carers locally; plans for future support; and an assessment of demand for carer support and the extent to which that demand is not being met.

The 2020-21 budget contains an additional £11.6 million in the local government settlement for Carers Act implementation. Added to similar increases in previous years since the Act came into force in April 2018, this brought the total additional investment for 2020-21 to £39.5 million per year.

The Scottish Government also funds national carer organisations to run a national network for local carer centres, and to provide capacity building support for carer centres on a range of issues to help them improve the support they can offer to carers. We have engaged with local carer centres to help focus this national network and capacity building support.

I also refer the member to the answer to his related question S5W-34721 on 2 February 2021 about action to ensure that support is available to unpaid carers who are unable to attend their local carer centre. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

The information requested is not held centrally. This funding is being administered by Shared Care Scotland in line with its existing arrangements for distributing Time to Live grant funding to local carer support organisations.

Shared Care Scotland have transferred the funding to the organisations responsible for delivering Time to Live grants in each Local Authority area. The amount that each organisation received was proportionate to the carer population in their area.

We expect to receive an evaluation of how the fund has been used in May 2021.

Right now, unless you have an essential reason to go out, everyone must Stay at Home in order to slow the spread of the virus, to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed and allow time for the vaccine rollout. These essential reasons include activities in connection with moving home or essential maintenance of residential property. In the circumstances where it was not possible to stay in the home due to issues with utilities, it would be allowable to leave the home and stay in a hotel or other accommodation. While all holiday accommodation is closed to tourism. Hotels, B&Bs and self-catering accommodation can remain open for essential customers only. This includes anyone who is unable to return to their main residence.

The Stay at Home Guidance ( Coronavirus (COVID-19): stay at home guidance - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) )

The Scottish Government does not intend to extend the existing rates relief any further in the current financial year. In designing the COVID-19 reliefs, we aimed to help as may business as possible. Like all governments we were constrained by affordability and consequently it was necessary for difficult decisions to be taken, and for lines to be drawn.

It is important to recognise that rates relief is not the only support available. The Scottish Government has continued to listen to business and on 9 December announced £185 million for new and additional business support. This will provide support on a sector-by-sector basis so that it is appropriately targeted. This package of support will provide additional support to:

• the wedding sector and its supply chain;
• travel agents, visitor attractions, and coach companies and tour operators;
• taxi drivers;
• mobile close contact services; and
• travelling show-people ineligible for other support.

This announcement can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/news/new-gbp-185-million-package-forbusiness/ . We are developing the detail of these schemes with a range of partners, including local authorities. More information will be published on the find business support website when it becomes available.

The Scottish Government are working closely with Events industry partners on the Events Industry Advisory Group, which was created in response to COVID-19, to support the future of the events sector and help ensure its recovery from the effects of the pandemic.

Over the summer we put in place a funding package of £10 million, with the first funding scheme being the £6m Events Industry Support Fund which was targeted at the events supply chain and which closed on 14 September. More recently we put in place the £2.75m Events Recovery Fund, to help Scotland’s events sector plan and deliver events through to the end of 2021, supporting with additional costs which may be incurred as a result of new hygiene and health and safety requirements, which in turn will allow communities and the public to have confidence in hosting and attending events.

On the 15 December Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Fair Work and Culture announced £13 million to provide further support for the events sector in Scotland, recognising that much of it remains closed. The first tranche of this new funding, the Pivotal Event Businesses Fund will provide grants from £25,000 up to a maximum of £150,000 to support approximately 50 to 100 event businesses whose primary role as organisers, suppliers, contractors and venues is critical to the survival of the events sector in Scotland, and upon whom the wider events industry and supply chain are most reliant for their own business and operations.

The remaining funding will be used to set up a separate fund to provide broader support to businesses across the full range of the events sector, including the supply chain. officials are working with EventScotland on the detail of the fund including the eligibility criteria, an announcement will be made by the end of January. Information will be available through the EventScotland website - https://www.visitscotland.org/news .

To make an asset transfer request for ownership, a Community Controlled Body must be incorporated as a company, a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation or a BenCom (Community Benefit Company). The Body’s constitution, Articles of Association, or registered rules must include a minimum of 20 members and provision for transfer of its assets on winding up. This is in order to ensure that the remaining property is transferred to another body with similar structures and aims. There are no current plans to review this requirement which is set out in section 80 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015.

To make an asset transfer request for lease or other rights (such as management) the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 does not require a community transfer body to be incorporated and it does not stipulate a minimum of 20 members. This is because the property remains in the ownership of the relevant authority.

The Scottish Government are following the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) Guidance in the planning of vaccine delivery. This evidence based guidance advises that the single greatest risk of mortality from COVID-19 is increasing age, and that the risk increases exponentially with age. Additionally the committee considers frontline health and social care workers who provide direct care to vulnerable people a high priority for vaccination.

Currently there is no sectoral prioritisation of any workers other than frontline health and social care workers. This is because we don’t know if the vaccine prevents spread, but it does reduce the harm to those most at risk should they catch the virus. Individual members of the police force as with other occupations will be called forward for vaccination according to their position on the priority list, if they are eligible within the JCVI Cohorts.

(a) This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government or Police Scotland.

(b) Freshwater pearl mussels are a UK wildlife crime priority species, with a dedicated sub-group within the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime (PAW) Scotland. Their work includes projects to install cameras on freshwater pearl mussel colonies considered to be at high risk from criminal activity, deterrent signage at key locations and awareness-raising activities including joint river patrols between Police Scotland and local fishery boards.

In addition, Police Scotland have held training and awareness days for officers on threats to freshwater pearl mussels.

The overall package of measures within each level of the Strategic Framework is designed to suppress the virus as far as possible whilst minimising broader harms. The Scottish Government will keep the protective measures in all levels under review to ensure that they remain necessary and proportionate to address the ongoing public health emergency. The new COVID-19 variant means the level of the virus overall is much higher than we need it to be and therefore restrictions have had to be strengthened.