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The Scottish Government collects and publishes quarterly aggregate information on the number of appeals made, resolved and the resulting revisions in rateable value. We do not collect property-level information on appeals and therefore do not hold information on the number of appeals made and upheld against different property types, including sporting rights.

To date, Scottish Government has invested £29.5m through Scottish Enterprise and appointed Fund Managers. In addition, we have sourced £15.4m from European sources via ERDF and European Investment Fund monies. These monies have leveraged private enterprise resources of £115.1m.

Information on the income from non-domestic rates charged on sporting rights are not available by parliamentary region. The following table presents the estimated non-domestic rates income raised from sporting rights from 2017-18 until 2019-20, broken down by local authority.

There are no plans to publish the internal Scottish Growth Scheme monthly report.

To 30 September 2019, £160m has been invested in the Scottish Growth Scheme and this has supported 262 businesses.

The original timeline for the Scottish Growth Scheme was for a 3 year period to June 2020.

The Scottish Government supports schools and communities through its funded bodies to promote culture and heritage using digital technology. The National Collections, Creative Scotland, Museums Galleries Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland, National Performing Companies and the Scottish Library and Information Council all have exciting and innovative digital projects in place which allow users access to a wealth of culture and heritage resources.

These include: digital learning resources that are linked to many areas of Curriculum for Excellence which cover resources for both Primary and Secondary school age students; funding to support innovative ways for people to use public libraries in communities across Scotland; and working with vulnerable young people to explore themes from current repertoire through dance, music, visual art and digital media.

There are also programmes which have seen young people co-designing digital outputs such as music recordings, videos, virtual tours and on-line resources, and programme which develop participants’ digital skills.

The definitions reflected in our strategy, ‘A Connected Scotland’, are drawn from the NHS Health Scotland review of social isolation and loneliness prevalence and trends.

Social isolation refers to when an individual has an objective lack of social relationships (in terms of quality and/or quantity) at individual group, community and societal levels.

Loneliness is a subjective feeling experienced when there is a difference between the social relationships we would like to have and those we actually have.

Scotland is recognised as the Home of Golf and it is a recognition we are proud of with an estimated 700,000 rounds of golf played by our visitors each year. Just this year, we have hosted five top-class golf events, including the 2019 Solheim Cup at Gleneagles which has raised the profile of golfing across Scotland, the UK and internationally. This builds on our reputation for hosting successful international golfing events including the 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles and the 2015 Open Championship at St Andrews.

These events stimulate new interest and investment and we are keen that the benefits of golf tourism are spread across Scotland. To achieve this, South of Scotland Golf has been invited to join the Golf Tourism Development Group. VisitScotland has recently supported paid marketing campaigns in partnership with South of Scotland Golf and it continues to promote golf tourism in the South of Scotland through its regular activity, including hosting information on its website and through its targeted marketing.

The Scottish Government has also provided VisitScotland with £500k to take forward the See South Scotland campaign which is promoting the whole of the South of Scotland as a destination for authentic and outdoor experiences.

The census rehearsal operation started on 7 October 2019 and closed for returns on 7 November 2019, with a reference date of 13 October 2019. The rehearsal was conducted in three local authority areas, namely parts of Glasgow City, Dumfries and Galloway and Na h-Eilieanan Siar, reaching 72,000 households. National Records of Scotland will be evaluating the information gathered through the rehearsal over the coming months and will publish an evaluation report in March 2020. The results of this evaluation will be used to inform further improvements to systems and the planning approach for Scotland’s Census 2021.