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Applications for funding through the Creative Communities programme are currently being assessed. Details of the successful projects and organisations, amount received, purpose and location will be made publicly available on the Inspiring Scotland website shortly.

The £12.5m Performing Arts Venue Relief Fund is being managed by Creative Scotland on behalf of Scottish Government.

The Fund comprises two strands; £7.5m targeted funding for performing arts venues in Scotland currently in receipt of Regular Funding through Creative Scotland, and a £5m open fund for not-for-profit performing arts venues that are not currently in receipt of Regular Funding.

On 5 August Creative Scotland announced that 20 regularly funded venues across Scotland will receive a total of £7.5m from the first strand of the Fund.

On 24 September Creative Scotland announced that 59 venues across Scotland will receive a total of £4.7m from the open call for applications to the second strand of the Fund.

The following tables sets out (a) the level of funding allocated to each organisation and (b) the latest information on the timing of delivery of these funds to each venue that has been awarded support from the Performing Arts Venue Relief Fund.

Industrial biotechnology sector data are not subject to standard industrial classification and official estimates of the turnover of the sector are not produced as part of the annual national accounts.

The most recent turnover estimate for the industrial biotechnology sector prepared by Scottish Enterprise was published in last year’s refresh of the National Plan for Industrial Biotechnology . The plan shows significant turnover growth from £189 million for 2012 to £357 million for 2017, and contains ambitious targets of a £900 million turnover and over 200 companies active in industrial biotechnology by 2025.

Scottish Enterprise collects turnover and projections data by a company survey every three years. This survey based approach will be repeated to coincide with the planned publication of the next plan in 2022.

The information requested is not centrally held by Scottish Government. NHS boards may hold limited information within their Medical Equipment Management Databases. Decommissioning of medical devices and equipment is carried out in line with guidance given in the Section - Decommissioning, Recycling and Disposal of the Guidance on Management of Medical Devices and Equipment in Scotland’s Health and Social Care Services (National Services Scotland 2020) [ ] paras 6.128 to 6.147. This includes considering the ethical and sustainable donation of surplus clinically useful medical devices and equipment, as part of the NHS Scotland Global Citizenship Programme or alternatively ethical disposal in line with Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations.

We know that shielding can have a detrimental impact on people’s lives, families and physical and mental wellbeing. Protecting people who are at the highest risk from COVID-19 is a priority for the Scottish Government. At this time we do not believe that asking people to return to shielding is the best way to protect them. The best way to do so is to reduce the spread of the virus in our communities. We have introduced new measures which must be followed by everyone in society.

Our clinical advisers continue to keep the shielding advice under consideration and any changes will be influenced by many factors such as the range of emerging evidence and the progress of the pandemic in Scotland.

Scottish Ministers will continue to take an evidence-based approach. We continue to engage with the UK Government and other devolved administrations to ensure that we learn from emerging evidence and the measures taken in other parts of Europe and around the world.

Homeworking from the onset of the pandemic has been and continues to be part of our wider public health response. By working from home, workers and employers are playing a vital role in helping suppress the virus, and in ensuring that our transport network remains safe.

We know that the vast majority of employers are complying with current homeworking guidance on a voluntary basis and we will continue to monitor this. As we have seen a worrying rise in the rate of transmission over the past few weeks we are considering options for placing a legal duty on employers to allow homeworking where it is possible. The introduction of any such duty would be on the basis of public health advice.

We must continue to limit the opportunity for the virus to spread and one of those measures is the continuation of homeworking.

The Scottish Institute for Remanufacturing (SIR) officially launched on 21 January 2015. Since 2015, SIR has funded 40 collaborative projects between industry and higher education institutions, at a value of over £800,000 with several projects still in progress. Currently 20 of these are available in case-study format on the SIR website at: . Other case studies will be published as projects are completed.

No detailed analysis of the impact on running costs for landfill operators to provide capacity for biodegradable waste after 2021 has been carried out. However, we engaged widely with stakeholders, including landfill operators and trade associations, before extending the deadline on the ban on municipal waste to landfill from 2021 to 2025, and no concerns around the costs of providing capacity were raised.

Scottish Government officials currently take part in monthly meetings with officials from the UK, Northern Ireland and Wales governments to discuss producer responsibility. Scottish Ministers have also met twice with their counterparts in the other Governments to discuss deposit return schemes, a form of producer responsibility, since 2016.

Through regular dialogue and engagement at UK level, Scottish Ministers worked to ensure the UK position taken forward to EU negotiations properly reflected Scottish priorities, including in relation to the delivery of a more circular economy.

The Scottish Government supports those regulatory changes introduced by the EU to protect our finite natural resources and improve the way we manage products at end of life. On 3 September, I met with Virginijus Sinkevicius, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, to discuss a number of matters including the EU Circular Economy Action Plan and forthcoming legislative agenda.

We also carry out engagement through Zero Waste Scotland including providing evidence from the Scottish context, policy research into circular products and packaging design, and contributing to relevant European fora.