Any decision to merge K and L divisions is ultimately for Police Scotland acting under the oversight of the Scottish Police Authority. Scottish Ministers are aware that Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority have undertaken local consultation on this matter.

The Single Farm Payment Scheme has been replaced by a range of new schemes or direct payments including the new Basic Payment Scheme and Greening payments.

Under EU rules the payment window for 2015 direct payments runs from 1 December 2015 to the end of June 2016. The new common agricultural policy (CAP) is far more complex than the previous CAP, which has been a significant challenge for administrations and farmers alike right across Europe. In addition to delivering the new IT system, there are also additional tasks to be completed for the first time this year such as greening inspections, regionalisation of land parcels, and calculating and issuing new entitlements.

The Scottish Government fully recognises the pressures facing the farming industry at present, and is striving to start making payments at the earliest possible time. It remains the case that we are aiming to start making payments by the end of December 2015 if at all possible. As we have said previously, we are also considering the option of partial payments.

We will of course continue to keep the farming industry, and the banking sector on which they rely, fully informed of progress with these issues, over and above the steps already announced.

Ministers are currently considering the camping management byelaw proposals submitted by Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority, including the comments received during the formal 30 day notification period. An announcement will be made in due course.

Details of VisitScotland’s growth fund awards for the year 2014-15, for the Year of Food and Drink and the period 2015-16 are in the following tables:

2014-15 Growth Fund Awards

Total: £460,896

Year of Food and Drink Growth Fund Awards (2014-15)

Total: £42,000

2015-16 Growth Fund

Total to date: £20,648.42

VisitScotland provides support through its growth fund. The growth fund is a marketing fund available for well researched, collaborative marketing campaigns to groups of tourism businesses operating at a local or national level. The fund enables these groups to undertake inspiring new marketing activity, or further develop current activity, which will generate additional visitors to Scotland.

Applicants to the fund should demonstrate the following key criteria:

Alignment with the tourism industry’s Tourism 2020 Strategy and, where relevant, the National Events Strategy Scotland the Perfect Stage. Golf groups must also show alignment with Scotland’s Golf Tourism Strategy Driving Forward Together.

Fresh ideas, new developments and approaches such as new promotional themes, collaborations, packages, or markets, that will inspire customer engagement and additional visits.

Collaboration and business engagement demonstrating how businesses are coming together to help support the marketing campaign, through e.g. special offers, itineraries, competition prizes.

Growth in terms of awareness, visitor numbers and tourism spend, and strength/membership of the tourism group.

Sustainability of activity post funding. In this groups must demonstrate how the outcomes of the marketing campaign will help sustain and build marketing activity in future years and how activity will address periods which have capacity to increase the number of visitors and occupancy levels.

The fund is open to constituted groups of three or more independent tourism businesses, including destination organisations and sectoral groups. Applications are welcome from both new and existing partnerships.

Full criteria, conditions and guidelines for the VisitScotland growth fund against which applications are assessed are available on its website at:

http://www.visitscotland.org/pdf/GrowthFundCriteriaConditionsDec2013.pdf

The 2015-16 Scottish Budget states:

“The Tourism budget supports VisitScotland to promote Scotland as a tourism destination, both within the UK and in key overseas markets.”

Table 6.07 of the 2015-16 Scottish Budget sets out the level 3 detail of the tourism budget, shown in the following table with level 4 data.

As the lead public body on the visitor economy in Scotland a wide range of projects are supported by VisitScotland and these are set out in the VisitScotland Corporate Plan which may be accessed using the following URL:

http://www.visitscotland.org/pdf/Final%20Corporate%20Plan%202015%20revision.pdf.

Financial support is available for local tourism bodies from a number of public bodies, although as funding is an operational matter for these organisations the information requested is not held centrally.

Examples of potential funding support include:

VisitScotland provides support through its growth fund, available for well researched, collaborative marketing campaigns to groups of tourism businesses operating at a local or national level, which will generate additional visitors to Scotland. The fund can support groups with up to 50% of approved total marketing costs to a maximum award of £40,000.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and Scottish Enterprise (SE) are currently working with and supporting a number of tourism groups across Scotland in line with their business priorities. The nature and scale of intervention varies across the tourism groups and is driven by the specific requirements and development needs of the group, aligned to the priorities for tourism for the local area and set in the context of the ambitions of the industry led Tourism 2020 Strategy and their operating plan priorities. HIE and SE are able to support tourism groups by drawing on a number of products and services offered across their portfolios. Support can be targeted at strategy development, internationalisation, project feasibility, organisational capacity and capabilities. Where there is a clear business case for support, both organisations are able to grant in aid to tourism groups to deliver specific projects.

Scottish Natural Heritage operates a grants programme to which tourism bodies can apply if their projects fit the relevant criteria. Its most recent round had a specific priority on nature based tourism, wild foods and innovative enterprises based on sustainable use of natural assets. The focus was on projects based on wide cross-sector partnerships: those developing partnerships with businesses reliant on Scotland’s nature and landscapes in the tourism and food and drink sectors, those adding value to businesses using natural heritage based brands, and those strengthening links between wildlife sites and the local economy.

National Park authorities support tourism projects which focus on key outcomes for the National Parks. This includes maximising the benefits of national initiatives such as Visit Scotland’s focus years and promoting sustainable transport around the National Park. The authorities may make a contribution to tourism groups on a case by case basis to assist the delivery of projects to achieve these outcomes.

At this early stage, Scottish Development International (SDI) and Scottish Enterprise (SE) are maintaining close links with account managed companies trading in China to monitor potential impacts. SDI and SE are already assisting Scottish companies trading with China and will remain on hand to provide guidance and support for Scottish companies as required. As the pace of growth in China remains faster than most western economies, SDI and SE will continue to encourage Scottish businesses to remain focussed on the potential that China still offers and to take a long term approach to the opportunities which the market presents.

The Scottish Government's latest Global Connections Survey reported that in 2013 Scotland exported £580 million of goods and services to China.