Headlines for businesses from Scottish Government Emergency Budget Review

The Deputy First Minister, John Swinney announced the support for businesses as part of the Scottish Government’s Emergency Budget Review this afternoon.

“Over the last six months we have engaged extensively with business organisations, industry groups and individual businesses and led industry summits on energy and financial services (with an upcoming summit on food retail) to better understand and address the very real challenges businesses face as a result of rising energy costs, wider inflationary pressures and supply issues.

On the back of that engagement, we will:

▪ build on the additional £300,000 provided to Business Energy Scotland (BES) earlier this year to expand and improve energy support for small to medium sized businesses by doubling the energy efficiency cashback element of the BES Loan & Cash Back Scheme to £20,000, covering up to 75% of the installation cost, helping many SMEs with their energy efficiency ambitions 17

▪ work with BES, our enterprise agencies and the Scottish National Investment Bank to explore ways to support business to accelerate moves to low/no carbon energy

▪ encourage all public sector bodies, where 90% of invoices are already paid within 30 days, to pay all SME invoices without delay

▪ maintain the UK’s most generous Small Business Bonus Scheme in 2022-23, which takes over 111,000 businesses out of rates altogether

▪ work with businesses to respond to skills and labour shortages through continued investment in upskilling and retraining, promoting Fair Work and developing a lifetime skills offer – benefiting business and making organisations more attractive to workers

▪ continue to invest in employability support, including employer recruitment incentives where appropriate, to assist people who face challenges in accessing the labour market to move towards and into employment – helping individuals to fulfil their potential and meet employer needs

▪ drive forward delivery of Scotland’s fourth National Planning Framework and further planning reform, including asking planning authorities to prioritise planning applications for the installation of alternative energy generation in homes or businesses, or proposals which help businesses to diversify or adjust their operating arrangements

▪ extend permitted development rights for small scale renewable energy generation; introducing Masterplan Consent areas which will incentivise development by removing the need for planning applications in areas where construction proposals are in line with an agreed scheme

▪ engage with the development and business sectors to identify and address barriers to development and ensure the planning service is properly equipped to facilitate major proposals, such as those anticipated from the ScotWind programme 18 As well as these measures, we will seek to balance the essential role that regulation plays in driving innovation and achieving economic, social and environmental goals with concerns businesses have expressed about the impact of new regulation at a time of other pressures and costs.

We will therefore:

▪ continue to engage with businesses and other stakeholders on legislative proposals to restrict the promotion of less healthy food and drink and for a Local Visitor Levy. In line with the existing Parliamentary timetable and plans, these proposals will not be fully implemented until at least 2025 and 2026 respectively

▪ work with local authorities and business stakeholders to encourage, where possible, consistency in the application of short terms lets, regulations and associated fees

▪ consider all options to ensure that online takeback obligations under the Deposit Return Scheme, which we understand are a bigger burden for some businesses than others, are applied in an appropriate and proportionate way; and take steps through additional guidance to ensure that the process for retailers to apply for an exemption from operating a return point, if they meet certain criteria as defined in the Regulations, is as straightforward as possible. The Scheme, which is industry led, will launch in August 2023

▪ establish a Joint Taskforce with COSLA, local authorities, our regulatory agencies and business to consider the differing impacts of regulation on business and drive early progress on the commitment made in the National Strategy for Economic Transformation to review and improve the process of developing, implementing and reviewing regulation to meet our economic and societal aims for the longer term