Innovation

Reviews of Scottish Government Community Led Local Development (CLLD) funding for financial year 2021-22 have been published.

Local communities across Scotland will be supported to take climate action in their areas through a new nationwide network of Climate Action Hubs.

This follows the success of two pathfinder hubs in the North East and the Highlands, which helped to widen participation in climate action and have supported a range of projects, including on local energy and flood mitigation.

Crofters across Scotland will be able to apply for larger sums of money to upgrade their housing under the Croft House Grant.

To help ensure more crofters and their families can benefit, the government is increasing the grant rate for home improvements from 40% to 60% of the total project cost – with a maximum grant of £38,000.

With this week being nature Nature Restoration Skills Week, NatureScot and partners have put together a programme of free training events focussed on skills for nature restoration. 

This month the Scottish Government published its National Strategy for Economic Transformation. This sets out the priorities for Scotland’s economy as well as the actions needed to maximise the opportunities of the next decade to achieve our vision of a wellbeing economy.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon officially opened a new training college in Glasgow to mark the beginning of Scottish Apprenticeship Week this week.

City Building’s new state-of-the-art training college in Springburn will house up to 250 apprentices across a range of disciplines, providing hands-on training opportunities in plumbing, furniture making, decorating and joinery.

The Scottish Government have launched a consultation about how Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) will contribute to the vision of marine environment being clean, healthy, safe, productive, diverse and managed to meet the long term needs of nature and people.