August 2021 - Page 2 of 8

ScotSpirit Holiday Voucher Scheme

Posted on August 25, 2021August 25, 2021 by Fiona Campbell

VisitScotland is introducing a new holiday voucher scheme aimed at supporting industry recovery and helping to create a responsible tourism industry which is more socially sustainable and inclusive.

The key objectives of the scheme are :

To stimulate off-peak domestic breaks and day visits for low-income families, unpaid carers and disadvantaged young people by offering subsidised breaks in Scotland.
To support the tourism and hospitality sector to recover when the pandemic lockdown measures have lifted and offer new target group and marketing opportunities.
To offer opportunities for improved well-being and greater participation in community life for the target groups.

The ScotSpirit Holiday Voucher Scheme (the Scheme) is funded by Scottish Government and forms part of the Scottish tourism recovery programme. The new Scheme will enable low income families, unpaid carers and disadvantaged young people to enjoy a two or three night subsidised break or day out in Scotland. The Scheme offers a contribution towards a holiday stay in hotels, campsites, bed and breakfasts, hostels and guest houses or day visit activities in Scotland from August 2021 to December 2022.

Funding for the overnight breaks is capped at £400 for a two or three night stay, but a higher capped amount of £500 is available to eligible families or carers who have children of school age and take a two or three night stay during school holiday periods (i.e. Easter, summer from June to August, October and Christmas and New Year).

ScotSpirit Holiday Voucher revised

Members have asked why self-catering is not included in the scheme:

“For the moment we have not included self-catering businesses in the Scheme. Our charity partners felt that the demand and their ability to match beneficiaries to self-catering accommodation was deemed to be low during the initial launch period in the Autumn.

Self-catering accommodation also offers a different holiday experience, whereby beneficiaries would be on their own in the property without serviced facilities or other guests.

If, however after the Scheme has opened to applicants, and we see demand from beneficiaries for this type of accommodation we will consider the inclusion of self-caterers in the Scheme later in the year.”

Next Steps on the Scottish Government’s Plans for Short-Term Let Licensing

Posted on August 24, 2021 by Fiona Campbell

The Scottish Government’s consultation on short-term let licensing closed earlier this month and generated over 1,000 responses. First, the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers would like to thank all of its members who participated in the exercise at what was a very busy time for operators.

It is in no small part that this level of response, with individual businesses and tourism stakeholders voicing concerns, that the Scottish Government have announced that they will delay the laying of their Licensing Order until November 2021. The Cabinet Secretary for Housing Shona Robison MSP set out their revised plans in a letter to the Scottish Parliament’s Local Government Committee which you can read in full here. In particular, we note the following:

“We remain committed to getting this legislation absolutely right. Our intention to lay the Licensing Order in September was predicated upon the consultation only highlighting minor points for revision. The consultation closed on 13 August and the Scottish Government received more than 1,000 responses to it. Whilst many of the points raised are familiar from previous consultations, there are some points that require careful consideration, especially if the competency of the legislation is being questioned. We also want to take the time to review all the consultation responses carefully to see what we can do to address genuine stakeholder concerns.”

We have already published our substantive, evidence-based consultation submission but as part of our engagement with government, the ASSC also held a meeting with Shona Robison on 18^th August. During this meeting, we raised the following issues with the Cabinet Secretary:

Explained why the ASSC chose to resign from the Working Group on Short-Term Lets due to it being not fit for purpose;
Detailed the ASSC’s approach to regulation and our various policy recommendations over the past few years;
Voiced concerns about the flawed Business Regulatory Impact Assessment, how the cost of the licensing fees was severely underestimated, and on the consequences of overprovision;
Highlighted the need for reliable, empirical and robust data to underpin the regulatory approach; and
Expressed our firm belief that the draft proposals will be costly to operators and instead urged an exemption for registered accommodation which would be a more proportionate approach.

The ASSC welcomed the constructive nature of the conversation. While some differences remain, we appreciate the Cabinet Secretary taking the time to speak with us and in our mutual desire for positive relations and a compromise which can satisfy industry concerns but also those from other affected stakeholders.

As ever, the ASSC will endeavour to update you on the latest developments on the licensing proposals and all other regulatory matters.

Message to MSPs

Posted on August 24, 2021August 24, 2021 by Fiona Campbell

The following was sent to constituency and regional MSPs by an ASSC member:

One of the tropes I have heard all too often is that the 18 thousand odd properties across all of Scotland currently registered as S/C units with Councils are somehow intrinsically and inescapably linked to a lack of affordable housing. I hear it trotted out so frequently that, like a lot of supposed facts, when you go to look for the source, there’s nothing there!?

I think this latest Scotsman article speaks volumes to this issue of, dare I say it, ‘fake news’ whose shadow we are attempting to operate from beneath.

So, ever the one to look at actual government sourced data, here are some interesting (if not downright contradictory) statistics that confound the so-often stated claims as facts I see in the press and spoken from the lips of government officials.

Estimates of Households and Dwellings in Scotland, 2020, published in June this year, contains some interesting bits of data:

In the last 19 years, the number of houses has grown by 320 thousand in Scotland (from 2.19 million to 2.51 million). That’s nearly 17 thousand new houses per year on average.

That does beg the, I think very reasonable question, what has Short Term Lets got to do with a lack of affordable housing and if it actually does, what and where is the evidence for this?

More plausible might be the fact that as the report states, around a third of households in 2019 are now just one person living alone. Way up on 2001.

But here is the truly befuddling statistic to come from the Government. In large urban areas (such as Edinburgh) 3.3% of dwellings are vacant. It’s even higher in rural areas at 5.6%.

If we do some very simple calculations, there are about 250 thousand council tax addresses in the city of Edinburgh, which means right now there are approximately 7,500 odd houses unoccupied in the capital, versus 1,463 self-catering units on non-domestic rates across all of Edinburgh. So, again, what has self-catering got to do with housing problems when it’s abundantly clear the far-far bigger issue is unoccupied properties?

As the Scotsman article states: “New research has revealed there are currently 47,333 empty houses in Scotland, with capital city Edinburgh accounting for over 7000 of that total.”

I think … I hope … I have made my point and that you can accept that perhaps there are more important issues that need parliamentary time than adding yet more legislative burden upon already heavily regulated self-caterers, most of whom are family-operated, rely on the income for their daily survival and keep the money within Scotland, unlike so many hotel groups that squirrel profits away to global shareholders.