Scottish Marine Recovery Fund: Partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment

Executive summary

The Scottish Government is considering the launch of a Scottish Marine Recovery Fund (MRF) to support the growth of the offshore wind sector in Scotland, by streamlining the process for developers to discharge their environmental compensation conditions where required.

The Energy Act 2023 enables the UK Government to make provision for the establishment, operation and management of one or more MRFs. For a Scottish MRF to be established, the delegation of functions by the UK Government is required. While a joint UK-wide MRF was considered, a Scottish MRF is preferred as it provides policy, governance and operational oversight for Scottish Ministers, and most effectively meets the unique legal and policy requirements of the Scottish consenting system.

This partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) provides a qualitative assessment of the impact of establishing a Scottish MRF on key impacted areas such as the offshore wind industry (including related business activities such as supply chain and manufacturing), commercial fisheries, other users of Scotland’s marine environment, and regulatory bodies. In summary, this qualitative assessment has concluded that establishing a Scottish MRF:

• Will have positive impacts for the offshore wind industry and related businesses (e.g., supply chain businesses) as it will provide opportunities for a wider range of compensation to be secured for offshore wind development.
• Could have potential negative impacts on commercial fisheries due to the expansion of offshore wind development and the introduction of spatially defined compensatory measures.
• Could impact other marine users (e.g., commercial shipping) due to the expansion of offshore wind development and spatial demands for compensatory measures, which will increase demand for use of marine space.

Consideration of a Scottish MRF is an important part of the UK Government’s Offshore Wind Environmental Improvement Package (OWEIP) and in Scotland the Acceleration and Regulatory Reform of Offshore Wind (ARROW) programme, which support the growth of offshore wind by helping to streamline and accelerate planning decisions while supporting positive investment to protect the marine environment.

Given this, the potential impacts of establishing a Scottish MRF are considered in this partial BRIA consistently with work on related reforms, in particular Scotland’s strategic compensation policy for offshore wind which is currently out for consultation: Strategic Compensation Policy for Offshore Wind - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space.

Whilst this partial BRIA takes a qualitative approach, the Scottish Government has also recently completed a quantitative assessment of the potential impacts associated with Scotland’s wider offshore wind ambitions as part of developing the draft updated Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind Energy (SMP-OWE).

The draft updated SMP-OWE sets the strategic planning framework for the projects from the ScotWind and Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) leasing rounds and an additional 1GW capacity for potential future Test and Demonstration projects and is currently out for consultation until 22 August 2025. Interested groups may also wish to consider the Social and Economic Impact Assessment and the partial BRIA developed as part of that consultation.

For completeness, this partial BRIA will be reviewed and updated as part of developing the final BRIA.