Scottish Marine Recovery Fund: Partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment

Section 5: Next steps and implementation

Recommendations/preferred options

To ensure the continued ability to consent offshore wind projects, secure the forecasted private investment and economic benefits of offshore wind developments, and ultimately reach Scotland’s net zero ambitions, a Scottish MRF is considered essential.

At this stage of policy development, we are proceeding to consultation to provide opportunity for a wide range of stakeholders (including but not limited to businesses, eNGOs and communities) to meaningfully engage with the development of the Scottish MRF and influence its continued development.

Implementation considerations/plan

The Scottish MRF consultation and all relevant assessments will be available for a period of 6 weeks. Following the consultation, responses will be analysed and reviewed by officials, which will then inform further development of a Scottish MRF and the related policy.

There are risks associated with this intended timeline, given the Scottish Government is reliant on UK secondary legislation to delegate the necessary functions to establish and operate a Scottish MRF.

Post implementation review

An approach to monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of a Scottish MRF is intended to be developed ahead of it coming into operation. The Scottish MRF will be considered against the expectations set out within this partial BRIA and any associated business case as part of that process.