Chamber and committees

There has been no discussions with the Office of National Statistics regarding the classification of universities as a result of the enterprise and skills review.

SDI are currently working on delivery of the proposals to expand its presence in Europe and will provide details, including costs, as early as possible in 2017.

Where new water infrastructure is installed to connect new or existing properties to public supplies, Scottish Water will pay a Reasonable Cost Contribution in respect of the infrastructure that it adopts. The maximum contribution, some £1500 per household, is stipulated in Regulations.

For most new developments, the reasonable cost contribution covers the full cost of providing extensions to water infrastructure necessary to connect new properties.

Improving productivity and competitiveness across Scotland is an important part of Scotland’s Economic Strategy. The Programme for Government 2016-17 sets out a range of initiatives including investment in transport and digital infrastructure, which will support productivity across Scotland. The Programme for Government can be found online here: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0050/00505260.pdf

The Scottish Government is working with local authorities through our City Deals which take long-term strategic approaches to improving regional economies. Regional partnership discussions take the same approach to non-city regions.

Phase 1 of the Enterprise and Skills Review set out a number of actions intended to strengthen our regional approach to enterprise and skills support, which will further improve the contributions our agencies make to supporting regional productivity. These include the commitment to retain Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and to establish a new vehicle to meet the enterprise and skills needs of the South of Scotland. We will also look to work with COSLA and local government to build on their existing and emerging local economic partnerships.

Since 2010, international exports have increased by 17.3%, from £23.4 billion in 2010 to £27.5 billion in 2014. Data for 2017 will not be available until January 2019.

While there are substantial challenges for Scottish exports as a result of difficult global economic and market conditions, our Trade and Investment Strategy, alongside the four point plan announced in October by the First Minister, sets out a clear and comprehensive plan for helping more companies export more goods and services to more markets.

This will be considered as part of the detail that will be developed and consulted on as part of the in-depth operational planning for the new Scotland-wide statutory board that is being taken forward as part of phase two of the review and is due to last six months.

The key objective of the Growth Accelerator funding mechanism is the delivery of public sector enabling infrastructure which stimulates private sector investment and the wider economy. The model establishes a payment-by-results approach based on achieving key measures relating to economic, financial and social impacts. These will be determined on a project by project basis, reflecting the project’s key, identifiable outcomes which will be included within the Growth Accelerator agreement.

Performance against the Productivity Purpose Target is reported on Scotland Performs. The most recent internationally comparable data on Scotland’s productivity performance covers the years up to and including 2014. In 2014, Scotland would have ranked 19^th of 35 OECD countries while the UK would have ranked 18^th.

Data on progress toward the productivity purpose target is available at: http://www.gov.scot/About/Performance/scotPerforms/purposetargets/productivity

Highlands and Islands Enterprise will proceed to recruit a permanent Chief Executive as soon as is practicable in the New Year. A decision on the recruitment of the Scottish Funding Council's Chief Executive will be taken as phase 2 of the Enterprise and Skills review progresses.

In such cases I take full account of the views of the Scottish Health Council and Health board before coming to a final decision.

The Scottish Health Council published guidance entitled ‘identifying major service change’ (February 2010) to help inform the Health board view. This poses questions about the proposals under nine key areas: impact on patients and carers, changes in the accessibility of services, whether emergency or unscheduled care is involved, the level of public and political concern, any conflict with national policy, the level of change in the method of service delivery, related change in recent years, the financial implications, and consequences for other services.