Chamber and committees

The Annual Survey of Information and Communications Technology, carried out across a sample of Scottish schools in October 1999, showed that 12% of teachers had access to e-mail. The information requested is not available by local authority area. We are aware that since the survey was carried out a number of local authorities have provided e-mail addresses to all their teachers. We expect that this year's survey will show a considerably higher percentage.

The Scottish Executive has not published a definition of a computer for educational purposes.

This information is not held centrally.

The Annual Survey of Information and Communications Technology, carried out across a sample of Scottish schools in October 1999, enabled the number of computers in secondary schools to be estimated as 69,100. Of these, an estimated 38,200 are modern computers, defined as being less than four years old. Figures for the number of modern computers in each local authority area will be available when the results of the 1999 School Census are published.

The Annual Survey of Information and Communications Technology, carried out across a sample of Scottish schools in October 1999, enabled the number of computers in primary schools to be estimated as 34,400. Of these, an estimated 19,000 are modern computers, defined as being less than four years old. Figures for the number of modern computers in each local authority area will be available when the results of the 1999 School Census are published.

There is no Route Action Plan for the A701 trunk road.

The target is for all pupils to have access to e-mail. At the last formal survey in October 1999, 1% of primary pupils and 7% of secondary pupils had their own, school provided, e-mail addresses. This represents an early stage in the development of the National Grid for Learning, particularly in primary schools, and we know that the situation is changing all the time. For example, since October 1999 Edinburgh has completed its network, giving 50,000 pupils and 3,000 teachers access to e-mail and Internet services.

29 deal with business processes such as modernising the Executive's procurement approach and piloting an important livestock support scheme to enable farmers to submit subsidy claims to the Department electronically; 27 are engaged in improving public services delivery, as in education services and the General Register for Scotland in connection with electronic access by the public to the indexes of certain records; eight are involved in the promotion and support of information and communication technologies (ICT), including policy work on business take-up and social inclusion. A further eight staff are engaged in activities which cut across these three areas, such as the work of the Digital Scotland team.

I understand that staff of the Controller of Audit's office have requested further information from the Council to assist their investigation and that they are currently unable to predict a probable reporting date.

We are considering the issue of adult targets within the wider context of our lifelong learning agenda. We will announce the outcome of our decisions on adult targets later this year.