Chamber and committees

Transport InitiativesEdinburgh is a company established by the City of Edinburgh Council to take forward their Integrated Transport Initiative. As such italready works in partnership with a number of bodies in the public and privatesector. It will be for the Council and the company in the first instance todetermine how these relationships should be developed in the future.

The Scottish Executive obtains some statistics about bus passenger numbers from the Department for Transport's Public Service Vehicle operator annual returns. However, the Executive cannot release figures for individual operators because of an undertaking regarding the confidentiality of the information.

Such information would come from the International Passenger Survey. Every three years, the survey does ask visitors to the UK about whether they have come to learn English as a foreign language, but there is a high level of non-responses from these students, resulting in a small sample-size, and an associated very high margin of error. As a result, information on the number of visitors to Scotland who have come to learn English as a foreign language here is not available.

Initial discussions have taken place between VisitScotland, CruiseScotland and Forth Ports plc about the prospect of research into trends in the cruise liner sector. The plans for this research are still at a very early stage; the next step is for VisitScotland to set out a research specification in consultation with interested parties.

No single organisation has overall responsibility for promoting Scotland as a destination in which to learn English as a foreign language. The promotion of teaching English as a foreign language to international students visiting Scotland is part of the work of Education UK Scotland, which is core-funded by the British Council and supported by the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Higher and Further Education Councils. More generally, the promotion of Scotland as a destination for visitors from overseas is part of the work of VisitScotland in conjunction with VisitBritain.

Immigration issues are reserved to the UK government. The Scottish Executive is in regular contact with the UK government on a range of issues.

VisitScotland.com is proving to be a great means of increasing the number of visitors to Scotland and will continue to be so. The board and shareholder structure of eTourism Ltd (known as visitscotland.com) will not be affected by the introduction of the new tourism network. The detailed arrangements for the transfer of assets and liabilities is being considered by the project team delivering the new tourism network. However, we expect that shares held by current area tourist boards will transfer to the new network boards in the same way as other area tourist board assets. There will be no compensation payable for transfers of shares within the new network.

The percentages of air travellersfrom Scotland using one of BAA’s Scottish airports are as follows:

Scheduled international, 76%.        

Scheduled domestic, 93%.

Charter, 95%.

The figures are compiled fromthe Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) UK Airport Statistics. Tables 10.1 and 10.2represent the 2003 annual level. The search facility for the CAA website can befound at: www.caa.co.uk.

The Executive envisages the continueduse of the present routes and ports serving the Northern Isles, as set out in thedraft service specification for the Northern Isles Lifeline Ferry Services (Bib.number 32862).

Initial planning for the projecthas begun. Detailed design and development work will commence in August of thisyear and conclude by November 2005. It is anticipated that the project will be completedby the end of 2007. The project provides a common first stage for further stationredevelopment options. No decisions have yet been taken about these options.