- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 31 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government how many grants have been awarded to businesses in the creative industries by Scottish Enterprise in each year since 2021-22.
Answer
This is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise. I have asked their Chief Executive, Adrian Gillespie, to contact you directly with a response.
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 31 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government how many full-time equivalent account managers are currently employed by Scottish Enterprise.
Answer
This is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise. I have asked their Chief Executive, Adrian Gillespie, to contact you directly with a response.
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 31 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government how many businesses in the creative industries have been supported by Scottish Enterprise in each year since 2021-22.
Answer
This is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise. I have asked their Chief Executive, Adrian Gillespie, to contact you directly with a response.
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 17 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-29275 by Kate Forbes on 13 September 2024, when the outcome of the governance review will be completed.
Answer
The governance review will be completed by the end of 2024. As part of the review, the First Minister has formally agreed to the creation of the Cabinet Sub-Committee for Investment and Economy.
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Graeme Dey on 11 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the Graduate Apprenticeship Enhancement Group, specifically in relation to its workstreams; what the timescale is for the work of the group, and whether as part of its work the group plans to consult more widely with employer and industry representatives.
Answer
The Graduate Apprenticeship Enhancement Group was established in spring 2024 to make recommendations on the development of future policy and a delivery model for GAs in line with Scotland’s economic growth opportunities, skills need, and the wider reform of the post-16 education landscape. The Group's membership includes the Scottish Funding Council, Skills Development Scotland, Colleges Scotland, Universities Scotland, and representation from businesses.
The Group’s work is evidence and data informed and is taken forward through workstreams. It will include engagement with employers and their industry representatives, public sector partners and apprentices. The Group anticipates completing its work over the winter.
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 11 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will list any meetings held with Ofcom, mobile phone, or internet providers to discuss access to social tariffs since 2022.
Answer
Across government, particularly in the Digital Directorate, a number of teams meet regularly with OfCom and mobile phone providers to discuss a wide range of issues. As social tariffs remain a reserved matter for the UK Government, the majority of these discussions do not focus on social tariffs however the exceptions to this are listed below:
- The Digital Citizen Division meet with Vodafone every 2 months to discuss a wide range of topics. This includes, at times, social tariffs.
- The Digital Citizen Division will meet with OfCom later in November to discuss digital inclusion and the interventions that are most effective in supporting households take up connectivity. This will likely include a discussion on social tariffs.
- The Digital Strategy Team are having ongoing discussions with Ofcom regarding a proposed visit to their offices by the Minister for Business where social tariffs are a potential topic for discussion.
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 11 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government whether it remains its position to establish a Digital Inclusion Alliance.
Answer
The Digital Inclusion Alliance is the proposed national delivery mechanism to bring together the public, private and third sectors to jointly agree how to tackle digital exclusion through long-term, sustainable approaches.
The work to establish the Alliance commenced in November 2023 following approval in the Connecting Scotland Full Business Case. We are currently scoping out options for the financial and legal structure of the Digital Inclusion Alliance and once these are finalised and agreed with Ministers the Alliance will be formally constituted.
To help us co-design the focus of the Alliance and define the role of the third and public sector partnership within that Alliance, we established a Short Life Working Group in March 2024. This group is co-convened by Scottish Government and COSLA using the principles of the Verity House Agreement. Its members are the key organisations in the public and third sector who will work in partnership within the Alliance.
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 11 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government how much has been spent on the delivery of the Digital Inclusion Charter.
Answer
Scotland’s Digital Inclusion Charter is delivered by SCVO as part of an annual grant of £308,000. This funding supports a much wider programme of activity delivered by SCVO to tackle digital exclusion. SCVO estimates that around 10% of the annual grant covers staff time and costs directly associated with development and promotion of the Charter.
The launch event in August 2024 was hosted as an in-kind contribution from Standard Life plc, a Charter signatory, which covered the costs of the event.
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 11 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will outline the key achievements of the Digital Citizen Division since its creation in 2022.
Answer
The Digital Citizen Unit (DCU) was created in 2022 with the Digital Citizen Division (DCD) forming in 2023. DCD is the team within Scottish Government that manage the Connecting Scotland Programme; Ethical Digital Nation; Unlocking the Value of Data; and the Knowledge and Information Shared Services Unit, which is an operational internal business support unit for Core Scottish Government and some public sector shared services customers, comprised of: Information Assurance and Data Protection; Knowledge and Information Management; and Library and Information Services functions.
Since its formation, the DCD has:
- developed a full business case outlining a more sustainable way forward for Connecting Scotland;
- developed, in partnership with the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), new projects that allow us to deliver the next phase of the Connecting Scotland programme. These have been focused on delivering kit and connectivity to device library and social housing organisations via grant award. Applications for the projects closed on 27 November 2023, with £204,000 in grant funding awarded to 34 projects working to further digital inclusion across Scotland.
- delivered kit and connectivity to 5 place-based projects via grant award. Applications closed in April this year.
- supporting offboarded Connecting Scotland users to move on to other forms of free internet and undertaking user research to ensure they are supported through this process in a way that meets their needs;
- developed, in partnership with third-sector partners, an enhanced phoneline for Connecting Scotland that currently provides support to an average of 500 people each month;
- launched Scotland’s Digital Inclusion Charter to support, guide and recognise best practice in digital inclusion work in Scotland;
- developing the Digital Inclusion Alliance to bring together the public, private, and third sectors to tackle digital exclusion;
- commissioned research into a Minimum Digital Living Standard for Scotland. Once complete this will give us a baseline of the minimum needs of citizens and help us shape and target future interventions.
- developed a cohesive and practical approach to ethics that will allow us to harvest the most significant economic and social benefits while mitigating the perceived and actual downsides of digital innovation and data-driven technology.
- mobilised a public engagement panel / public dialogue on the use of data which led to the development of ethical guidelines for the use of data by the public sector in Scotland.
- commissioned an Independent Expert Group to explore the issue of private sector use of public sector personal data in Scotland, as public sector data controllers had identified the need for additional support in this area.
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 11 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government what its targets are for the Digital Inclusion Charter.
Answer
The targets set out in SCVO’s grant agreement are 200 signatories by the end of March 2025. To date we have attracted 42 organisations, across the public, private and voluntary sectors, who have made a range of pledges to support the Charter.
Current signatory organisations include large businesses (Standard Life plc), public sector organisations (e.g. Edinburgh City Libraries) and local community projects (e.g. Milan Senior Welfare).
SCVO will be running a campaign focusing on each of the 5 pledges from November 2024 to March 2025, with examples of best practice and video case studies from existing signatories.
