Chamber and committees

The latest statistics from the Exports Statistics Scotland publication estimate Scottish exports to the rest of the UK at £49.8 billion; Scottish exports to the EU at £12.3 billion; and Scottish exports to the US at £4.6 billion. The USA continues to be Scotland’s top international trading country, while the EU remains the largest single market for Scotland’s international exports.

We are therefore well aware of the importance of these markets to the Scottish economy. Our Trade and Investment Strategy published in March last year set out a comprehensive action plan to boost Scotland’s export activity in these markets and beyond. The recently announced Trade board will support the delivery of these actions.

Before the Scottish Government brings into effect changes to require additional vehicles to be licensed under taxis and private hire car licensing, it will undertake work to evaluate the impact on operators.

The Scottish Government remain determined to hit the target of 90% of people seen within 18 weeks from referral to treatment for Psychological Therapies. We will continue to work with boards, including NHS Ayrshire and Arran to make sure that happens right across Scotland.

As part of the £54.1 million package of support announced by the First Minister in January 2016, £4.8 million has been awarded to Healthcare Improvement Scotland to establish a Mental Health Access Improvement Support Team. This team will provide support to boards to improve access to psychological therapies for all ages, including for children and young people.

The Improvement Programme will be delivered by Healthcare Improvement Scotland, with support from NHS Education for Scotland to enhance the supply and training of the workforce, further supported by £24.6 million Scottish Government funding. Following a series of commissioning visits, in June 2016 NES wrote to all boards setting out an individual, tailored offer of funding and workforce development. A significant proportion of the funding from NES is for service posts, intended to support service delivery by providing training, coaching and supervision in evidence-based interventions.

This package of funding includes £24.7 million to be provided to NHS boards to improve their capacity to see more people more quickly, with NHS Ayrshire and Arran receiving a funding awardee a total of £1,813,900.

Improving the competiveness of Scotland’s economy is a central aim of Scotland’s Economic Strategy (SES). Our approach is based on the twin objectives of boosting competitiveness and tackling inequality.

The SES sets out 4 priority areas for supporting Scotland’s economic growth: Internationalisation, Investment, Innovation and Inclusive Growth. We are taking action under these 4 areas. We have established a Board of Trade, and are creating permanent trade representation in Berlin to add to our Innovation and Investment Hubs in Dublin, London and Brussels. The Scottish Growth Scheme will help to support investment in Scotland. We’re taking forward a number of actions to improve our innovation performance. We’re also equipping our young people for the future by increasing the number of Modern Apprenticeship opportunities to 30,000 per year by 2020.

Our Enterprise and Skills Review will bring even greater integration and focus to the delivery of our enterprise and skills support, to help ensure we maximise the contribution our agencies make to improving Scotland’s economic performance.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5F-00777 on 19 January 2017. The answer to the oral parliamentary question is available on the Parliaments website, the official report can be viewed at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=10737&i=98519

The statistics quoted by Friends of the Earth Scotland related to the number of Air Quality Management Areas which have been identified by local authorities to proactively address air pollution issues. All local authorities with Air Quality Management Areas in place have produced, or in the case of more recent declarations are in the process of producing, air quality action plans outlining how they plan to tackle the issues identified and secure compliance with the air quality objectives.

The Scottish Government provides financial and practical support to these authorities for implementation of their plans. The authorities concerned also work closely with Transport Scotland, SEPA and other partner organisations.

Scottish Government currently has no plans to develop additional transport systems in cities such as trams or monorails, however, we welcome discussion on any such proposals from Scotland’s cities through the City Deal process.

Although responsibility for telecommunications is currently a reserved issue, the Scottish Government is committed to working with the UK Government and other partners to ensure Scotland benefits from UK-wide funding allocated for the development and rollout of 5G.

A key aim of our digital infrastructure programmes is to ensure that Scotland has the underlying connectivity infrastructure that can support the future evolution of digital technologies such as 5G. We have already established relationships with key 5G players: from academia, industry, 5G working groups and regulatory bodies. Our aim is to ensure that Scotland is at the forefront of 5G development and deployment.

As the evolution from 4G to 5G is a longer-term journey, we do not expect our Reaching 100% programme, at least in the early stages, to be delivered using 5G technology. The programme is, however, expected to utilise a range of technologies - potentially including 4G - in a number of different interventions.

I am currently seeking a meeting with Matt Hancock MP, Minister for State at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, to progress a range of digital issues, including 5G.

We are committed to ensuring the public sector workforce is fit-for-purpose and can deliver on our digital transformation ambitions. This includes ensuring the resources we have are invested in front-line services.

Furthermore, digital transformation in itself requires the employment of a range of professions as we design digital services, standardise our processes across the public sector and simplify processes for the user.

We are committed to ensuring the Scottish public sector has access to the digital skills required to succeed in a digital world. Our actions are focused on increasing the talent pool, building early talent and supporting the upskilling of existing staff.

In September 2016, there were 594 teachers (FTE) recorded with Computing Studies as their main subject taught. There were 855 teachers recorded with Computing Studies as either their main subject taught or other subject taught (FTE).

The Scottish Government does not collect information on teacher vacancies. Vacancy information is available from individual local authorities or at www.myjobscotland.gov.uk