Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government published the Public Sector Action Plan on Cyber Resilience in November 2017 and has provided public sector bodies with an implementation tool kit, draft supply chain cyber security guidance, Cyber Incident Response guidance and a Central Incident Notification and Coordination policy to support a consistent approach to cyber security across the public sector.

More than 45 public sector bodies are directly provided with ICT services and support from the Scottish Government and 62 public sector bodies have received funding towards Cyber Essentials pre-assessments to promote consistency across the wider sector in securing public sector systems against the most common cyber risks.

Our Digital Strategy for Scotland sets out our ‘Cloud First’ ambitions for public sector data hosting. We support the adoption of Cloud solutions and are working with public sector partners, such as Disclosure Scotland and the Scottish Social Security Agency, to move their services to the Cloud.

The Scottish Government has developed a suite of Cloud-based services and our Digital First Standard enables us to monitor the adoption and use of Cloud solutions by central government organisations. The new Cloud Service Procurements Framework reinforces our ‘Cloud First’ ambition by providing access for the Scottish public sector to services that will enable cloud migration.

I refer the Member to the answer to question S5W-24023 on 29 July 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The Scottish Government has invested some £25m over the past 6 years in supporting businesses and individuals to develop their digital skills.

Almost £8m has funded DigitalBoost, the digital skills support programme for SMES delivered by Business Gateway across Scotland. The programme offers a variety of training from 1-2-1 support and advice, as well as seminars and workshops throughout Scotland to digital the skills and capabilities of SMEs.

The Scottish Government also fund a Digital Development Loan launched in 2018. Loans of up to £50k are available at 0% rates to eligible Scottish SMEs looking to future proof their business and invest in building their digital capabilities.

In May 2018 I launched a new inclusive fund called the Digital Start Fund to support those who are out of work or those on low incomes seeking to train or retrain in digital skills to support businesses with their digital skills gaps.

The Scottish Government does not hold a central budget for the adoption and use of Cloud technologies. This expenditure will be managed by organisations and individual business areas.

As part of our ‘Cloud First’ strategy, we encourage the adoption of Cloud solutions and provide a range of support to assist organisations in moving their services to the Cloud. I also refer the member to the answer to question S5W-24038 on 29 July 2019.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Following publication of the digital strategy priority actions were identified, monitored, and reported to Ministers annually. This information is also used for updates to the governance board responsible for progress of digital transformation across Scottish central government.

Work began August 2018, scheduled to complete November 2019, to monitor all actions. This information will be reviewed on a quarterly basis and used in annual reporting to Ministers. It will also be used for updates to the governance board responsible for progress of digital transformation across Scottish central government.

The Digital Directorate both arranges and attends a number of public sector conferences to promote its transformation capability.

Senior members of the directorate also sit on corporate and programme boards where they are able to identify where support is required and signpost the services on offer.

The Digital Directorate’s IT desktop and infrastructure services are publicised through the Scottish Government intranet, Saltire. This includes a service catalogue where employees can request licenses, software etc. and such requests are processed through authorisation and delivery. Services are also promoted by a small group of digital business partners who are able to work with different teams across the Scottish Government and resolve issues as they arise.

We are expanding the Saltire catalogue to include a wider range of services in particular software development, digital publishing and digital advice.

All significant digital projects undergo a number of Digital First Assessment as part of the governance process. This is also an opportunity to offer specific assistance from the Digital Directorate if it is appropriate.

Collaboration across organisations and sectors is critical to achieving our digital ambitions for Scotland. Our national digital strategy aims to create an environment and culture of partnership working, underpinned by common standards and robust governance and assurance arrangements.

The governance structures we put in place during 2018 strengthened strategic oversight of our digital strategy, and brought together individuals from a range of organisations and sectors, to pool their expertise, share information and collectively drive digital transformation in the public sector.

The Scottish Government Digital Transformation Division is currently supporting 14 programmes of varying size across government.

The Scottish Government’s ‘back office’ functions such as HR, Finance and Procurement offer a range of digital services across the organisation and some to other public sector organisations as well. These services have on-going improvement programmes that are supported by the Digital Transformation Division.

We also operate a central IT function providing network, desktop infrastructure and productivity tools (for example Microsoft Office). Again these services can be accessed through a digital channel and there is on-going work to develop and update the services.

There are currently active programmes developing public sector digital services that organisations can re-use as part of their digital transformation programmes, in particular a digital identity service and a payments platform. These are in their early stages and will complement some UK government shared platforms that are already in use.

There are some examples of ‘corporate licenses’ that the Scottish Government has access to, notably for Microsoft and Oracle products. Digital cloud services are now typically offered on a subscription model rather than buying a license and The Scottish Government are investigating how best to procure these services across government.