Chamber and committees

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.

The Scottish Government has set out the Digital First Service Standard that aims to improve the ways in which services are designed, developed and improved. Scottish Government’s Digital Assurance Office carries out assessments during the development of new services and provides recommendations to ensure that the standard is met.

The Digital Transformation division includes specialists in areas such as service design, programme management and technical architecture and makes these skills available to other parts of Scottish Government.

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 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 Scottish Government has a small team that provides software development services for other public sector bodies, including web development. The team can call on external partners for additional resources and support as necessary. They provide on-going changes to a large number of existing systems as well as the capability to build new services.

The Scottish Government is also building a Digital Publishing Service available to colleagues in Government and those in the public sector. This Service already provides guidance, support on developing web sites and technical assets to various government organisations and we are actively developing more shareable software and infrastructure.

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.

There is no legislation specifically relating to the management of open spaces within woodlands for fire prevention. However the UK Forestry Standard (UKFS) – the reference standard for sustainable forest management - requires that forest managers consider the risks of fire when designing their woodlands.

Guidance to support the UKFS was published in 2014 to help reduce the likelihood and severity of wildfires in forests and woodlands. The guidance - Building Wildfire Resilience into Forest Management Planning – covers management of open spaces as well as other issues.

Scottish Forestry assesses woodland creation proposals and management plans against the UKFS, and takes into account the supplementary guidance when doing so. Forestry & Land Scotland follows the UKFS, and takes into account the supplementary guidance, in managing national forests and land.

The Government’s STEM Strategy specifically highlights the importance of providing opportunities for young people to develop their digital skills. In line with the Strategy, we are providing dedicated support for digital learning and teaching through a range of projects for early years, primary and secondary schools. We have updated the school curriculum guidance to introduce a clear expectation that young people learn the fundamentals of computing science and digital skills from the earliest years.

Education Scotland is continuing to provide professional learning opportunities for teachers, including through the establishment of Computing Science Lead Teacher networks (one for primary and early years and 6 regional networks for secondary) whose members will receive national-level training to be cascaded to local practitioners.

Education Scotland has also worked with the Barefoot Computing programme to ensure that teaching resources are linked to the curriculum. The latest available data shows that 69% of schools in Scotland have engaged with the programme through workshops or by teachers downloading resources. In addition, Education Scotland along with British Computing Science has published “Quick Start” guides for primary schools along with a Computing at Schools Scotland resource for early years and primary. Other support activity has included work with Police Scotland to promote a resource it created for Cyber Resilience aimed at pupils in S1 to S3 .

The Digital Schools Award provides primary and secondary schools with a framework to embed digital technology within learning and teaching. The scheme offers a step by step framework for primary and secondary schools to support the best use of technology in learning.

We are determined that the R100 programme delivers the best possible value and benefit for Scotland. The highly competitive procurement process we have designed seeks to achieve this. The R100 procurement is ongoing and delivery timescales will be confirmed once we have a supplier in place. Given the complexity of the procurement, legally, financially and technically, we have always acknowledged 2021 would be a challenging target to meet.