Chamber and committees

The total cost of National Conversation events, branding and publications is £394,737 to date. The National Conversation successfully engaged over 5,000 people at public events across Scotland and stimulated a wide ranging public debate involving academics, media, faith groups, business, voluntary organisations, trade unions, young people and ethnic minority communities. The debate also prompted over 600,000 hits on the National Conversation web pages.

The National Conversation was supported by a number of Scottish Government publications which examined the effect of constitutional change across a range of issues of importance to the people of Scotland, and culminated in the publication of a White Paper Your Scotland Your Voice on St Andrew''s Day 2009.

The member will also be aware of the published costs of approximately £625,000 incurred by the UK Government and the Scottish Parliament to support the work of the Commission on Scottish Devolution, and to produce the UK Government''s response which was set out in the publication of Scotland''s Future in the United Kingdom.

The Scottish Government along with others across the public sector continue to support the traditional arts industry throughout Scotland. The Scottish Arts Council, as the main funding body for the arts in Scotland, supports a variety of traditional arts organisations through its foundation, project and flexible funding arrangements. It also provides support for individual traditional artists through creative and professional development funding. In future Creative Scotland will assume this role. The Traditional Arts Working Group has recently published its report providing recommendations for the future public sector support of the traditional arts in Scotland. The Scottish Government has welcomed the report and will be responding in full to the recommendations later this year. The report is published at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/01/28100441/0.

The Scottish Government works closely and continuously with Scottish Enterprise and its other key agencies on strategic issues, to ensure that their activities and resources are focused on delivering maximum impact towards sustainable economic growth. However, the Scottish Government is not involved routinely in matters connected to the funding or refocusing of specific interventions, which are matters for the agencies themselves.

As there are no restrictions in place as regards trading with Israel, the Scottish Government had no concerns regarding the trade mission and considered that no specific guidance was necessary in this instance.

Scottish Enterprise has taken the decision to end the scheme in its current format. This decision was taken on the basis of value for money and follows an independent review of the programme that highlighted concerns about geographic coverage and consistency of the programme.

We therefore welcome Scottish Enterprise''s plans to have an alternative programme in place by the end of June, that will address these issues and deliver even better value for money.

Scottish Enterprise is the lead agency for the Graduates for Business Scheme.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-30954 on 3 February 2010. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Arrangements for the administration of the alternative programme to the Graduates for Business scheme, which Scottish Enterprise plans to have in place by the end of June, will be a matter for the agency itself.

The Office of the Scottish Parliamentary Counsel drafts all government bills and is responsible for drafting of the proposed Referendum Bill.

The drafting of the Referendum Bill is being carried out by the Office of the Scottish Parliamentary Counsel, which drafts all government bills as part of its normal duties. There are therefore no separate drafting costs.