Chamber and committees

In February 2013 I chaired a Parcel Delivery Summit which involved a range of stakeholders and built on a previous one held in November 2012. This led to the establishment of a short-life working group to develop a Statement of principles for parcel deliveries. The Scottish Government has regularly highlighted the statement in our own news releases, which have been taken up by news outlets. In addition, I wrote jointly with the Director for Scotland at Consumer Futures to the main internet retailers about the statement. The Scottish Government was pleased in 2014 when the UK Government announced that the principles had been adopted across the UK, and will continue to encourage the UK Government to do more to increase buy-in of the principles, as recommended by the Citizens Advice Scotland report of 8 September 2015 on parcel deliveries. This is vital as many internet retailers are based outside Scotland. The costs were absorbed in normal running costs.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-27777 on 2 November 2015. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

The Scottish Government would like to avoid comparisons of performance of local authorities based on the domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). Whilst the publicly available statistics provided by the UK Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change provide a breakdown of uptake of the domestic RHI by local authority, a number of factors influence uptake. Such factors include the number of households and the availability of other low carbon heat sources supported through mechanisms other than the domestic RHI, such as district heating.

The Scottish Government is aware that one of the issues householders in both rural areas and the Scottish Islands face in participating in government schemes is the availability of accredited installers. In recognising that there can be barriers to uptake in remote rural and island areas the Scottish Government funded an analysis of the supply chain for such areas which included the Shetland Isles, Western Isles and Orkney Isles. A report of the findings, published in March 2015, can be found at the following link:

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/reports/supply-chain-analysis-remote-rural-and-island-areas-march-2015-full-report

In addition, the Microgeneration Strategy for Scotland published in 2012 and the setting up of the Scottish Government’s Microgeneration Task Group aims to work with industry and other stakeholders to remove the barriers to uptake of microgeneration technologies and ensure we have a skilled workforce to deploy microgeneration in all areas of Scotland. The Microgeneration Strategy for Scotland can be found at the following link:

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2012/06/9678

The Scottish Government continues to fund work to address supply chain barriers and details of up and coming events can be found at the following link:

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/businesses/supply-chain-events

Scottish Government officials met with Loganair on 17 August 2015 and I met with Loganair on 15 September 2015. The reliability of flights was discussed at both meetings. The Scottish Government corresponds regularly with Loganair about a variety of issues including service reliability.

As part of the Scottish Government’s response to the Foster Care Review in January 2013, we agreed to take forward further research in relation to fostering allowances. The Scottish Government recently agreed with COSLA to provide £10.1 million a year of funding to improve financial support to kinship carers. Once these payments commence we plan to bring together a working group to develop a sustainable and fair national minimum allowance rate that local authorities can use to financially support all looked after children including those living in both foster and kinship care placements. Any date to introduce a national scheme will need to be agreed with local partners.

The Scottish Government and our partners are investing £146 million through the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme which is extending fibre broadband infrastructure into non-commercial areas. Substantial progress has been made in Orkney, including the laying of subsea cabling to connect the islands. The project will see fibre broadband coverage extended to 75% of premises in Orkney. No commercial roll out was planned.

Community Broadband Scotland is actively engaged with a number of community groups in Orkney with a view to developing and delivering an aggregated broadband solution to areas ultimately outwith the scope of DSSB. Local scoping work is underway with expectations that an aggregated project should progress during early 2016. The Scottish Government is also supporting a trial of TV Whitespace technology in Orkney, through our Demonstrating Digital programme.

Improving mobile coverage in Scotland is an integral part of the Scottish Government’s world class digital ambitions. We are collaborating with industry to improve mobile coverage across Scotland. An example of this is our pilot project on the Isle of Coll, a partnership with Vodafone which has extended 3G and 4G services to the island utilising a community-owned mast. We are currently working with industry and local stakeholders, including the Our Islands Our Future group, to determine whether this model could be used to extend coverage to other island communities in future.

Community Broadband Scotland is supporting a range of communities across the Highlands and Islands to develop broadband schemes using alternative technologies, notably fixed wireless solutions. The Scottish Government is also supporting a trial of TV Whitespace technology on Orkney, which could be used to deliver broadband in future.

New technologies can also be incorporated into delivery of the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme. BT is currently trialling wireless to the cabinet and fibre to the remote node technologies which could potentially be used to extend the reach of the DSSB programme in future.

The Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme will have a transformational impact in remote island communities, extending fibre broadband access to at least 75% of premises in Orkney, 77% in Shetland and 70% in the Western Isles. No commercial coverage was planned in these areas. The vast majority of premises will receive speeds in excess of 24 megabits per second.

The aim of the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme is to extend fibre broadband infrastructure as widely as possible across the Highlands and Islands. As the core network grows, and backhaul becomes more readily available, it will become easier to provide alternative solutions to remote communities that will not directly benefit from DSSB roll-out.

Community Broadband Scotland is working with a number of these communities to help them design and implement robust, sustainable broadband solutions.

The Highlands and Islands Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband contract is geared towards maximising coverage across the region, rather than having specific amounts allocated to each local authority area. Therefore there is no budget allocation for Orkney and the budget is not broken down by local authority area.

By the end of September 2015, Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) will have paid £65 million of the project’s total £146 million budget, which can be broken down to £49.7 million on backhaul and £15.3 million on access. These figures take account of the £29.6 million spend on subsea cabling which includes the cable to Westray.

The project will reach at least 84% of premises in the HIE region by the end of 2016. This includes at least 75% of premises in Orkney. Without the intervention of the project, only 21% of premises in the HIE region would have been covered by the commercial market, with no planned commercial coverage at all in Orkney.