Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government fully funds both Network Rail, Scotland and the ScotRail Franchise Holder to carry out their statutory safety duties. Railway Safety has not been devolved to Scottish Ministers and remains an area that is reserved to the UK Government. The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has the remit to monitor and enforce railway operators’ safety performance and has regular meetings with both organisations. The ScotRail Franchise holder is also contractually obliged to fulfil their statutory safety duties, including station health and safety, and their safety performance is discussed in-depth at the quarterly ScotRail/Transport Scotland Director forums.

The performance of the Edinburgh Tram is a matter for the City of Edinburgh Council and Transport for Edinburgh.

As you will be aware, bus services are a matter for individual bus operators who use their commercial judgement on service routes and frequencies. Local authorities have a duty to identify where there is a social need for particular bus services and to subsidise these at their discretion. The Scottish Government provides block funding through the local government finance settlement which for 2016-17 amounted to over £10.3 billion.

The Scottish Government is committed to working in partnership with bus operators and local authorities. We will be bringing forward a Transport Bill in this Parliament with measures to improve bus services.

The Scottish Government provides the annual Bus Service Operators Grant to the bus industry, currently £50m but planned to increase to £53.5m in 2017-18, the aim of which is to keep fares at affordable levels and enables bus operators to run services that might not otherwise be commercially viable.

The Scottish Government is currently working on the commencement and implementation of the provisions within the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2015, and will continue to engage with relevant stakeholders on this.

There are three provisions in the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2015 relating to taxis and private hire cars. The provision in relation to testing of private hire car drivers came into effect in November 2016; the provision to allow licensing authorities to refuse to grant private hire licences on grounds of overprovision will not come into effect until May 2017, and the provision in relation to exemptions from requirements of sections 10 to 21 of the 1982 Act is still to come into full effect. As such no assessment of the effects of these provisions has been undertaken.

The potential use of maglev as a means of linking Edinburgh and Glasgow was considered, but in the light of its costs, it was concluded that a more appropriate means would be to enhance existing railway assets, which are fully integrated within a wider rail network. Also to develop further options for high speed rail, to be compatible with the development of the HS2 network.

In 2014, we published guidance on the Conduct of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) education in schools. This clearly states how important it is that RSHP education addresses diversity and reflects issues relating to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex young people or those with LGBTI parents, such as same sex marriage and hate-crime reporting. Through the delivery of RSHP education, all children and young people are encouraged to understand the importance of consent, dignity and respect for themselves and the views of others.

The Scottish Government will continue to engage with Stonewall Scotland, LGBT Youth Scotland and the TIE Campaign to ensure schools address the important issues LGBT young people face and to meet the manifesto commitment to promote an inclusive approach to sex and relationships education.

The Scottish Government has not carried out any analysis on the impact of introducing a maximum earnings limit for people.

The Scottish Government undertakes on-going analysis on the distribution and variation of earnings in Scotland. Following the Office for National Statistics publication of the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings the Scottish Government prepares analysis which can be found at the following link. The most recent information for 2016 was published in October 2016.

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Labour-Market/Earnings

In relation to digital skills, the Government and its partner bodies are working to equip all young people with the digital skills they need to thrive in modern society and the workplace, from basic digital literacy through to more specialist computing science disciplines, including the computational thinking and technical skills required in software development and coding.

Launched in September 2016, our new Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy brings together a number of actions to embed the use of technology in learning and teaching right across the curriculum. These include a commitment to refresh the experiences and outcomes in the technologies area of the curriculum to make them more relevant, ambitious and forward looking.

We are increasing the support for the teaching and learning of digital skills and providing new opportunities for learners. The Barefoot Computing programme, for example, gives primary school teachers access to a range of on-line teaching resource materials and workshops to enable them to deliver computing science and computational thinking learning across range of subjects; particularly maths and science. Older pupils can benefit from access to the wider range of relevant vocational qualifications offered by SQA and pathways such as the new Foundation Apprenticeship in Software Development introduced by Skills Development Scotland.

More broadly, to support digital skills development in line with industry needs, the Government has made £8.5 million available through the Digital Scotland Business Excellence Partnership. Achievements have included: the Digital World marketing campaign which aims to raise awareness of the opportunities and benefits a career in IT can bring; and Digital Xtra which provides young people with an opportunity to develop their digital skills through extra-curricular opportunities such as coding clubs and competitions.

With regards to STEM subjects in schools, the Government is investing in practical support for STEM teachers at both primary and secondary schools through the Scottish Schools Education Research Centre and the National Numeracy and Mathematics Hub and through the support for teaching and learning of STEM subjects provided by Education Scotland.

Our STEM education and training strategy, which is currently out to consultation, sets out our current activities in detail. It also sets out our plans for additional action to ensure young people are enthused and inspired to study STEM subjects at school and to continue their studies to obtain more specialised skills in the senior phase, after school and throughout their lives.

In November 2015, the Scottish Government launched “Safe, Secure and Prosperous: A Cyber Resilience Strategy for Scotland” which provides a framework for improving Scotland’s cyber resilience and helping to keep people, businesses and the public sector safe when using digital technology. The strategy sets out its vision to ensure Scotland can become a cyber resilient nation by 2020. A key outcome is to ensure our businesses and organisations recognise the risks of the digital world and are well-prepared to manage them.

Over the last four years, the Scottish Government has funded the Scottish Business Resilience Centre (SBRC) to enable it to work with SMEs to improve awareness of and resilience to cyber-attacks. The SBRC are one of many key stakeholders the Scottish Government is working with to improve Scotland’s cyber resilience. The Digital Scotland Business Excellence Partnership, a collaboration involving public and private sector bodies, is supporting various projects including the development of a Cyber Resilience Toolkit for Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Business Gateway staff to ensure they are adequately skilled to offer information and guidance on cyber resilience when advising businesses. The toolkit is also being made available to the wider public.