Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to taking a joined-up approach to digital inclusion. We engage across government and with the UK and the other devolved nations to understand and share good practice. We will continue to work in this way and aim to continue supporting coordinated approaches across government.

The Digital Inclusion Alliance is the proposed national delivery mechanism to bring together the public, private and third sectors to jointly agree how to tackle digital exclusion through long-term, sustainable approaches.

The work to establish the Alliance commenced in November 2023 following approval in the Connecting Scotland Full Business Case. We are currently scoping out options for the financial and legal structure of the Digital Inclusion Alliance and once these are finalised and agreed with Ministers the Alliance will be formally constituted.

To help us co-design the focus of the Alliance and define the role of the third and public sector partnership within that Alliance, we established a Short Life Working Group in March 2024. This group is co-convened by Scottish Government and COSLA using the principles of the Verity House Agreement. Its members are the key organisations in the public and third sector who will work in partnership within the Alliance.

Across government, particularly in the Digital Directorate, a number of teams meet regularly with OfCom and mobile phone providers to discuss a wide range of issues. As social tariffs remain a reserved matter for the UK Government, the majority of these discussions do not focus on social tariffs however the exceptions to this are listed below:

The purpose of Scotland’s Digital Inclusion Charter is to support, guide and recognise the work of organisations doing digital inclusion. SCVO will support organisations to take action to meet each pledge. The Charter is one tool that is being used to engage organisations and encourage them to act on digital inclusion.

It is the intention that the Charter will provide a useful source of data on the different activities being undertaken across all sectors to tackle digital exclusion. When organisations are asked to renew their pledges after a two-year period, they will be asked to demonstrate any progress they have made.

As with any charter or pledge, the levels of commitment by signatories is likely to vary. The priority is to secure Charter signatories who can deliver meaningful actions, rather secure large numbers of signatories with superficial commitments.

Scotland’s Digital Inclusion Charter is delivered by SCVO as part of an annual grant of £308,000. This funding supports a much wider programme of activity delivered by SCVO to tackle digital exclusion. SCVO estimates that around 10% of the annual grant covers staff time and costs directly associated with development and promotion of the Charter.

The launch event in August 2024 was hosted as an in-kind contribution from Standard Life plc, a Charter signatory, which covered the costs of the event.

The last meeting of the DESG was held on 31 October 2024. Although officials from the Scottish Government are invited to attend meetings of the group, the Digital Economy Skills Group is organised by Skills Development Scotland. A request for the number of meetings held since the start of 2023 should be directed to Skills Development Scotland.

In 2022, the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2) was published. recommendation-36-strategy-for-improving-rest-and-welfare-facilities-for-hauliers.pdf (transport.gov.scot) includes a detailed national audit and review of support for lorry parks. This would include consultation with the freight industry, representative bodies, local authorities, and other stakeholders to collect views on the provision of lorry parks including where and what type of facilities are required. The audit will indicate which routes have gaps in provision and support Transport Scotland in making future decisions on the need (or otherwise) to address market failure.

Development of the STPR2 Delivery Plan is currently underway. This is a complex piece of work, with consultation ongoing across the Scottish Government, including with Statutory Bodies and Exchequer officials. Once this exercise is complete we will be able to advise with more certainty on the potential implementation of and the associated timelines of the proposed audit.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

Scottish Prison Service conducts Mandatory Drug Tests (MDTs) via urine testing, for two primary reasons, progression as part of the risk assessment process, and when an individual is suspected of taking an illicit substance, through suspicion testing.

MDT urine testing can only detect certain substances, and many new synthetic substances such as Psychoactive Substances (PS) are undetectable via this testing method.

The application of The Management of an Offender at Risk (MORS) policy, is applied when an individual is suspected to be under the influence of or have an unknown substance secreted on their person. This policy is in place to care and support individual’s during this time and is not used or considered as a positive test.

Most MDTs carried out in HMP Barlinnie since 2022 were conducted for progression reasons:

As I set out in response to S6W-30360 we are providing a range of support and funding to work that aims to promote red squirrel populations. Alongside the support detailed in my previous answer, we have also recently awarded the Eastern Lowlands Red Squirrel Group a development grant of £59,500 through the Scottish Government Nature Restoration Fund. The funding will be used to create a conservation strategy dedicated to protecting and restoring the red squirrel population across the eastern lowlands.

The grant will support a year-long initiative to get a better understanding of population sizes of both red and grey squirrels across Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan-shire, and identify key challenges and opportunities for safeguarding Scotland's beloved native red squirrels in the face of growing environmental pressures.

Any correspondence from members of the UK Parliament will be processed by officials in line with the Scottish Ministerial Code.

As is a matter of public record, Stephen Flynn, MP, contacted the then Minister for Energy and the Environment, Gillian Martin, in October 2023 forwarding on information from Flotation Energy. Mr Flynn asked that Scottish Government officials could review the information below and, if appropriate, arrange contact with those involved to discuss these matters further and stated that no detailed response is required just confirmation the below is receiving attention. A written response was sent to Mr Stephen Flynn MP confirming that officials had reviewed the information provided in his enquiry and that officials were in regular contact with the Green Volt project team on this matter and that discussions are ongoing regarding the progress of the Green Volt application.