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Improving productivity and competitiveness across Scotland is an important part of Scotland’s Economic Strategy. The Programme for Government 2016-17 sets out a range of initiatives including investment in transport and digital infrastructure, which will support productivity across Scotland. The Programme for Government can be found online here: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0050/00505260.pdf

The Scottish Government is working with local authorities through our City Deals which take long-term strategic approaches to improving regional economies. Regional partnership discussions take the same approach to non-city regions.

Phase 1 of the Enterprise and Skills Review set out a number of actions intended to strengthen our regional approach to enterprise and skills support, which will further improve the contributions our agencies make to supporting regional productivity. These include the commitment to retain Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and to establish a new vehicle to meet the enterprise and skills needs of the South of Scotland. We will also look to work with COSLA and local government to build on their existing and emerging local economic partnerships.

Since 2010, international exports have increased by 17.3%, from £23.4 billion in 2010 to £27.5 billion in 2014. Data for 2017 will not be available until January 2019.

While there are substantial challenges for Scottish exports as a result of difficult global economic and market conditions, our Trade and Investment Strategy, alongside the four point plan announced in October by the First Minister, sets out a clear and comprehensive plan for helping more companies export more goods and services to more markets.

Performance against the Productivity Purpose Target is reported on Scotland Performs. The most recent internationally comparable data on Scotland’s productivity performance covers the years up to and including 2014. In 2014, Scotland would have ranked 19^th of 35 OECD countries while the UK would have ranked 18^th.

Data on progress toward the productivity purpose target is available at: http://www.gov.scot/About/Performance/scotPerforms/purposetargets/productivity

Highlands and Islands Enterprise will proceed to recruit a permanent Chief Executive as soon as is practicable in the New Year. A decision on the recruitment of the Scottish Funding Council's Chief Executive will be taken as phase 2 of the Enterprise and Skills review progresses.

The SHC come to their own view as to whether Health board proposals are major or not. Ministers make the final determination on designation where necessary (Health boards often decide that proposals are major themselves and follow the appropriate process without the need to ask Ministers), as informed by the views of the particular Health board and SHC.

It is important not to pre-judge the outcome of the current engagement process as the proposals may change or not be pursued at all.

Should NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde decide to proceed with their proposals, I will carefully consider their view and that of the independent Scottish Health Council in coming to a determination on whether the proposals should be designated major. If that is case then the proposals would be subject to formal public consultation and, ultimately, Ministerial approval.

I have been consistently clear that I'd be happy to meet with local campaigners and their representatives to help inform my final decision on any major service change proposals, once the engagements and formal consultation period has concluded.

The Scottish Government does not gather data on women’s representation on listed private sector boards in Scotland. However, since 1999, the Cranfield School of Management has published an annual female FTSE benchmarking report providing a regular measure of the number of women executive on the corporate boards of the UK’s top 100 companies.

The Cranfield School of Management’s Female FTSE Board Report 2016 provides statistics on women’s representation on the boards of FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and FTSE 350 boards in the UK. The report shows that in 2016 women held 26% of directorships on FTSE 100 boards, an increase of 11% since 2012. In March 2016, women held 20.4% of directorships on FTSE 250 boards and 22.4% on FTSE 350 boards.

In such cases I take full account of the views of the Scottish Health Council and Health board before coming to a final decision.

The Scottish Health Council published guidance entitled ‘identifying major service change’ (February 2010) to help inform the Health board view. This poses questions about the proposals under nine key areas: impact on patients and carers, changes in the accessibility of services, whether emergency or unscheduled care is involved, the level of public and political concern, any conflict with national policy, the level of change in the method of service delivery, related change in recent years, the financial implications, and consequences for other services.

There are currently no Scottish Development International staff employed in the Dublin, Brussels or Berlin hubs. When our London Hub opens in 2017, the eight people working for Scottish Development International in London will transfer there. SDI is currently considering how the additional staff resources can be most effectively deployed across Europe according to market opportunities.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-05560 on 14 December 2016. 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