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The apprenticeship levy announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer is UK wide and will be implemented from April 2017. The Scottish Government currently does not have the power to introduce a mandatory apprenticeship levy similar to the one being introduced by the UK Government. The rate for the UK levy will be set at 0.5% of an employer’s pay-bill. All employers will receive an allowance of £15,000 meaning that the levy will only be payable on pay-bill in excess of £3,000,000 per annum. It includes all employers in private, public and third sectors and will be collected via PAYE.

Once we receive greater clarity from the UK Government on Scotland’s share of the levy, we will work with employers and stakeholders to explore how the introduction of the levy will align with Scotland’s successful apprenticeship programme.

The whole of Scotland, except for Shetland, is covered by a radar network designed to support weather forecasting. Just over 50 per cent of Scotland is covered by rainfall radar that is capable of monitoring high-intensity rainfall events. The entire weather radar network across the UK is undergoing significant upgrading.

In 2014 the Met Office and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) carried out a study to assess the quality of the radar data across the country and found that the quality of radar data is impacted by several factors including terrain and distance from the radar. SEPA and the Met Office are working with the National Centre for Atmospheric Science to trial the use of a high resolution radar across Moray, Nairn and Inverness. The trial is to assess the potential value of this radar for flood forecasting and warning and runs for six months starting in February 2016.

In 2012, following a review by Transport Scotland, and based on independent contemporary research, the variable element of the road equivalent tariff (RET) car formula, the rate per mile, was updated to £0.80 per mile. A comparable increase was made to the variable element of the RET formula for foot passengers, which was updated to £0.13 per mile. The comparable figures in the original RET formula applied in 2008 were £0.60 per mile for cars and £0.10 per mile for passengers. The fixed elements of the original RET formula, £5.00 for cars and £2.00 for passenger, were not increased in 2012.

Since 2012, Transport Scotland has been annually reviewing the RET formula. There have been no changes made to the RET formula since that date. However, modest increases in line with inflation have been applied to RET fares on an annual basis. On 6 October 2015 I announced a freeze for all ferry fares for 2016-17.

The Scottish Government remains committed to its vision that all journeys on Scotland’s bus, rail, ferry, subway and tram can be made using a single type of smart ticketing. Good progress is being made to deliver this vision, summarised by mode below.

Rail – We have made sure that the new franchise contract requires smart tickets to be rolled out across the whole network, for all types of ticket. ScotRail is delivering a significant programme to make this possible. For example, smart season tickets are to be available across the whole network in spring 2016. By 2018, more than 60% of ScotRail journeys must use smart tickets.

Subway – Smart tickets are already in use on the Glasgow Subway, and shortly it will be possible to use the same type of smart card on both the subway and ScotRail.

Ferries – We have already completed successful user trials. The next Clyde and Hebrides ferry contract will require smart tickets to be available for foot passengers.

Air – In June 2015, Orkney Islands Council introduced the first ITSO smart ticketing product for air travel in the UK permitting 12 free return journeys from either Pappa Westray or North Ronaldsay to Kirkwall Airport, for eligible residents.

Bus – More than 1.3 million smart concessionary travel cards have been issued which can be used across the two hundred and thirty bus operators in Scotland who participate in the free bus concessionary travel scheme.

Building on this investment, the main Scottish bus operators have agreed that they will work to help deliver the vision of compatible smart ticketing across all modes in Scotland with a programme that dovetail’s with Scotrail’s plans. New inter-operator smart bus ticketing schemes are to be introduced soon in Scotland’s major city regions.

Technical capability – ITSO is the ticketing system being used to ensure compatibility between operators and modes. In particular, ITSO version 2.1.4 has been agreed between operators as the appropriate standard. Some operators are also offering various phone based smart ticketing to customers. The potential in future to add contactless “EMV” bank card transactions to the capability of the Scottish system is also being explored.

In order to support smart and integrated ticketing, all Scottish bus operators were provided with ITSO compliant Electronic Ticketing Machines during the initial roll out which was started in 2006 and completed in August 2010. The total cost associated with this roll out was £40.79 million for all operators including First, Stagecoach, Lothian Buses, McGills and National Express Dundee.

In relation to the bus operators listed in the question, Transport Scotland has since provided grant aid funding support to McGill’s Bus Service Limited for the Glasgow to Largs (via Greenock) corridor to use upgraded smart ticketing machines. That grant aid funding amounted to £64,368. Transport Scotland is also in the process of providing support to McGills to enable a commercial smart ticketing project. The cost of this is a contribution worth approximately £200 in respect of a supply of smartcards.

(a) In terms of the total reimbursement made to bus operators under the concessionary travel schemes, the following payments have been made:

Transport Scotland actively publishes monthly details of all items of expenditure of a value of £25,000 or over. This information is available at

www.transportscotland.gov.uk/about-us/expenditure/reports.

Releasing detailed concessionary travel reimbursement payment information can in some cases disclose the financial and business viability of individual smaller bus operators which could subsequently be used unfairly by a competitor to its advantage. Taking this into consideration, we are unable to provide the level of detail requested.

(b) No bus company has received any funding directly through the Bus Investment Fund.

(c) In terms of the Scottish Green Bus Fund, a document showing payments to operators for the last five years has been placed in the Scottish Parliament's Information Centre (Bib. number 56719).

In relation to the level of funding included in the 2016-17 draft budget, I can confirm that £207.8 million has been allocated to the concessionary travel schemes, £50 million for the Bus Service Operators Grant with no specific funding having been allocated to the Bus Investment Fund. The Scottish Green Bus Fund comes from the Future Transport Fund (FTF), however the precise amounts available in 2016-17 for the different elements supported by the FTF have not yet been agreed.

All bus operators in Scotland accept the National Entitlement Card on a smart basis in order to deliver the Scottish Government's concessionary travel schemes.

Specifically, in conjunction with the Confederation of Passenger Transport, the five major operators (as detailed above) have committed to work to achieve ITSO standard 2.1.4 capable smart ticketing equipment during the course of 2016.

This latest ITSO standard provides the building block that allows integrated smart ticketing on a single card. The five operators listed have committed to a phased roll out of integrated smart ticketing in Scotland's major city regions starting with Aberdeen, followed with Glasgow, Dundee and Edinburgh.

More details are available in the National Transport Strategy Refresh document which was published on 21 January 2016 and there will be further operator specific press releases during 2016.

The National Entitlement Card (NEC), sometimes referred to as the Saltire Card includes the Young Scot Card and other service brands. The NEC has had the capability of holding smart tickets from its inception.

The following table represents grant figures awarded by the Scottish Government in respect of on-going card management support services:

A budget of £2.8 million in 2016-17 is available for the development of the Scottish smart and integrated ticketing system which will make use of the NEC.

The following shows how much subsidy the Scottish Government has paid in each of the last five years and the funding included in the 2016-17 draft budget for ferry, rail, subway and tram services.

(a) Ferry services

The following table provides details of the subsidy support from financial years 2011-12 to 2014-15 together with the latest forecast outturn figures, as at December 2015, for financial year 2015-16. The 2016-17 Draft Budget provides for £156.0 million subsidy in respect of support for ferry services.

(b) Rail

The following table provides details of the subsidy support from financial years 2011-12 to 2014-15 together with the latest forecast outturn figures, as at December 2015, for financial year 2015-16. The 2016-17 Draft Budget provides for £265.9 million subsidy in respect of support for rail services.

(c) Subway

The Scottish Government does not provide direct subsidy support for subway funding. The Scottish Government provides capital funding to Strathclyde Passenger Transport (SPT) to deliver its capital programme and to assist with the maintenance of the Glasgow Subway. Since financial year 2011-12, SPT has been expected to use at least £6 million of this capital grant towards the subway modernisation programme each year.

The Scottish Government is also committed to provide up to £246 million in capital funding towards SPT’s subway modernisation programme and in 2011-12, SPT was provided with £15 million towards the subway modernisation.

The 2016-17 Draft Budget provides for £20 million capital funding towards SPT’s subway modernisation programme.

(d) Trams

The Scottish Government does not provide subsidy funding to any tram company. The Scottish Government did however provide £500 million capital funding contribution to City of Edinburgh Council towards the Edinburgh Tram Project from the date of its commencement to 31 March 2014.

(a) average weekday journey time

(b) average Saturday journey time

(c) average Sunday journey time