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In addition to the ongoing maintenance of the road network, a further £14 million is being invested to improve journey times and reduce congestion on the A82 through the improvement project at Pulpit Rock and the new Crianlarich bypass which are currently under construction. This will benefit accessibility to and from the west Highlands. Furthermore, since May 2014 more train services have been running between Oban and the Central Belt. The West Highland Line will also benefit from being part of the ‘great scenic railways of Scotland’, an initiative to be delivered by the new ScotRail franchisee Abellio. With regard to digital access and in addition to the deployment of next generation broadband delivered through the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme, Community Broadband Scotland is working with 11 communities covering over 2,000 premises across the west Highlands with a view to developing community broadband projects. It will run until at least March 2018.

No. The Scottish Government has invested over £350 million since 2007 to ensure Scotland’s trunk roads in the north west are safe, efficient and effective. Transport Scotland has worked with local authorities via the National Roads Maintenance Review to ensure all road authorities can manage and maintain Scotland’s roads more efficiently. The Scottish Government is also committed to maintaining air links to Scotland’s remote communities through our funding of Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd. Recent significant investment in Inverness airport includes £1.4 million to upgrade the runway and a further £961,000 on a taxiway extension. For ferries, it has committed over £68 million in procuring the new MV Loch Seaforth and upgrading the harbour infrastructures at Stornoway and Ullapool which will offer an improved lifeline ferry service to the Western Isles. With regard to the communication infrastructure, the contract between Highlands and Islands Enterprise and BT, part of the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme, aims to deliver next generation broadband services to 84% of homes and businesses across the whole of the Highlands and Islands by the end of 2016.

A total saving of around four to five minutes will be achieved between Glasgow and Fort William when the improvements at Pulpit Rock, Crianlarich Bypass and between Tarbert and Inverarnan are completed. These improvements will also reduce the likelihood of unforeseen delays due to accidents on these sections of the route.

Establishment numbers for educational psychologists are a matter for education authorities and are not held centrally. Numbers of educational psychologists (full-time equivalent) in post are collected annually by the Scottish Government as part of the teacher census and shown for 2012 and 2013 in the following table:

Source: Teacher Census Supplementary data 2012 and 2013

Note: All full-time equivalents are rounded separately and breakdowns may consequently not sum to Scotland figures.

The Scotland Together 2009 report concluded that the installation of sprinklers in all Scottish homes was not cost-effective, however it found that 40% of accidental dwelling fire deaths occurred within social rented housing, and 31% in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 15% most deprived areas.

As a result of this, a targeted approach to sprinkler installation for social rented, council or housing association owned dwellings has been adopted by some providers.

The position of the Scottish Government is that it supports a targeted approach, based on cost-benefit evidence and robust risk assessment, across a range of risk reduction initiatives of which sprinklers are only one.

The Scottish Government is in regular contact with the Welsh Government and is fully aware of the Domestic Fire Safety (Wales) Measure 2011. The Scottish Government has no plans to consult or introduce legislation for the mandatory installation of automatic fire suppression systems in new and converted residential properties, social housing and houses of multiple occupation. However, the Scottish Government has recently commissioned further research from Optimal Economics Ltd to provide an updated position on the cost effectiveness of residential sprinklers using the most up-to-date Scottish fire statistics and installation costs. This will cover the cost effectiveness of the fire suppression functions in houses, flats, houses in multiple occupation and halls of residence. The Scottish Government will review the research findings when they are known.

The Scottish Government publishes data on key fire statistics on an annual basis. The latest figures were published in the data tables for the Fire Statistics Scotland 2012-13 publication (published on 8 October 2013). These tables contain trend data from 2003-04 to 2012-13 on the number of fires and fatal casualties by building type.

The dataset can be found at the following link:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/10/5284/downloads

The published data does not include the number of fires which led to fatalities by building type. Scottish Government is able to provide this data from 2009-10 to 2012-13 below. Data for 2013-14 can be provided following the publication of Fire and Rescue Statistics Scotland 2013-14 (formerly Fire Statistics Scotland) later in 2014.

Whilst the recording categories ‘domestic homes’ and ‘other types of residence’ do not exist within the Fire and Rescue Service’s incident recording system, the data reports the number of fatalities which occurred at ‘dwelling’ and ‘other building’ fires. ‘Other building’ fire fatalities will include fire fatalities at non-domestic residences. Whilst ‘dwelling’ fires are exclusively residential, ‘other building’ fires will include some fires at non-residential buildings. As such, it cannot be assumed that none of the fatalities in other building fires occurred in residential premises.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-23184 on 27 November 2014. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The Scottish Government provides guidance through building regulations (see:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/resource/buildingstandards/2013Domestic/chunks/ch03s16.html) on the buildings which should have automatic fire suppression systems (including fire sprinkler systems), or where automatic suppression can be used to allow for design freedoms such as open plan living spaces within flats and houses. The Scottish Government provides support on the requirements of building regulations but interpretation is ultimately a matter for the courts.

The £170 million package of phase one improvements, announced on 28 March 2014, is the first stage to facilitate the introduction of the hourly service, a half hourly service from Elgin to Inverness and Aberdeen to Inverurie, as well as journey time reductions of up to 20 minutes and extra commuter services by 2030.

However as individual infrastructure enhancements are completed, a review of timetables will analyse opportunities for possible service improvements and identify opportunities for offering incremental benefits to passengers.

The £170 million package of phase one improvements to be delivered by 2019, announced on 28 March 2014, includes: redoubling of track between Aberdeen and Inverurie; signalling enhancements; platform extensions at Insch and Elgin; Forres station relocation; and, track improvements and infrastructure to support two new stations at Dalcross and Kintore.

This is the first step of the long term aim of the Aberdeen to Inverness Rail Improvements project to facilitate the delivery of an hourly service, journey time reductions of up to 20 minutes and enhanced peak-time services and connectivity at either end of the route by 2030.