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This is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise. I have asked their Chief Executive, Adrian Gillespie, to contact you directly with a response.

The Creative Industries Leadership Group (CILG) recommendations have helped to inform many of the actions included in the Culture Strategy Action Plan, published in 2023. The Action Plan sets out current and planned activity and is available at A Culture Strategy for Scotland: Action Plan (www.gov.scot).

This is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise. I have asked their Chief Executive, Adrian Gillespie, to contact you directly with a response.

The governance review will be completed by the end of 2024. As part of the review, the First Minister has formally agreed to the creation of the Cabinet Sub-Committee for Investment and Economy.

The targets set out in SCVO’s grant agreement are 200 signatories by the end of March 2025. To date we have attracted 42 organisations, across the public, private and voluntary sectors, who have made a range of pledges to support the Charter.

Current signatory organisations include large businesses (Standard Life plc), public sector organisations (e.g. Edinburgh City Libraries) and local community projects (e.g. Milan Senior Welfare).

SCVO will be running a campaign focusing on each of the 5 pledges from November 2024 to March 2025, with examples of best practice and video case studies from existing signatories.

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 Digital Citizen Unit (DCU) was created in 2022 with the Digital Citizen Division (DCD) forming in 2023. DCD is the team within Scottish Government that manage the Connecting Scotland Programme; Ethical Digital Nation; Unlocking the Value of Data; and the Knowledge and Information Shared Services Unit, which is an operational internal business support unit for Core Scottish Government and some public sector shared services customers, comprised of: Information Assurance and Data Protection; Knowledge and Information Management; and Library and Information Services functions.

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.

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.

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 minutes of the meetings should be directed to Skills Development Scotland.