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Collaboration across organisations and sectors is critical to achieving our digital ambitions for Scotland. Our national digital strategy aims to create an environment and culture of partnership working, underpinned by common standards and robust governance and assurance arrangements.

The governance structures we put in place during 2018 strengthened strategic oversight of our digital strategy, and brought together individuals from a range of organisations and sectors, to pool their expertise, share information and collectively drive digital transformation in the public sector.

The 2019-20 Budget Bill sets out the allocation for the Scottish Government to spend on the full range of digital priorities aligned with the digital strategy.

In addition to this central allocation, organisations advance their digital investment through individual budget allocations. Central Government Digital projects are registered with the Scottish Government, and the total of estimated whole life costs currently held for these projects is £1.1bn. A breakdown of this figure was provided by the Scottish Government to the Public Audit and Post Legislative Scrutiny Committee in May 2019.

The Scottish Government has a small team that provides software development services for other public sector bodies, including web development. The team can call on external partners for additional resources and support as necessary. They provide on-going changes to a large number of existing systems as well as the capability to build new services.

The Scottish Government is also building a Digital Publishing Service available to colleagues in Government and those in the public sector. This Service already provides guidance, support on developing web sites and technical assets to various government organisations and we are actively developing more shareable software and infrastructure.

Following publication of the digital strategy priority actions were identified, monitored, and reported to Ministers annually. This information is also used for updates to the governance board responsible for progress of digital transformation across Scottish central government.

Work began August 2018, scheduled to complete November 2019, to monitor all actions. This information will be reviewed on a quarterly basis and used in annual reporting to Ministers. It will also be used for updates to the governance board responsible for progress of digital transformation across Scottish central government.

I refer the member to the answer to S5W-24026 on 29 July 2019 for an explanation of budget allocation to date. Future investment is part of the challenging considerations we have in setting our 2019-20 Programme for Government and Spending Review plans.

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

The Scottish Government has invested some £25m over the past 6 years in supporting businesses and individuals to develop their digital skills.

Almost £8m has funded DigitalBoost, the digital skills support programme for SMES delivered by Business Gateway across Scotland. The programme offers a variety of training from 1-2-1 support and advice, as well as seminars and workshops throughout Scotland to digital the skills and capabilities of SMEs.

The Scottish Government also fund a Digital Development Loan launched in 2018. Loans of up to £50k are available at 0% rates to eligible Scottish SMEs looking to future proof their business and invest in building their digital capabilities.

In May 2018 I launched a new inclusive fund called the Digital Start Fund to support those who are out of work or those on low incomes seeking to train or retrain in digital skills to support businesses with their digital skills gaps.

I refer the member to the answer to S5W-24035 on 29 July 2019 for an explanation of how the Scottish Government monitors progress on delivering its digital strategy. Included in this monitoring process are actions pertaining to Scottish public sector bodies.

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

Our Digital Strategy for Scotland sets out our ‘Cloud First’ ambitions for public sector data hosting. We support the adoption of Cloud solutions and are working with public sector partners, such as Disclosure Scotland and the Scottish Social Security Agency, to move their services to the Cloud.

The Scottish Government has developed a suite of Cloud-based services and our Digital First Standard enables us to monitor the adoption and use of Cloud solutions by central government organisations. The new Cloud Service Procurements Framework reinforces our ‘Cloud First’ ambition by providing access for the Scottish public sector to services that will enable cloud migration.

The Digital Directorate both arranges and attends a number of public sector conferences to promote its transformation capability.

Senior members of the directorate also sit on corporate and programme boards where they are able to identify where support is required and signpost the services on offer.

The Digital Directorate’s IT desktop and infrastructure services are publicised through the Scottish Government intranet, Saltire. This includes a service catalogue where employees can request licenses, software etc. and such requests are processed through authorisation and delivery. Services are also promoted by a small group of digital business partners who are able to work with different teams across the Scottish Government and resolve issues as they arise.

We are expanding the Saltire catalogue to include a wider range of services in particular software development, digital publishing and digital advice.

All significant digital projects undergo a number of Digital First Assessment as part of the governance process. This is also an opportunity to offer specific assistance from the Digital Directorate if it is appropriate.

The strategy includes a measurement framework which sets out our high-level approach to monitoring benefits. Individual workstreams responsible for specific strategy actions have methodologies setting out our in-depth approach to monitoring benefits – these methodologies are commensurate to the size and maturity of each workstream. We have also commissioned reports from external consultants to provide independent view of progress on benefits.