 Siobhan McMan yn cael ei ddechrau i ddechrau i ddefnyddio ym 2015 oedd y Cymru a Gwylfaenedd Cymru. Ond nid oedd ei ddechrau i ddefnyddio yn ei ddechrau i ddefnyddio'r ffons alsy�au i ddechrau i ddefnyddio'r systemu. As i ddechrau i ddefnyddio'r papodau ar y format digital, ddoddiadau i ddefnyddio'r tablets yn y ddechrau i ddefnyddio. Nid o fwy o obologi ac yn ddechrau i ddefnyddio'r mwy o ddefnyddio, gyfarwyddon mewn mynd i nôr. Beidio gweld ydw i'n maes cych tarech, ydy seentyn a'r eu ffrônid ac felaintio chi'i ei safiach triedr i gŵr i'w mwythbyr ei g 부탁. Mybi ar ddigwyddol ar yr afer ac mae'r mwyaf rydyn ni wedi hyd iidiol o gyfaerddau ei hysty discussionsol i gafoddau ar y cyf pis yma neu i eu ddweud hefyd bodiesibol o seřad, gyda gennych amser i chi'n drafodaeth yma甚麼 I ask the committee to agree to take agenda item 4 consideration of the committee's work programme in private. Are we agreed? Agenda item 3 is for the committee to take oral evidence from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Economy on digital infrastructure and participation. I welcome John Swinney, the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Economy, Trudy Nicholson, head of broadband policy and Duncan Nisbit, senior stakeholder manager at the Scottish Government. Good morning. Thank you, convener. I welcome this opportunity to update the committee on our preparations to deliver high quality digital connectivity, which is a major priority for the Scottish Government. This underpins our economic strategy, helping our businesses to reach new markets and ensuring that people can work flexibly. Amongst the many benefits we are seeing, helping to reverse depopulation is amongst the most important for rural Scotland. The impact of our £410 million digital Scotland superfast broadband investment programme is being felt right across Scotland. Over 390,000 homes and businesses across Scotland now have fibre services available to them as a result of our investment. On average, the programme is connecting 7,000 new homes and businesses every week. Early take-up has been strong, and as a result of that, the contracts have generated a gain-shear return of around £18 million—a new funding that can be used to further extend the reach of the project. The investment is having a transformational impact as it connects premises across Scotland, but I recognise and share the frustration of communities that don't yet know when or if the programme will reach them. We are taking steps to address that. BT is about to start modelling the gain-shear funds, which will push the DSSB programme even further, but will also make it clearer where it won't go. That will allow community broadband Scotland to proactively work with those communities to develop alternative solutions. I am determined that communities that are ultimately not included in the digital Scotland programme are not left as an afterthought. Community broadband Scotland has a critical role to play. It is already working with 89 communities comprising more than 16,000 premises to help them to develop plans for faster broadband. Earlier this year, CBS provided almost £1 million to a group of island communities in Ergyll for a project that saw the internet contract to deliver superfast broadband to more than 1,400 homes and businesses. That is a fantastic project, an innovative technology solution, an alternative supplier, a community-owned asset and superfast broadband for some of the most challenging rural premises in the country. It is a great example of what CBS can do. Similar projects in Fife and Sky will start procurement in the coming weeks. We recently announced funding of £9 million under the 2014 to 2020 Scottish Rural Development programme to support this type of project. That more than doubles our investment in community broadband and should help communities across Scotland to follow the leader of the Giga Plus Ergyll. We are also looking at options for a second phase of superfast broadband investment. £21 million has been made available by the UK Government, which the Scottish Government has agreed to match fund. One option is to extend the current digital Scotland contracts and the modelling that BT is about to start will help to demonstrate potential impacts. However, BT will not only need to demonstrate value for money, it will need to fully complete its commission roll-out as planned and demonstrate a continued willingness to invest alongside the public sector going forward. There are other aspects to the whole issue of connectivity, issues around mobile connectivity, where we have seen an innovative project delivered on the island of Cal in partnership with Vodafone, where we brought 4G services to the island using a community-owned mast, which has demonstrated the impact that mobile coverage can have on remote communities. We are also focused on improving digital participation and on ensuring that the digital economies are well served by the investments that we make on skills and development support to ensure that we reap the full economic benefits of the investment in superfast broadband. We should not underestimate the progress that has been made over the past year. The benefits of our substantial investment across the digital agenda are being felt, but there is more to do, and the Government is focused on ensuring that we equip Scotland with the digital connectivity to ensure that we can meet the needs and aspirations of people in Scotland. Thank you very much, Deputy First Minister. You mentioned the progress that has been made in rolling out a digital Scotland superfast broadband programme. I understand that alongside the commercial roll-out of fibre broadband, the programme is intended to extend access to fibre broadband to 85 per cent of premises by 2015-16 and at least 95 per cent of premises, which equates to 750,000 homes and businesses across Scotland by 2017-18. Are those targets still on target to be met? Yes, they are. The progress that has been made in the roll-out of superfast broadband gives us confidence that we are on track to achieve those targets. There is, of course, as the committee will be aware, an important interrelationship at the heart of the contracts, which is about putting in place the necessary confidence of support for the investment programme that has been agreed, but also trying to secure even greater digital connectivity as a consequence beyond the 85 per cent and 95 per cent targets. I would be certainly one of my perspectives in managing this contract is to ensure that we have the right monitoring framework in place to stretch those 85 per cent and 95 per cent targets with the ambition of exceeding them if we possibly can do it. Clearly, by definition, if we are meeting a target of 85 per cent or 95 per cent, we are therefore not meeting the ambition to extend access to every home in Scotland. There will be homes and businesses that are excluded and that are subject to what is referred to as digital exclusion. What more can the Government do to address that? Essentially, I suppose that this is the moving feast that is at the heart of this process. I want to be clear with the committee that I do not support and the Government is not prepared to countenance digital exclusion. We have a commitment to work to ensure that every individual in Scotland and every business is able to secure digital connectivity of the quality that is envisaged in this programme. The challenge for us is about how to deliver that within a commercial contract. If the Government had not intervened in all of that, commercial coverage would have reached about 66 per cent, so we would have had a yawning gulf of connectivity within the country. The Government's intervention has improved the position from 66 per cent to what will be 95 per cent by the end of 2017, but we cannot leave it there. I want to be crystal clear with the committee that the Government is focused on ensuring that the remaining 5 per cent are able to be connected and have access to the technology. If we focus on that 5 per cent, some of that, I hope, will be eroded by the measures such as the gainshare announcement that I referred to earlier on, whereby the management of the contract and the roll-out of the programme has ensured that there will be greater access to superbast broadband than had been envisaged before. That is the first point. The second point is that, of course, we have a range of different interventions in place to try to further erode that 5 per cent working through community broadband Scotland. Part of the objective of community broadband Scotland is to find solutions for some of those hard-to-reach areas. The giga plus Argyll example is just one of the projects that CBS is working on. What makes all that work slightly more complicated is the fact that it is not absolutely clear where the 5 per cent are going to be. That is something that we work with communities to identify and work with BT to clarify. Obviously, we are prevented from putting in place what I might call a CBS solution if BT commercially or through the digital Scotland's superbast broadband programme are going to get there and make that provision. I appreciate that that is not an absolute definitive clarity for individual communities. Now, I quite understand the frustration that there are in different communities that they cannot quite get a definitive answer as to whether the commercial programme is going to get to them or not going to get to them. However, we are working very closely with BT to try to establish the parameters of that challenge and see how we can deliver that as effective as we can. You mentioned in your opening statement the substantial investment that has already been made and which will continue to be made by the Government in pursuing its ambitions to roll out digital connectivity across the country. Is it envisaged that there will be further financial investment necessary to achieve further progress? I think that that will be the case. The investment that has been made just now is aimed to deliver 95 per cent access by the end of 2017. As I have said already, I am optimistic that that investment will raise that level beyond 95 per cent simply by the way in which good working practices, removal of obstacles and improvements in the digital participation that we are seeing. As a consequence of all the different measures and interventions, that 95 per cent will rise. However, the amount of money that we invest will not need to rise to deliver that. However, there will still be a proportion that requires further investment, and I think that that will require more money than we have already committed to CPS and to the Scottish Rural Development programme. When will you be in a position to update the committee on the actual detail of that? That feels to me to be some time off, convener, as to when. I am satisfied that, between the CPS resources available and the SRDP resources available, and the competitive pressure that I am applying on the contract is to secure an increase in the 95 per cent connection level. There are enough stretching factors within the contractual arrangement to keep the pressure on to maximise the value that we achieve for the investment that we are making. It is only after I have seen the performance of all those interventions that I make a further judgment about additional resources. That does not feel to me as if that is something that will be done within the next 12 months. It may not even be yourself that is taking that decision. Who knows how long I will be here for? I am sure that your long gravity is a politician. It is something that can be assured, if nothing else. Adam, do you have a supplementary on that point? Yes. Good morning, Deputy First Minister. A couple of questions. One was on the gain share issue that you discussed. Clearly, BT is the major people who are actually putting the infrastructure in and possibly even benefiting from the broadband connections through their services. Can we not be doing a little bit more in terms of squeezing, as you say, more value out of the contracts, given that BT seems to be in a position to gain quite a lot over time from the connecting up of Scotland? Yes, I think that we can do that. I want to assure the committee that that is uppermost in the contract management approach that we take as a Government. I do not see the 18 million gain share as the last gain share that we will get. I think that there will be further. Plain a wee bit what the gain share is about. Essentially, it is driven by the increase in the higher than modelled take-up rate. There is a modelled take-up rate of superfast broadband, which essentially underpins the justification of the investment of public funds in the project. Where that is exceeded, we obtain a gain share, so we essentially get a payback. For example, for argument 6, we thought that 10 per cent of the population would connect to superfast broadband, and it turns out to be 15 per cent. That is a pretty substantial difference of 15 per cent versus 10 per cent. That is what drives the gain share. There will also be efficiencies to be secured the more we roll out the contract, because lessons will be learned about the way in which the services and the fibre can be most effectively deployed. That also flows into the management of the contract into the bargain. We exercise very regular and robust management of these contractual arrangements. We do that to ensure that the investment that we are making from the public purse is able to be maximised to give us the greatest coverage possible and the greatest impact possible. That is why, in my answer to the convener earlier on, I was making the point that it is not immediately clear to me how much more money I would have to put in to close the final gap, because if I can use the £410 million that we have committed to get that 95 per cent up to 96, 97 or 98 per cent, then clearly I have stretched the value of this investment and I have minimised the call for additional resource that may well be required to ensure that everybody has access to digital connectivity as a consequence. There is a complex interrelationship at the heart of the contract, but I want to assure the committee of the attention that the Government has on making sure that the maximum value is realised for the investment that we have made. On the face of it, BT seems to dominate the market and arguably competition is at a premium, so it falls to the Government, does it not, to ensure that the value for money for the taxpayer is really maximised in this situation? I entirely agree with Mr Ingram's point. That is exactly the approach that we are taking on the management of this contract. There are wider regulatory issues here. Obviously, they are out with the legislative competence of the Scottish Government, but the regulatory framework around the roll-out of broadband and the provision of broadband is not fit for purpose. There is a universal service obligation on BT to provide telephony services to every household in the country. That was put in place in the 1960s. We are in a completely different world today to the one that we were in 15 years ago in terms of digital connectivity. The regulatory framework has not caught up with that and does not have the necessary obligation on BT to provide the type of connectivity that members of the public should expect in the 21st century, just like they were able to expect when the 1960s or 70s, whenever the USO came in for telephony services. That needs to be addressed. There are ways to get around that in the short term. Obviously, I am having a very regular dialogue—a very productive dialogue, I would have to say—with the board of OFCOM. I have met the chief executive of OFCOM, Sharon White, on two occasions now to stress much of that point. In the absence of a regulatory framework that puts a universal service obligation on BT, I am looking to OFCOM to really exercise the type of obligation and regulatory pressure on BT to make sure that the type of ambitions that Mr Ingram has quite understandably set out to the committee today are actually fulfilled. I think that it must be next week that I have seen the OFCOM board in Edinburgh. I very much welcome the interests that they are taking in the discussion and the provision in Scotland. I look forward to that discussion with the board. Can I ask you finally, Deputy First Minister, has the Scottish Government submitted its final intervention area proposals to broadband delivery UK-BD UK? No, we have not. That work is being modelled at the present time, and I would expect that modelling work will follow on from the modelling work that is done on what to do with the gain share resources. Once that is completed, that will be submitted to the UK Government. I would envisage that that would be done before the end of the year. Before I leave the issue of connectivity, I have mentioned previously to previous ministers that I live in a town in which we have a fibre broadband and a blaze of publicity a few years ago, but I cannot get it because I am connected directly to the exchange. In spite of the fact that the now First Minister suggested last year that I was being singled out for that treatment, which I do not believe, can you tell me how widespread a problem is in our town centre? I do not think that I have a definitive figure on the extent of that issue, but I know from my constituency experience that it is a not uncommon problem. If it helps to address the question that I was going to ask, where does that problem, or the solution to that problem, figure within the grand scheme? Essentially, it is an issue that has to be remedied as far as possible within the parameters of the 95 per cent connectivity that I talked about before. The solution to many of those questions, and I have a certain amount of technical understanding of all those processes, but the committee will forgive me if I do not get too much into the technical details. There is one particular village in my constituency that I can think of where, essentially, there is a three-part roll-out of super-vast broadband. Two thirds of it involves the placing of two cabinets in the village, one third of it is people who are in exchange-only lines. That is a more time-consuming issue to solve. Some of it may be solved by the provision of infrastructure that intervenes to address that point, but that is what occupies the time and the challenge in the roll-out of super-vast broadband to a lot of localities. There have been more than 70,000 exchange-only lines that have been activated or enabled for super-vast broadband already as part of the programme. It is not a peripheral problem, and it has also had a pretty substantial response, but that number I would expect to grow as the contract rolls out yet further. Moving on to the subject of connection speeds, what average broadband speed does the Scottish Government want Prime Assist in Scotland to be able to have access to? The average speed is at—the target speed is 24 megabytes per second, although the vast majority of the connections that have been made so far are receiving speeds of between 50 and 100. Are we in danger of getting to that old situation where the way to achieve the average is to push speeds higher and higher in the areas that it is easy to achieve and ignore the areas on the periphery where it is difficult to achieve higher speeds? Yes, but I think that the objective of our programme is to deliver the maximum speed that we can, although there will, by necessity, be challenges in the delivery of speed that further lines or properties are away from exchanges, and there will be that sort of technological challenges at that level. What is being done at the moment to raise the speeds that are below the average? I think that what we are trying to do is to maximise the effectiveness of the programme. We have essentially got 91 per cent of premises that are receiving at least the 24 megabytes, and of those, 69 per cent are getting speeds above 50. Now, the challenge will be what technical measures can be taken to try to deliver higher speeds for those below 24. Obviously, the priority for the programme is to try to get people into some sphere of Supervast Broadband. Supervast Broadband is only defined by 24 megabytes per second. Therefore, we are working with our partners to try to deliver that level of connectivity, and, of course, there will be significant improvements on existing speeds as a consequence of the roll-out of the programme. Although people may not get 24, they will be getting significantly better speeds than they are getting today. The last question that I have written down here is probably not a fair question, but the question is, when will the target be reached? Is it a target that we will ever reach or will the target keep moving? We do not have a target on connectivity. There is a definition of Supervast Broadband, which is 24 megabytes per second. The target that I am trying to achieve is to get 100 per cent access to Supervast Broadband for people in Scotland, and that is the one that we are aiming for. Obviously, we can be judged on whether or not we are able to secure such a level of connectivity. I have a couple of questions about the Broadband Connection Voucher scheme. I note that, on 3 September, the Government announced that over 40,000 vouchers have been issued in the UK, yet only 2,087 have been from Scotland. Given that the vouchers are issued on a first-come, first-served basis, do you have any idea why the uptake would be so low in Scotland and what the Government is doing to encourage Scottish businesses to take advantage of this scheme? We have got a number of awareness-raising measures in place that are delivered through our work with BDUK, through the work of the Digital Scotland programme, through the work of CBS to encourage more and more companies to take up Supervast Broadband. We obviously have to persistently take forward those steps to make sure that we raise full awareness about the opportunities and the possibilities because of the significant contribution that this can make to business. One of the steps that we take is through the wider work that we take forward in digital participation to encourage a greater understanding and awareness of the opportunities that are presented by digital connectivity. That is an area where we work closely with our enterprise agencies, the business gateway and some of the new start business organisations such as Entrepreneurial Spark and Scottish Edge to encourage companies to consider immediately the importance of having digital connectivity and what that can provide for the ability to undertake well-connected business activities on behalf of companies in the marketplace. Do you have a feel for why the uptake is being lower here than it has in the rest of the UK? I do not have any specific rationale for that. I can only talk anecdotally about the mood that I detect within the new start business community, for example, where they literally cannot get digital connectivity quick enough because it is seen as a major element of how they take forward their business activities and their business programme. I can see the advantages that are very clear to be seen and taken up by a range of organisations. Certainly what we do concentrate on is making sure that there is as wide an awareness as possible about the availability of the voucher scheme and we look to public authorities and enterprise bodies in other agencies to make sure that awareness is raised with members of the public. The provisions that you have outlined there are about trying to make sure that people are aware of the Government scheme but also incentivising them. Is there any other way to incentivise them to take partners? The key thing is about awareness raising. One of the issues about digital participation from the business community perspective is that we have to more and more encourage the business community to think about how it takes forward its business operations through the medium of digital connectivity. I think that there is a tendency at times for organisations not to think about how they can adapt their business proposition to operate through a digital medium, as opposed to the traditional way of operating that they may have. Awareness raising is the key thing that we can do to try to encourage and motivate more and more organisations to participate. I hope that the cabinet secretary will forgive me if I go over some territory that you have already covered, but I think that I will learn to live with that convener with your disapprobation. However, I think that those issues are really important and there is no harm in underlining them. First of all, I should say that I warmly welcome the expenditure that the Government is making with the fibre optic roll-out. Nothing is an island at all, my adult life. Nothing transformed my life more than the coming of the internet, the initial coming of the internet. Nothing I can think of in 36 years leveled the playing field between rural, remote rural life and urban life more than the coming of the internet. I warmly welcome the expenditure, but I feel that it is very important, because I have had numerous complaints from constituents now that the Scottish Government has taken ownership of this to a degree in providing a solution. I feel that constituents do not fully understand that this is a matter that is wholly reserved to Westminster and that you touched on the business of this, the preferred solution, and I can see the wisdom in that being a universal service obligation that is fit for purpose in the 21st century. Do you agree with me that that ultimately would be the best way to tackle this? I do, because it would put the onus on BT to essentially provide the foundations of appropriate connectivity in the 21st century—appropriate and relevant connectivity in the 21st century. I completely agree with Mr Mackenzie's analysis of the impact of this on rural Scotland. One of the points that I have made in countless speeches—I apologise to the committee if any of you have had any of the members have had the misfortune to have heard this line of argument before, but I will make it again, because I think that it is important. For the first time in history, the Highlands and Islands in an economic downturn has outperformed the rest of Scotland. To me, that is because of digital connectivity, because in every economic downturn in the past, what the people of the Highlands and Islands have had to do to overcome economic difficulty is to leave. Then we spend years trying to recover from the fact that people had to leave the Highlands and Islands and find economic opportunity elsewhere, and we have had to try to recover it and restore it. All my life, since the visionary interventions of the establishment of the Highlands and Islands development board have probably gone on, and what digital connectivity does is largely eliminates that disadvantage. People have been able to stay in the Highlands and Islands, remain digitally connected, make their living in the Highlands and Islands and continue to contribute to their communities. I am not sure if Mr Mackenzie was in the chamber yesterday for my speech in the debate on the economy, but I was at the opening of Loch Boysdale Harbour, a project that has been taken forward by Stora Suist, a community interest company in the south-east. I had a discussion with stakeholders about what would be the key interventions that would make all the difference to the community. I suppose that two of them lept out at me. One was digital connectivity, and the other, of course, was ferry connections, which are issues that the Government is currently addressing. However, the digital connectivity point was so significant to everybody that I talked to in that stakeholder gathering about how they could continue to live in a magnificent part of the world, how they could pursue their educational opportunities in that magnificent part of the world and trade from that magnificent part of the world, all because of digital connectivity. The point is absolutely central to how we tackle rural depopulation. The area in which Mr Mackenzie lives is a part of the Hans-Annes, which is still suffering from rural depopulation, but we have an opportunity if we get the right to start to stem the tide of that rural depopulation. It is about more things than digital connectivity, I readily concede, but this is one major contributor to how we can actually do that. I think that the task would be easier if we had the foundation of a universal service obligation, but in the absence of a universal service obligation, the type of constructive dialogue that I am having with OFCOM is designed to make sure that we make as much progress to ensure that sufficient regulatory pressure is applied to deliver, in my view, as much along the way to universal service obligations as we possibly can. I could not agree more with what you are saying, cabinet secretary. One aspect of difficulty appears to be the fact that I pay tribute to BT and HIE for the work that they are doing across the Highlands and Islands. From my previous career, I know just how challenging some of that work can be. However, one of the things that I have not been able to understand is why they are unable to tell us in some community areas whether or not they will actually be able to provide the fibre optic connectivity that people want and therefore who exactly, which communities exactly are going to be left in the remaining 5 per cent that will have to be covered by community schemes. Just in passing, I would pay a huge tribute to them all in the Iona community trust, who I think have led the way for the Argyll community broadband project. It seems to me, fatherless, as to why they are unable to tell us which areas, as yet, they will be unable to reach to allow some of those communities who have fears that they will be left behind to start to get to grips with community broadband schemes. Are you able to shed any light on that? First of all, I would like to reiterate a point that Mr Mackenzie made, which is about paying tribute to what BT has managed to achieve. It is very easy to criticise BT. In a whole number of respects, but there has been very effective roll-out of the service. By the end of August, 86,940 premises in the Highlands and Islands had connectivity and BT are on track to pass their quarter 3 2015 target of 93,946 premises by the end of September. Those are very significant achievements, given the terrain and the challenges. Nearly 300 cabinets have been established by June 2015, and more than 800 kilometres of access cabling laid and 400 kilometres of subsea cabling laid. Again, I was able to discuss with the grouping in South East on Saturday the mainstay cables that have been laid across the minch to connect the western aisles. Essentially, a spine connection down the whole of the western aisles has now been laid from which the feeds can be taken to roll out the services. There has been a great deal achieved. I also want to put on record my appreciation of the work of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, which has driven the project very aggressively as one of its key interventions to support economic development in the Highlands and Islands. It has been very well led by the team at Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Mr Mackenzie's question is the $64 million question, to be honest, because it is the one to which everyone is waiting for an answer. As I rehearsed to the convener earlier on, if BT is going to go somewhere in the provision of fibre broadband, we then cannot justify a non-BT programme solution to go in there. We cannot do it, it is against state aid rules. It would help if we had greater clarity about what are the areas that BT is unlikely to go to. That is difficult to define, because BT also has me on its back saying that I want that 95 per cent up at 96 or 97 per cent. It is not all an issue that can be attributed to BT, because I am trying to maximise the effectiveness of the £410 million that we have invested. If we do that, it minimises what else I have to put into the pot to try to deliver connectivity across the board. There are likely to be some more obvious areas where BT is unlikely to go. Therefore, there are probably more examples that could be shared with us about how there are limitations to what is going to be the reach of the BT programme and how we could then respond accordingly to put in place some of the early preparation of community-based solutions that would meet the needs of individuals in communities. If I could turn now to smartphones, which again I appreciate as an area of telecommunications that is fully reserved, it seems to me part of the way that these services in general are designed to operate is to integrate with each other. My perception on the ground is that and SPICE have very helpfully provided us with a pretty comprehensive briefing. A lot of the data is derived from the latest Ofcom data and yet I do not recognise that data. As a frequent traveller across the Highlands and Islands living there, this device works superbly and seamlessly here in Edinburgh integrates with the fixed line provision and so on. I now have an effective and efficient method of working here in Edinburgh, but it is not by no means a level playing field even in terms of the data in as much as I do not recognise the maps, I do not recognise the connectivity so that if I could perhaps explain it that 3G for instance is not what it was a year ago, because I think it is greater usage, so what used to be perfectly acceptable 3G coverage in certain areas now no longer functions well, in fact functions less well than 2G did 2 or 3 years ago. Is there anything that the fibre optic intervention, the community broadband, is superb and a terrific intervention? Is there anything that the Scottish Government can do to influence the mobile connectivity situation also? This is again a significant issue. I have two devices, an iPad and a smartphone, and they are from different networks, so I feel as if I have got a pretty good understanding of where you can secure connectivity around the country, because Mr Mackenzie will appreciate that I am on the road a fair amount into the bargain. I can sympathise with his point about the relevance of the maps. I was utterly conversant with every moment that you can get a 3G signal between Parliament and my house in Perthshire, every single moment, and I choose my moments to access the system given my knowledge of that connectivity, which was pretty intermittent, to be honest. I have to say that I am seeing an improvement on that journey, so I now have more. The connectivity is improving. I even, much to my surprise, my delight. I was sitting in a cafe in Eilith in my constituency and I happened to look at my smartphone to realise that I had a 4G signal. That may have explained why I had numerous complaints on constituents about the intermittent of the mobile network for a few days beforehand, but it was obviously the upgrade that was being undertaken. There are clearly improvements being made in the mobile connections, but I do not think that the maps that Mr Mackenzie refers to or the level of connectivity reflect the real world of people's experience. I have invited the four mobile network operators to meet me, and we met some weeks ago—I am just trying to think times passing so quickly. Was it July? To open up a discussion about accepting that the regulatory issues are not mine to resolve, because they are not, how we could, by collaborative work, try to improve mobile connectivity within Scotland? Three things are relevant in that respect. The first, is that the mobile operators are increasingly seeing the mobile infrastructure as having a relevance to the fibre infrastructure, and there is now a much greater connection between those two, a much greater proximity between the two. Of course, there are company acquisitions and transactions that will make some of that ever closer as a consequence of transactions that are under way. That is the first point. The second is that I was keen to identify practical ways in which the Scottish Government and other authorities that we work with could try to help to improve mobile connectivity. One of the issues has come down to literally the height of masts. As members of Parliament, we will all be familiar with the sensitivities around issues around masts and deployment. For me, I think that we have a duty. If members of the public are complaining about poor connectivity, to answer to try to help mobile companies to find some of the solutions by addressing some of the mast issues and saying to constituents and communities, look if you want better connectivity, maybe putting in fewer objections to masts might help getting that connectivity. Not an easy message to sell, I concede, but I might leave that to Mr Johnson to convey on my behalf. That is some of the debate that we have to have. We are going through a process of looking at what are the practical steps that we can take in that aspect. Thirdly, it is to encourage mobile operators to maximise the co-operation between themselves. They were anxious to assure me that they have co-operation around the sharing of masts and infrastructure, but I have encouraged them to go away and to reflect further on that. We have set out the agenda, which will be about the Government and public authorities looking at how we can take steps within our existing competence, whether it is around planning or the regulatory regime that we control, or about some issues around business rates, and how we can advance some of those questions to help to improve the roll-out. The companies are going away to try to see how better they can work together, and we are going to reconvene in about three months' time to take stock of how much progress we have made in that respect. I am personally going to chair those discussions and drive them to make sure that we make more progress in that question. We live in a world where I travelled from Oban to Loch Boysdale on Saturday morning. If there had been an issue with the ferry service, which there was not—it was a magnificent ferry service and ferry crossing—I might have wanted to access the CalMac app on my phone, because I could not have done it on the street in Oban, because I did not have any appropriate connectivity to enable me to do so. If people are coming to visit our country from cities around the world where 4G is yesterday's technology and they suddenly decide to share with us the beauty and the majesty of a CalMac ferry trip from Oban to Loch Boysdale, they will have a challenge of connectivity on the main street in Oban. Final question, cabinet secretary. I wonder if you agree with me that a lot of the other—this is perhaps important in other public policy areas and public policy difficulties in the Highlands and Islands. For instance, if we are going to advance telemedicine in the most rural areas, and if we are going to deal with the issues in attracting rural GPs and rural teachers, part of that problem is the perception that rural parts of Scotland are backwaters and that one way of addressing that is to give—to end this inequality of connectivity. There are areas that perhaps do not spring foremost to mind of public policy difficulties that can be eased and helped by good connectivity. I think that it is central and it is not only central to the issues around rural connectivity, it is central to the management of the public finance challenge that we all face, whether it is in urban or rural Scotland. For example, there is some excellent work under way in health and social care about very efficient integrated assessments of individuals that are undertaken by members of the staff who are out there in the field and they are feeding back their information and the data that they are gathering and all the rest of it through smartphone devices. It is some tremendous work going on. That is fabulous if you have connectivity. Some of that can be a challenge in urban Scotland as well, but there will be occasions where we can meet some of the challenges of rural service provision by having access to really high-quality digital connectivity that enables staff out in the field to do their job to fulfil their requirements and to be able to feed that information back into the system and to interact in a way that really supports the needs of vulnerable individuals in our communities. That is one crucial application. Another is about educational access. I was recently at Murray College in Elgin and I was delivering a speech in a lecture theatre. The principal of the college told me that, prior to my contribution, there was a lecture delivered there that went to 40 locations digitally. People are able to get access to quality interaction education from 40 locations around the Highlands and Islands, from one place in Elgin, and nobody has had to go very far. Some people might have had to go far even to get to that digital point, but they have not had to leave an island community or travel long distances. Crucially, that enables people to remain within their localities and to make a significant economic contribution as a consequence. I refer back to the minister's previous comment. I note that, 15 years ago, the most common thing in my mailbag was people complaining that they believed that they were going to suffer physical damage as a result of mobile phone mass. Today, the biggest thing that I get in my mailbag is people complaining about poor mobile phone signals. I think that we have gone through a change there and we can perhaps drive that on. Just another observation. I heard the other day that it was on radio force that it must be true that you can get a 4G mobile signal on the summit of Mount Everest. I know that you tell me that you can get one mail with as well. Are we at a point where we actually have to reconsider our priorities and perhaps look at using the mobile infrastructure that is developing rather than carry on with relentless quest to get a physical connection to every property? Well, I think that this in some ways fits into the issue about finding the right solution for all properties. We are a product of our history as a society and our correctivity has been built around the roll-out of cables to all properties and that is fundamentally what underpins our infrastructure. However, one of the interesting points in my discussion with the mobile network operators is that one of the points that I made in my response to Mr Mackenzie is that it was very clear to me that they view the delivery of a mobile solution or the delivery of a fixed line solution as part of the same consideration. It may well be that we get to the point where for some users in the country, a mobile solution is infinitely more practical and infinitely more affordable and infinitely more sustainable and probably infinitely more future-proof than a fixed line solution. That is part of the iterative process that we have to go through to meet my objective of making sure that every individual is properly supported by digital connectivity and having access to digital connectivity. Some of those individuals in remote areas may well find that the solution lies in an affordable broadband solution. Thank you. Thank you very much, convener. You touched on the importance of digital inclusion earlier on in your remarks. We have recently seen the UK Government coming up with a digital inclusion outcomes framework. Will the Scottish Government be using the framework or do you intend to benchmark progress yourselves? We are having a look at that framework to see if it would be the most appropriate and suitable for us to take forward. That issue is currently being examined by the Government. Once we get further in the road of that analysis, I am very happy to share the conclusions with the committee. Apart from the physical infrastructure investment that is going on, what other areas would you regard as very important in terms of promoting digital inclusion? The first thing to say is that we have generally had a general sense over the years that Scotland lagged behind in digital participation. I have always been pretty sceptical about those numbers, but I have never really believed them. Recently, we had data that showed that about 82 per cent of the population were using the internet for personal use, which I think rather more closely relates to what I would have thought would have been the position. I think that we are now seeing—I was up in Alipwll. The cabinet was meeting Alipwll a few weeks ago, and I observed a marvellous project that takes place in the library in Alipwll, where older members of the community can come in to meet up with teenagers who sit with them with their iPads and their smartphones and explain to them what to do. In every respect, it was just a marvellous thing to observe. Apart from the atmosphere of mutual respect between older people and younger people and younger people and older people, there was a genuine appreciation among the older people who were there that those young folk were helping them to get access to the modern world. We should not understate the significance of what that can contribute to enabling everybody to be participants. If we go down the route that I was talking about with Mr Mackenzie of seeing many of our public services delivered through in a digital context, then we need to have everybody able to access that technology and to be able to do it in a fashion that meets the needs of all citizens. Our participation efforts are designed to ensure that, as well as the physical connections that are in place, more and more people of different backgrounds are able to contribute to the process within our society. It goes hand in hand with our efforts to tackle social exclusion. There is also relevance in terms of the wider agenda on ensuring that public services meet the needs of individuals. Having apps on a smartphone that enables people to monitor their health condition or to take off prescribed medicines or even their exercise regime are all powerful elements of what can be delivered to meet the needs of individuals. I am committed to making sure that we improve and increase awareness and encourage the maximisation of participation in this area of activity by all elements of society. On a slightly different tack that is related, what can the Scottish Government do to help employees of small and medium enterprises to achieve the necessary digital skills to push forward their business? As you point out, that technology is developing all the time and skills are required. We have just launched a new digital skills academy called Codeclan, which is a partnership with the private sector. That is one of the measures that we are putting in place to ensure that there is the ability to generate the skills pipeline that we require within the country. Obviously, there is a very significant obligation on our further education and higher education institutions to be able to contribute in this process as well as the school sector. We have to make sure that the type of support that is available meets the needs of the emerging marketplace. We will continue to review that, because, as I said in the chamber yesterday in response to an intervention from Mary Scanlon, I rarely go through a discussion with the business community just now, or for some considerable time, without digital skills being raised as a significant issue. I can ask you about the international dimension and perhaps ask you to reflect on what lessons Scotland can learn from the roll-out of broadband infrastructure in other European countries, particularly countries that have similar geography in terms of remoteness to Scotland. The key thing that I would say is that we have to have a very focused programme for the delivery of this infrastructure. I am satisfied that we have got that, but I could see how it could be easier for us if we had the type of regulatory environment that I talked about earlier on in my answer. That would make it a great deal easier to pursue the subjective and it would make it a great deal more focused. There is good focus in the programme now. There is impetus behind the programme. There is the necessary drive to deliver it. Comparatively speaking, our programme is very ambitious in world terms. You always get very worried when civil servants tell you that your programme is ambitious. It is always a moment to be nervous about what you are doing, but we have a very ambitious programme. However, I think that the lessons that I would learn that I would take from it are about ensuring that we have a real drive and focus around how we can deploy those interventions. Is that something that your officials have looked at in terms of what other smaller European countries approach has been to the issue of the roll-out of broadband? It is. It is part of the work that is under way to support the development of the world class programme that we are looking at, as to how we can ensure that all of what we are doing is equipping Scotland with some real strategic advantages and benefits for the years to come. Okay. The European Commission has identified the completion of the digital single market as one of its own 10 political priorities and launched a digital single market strategy earlier this year, which includes a series of initiatives to be delivered by the end of 2016. So, can I ask you what are the implications of the digital single market for Scotland and what work is the Scottish Government doing to ensure that the benefits from that are available, particularly in terms of better access for consumers and businesses to digital goods and services across that digital single market? That is a fundamental opportunity across the board within Scotland. What we aim to do is ensure that we seize the opportunity that emerges for businesses and consumers alike. It is very clear to me that, and I used this illustration earlier on, that many of the new start companies in Scotland, if I go back 25 years to when I was working in the business development sector in Scotland, one of the early things that would suggest a company that was trying to embark on market development was to print a brochure. On 25 years on, it is nice to have, but it is not going to get the type of presence in the marketplace that digital connectivity can deliver for companies. I am very struck by, in the new start business community, the extent to which people think that once they have their smartphone, that is them off. They are international traders. The world is their oyster because they have that connectivity. We have to make sure that we have the infrastructure that can fit into what is an increasingly digitised marketplace, and that the digital single market is an illustration of that. Our infrastructure commitment will be important in supporting access in that respect. Our inclusion support will ensure that we have people who are able to participate in the single market. Crucially, our dialogue with Ofcom is important in ensuring that the interests that we have and the concerns that we have about the digital single market are properly and fully advanced by the United Kingdom Government as the member state who will be involved in these discussions on our behalf. Is there any direct dialogue and discussion between the Scottish Government ministers and officials and the European Commission on this, or is it all directed through the member state in London? We obviously maintain dialogue with the European Commission on all questions, but the primary dialogue in this area is undertaken through the United Kingdom Government. You mentioned world-class connectivity. Are you in a position to provide us with a status update on where that work is at? The work that we are undertaking here has been taken forward by the Scottish Futures Trust. It is involved in a great deal of dialogue around the industry and with the public sector to identify how we can create—it is essential that it is at the heart of what SFT does for us. It draws together different players and identifies how we can maximise investment as a consequence of collaboration. That work is under way. I am awaiting further feedback from SFT about those questions. We have some progress in relation to projects such as the Isle of Cal project that I mentioned in partnership with Strathwed University and some support to the SME community around Edinburgh University. However, we hope to have some further work identified to be taken forward beyond March of next year, which will be informed by our contribution to the infrastructure investment plan, which will be published alongside the budget. Do members have any other questions for the Deputy First Minister? In that case, I thank you, Deputy First Minister and your officials for appearing before the committee this morning. I also thank you for your leadership in the area of digital connectivity and participation and the roll-out of superfast broadband across Scotland more generally. Thank you very much indeed. We look forward to further updates in the future. I will now suspend our meeting briefly to allow the witnesses to leave the room.