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The Graduate Apprenticeship Enhancement Group was established in spring 2024 to make recommendations on the development of future policy and a delivery model for GAs in line with Scotland’s economic growth opportunities, skills need, and the wider reform of the post-16 education landscape. The Group's membership includes the Scottish Funding Council, Skills Development Scotland, Colleges Scotland, Universities Scotland, and representation from businesses.

The Group’s work is evidence and data informed and is taken forward through workstreams. It will include engagement with employers and their industry representatives, public sector partners and apprentices. The Group anticipates completing its work over the winter.

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.

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.

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.

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 total cost of the Scottish Digital Academy since its commencement in January 2018 to September 2024 is £4,320,722. This includes staff and programme delivery costs.

In total, there are 7,710 registrations from Scottish Government employees, which represents 40 percent of all registrations over time.

As stated in the answer to question S6W-30954 on 7 November 2024, there are 95,000 accounts, as at 4 November 2024. All of these are active. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

ScotAccount launched in private beta with Disclosure Scotland in February 2023, and with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service Witness Gateway in February 2024. As at 4 November 2024, there are 95,000 accounts across these services.