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Transport Scotland is part of the Scottish Government and discussions / meetings with occur regularly in the normal course of business.

Transport Scotland continues to have regular and frequent discussions with its Operating Company (Amey) regarding the effective maintenance and management of all trunk roads in the south east of Scotland, including the A7 through Langholm.

The Minister for Transport and Islands met the A7 Action Group in Parliament on 15 June 2016 to discuss their Action Plan, which set out its aspirations for the route and included a number of improvements in the vicinity of Langholm. Transport Scotland has undertaken a review and identified a range of items within the Action Plan that they now propose to take forward further consideration towards. This will be done alongside on-going maintenance and improvement programmes on the route.

Going Further- Scotland’s Accessible Travel Framework was published on 21 September 2016. Accessibility issues in urban and rural areas will be an important focus of work through the 10 year lifetime of the Framework.

The Scottish Government is investing in significant access improvements through Abellio ScotRail who have begun major refurbishment of trains operating on rural routes. Access improvements are also being delivered at stations across the country, and all new stations such as those opened on the Borders Railway are step free and fully accessible. Abellio ScotRail are required to provide a range of services dedicated to assisting disabled passengers to facilitate their travel.

The timetable for all single decker buses to be fully accessible was 1 January 2016, with double decker’s due by 1 January 2017 and coaches by 1 January 2020. Until these dates, fleet renewal and deployment is a discretionary operational matter for individual operators. Disability legislation is reserved to the UK Parliament, however the Scottish Government is committed to encouraging bus operators to meet these regulations within the timetable.

The Scottish Government has regular ongoing engagement with local authorities and Regional Transport Partnerships (RTPs) through a range of fora, including the Association of Transport Coordinating Officers (ATCO), RTP lead officer and chairs meetings and the Bus Stakeholder Group.

Local authorities work together on bus services informally and through formal channels such as ATCO and their RTP's.

The RTPs work together and with key stakeholders in the bus industry on issues of mutual interest. In particular, these RTPs with public transport responsibilities share good practice, for example, in the procurement of bus services; and the RTPs played a key role in the development of smart, multi-operator ticketing in Aberdeen (Grasshopper), Dundee (ABC), Strathclyde (Zone-card) and Sestran (One-ticket).

Transport Scotland has two main office locations, one in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh, with additional staff on site at the Forth Replacement Crossing, Fife. Both the main Glasgow and Edinburgh locations are where the bulk of Transport Scotland staff are permanently based. Transport Scotland staff travel across Scotland to fulfil their duties in the planning and delivery of infrastructure projects, engaging with communities as well as providing oversight to the performance and operation of service contracts including those for rail and ferries services.

The following table details the staff numbers by year and local authority area.

Transport Scotland will lead a multi modal study assessing transport constraints and opportunities in the Borders, including examining the case for extending the railway. Procurement of the study is currently under way, funding will come from existing budgets and it is currently expected that the study will be complete by the end of 2017. As this work is at an early scoping stage it is not currently possible to estimate costs or timescales.

Between 2007-08 and 2015-16, we have spent over £7 billion in our Rail Network, including 76km of new railways delivered and 13 new stations opened.
The budgeted spend on rail in 2016-17 totals a further £0.75 million. The totals for each year are as follows;

Source: Years 2007-08 – 2015-16: Transport Scotland Annual Report and Accounts, Year 2016-17: published Scottish Budget

Total expenditure on transport infrastructure, as reported within The National Transport Statistics 2015 edition and within the Transport Scotland Annual Report and Accounts, totals £18billion since 2007. The totals for each year are shown in the following table. A breakdown of transport infrastructure expenditure by local authority area is not available.

Source: Years 2007-08-2014-15 = Scottish National Statistics 2015 edition, Years 2015-16 and 2016-17 = Transport Scotland Annual Report and Accounts 2015-16 and published Scottish Budget.

Whilst total expenditure on transport infrastructure, as reported above, totals £18 billion since 2007 to date, a breakdown by local authority area is not possible. This is in part because some investments are of a national nature (Forth Replacement Crossing) and others span a number of local authority areas, such as the M80, the M74 and the M77 construction projects.

While local authorities are responsible for ensuring they are fulfilling their statutory obligations regarding the maintenance of local roads in their area, the Scottish Government is committed to working with local authorities to ensure the efficient maintenance of all roads in Scotland.

The Road Maintenance Strategic Action Group, which I co-chair with COSLA, provides local road authorities and Transport Scotland with strategic direction and oversees partnership working on road maintenance activities and duties.

The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 places statutory responsibility for local roads, including structures, improvements, maintenance and repair with local roads authorities. The Scottish Government has allocated over £10.3 billion to local government in 2016-17 and it is for individual councils to allocated funding based on local needs and priorities, including funding for road repairs.

In August 2016, Audit Scotland reported a significant variation in road condition among councils. For example, in 2014-15, the proportion of local roads in acceptable condition ranged from 44% in Argyll and Bute Council to 79% in Orkney Islands Council.

From a national perspective the Scottish Government continues to co-fund the Roads Collaboration Programme and uses that forum to actively engage with councils to explore opportunities for the sharing of services for road maintenance activities.

The Scottish Government continues to invest in the maintenance of the A76 trunk road. Investment over financial years 2014-15 and 2015-16 has totalled £5.76 million. This includes continued expenditure on landslip/embankment stability works which include ground investigation, geotechnical design and construction works. So far (from winter 2014) the Scottish Government has committed approximately £456,000 towards the delivery of improvement works to resolve these.