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

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

Through the “Our Islands Our Future” work and following publication of the Empowering Scotland’s Island Communities prospectus in June 2014, Transport Scotland set up the Orkney & Shetland Internal Ferries Working Group in 2014. The Working Group consists of representatives from Orkney Islands Council, Shetland Islands Council, HITRANS, ZETRANS and Highlands & Islands Enterprise.

Much work has been undertaken by the Working Group, including consideration of the various needs of the islands and communities served by inter-island ferry services, and the role ferry services play in delivering these needs.

The Working Group also commissioned independent transportation consultants to undertake ‘Inter-Island Transport Studies’ for both Orkney and Shetland. The purpose of the studies were to undertake a proportionate Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG) based appraisal of revenue and capital options across the internal air and ferry network in both Orkney & Shetland.

Both studies were completed and published in late 2016. The reports and additional information on internal ferry services are available on the Councils’ websites.

The internal ferries in the Western Isles are operated by CalMac under the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Service contract. Transport Scotland has recently commissioned a STAG study looking at ferry services to and within the Western Isles.

Delivery charges for freight are a commercial matter between businesses and their contracts with hauliers, and as such no specific analysis has been carried out in the ferries context. While the Scottish Government has worked on a voluntary code to help tackle excessive charging, the regulation of prices for parcels is reserved to Westminster.

The money provided by the Scottish Government to local authorities is allocated using a needs-based formula. However, there is no separately identifiable allocation of funding for individual services, such as ferry services.

The vast majority of the funding provided by the Scottish Government to local authorities is in the form of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financial resources available to it, including funding for ferry services, on the basis of local needs and priorities having first fulfilled its statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities including the Scottish Government’s key strategic objectives and manifesto commitments.

It is for the Councils themselves to determine how much they spend on ferry services within their areas.

High quality public services, such as the construction of the new £275 million Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, delivered on time and on budget, is a clear indication that The Scottish Government is driving an ambitious programme that provides excellent public services that support our more fragile communities.

As well as investment in 100% broadband provision to include our rural and remote communities and £3billion dualling the A9, £120m of Pupil Equity funding in 2017-18 has provided additional resources to the majority of schools in rural communities.

This despite our block grant for day-to-day spending on public services being cut, in real terms, by more than £500 million over the next two years by the UKG.

Each scheme is demand led. The Scottish Government uses historic activity as a guide to likely future activity, and sets the budget accordingly.

Similar to the answer provided for S5W-12495 on 21 November 2017, the Scottish Government uses historic actual costs and pending costs as a guide to likely future costs, and sets the budget accordingly.

Funding under these schemes is provided retrospectively and all approved work must be completed and claimed within one year of the date in which the application is approved. Therefore, work that is approved in one year can, in some cases, fall to be paid the next year. In any event, once claims have been submitted and processed for any particular year, the total amount claimed by all applicants is compared against the allocated budget for that year and this is used to estimate likely future spend.

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 rejection rates for 2015, 2016 and 2017 (to 31 August) are around 7%, 7%, and 10% respectively. The variation between rejection rates from year to year over this 3 year period is considered to be normal and not significant in statistical terms.

The average cost per capita for Foundation Apprenticeships (FA) is £3,424 per person over the 2016-18 duration which is made up FA Framework delivery costs and participant travel costs associated with the delivery of the Foundation Apprenticeship (FA) programme.

As with Modern Apprenticeships, the total cost of delivery per person will vary by Foundation Apprenticeship framework. For example, £2,296 over 2 years for Accounting or Financial Services to £5,103 over 2 years for Engineering. The individual FA framework delivery costs are published on Public Contracts Scotland and provide the basis for contracting with all lead providers.

For 2016 -18 FA delivery contracts there were a total of 354 starts registered by end of September 2016.

The Scottish Government allocates funding to Skills Development Scotland on an annual basis for delivery of training programmes and other activities, including the Employability Fund. In the Budget Bill 2017-18 Skills Development Scotland was allocated Grant in Aid of £179.1 million which will be used to meet its commitments in 2017-18 including the delivery of 9,000 Employability Fund training places.

It is difficult to aggregate a total overall breakdown of spend on Employability Fund since its introduction as liabilities are carried forward from one year to the next and that spend has been split across both Skills Development Scotland and the college sector

Since the launch of the Employability Fund in 2013 until the end of the last contracted year, March 2017, there have been over 63,000 training places delivered.