Questions and answers

Question reference: S2W-21962

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 30 January 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what assessment has been made of the availability of long-term debt and equity facilities for small and medium-sized companies.

Question reference: S2W-21963

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 30 January 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps have been taken since 1999 to (a) provide and (b) promote or encourage the provision of long-term debt and equity facilities for small and medium-sized companies.

The delivery of business support is mainly a matter for Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. A number of measures have been introduced to improve the provisions of finances for small and medium-sized companies, including the Business Growth Fund and the Scottish Co-investment Fund. The Small Firms Loan Guarantee scheme, which operates on a UK basis, has also recently adopted a number of changes, identified in a recent review, to improve the access to loan funding.

Question reference: S2W-21966

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 30 January 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what measures designed to help small and medium-sized companies to break into export markets have been introduced since 1999.

The Scottish Executive provides a wide range of support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as they work to break into export markets.

Specific measures introduced since 1999 to improve the service to business include:

Bringing together Scottish Trade International and Locate in Scotland in 2001 to create Scottish Development International (SDI), and by doing so strengthening the resources available to Scottish companies to target overseas partners;

Creating a one-stop shop for advice about global markets in the form of local Business Gateway International partnerships;

Simplifying the range of international business services available, and

Developing the Globalscot network of over 850 influential business people around the world willing to help Scottish companies.

Question reference: S2W-21960

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 30 January 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any assessment has been made of the availability of seed capital for small and medium-sized companies and, if so, what the findings were of the assessment.

Question reference: S2W-21961

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 30 January 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what measures have been implemented since 1999 to (a) provide and (b) promote or encourage the provision of seed capital to small and medium-sized companies.

Question reference: S2W-21952

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 27 January 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what measures have been introduced since 1999 to bring together universities, businesses, research institutes and colleges to ensure that companies have the earliest opportunity to benefit from the newest technologies.

The main measures introduced since 1999 which are aimed at facilitating knowledge transfer from the research base to companies are shown in the following table. Further information and plans for future activity in this area are provided in the Scottish Executive’s Response to the Lambert Review of Business-University Collaboration, March 2005, a copy of which is in the Scottish Parliament’s Information Centre. The Scottish Funding Council has established an overarching Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Group which will take forward the knowledge transfer agenda in both the university and the college sectors. Technology Ventures Scotland, supported by Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Funding Council, also looks at knowledge transfer strategy and innovation across Scotland, taking an overarching role in encouraging the commercialisation of Scotland's Science and technology research, particularly from the perspective of business.

Initiative	Year First Introduced	Provider	Purpose of Initiative
Proof of Concept	1999	Scottish Enterprise	To provide pre-seed development gap funding to allow universities, research institutes and NHS Trusts to bring ideas from discovery in the laboratory to the proof of concept stage.
Knowledge Transfer Grant	2001	Scottish Funding Council	To provide higher education institutions with a flexible funding stream to support knowledge transfer activities, including commercialisation of research.
Intermediary Technology Institutes	2003	Scottish Enterprise	To act as a substitute for corporate research and development expenditure; to substantially increase and sustain the birth rate of indigenous high value-add technology based companies leading to significant improvements in productivity gains.
SME Collaborative Research Programme (SCORE)	2003	Scottish Executive	To support Scottish based SMEs undertaking joint research and development projects with the public sector science base.
Scottish Executive Enterprise and Knowledge Transfer (SEEKIT)	2003	Scottish Executive	To support projects that promote co-operation in research and development and knowledge transfer between the Scottish public sector science base and Scottish SMEs.
Scottish Proposal Assistance Fund (SPAF)	2003	Scottish Funding Council	To increase Scottish industry participation in the EU Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) and to increase the scale of research and development by Scottish companies, linking those companies to the research base.
Proposal Assistance for Co-ordination of European Research (PACER)	Pilot – 2003-04 Expanded 2004-05	Scottish Funding Council	To assist Scottish universities access EU Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) funding, and to increase links with Scottish companies.
Interface	2005	Scottish Higher Education sector funded by the Scottish Funding Council	To provide a central point of access for business, particularly SMEs, to research in the higher education sector.
Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department (SEERAD) Knowledge Transfer and Management Grant	2006	Scottish Executive	To improve knowledge management and transfer and collaboration from SEERAD Main Research Providers

Question reference: S2W-21955

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 27 January 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it has taken since 1999 to enable Scottish innovations to be translated quickly and efficiently into commercial products.

As part of its pipeline of support, the Scottish Executive and its agencies have a range of initiatives in place to assist Scottish innovations. These include:

the ICASS (Innovators’ Counselling and Advisory Service for Scotland) service, which provides free, specialist, confidential advice to innovators, inventors and small innovative companies on issues such as commercial viability, intellectual property protection and product development;

the Small Companies Innovation Scheme (SCIS) delivered by Scottish Enterprise and equivalent support offered by Highlands and Islands Enterprise;

the Executive’s SMART, SPUR and SPUR^PLUS industrial research and development (R&D) support schemes;

Scottish Enterprise’s R&D Plus scheme for large companies, and

the £49 million Proof of Concept Programme to assist universities, research institutes and NHS Trusts to bring ideas from the laboratory into the market place.

Question reference: S2W-21953

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 27 January 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps have been taken since 1999 to allow companies to benefit from pan-European programmes for technology transfer.

A range of support is in place to help companies in Scotland benefit from pan-European programmes for technology transfer.

The Innovation Relay Centre (IRC) Scotland assists Scottish organisations in Transnational Technology Transfer (TTT) through the IRC Network across Europe.

The Scottish Proposal Assistance Fund is designed to increase Scottish Industry participation in the EU Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) which supports collaborative research and development with a commercial end in view.

Question reference: S2W-22184

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 26 January 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the central heating programme will continue beyond 2006.

Question reference: S2W-22175

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 25 January 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many road traffic (a) fatalities and (b) injuries there were in each of the last three years, broken down by (i) police force area and (ii) parliamentary region, expressed also as a percentage of all road traffic accidents and showing year-on-year percentage changes.

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