Government is instrumental in hi-tech delivery
There has been a great deal of political commentary on broadband connectivity over the last few weeks.
In that time, there has been a lot of absolute nonsense spoken on the issue. So in the interests of making sure there is wide awareness of the details I thought I would use my Blairie column to set out some of the key points and facts.
A number of years ago, the Scottish Government decided to roll out an ambitious programme of superfast broadband delivery. As a consequence of that programme, Scotland is on track to meet the target that was set for that programme of 95 per cent of premises having fibre broadband access by the end of 2017. If the whole task had been left to the market which means the Scottish Government doing nothing and leaving it all to what companies like BT planned to do - only 66 per cent of Scotland would have access.
To enable us to reach 95 per cent, more of the public funding for this programme came from the Scottish Government, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Scottish councils than from the UK government. So when it came to the need for a firm commitment to pay for the current programme - that has enabled broadband for properties the length and breadth of the country - the Scottish Government came up with the money.
As an independent indication of the progress we have made, the most recent Of Com State of the Nation report shows that in the last year, Scotland made faster progress in broadband roll out than other UK nations 14 per cent in Scotland compared to seven per cent in rest of UK.
We recognise however, that despite the good progress that has been made, there are still too many people who cannot gain access to superfast broadband.
That is why the Scottish National Party gave a manifesto commitment in 2016 that if we were elected to government we would work to ensure that 100 per cent of residential and business premises in Scotland would have access by 2021. This is a more ambitious target than the UK government’s equivalent commitment.
In Scotland, our 100 per cent commitment is to speeds of 30mbps, delivered through significant Scottish Government funding. In the rest of the UK, the commitment is to speeds of only 10mbps, funded by higher access charges not public funding.
So there is much good work that has been done and much more work to do. But I think it is pretty clear that the important issue has been addressed seriously by the Scottish Government and if we had not acted, Scotland would have had a much poorer level of broadband service.
We now have to concentrate on ensuring we complete the task and deliver the connectivity that everyone needs, regardless of where they live in Scotland.
That is what the Scottish Government is concentrating on achieving.
It would help us, and the people we serve, if the UK government operated in a more helpful fashion to support us in this task.
Members of the public are not interested in the petty political point scoring that some UK ministers have indulged in.