The urgency with which enterprises should embrace the new electronic communications and e-commerce, in particular, provides an excellent example of how the Executive might promote an activity of critical importance to economic development, albeit one where the prime responsibility for action rests elsewhere. Certainly, influencing activities of this kind carry costs, taking resources from other more direct Executive activities to further economic development. However, selectively and with a clear view of the prospects of being effective in this work, the Executive will embrace this key opportunity to address the principle objectives more coherently and systematically through a broader perspective. The contribution of the Scottish Executive to economic development in Scotland from the fiscal perspective is determined by the prevailing constitutional arrangements that define the powers and responsibilities of the Executive. Within the fiscal and regional policies of the UK, there are both explicit and implicit fiscal transfers to Scotland, and these impact on the scale of economic activity and on its distribution across Scotland.
Fiscal transfers are of several types.
Firstly, there are those that remain within the control and management of the Executive, largely being identified with the expenditures funded through Scotland's Assigned Budget. Secondly, there are transfers to Scotland that lie outwith the Executive's control, largely comprising social security transfers and other expenditures within Scotland that are the responsibility of other UK Departments. On the revenue side, the primary resources are embodied in the transfers considered above, since all revenues raised in Scotland are directed to the UK Treasury in the first instance. Thus, the key fiscal consideration for the Executive is its decision-making power over the resources in the Assigned Budget. In 2000-2001, some 15.9 billion is available for the funding specifically of Executive programmes, including those directed in support of economic development.