The Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions website is now into its fourth day of a sustained technical crash for which no explanation has been offered.

The Firm's inquiry to Holyrood asking for details of when the website is likely to be repaired, and what was the cause of the crash has received neither acknowledgement nor response.

On Friday the Scottish Government culture minister Fiona Hyslop launched the Government's paper - 'A Digital Ambition for Scotland', during National Get Online Week, highlighting the "potential positive impacts on business, education and public services of increased availability and uptake of reliable and fast broadband."

"In the digital age, connectivity is of tremendous strategic importance for Scotland. This paper sets out our ambitions for Scotland's digital economy and shows our commitment to doing all we can to realise those ambitions," Hyslop said.

"Scotland leads the world in several areas of digital technology. Increasing the number of public services able to be accessed online can increase efficiency of service delivery greatly. Online access can also make in easier for people to access these services, particularly in remote areas.

"One of the greatest challenges is to increase the relatively low levels of digital participation in Scotland. The paper published today sets out some of the action we are already taking to address this issue. We will publish a detailed Digital Strategy within the next few months setting out how we will ensure Scotland is best placed to reap the benefits of the digital revolution."

Yesterday campaigners from the Justice For Megrahi Committee, whose petition calling for an inquiry into the Pan Am 103 debacle closes on 28 October, called on Parliament officials to explain the cause of the problem and when it would be rectified.