The First Minister for Scotland, Alex Salmond, has announced that he is to establish a Scottish Broadcasting Commission to look into the future of the creative industries in Scotland.

Salmond outlined his plans in a speech at the National Museum of Scotland yesterday. The chairman of the commission will be Blair Jenkins, former head of news and current affairs at BBC Scotland.

Voice of the Listener & Viewer (VLV) chairman, Jocelyn Hay, said: "Blair Jenkins is well experienced and well respected. He has spoken at events in Scotland held by Voice of the Listener & Viewer during his time at the BBC. VLV will be glad to cooperage with the Commission in its proceedings and will prepare a written submission in due course."

"In the meantime we look forward to participating in and to encouraging the conversation within civic society that the Commission will be developing about the future of public service broadcasting and the creative industries in the digital age," Hay added.

Earlier this year, the BBC Trust carried out research on how the BBC should deliver its remit and showed that, across the UK, including Scotland, audiences believed the BBC could do better in catering for their own communities. The Audience Council for Scotland has separately raised these matters with the Trust on behalf of licence fee payers in Scotland.

A statement from the Trust said: "The Trust fully understands how important the creative sector is to our economy and that the BBC has a key role to play in stimulating that sector. Further, the Trust is committed to ensuring that the BBC makes the best use of all its available resources and technologies in Scotland to serve the interests of people locally, regionally, in that nation and across the UK."

The Trust's statement added that the BBC's deputy director-general has written to the SNP’s Spokesman for Culture to outline the BBC’s current news provision in Scotland and how the BBC keeps under constant review opportunities to use new technologies to serve Scottish audiences.

BBC Scotland also put out a statement following the announcement. It said: "We welcome any debate on broadcasting as we believe BBC Scotland has a very strong story to tell and already contributes significantly to the Scottish economy."

The BBC is will soon open a new £188 million headquarters at Pacific Quay in Glasgow. The corporation said that BBC Scotland's network commissions will increase with £50 million investment forecast for the coming year and further growth planned for 2008/2009, while its overall investment for Scottish output remained strong.

"We look forward to the opening of Pacific Quay next month. The decision to make this major investment is a sign of the BBC's confidence in the strength and ability of the creative community in Scotland," the statement said.