Local Government and Communities Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Official Report 491KB pdf

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Energy Assistance Package

Good morning, and welcome to the 14th meeting of the Local Government and Communities Committee in 2010. As I usually do at this point, I remind members and the public to turn off all mobile phones and BlackBerrys.

Agenda item 1 is to take oral evidence on the energy assistance package from Alex Neil, the Minister for Housing and Communities, and from Scottish Government officials. I welcome the witnesses: the minister, Alex Neil; Shona Stephen, who is the Scottish Government’s deputy director for housing access and support; and Linda Sheridan, who is head of delivery in the housing access and support division.

I believe that you wish to make some opening remarks, minister. You may do so before we proceed to questions.

That is lovely—thank you, convener. I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the energy assistance package, which was introduced in April last year to replace the central heating programme and warm deal, following the recommendations of the Scottish fuel poverty forum.

We all agree that fuel poverty is a blight on Scottish society. The number of Scottish households in fuel poverty rose by 5.4 per cent—from 586,000 to 618,000—between 2007 and 2008 and the proportion of households in fuel poverty rose by 1.2 percentage points over the same year. Following one of the coldest winters on record, a year of increasing fuel prices and the impact of the recession, the figures will have worsened—not improved. The challenge of improving the quality of people’s lives and reaching the 2016 target remains.

The main drivers of fuel poverty—low incomes and spend on fuel—are reserved matters. Despite that, our energy assistance package is making an impact by increasing the income of fuel-poor households and reducing their expenditure on fuel, as well as by improving the energy efficiency of homes. In its first year of operation, the energy assistance package has been recognised as a much better vehicle for tackling fuel poverty than the earlier programmes, because it addresses the drivers that I have mentioned. Brenda Boardman, who is an emeritus professor at the University of Oxford, defined fuel poverty. She recently wrote to congratulate the Scottish Government on the energy assistance package and said that it

“is the best UK exemplar in terms of providing both a comprehensive approach ... and linking the fourth level of assistance to the energy inefficiency of the home.”

She strongly advocates the latter, and says that

“most of the poor targeting that has occurred with fuel poverty policy to date results from too strong a focus on social characteristics.”

Fuel poverty is worst for people who live in the least energy-efficient homes and who are on the lowest incomes. Unlike the central heating programme, the energy assistance package is targeted on people who are in most need in the poorest-quality homes: 39 per cent of stage 4 recipients were on income-related benefits, compared with only 19 per cent in the central heating programme.

Addressing fuel poverty is not just about installing a central heating system; it is about ensuring that the house is as well insulated as it can be, and that the income of the occupant is maximised and their fuel expenditure minimised. That is why benefit checks and fuel tariff checks are offered as an integral part of the package.

It is not just the elderly who are fuel poor. The central heating programme provided heating systems to pensioners who were not in fuel poverty, as well as to those who were. The energy assistance package tackles the fuel poverty that is faced by families with children under 16 and disabled children, as well as by poorer pensioners. It offers a wider range of heating and installation measures, which allow us to deal better with harder-to-treat homes. Those include solid wall insulation and air-source heat pumps.

There is a lower rate of complaints about the old programmes, thanks to improved management of the customer journey and greater sensitivity. Delivery times have been slashed in half.

The EAP was recommended by the fuel poverty forum, which continues to monitor its progress and make recommendations for changes. The forum is independent and represents a wide range of stakeholders. The final reconciliation of budget and spend for the first year will take some time, but I am pleased to say that I can give the committee some provisional outturn figures for year 1 of the energy assistance package.

The EAP has spent its £50.9 million budget in 2009-10. We will have provided improvements to 13,000 homes, of which at least 11,500 will include heating system measures, and 62 per cent of those 11,500 heating systems will have resulted from EAP applications. Insulation measures for 26,079 social sector homes have also been completed—more than were completed under the warm deal. More than 22,000 referrals to providers of cavity wall or loft insulation in private sector households have been achieved under the carbon emissions reduction target scheme. There have been over 31,000 referrals for advice on social energy tariffs and benefits health checks, resulting in average savings on energy bills of £126, and in pensioners increasing their incomes by, on average, more than £1,200 per year. Energy savings advice has been given to more than 66,000 households.

We want to ensure that we can keep improving what is on offer and extend the range of households that are helped. The energy assistance package has been set up as a dynamic and responsive programme. It extended eligibility to more families and more energy efficient houses during the course of the first year and it shows that we are responding to the views of stakeholders and the needs of Scottish households. A demanding new contract for the stage 4 management agent is currently being tendered, which will set tough targets around delivery timescales, customer service and green jobs, in order to benefit communities. We are continuing to develop the package with imagination and joined-up thinking. Our area-based home insulation scheme is linked with the energy assistance package and has already generated over 10,000 referrals to the EAP.

The fuel poverty forum is looking at how to extend eligibility for particular groups of people, particularly the chronically sick and disabled, and we are helping people who live in homes that are off the gas grid. As well as having 75 air-source heat pump installations under way, we are planning trials of a micro combined heat and power system that will generate electricity on the back of burning liquid petroleum gas for heating. We are getting offers of help from the suppliers of the fuels that are used off the gas grid to reduce costs for LPG and oil to help fuel-poor households.

I want to thank all those who have helped to make the EAP a success, in particular Scottish Gas, which is the managing agent for stage 4. Scottish Gas should be commended for its extra efforts in the coldest winter for many years. I also thank the Energy Saving Trust and, of course, the Scottish fuel poverty forum, whose advice and insight have been most welcome. I look forward to receiving the forum’s report on the year’s activities and any recommendations that it has on making the energy assistance package even more effective in the future.

Good morning minister. On 24 March, the minister answered a question that I had asked regarding the energy assistance package. He told me that £24.8 million of the £50.6 million that was available for the EAP had been spent. If I am correct, the minister has this morning said that £50.9 million has now been spent. How did this miraculous event take place? Have we spent almost £24 million in one month?

It is not miraculous. It is a similar spend profile to previous programmes, in which there has been a huge increase in invoicing for the jobs that have been done at the end of the financial year. Anyone who knows anything about these programmes and how they work will understand that the contractors tend to invoice at the tail end of the financial year in order to ensure that they have got all their income in and invoiced by the end of the financial year. I warned Ms Mulligan to treat the interim figures very cautiously indeed because the end-year figure would show that we would have spent our budget.

How many people received central heating measures in the final month?

In the whole year, there were 11,500 stage 4 measures. We should be able to give you the figures for the final month.

The numbers for the end of March will be published. We are reconciling the figures as we speak, because there are numbers that represent central heating installations and numbers that represent commitments to install—which are under way—and which have been funded from that year’s budget. The breakdown of the figures for the final month and April is going on. The information will be made available.

The minister said that the £50.9 million has been spent. Does that mean that everybody received whatever measure was decided by 31 March, or is work still to be carried out?

Some installations are still under way. People will have been informed before the end of March that they were to receive a system, and the systems will be put in place during the course of the next month. That is what has happened in the past.

Exactly the same procedure was used for calculating spend and activity under the central heating programme. There is no difference in the methodology that is used to calculate performance and spend.

How many people are still waiting for measures to be carried out?

We will be happy to provide the committee details of that in writing.

Given the weather in January and February, it was physically difficult for contractors to get out to do installations, so some installations were pushed back. We can give you a breakdown of that.

We are all aware of the weather in January and February. That is partly why we were concerned to know whether people had received the necessary measures.

Earlier in the year we talked about uptake of the programme and how people hear about it. Will the minister talk about the steps that have been taken to ensure that people are aware of the scheme? Has your approach increased uptake? What further measures might you take?

Of course, there was a transition period between the old and new programmes. We took a decision to ramp up the marketing of the new programme gradually, from August, rather than build up a waiting list that could not be satisfied. The ramping up has been successful.

Experience of the current programme and its predecessor, the central heating programme, has shown that the most effective marketing tool is poor weather. Most contacts are made when the weather turns nasty, as it did this year.

We have marketed the energy assistance package extensively, through the media and through leaflet distribution. The Energy Saving Trust, which markets a range of products, has proactively marketed the programme. We have also had a significant number of referrals via the new housing insulation scheme. People who are getting insulation under the scheme have been referred to the energy assistance package.

The total number of calls to the energy assistance package this year was 69,346. Contrary to some press reports that I have read, which suggested that the conversion rate was 10 per cent, the conversion rate for people being assisted was 96 per cent. That means that 96 per cent of the nearly 70,000 people who contacted the programme received help of one type or another. Some of those people had central heating systems and were looking only for cavity wall, loft or top-up insulation. Some were looking only for advice and some were looking for referral so that they could get on to the social tariff or reduced tariffs. It is absolute nonsense to say that the conversion rate was only 10 per cent; there was a 96 per cent conversion rate from contacting the programme to receiving assistance.

The conversion rate of people who were referred to stage 4—about 15,000 people—to their being eligible for and getting a stage 4 measure was 47 per cent, which is almost exactly the same percentage as under the old central heating programme. Those who say that there is only a 10 per cent conversion rate clearly do not understand how the programme works.

10:15

I would say that a referrals rate of 12,000 is not quite 15,000, and although contacts of 69,000 are to be welcomed, they are not quite the 75,000 estimate that you put out earlier in the year, minister. However, we have made progress.

Finally, what information do you have about people who have dropped out of the scheme before they received the measures that they may have benefited from? What changes might you make to the scheme to reduce the drop-out level?

First, let me say that of the people who call the EAP, 96 per cent are referred and helped and only 4 per cent do not receive any help, which by any standard is a reasonable performance. I will also correct Mary Mulligan and confirm exactly the number of households that were referred to stage 4 at the end of the year. This is not rumour, poor research or anything else; this is fact: 15,066 households were referred to stage 4 and more than 7,100 households have had, or are having, measures installed, which is a conversion rate of 47 per cent. As I said earlier, the central heating programme had a similar conversion rate for those who were eligible for that part of the programme.

What is the minister’s response to my question about those who have dropped out of the programme? Will he make improvements to the scheme to avoid that in the future?

We must be clear that, when people contact the energy assistance package, they are assessed—it is not technically an application. They are given information and advice based on their individual circumstances and the condition of their house—particularly its standard assessment procedure rating. Therefore, there are not drop-outs in the sense that they have applied but then pulled out. The system means that, once people are assessed, they are told whether they are eligible for—in this case—stage 4 of the programme.

If Mary Mulligan is asking about the 53 per cent who were referred to stage 4 but did not qualify for or go ahead with a stage 4 measure, we are happy to provide a more detailed breakdown and analysis of the figures. Most will not have proceeded because they were, ultimately, ineligible—because, for example, they were not on a qualifying benefit or the SAP rating of the house was too high to qualify. There is a range of reasons, and we are happy to provide a detailed analysis of the balance of 53 per cent.

I am sorry, convener, but can I come back in?

You can have a final question.

I perhaps did not make myself clear, but I have raised this with the minister previously, so I thought that he might understand. I cannot be the only MSP who has had constituents come to her to say that they have got to such a stage in the process but cannot go ahead—they have not been refused the next measures, but have just given up because they felt that the system was overly bureaucratic. They have dropped out, and those are the people whom I have concerns about, because they probably could have been helped but have not been. I am happy for the minister to come back to me with figures on that, but I am concerned that we ensure that people do not drop out of their own accord.

Some people who are eligible decide that they cannot cope with the disruption. We offer help to people over 70 to clear lofts and so on, and under our new contract we will extend help more widely to more people who cannot cope with the disruption. Some people say that they are not interested, and it is possibly an emotional reaction that they cannot cope with the disruption.

We know of one complaint of bureaucracy—one form was a little overcomplicated, and we have asked for it to be altered. I am very keen to ensure that we do not make a complex bureaucratic process, and we are certainly looking at it.

I issued an open invitation in the chamber to MSPs and, indeed, to anyone else, to tell me about cases that they believe have been processed in an overly bureaucratic way. After all, it is not in anyone’s interests if individuals find accessing the programme to be a bureaucratic nightmare; it certainly would not achieve the programme’s objectives. We are very keen to minimise bureaucracy.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that we have received significantly fewer complaints about this programme than about the previous programme, and we are trying to quantify that in the year-end figures. When we have completed the exercise, I will be happy to supply that information to the committee.

I am glad to hear that cases are being taken on board and that changes are being made to the forms. That will be very helpful. All MSPs have been involved—perhaps overly so—with the transition from the central heating programme to the energy assistance package and, thankfully, many of the appeals and interventions that I and others have made have secured central heating for people. I, too, welcome the progress, but I think that the minister will accept that in the transition there have been some difficulties with bureaucracy and understanding.

With regard to the 70,000 calls to the EAP helpline, has any work been carried out on whether people appreciate the mechanism and whether they find it easy to use and to reach some understanding of why calls are made in the first instance? For example, it has been suggested that some people call because they are shivering or feel cold and are worried that their central heating is breaking down, that the heating is not sufficient or whatever. Are the people who call the helpline made aware of their right to comment on or complain about progress, or about their expectations not having been met?

Absolutely. We make it absolutely clear that anyone with a complaint can call 0800 501 2012 with the details and it will be properly investigated.

Is that part of that phone conversation?

Well—

Minister, I am asking a question. Please give me time to complete it.

If I call the helpline only to be told that I am at stage 2 and cannot go any further, am I also told at that point that I am able to complain about or challenge that decision?

If someone asks whether they can appeal a decision, they will be told how to do that.

So, people are not informed of their right to appeal a decision. I think that that is where things sometimes break down. Obviously I realise that there are good reasons why, under the terms of the scheme, not everyone gets to stage 2, 3 or whatever. However, are the people who cannot get any further made aware at that point that there is a number to call if they are not satisfied with the decision, that they can appeal it and so on?

Everyone has a personal adviser, initially with EST, who will hold their hands through the process. I point out that the process is not sequential. People get referred for benefits at the same time as they are referred for insulation or stage 4 measures. Those who get to stage 4 have a personal customer manager who sticks with them the whole time. There are also standard telephone protocols, which include notification of certain information.

Is there a right to appeal the final decision?

Absolutely.

Are people made aware of that?

Yes.

These people come to us. When I ask them whether they have appealed the decision, they tell me that they were not aware that they could do so. I have a very good relationship with my caseworkers, who have a very good relationship with the EAP advisers. There is a dialogue there. However, I sometimes feel that MSPs get involved too early because people are not aware of the appeals process or that they can actually raise these issues.

In every case, people should be made aware that there is an appeal process. Ultimately, those cases come to me, particularly from MSPs, for a response. So far, I do not think that I have received any complaints from an MSP about a person’s not being informed about the appeal process. However, if you have such cases, please write to me, because it means that the system is not working as efficiently as it should. We will rectify that.

My staff deal directly with the EAP, which is very good, but there is no way of logging complaints that come to us or our interventions. If an MSP or other elected representative intervenes on behalf of a constituent, is it registered as a complaint or an intervention?

We have a list of complaints and queries, and the list notes whether the complaint has come via a third party, including MSPs.

What about an inquiry? I am just trying to get a measure of the complaints that the minister suggested. Complaints obviously come through the complaints procedure, and MSPs intervene, but are inquiries included alongside those complaints?

We get a breakdown of that.

Inquiries are included, and we can monitor separately the numbers of complaints that are received from MSPs about the programme through the internal ministerial correspondence system. As you know, convener, we issued a special number at Scottish Gas that MSPs can use to contact us with any problems with installation or any other aspect of the programme. We issued that number some months ago because, when I came into this job, I felt that if a constituent went to an MSP and the MSP wrote to me and I wrote back, it would be far quicker if the MSP or their staff could phone a special number—Frances Willis at Scottish Gas—and the issue could be dealt with right away.

Minister, there are lots of good constituency MSPs around the table who know Frances Willis very well.

Mary Mulligan asked questions about the total amount of money spent and the process of spending it. Are you talking about the total amount of money spent or the total amount of money that has been committed?

We use the standard procedure for reporting, so I was talking about the money that was committed during the year. We report on Government programmes by using what has been invoiced to the Government by 5 April, which is technically the end of the financial year. That is the standard procedure. It has not changed since the old programme; it is exactly the same procedure. The money is committed, but we might send the cheque after 5 April because we might only have received the invoice on 4 April.

So, if I understand you, what you are talking about this morning is the total amount of money that has been committed rather than what has been spent.

Yes.

How much is spent?

We can give you a precise figure on that but, at the end of the day, many invoices are outstanding and still to be paid by the Government paymaster. We can supply the committee with the figure.

Last year, the Government set a budget of £45.9 million. During the year, we had a one-off consequential allocation of £5 million to top that up. That totals £50.9 million, and I am saying to you that all of that £50.9 million has been committed—

Rather than spent, as you suggested earlier.

As I said, the cheques might not have all gone out.

I think that the language that we use in committee is important. As you have outlined, there is a difference between money being committed and money that is spent. We have also heard that, although we might commit to spending money, that might not be followed through. Is there a figure for what has been spent to date against what you are committed to spend?

10:30

If the scope is redefined in that way, we must also consider the start of the financial year. It is clear that jobs were left over from the committed spend in the published budgets for the old programme. The budget had been committed, but the cheques might not have gone out. To answer your question completely, we would need to double-check the carryover, in the terms in which you expressed it, at the start of the financial year and compare that with the carryover at the end of the financial year. We are happy to supply that information, which we will obtain from our finance colleagues.

You recognise the difference between what is committed and what is spent, and you referred to what was spent. However, some money has not been spent. How much money has been spent?

The money has been identified—an address is beside an amount. We draw up an accruals list, which contains all the jobs that have yet to be finally invoiced. We are committed to spending on those jobs.

I accept that completely, but I want to probe the issue to identify the number of people who are waiting in the system rather than what has been spent. What have we actually spent?

The amount that has not been spent identifies not the number who are waiting but the speed of invoicing—that is all.

We will send the committee the information from the start of the previous financial year. We will start with what was carried over into this financial year and what was invoiced but not paid for under the old programme—the convener defines that as money that was spent during the year—and we will cover how much money had been invoiced but not paid to the contractor at the end of the previous financial year.

An explanation of the normal procedure for paying contractors—whether that is done before or after a job is completed—and of when invoices arrive would help.

We do not pay unless a job has been done.

I return to central heating. You said that you were keen to ensure a confluence of the aims and objectives of the energy assistance package with wider social objectives. How does the EAP relate to the home insulation scheme that is being piloted in a dozen or so places, including my constituency?

It might be useful if I broaden my answer. The Scottish Government is involved in four main programmes. Our principal programme is the energy assistance package. As I said, that has a core budget of £45.9 million and one-off consequentials of £5 million. We have received nearly 70,000 calls about the package and 96 per cent of callers have been given some assistance.

As a result of the budget negotiations last year, the Parliament approved a budget for a new home insulation programme. Its budget last year was £15 million, and its budget is the same this year. On top of that, the Parliament authorised an additional scheme—the universal home insulation scheme—which was part of this year’s budget negotiations. That involves another £10 million. Together, the two insulation schemes have a budget of £25 million, but their budgets are managed separately.

On top of all that, we are part of the United Kingdom Government’s scheme with power companies for the carbon emissions reduction target programme. The notional figure that was spent on that programme in Scotland in the financial year that has just completed is £100 million, of which 40 per cent was supposed to have been spent on fuel-poor households.

We have a problem with the CERT programme, which the rest of the United Kingdom shares. The relevant UK minister until this morning—David Kidney—and I, with our counterparts from Northern Ireland and Wales, were working with the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets to force the energy companies to give us the exact figures on how much they spend in each territory, where they spend money and what they spend it on. It is ironic that Ofgem does not have the power to force the energy companies to give us that information.

The four ministers—the UK minister, myself, the Northern Ireland minister and the Welsh minister—in our regular meetings agreed with Ofgem that, if the energy legislation had gone through before the election, it would have included a provision to give Ofgem the power to force the energy companies to give us the information on CERT. We hope that the bill will now be resuscitated.

If we add up the programmes and assume that the £100 million has genuinely been spent in Scotland and that 40 per cent of it has genuinely been spent on fuel-poor households—much of the work is done through local authorities—we reach a total of £175 million that should have been spent last year on energy efficiency and tackling fuel poverty.

There is arguably an embarrassment of riches—or possibly an embarrassment of acronyms. Can you say anything more about how you are ensuring public understanding of the schemes and how they relate to one another? Although money is undoubtedly being committed, it has been pointed out to me that the sheer number of acronyms is possibly confusing to the public.

Absolutely. We are looking at that to see how we can make the programmes easier for the public to understand. I mentioned the four main programmes that we are involved in as a Government, but there are other programmes on top of that—as you know, many local authorities have their own programme, too. We are conscious of the need to get more uniformity into the labelling and branding.

It so happens that the implementation group had a meeting yesterday on the universal home insulation scheme. That will be delivered primarily through the local authorities, and we agreed that they can brand it as they like in their area but that there will be a strapline that says, “Part of the Scottish Government’s energy assistance package.” I would like to reach a situation in which we have one branding for all the programmes, including even the CERT programme, which would make things much easier for the end users to understand. For example, they should know who to phone because, ideally, there should be only one helpline.

The energy assistance package acts as a gateway. Anyone who phones the energy assistance package phone number—0800 512 012—should be referred to any one of the other programmes if appropriate. We want to emphasise that point, and in all our marketing we are trying to get that message across.

You mentioned hard-to-treat houses and houses that are off the gas grid. There is also the issue of householder requests for oil heating. How do you intend to deal with those requests in the future? Obviously, there is a question about whether, depending on the price of oil, people can afford to maintain such a system. Similarly, there is a question about whether it is a more efficient means of heating a house than electricity. Have you done any more work on that?

I will mention two things. The whole point of the programmes is that people are given advice on the most appropriate system for their area if they are installing a new system. In the Western Isles, for example, a lot of people are not on the gas grid, so they have to look at other ways of heating their home. The first thing is to provide advice on not just the technical but the most economic options.

The second point is that, as we move through the programmes and look in particular at the central heating element, it is clear that the low-hanging fruit has by and large been picked—the easy-to-heat houses and the easy-to-install central heating systems. I am not saying that there is none left but, by and large, we are now dealing with the hard-to-heat areas, particularly in the island and remoter, rural communities.

In recognition of the additional costs in those areas, we have lifted the cap. Under the old central heating programme, the maximum that could be spent was £5,500, after which people had to top up. We have now lifted the cap to £6,500 as a recognition that it is much more costly to install heating systems in some areas than it is to install a standard central heating system for someone who is on the gas grid. We are very conscious of that.

Of course, we have extended the options. For example, under the old central heating programme people did not get certain things, such as LPG heating systems, solid wall insulation or underfloor insulation. Those are now available under the energy assistance package. People did not get safety alarms under the warm deal, but we provide safety alarms in this programme. We have extended the range of technologies and the range of applications.

We have also extended the eligibility range because, under the old programme, families did not qualify for a central heating system. In the energy assistance package, people with children under the age of five or a disabled child under the age of 16 qualify for a central heating system. That was not the case under the old central heating programme.

As you know, I have asked the fuel poverty forum to examine whether it would be feasible to extend eligibility for the energy assistance package to households with a disabled adult and to families who live in fuel poverty and in which someone is chronically sick, such as a cancer patient. We could not afford to extend eligibility to everybody who is chronically sick; we are looking at people who are chronically sick and who are living in fuel poverty. I expect to have the recommendations from the fuel poverty forum on those specific points within the next few weeks.

You mentioned, in relation to hard-to-treat houses, cladding of buildings with solid walls. Is there any evidence that increased eligibility has led to increased take-up? Are figures available on that?

Top-up insulation is proving to be the most popular. I can give you some figures on the insulation schemes. In respect of the home insulation scheme, which has been running for a year, all 95,079 houses in the target areas have been visited to completion. That has led to a high rate of engagement with households, resulting in 47,307 home energy checks. There have been 32,271 referrals of all types, including 21,374 referrals for home insulation scheme insulation measures; 2,357 referrals for energy assistance package stage 4 measures; 967 referrals for insulation measures under the energy assistance package; and 7,044 referrals for tariff/benefit checks under the energy assistance package. So far, 2,324 insulation measures have been installed from our referrals and that number will continue to grow. We are happy to provide the committee with the details; it is hard to take it all in in one go.

The clerks asked whether any such information was available before the meeting. It would be extremely helpful for the committee to have such information beforehand to ensure that evidence sessions with the minister were as meaningful as possible. I hope that, at future meetings, we will get such information up front rather than the generous offer being made to give it to us after an evidence session.

Minister, forgive me if I have missed this in the blizzard of statistics with which we have been assailed this morning, but you referred, in your final answer to Mr Allan, to low-income families in energy inefficient homes with children under five or a disabled child under 16 as a new group of people who are eligible under the energy assistance package—they were not eligible under the previous programmes that it replaced. If you have the information, can you tell me how many low-income families have been helped in 2009-10? How many in that eligible group have we helped at stage 4?

As of Monday, we extended eligibility—I believe that the relevant instrument was considered by this committee—to those families who receive what I think is called the family element of child tax credit, of which there are about 10,000 in Scotland. They are, if you like, the larger families. We can give you the precise numbers.

10:45

We have extended eligibility to people who receive more than just the family element of child tax credit.

Yes, I meant families who receive more than the family element. Do we have the number of families involved?

At the moment, families make up just under 10 per cent of people who receive stage 4 benefits, but that will build up once the amendment to the regulations takes effect.

I appreciate that you might have to dig out the figures and supply them to the committee subsequently, but I want to get a handle on the issue. According to our briefing note, 12,171 households were referred for stage 4 support between April 2009 and February 2010. You probably updated that figure earlier, although I did not take a note of it.

Are you telling us that 10 per cent of that group is made up of people who have become eligible under that category in 2009-10? Is that correct?

About 10 per cent are in the family category and the others are in the pensioner category. Because the predecessor programmes were aimed at the pensioner group, the level of knowledge, understanding and awareness of those programmes is far higher among pensioners than it is among families. An issue that we are tackling is how to be more successful in getting to the families who qualify. Data transfer is an issue that will be on the agenda when I meet the new ministers who are responsible for such matters in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Energy and Climate Change. If we could get from the benefits agencies the data on families who would qualify, we could knock on their doors. That is the position that we would like to reach. A figure of 10 per cent is not bad, but I would like that percentage to go up because it is clear that a lot of families could benefit much more than they have done in the past.

I have a useful statistic for the committee that might help to put things in perspective. In the past, we have tended to equate fuel poverty programmes with central heating programmes, but we are now in a position in which only 5 per cent of families in Scotland who are fuel poor do not have a central heating system. Therefore, many fuel-poor families have a central heating system that is working, but because of the loss of a job, a reduction in income, not being on the social tariff or being on too high a tariff, they are still spending more than 10 per cent of their disposable income on energy costs.

As we make progress over the years, the 5 per cent figure will be reduced. We could make progress much more quickly if we had a data transfer arrangement with the DWP. The emphasis will be on other measures, particularly insulation. We are getting to the stage at which a high percentage of houses, even among the fuel poor, already have a central heating system that is functioning perfectly well.

Indeed, although it is fair to say that in past evidence on the subject, it has been suggested to the committee that one of the problem areas is central heating systems that are not efficient or not properly maintained, some of which require replacement. How is that problem, which has been highlighted to us on a number of occasions, being addressed?

The figures show that the problem often arises because of the boiler—a new boiler is needed. People who qualify under the energy assistance package would get a new boiler for nothing. In addition, as you know, we have announced the extension of the boiler scrappage scheme to Scotland. Anyone who has a boiler that does not work—not just fuel-poor people—can apply to that scheme. That will help as well; it has a £2 million budget for this year.

I was going to ask you about the boiler scrappage scheme. I am glad that you have mentioned the fact that it is now being extended to Scotland.

I was interested to hear your helpful exposition in your answer to Mr Allan about the four programmes in which the Scottish Government is involved—in some instances, in partnership with the United Kingdom Government and the energy companies. I share his and your concerns about the branding of those and how they link together and complement one another. Given today’s new dawn, in your discussions with Her Majesty’s Government, what is in the in-tray in relation to energy efficiency and fuel poverty that needs to be taken forward, building on what has been achieved to date? What do you identify as the issues that need to be considered in that context?

Three or four things will be on the agenda. We have been in touch with the private offices of the UK ministers, whose names we will know soon, to start to arrange meetings right across the Scottish Government. We want to work in partnership with our colleagues at Westminster, as we did with the previous Administration south of the border.

First, I have already mentioned that a data transfer arrangement with the Department for Work and Pensions would be extremely helpful in allowing us to target much more precisely the families in fuel poverty we are trying to help. Secondly, I have made representations on the cold weather payments and the way in which they apply in Scotland. A degree of flexibility in that regard would be helpful. Thirdly, in our approach to the energy companies, we all agreed with the previous Administration—I hope that we will agree with the new Administration—that we must try to get those companies to be more precise in telling us where, how and when they are spending the CERT money.

The other part of my agenda, which the First Minister will pursue, is the fossil fuel levy. At the moment, £200 million is sitting in the fossil fuel levy account, doing nothing. If we were able to get that money without that impacting on departmental expenditure limits, some of it could be used for the kind of programmes that we are talking about and to increase investment in some of the programmes that I have described this morning.

Thank you for that. That will be a useful contribution to the agenda for some of your early meetings.

Absolutely, and I would appreciate anything that you or Jim Tolson could do to facilitate that.

We are, of course, steadfast in our support for the new Administration.

Absolutely.

United, I may say.

I always knew that you were close buddies politically.

We are, indeed.

I have a new-found friend.

We have a couple of other questions—

Sorry—can I continue with my questions?

I thought that you had finished your questions when you started getting into the chat.

Oh, I see. No, it was just an orgy of self-congratulation. I beg your pardon; we are getting diverted.

I raise a matter that came up in correspondence from a group of constituents who have been in touch with me. It relates to people who live in sheltered housing where the energy supply is effectively a single supply—there is a contract for a single source and everybody in the complex is billed for their share of it. A significant number of people in such complexes who would be eligible for social tariffs or support are unable to access those things because of the energy-buying arrangements that are in place between their housing association or sheltered housing manager and the energy company. I have good reason to believe that people in such complexes are paying miles over the odds—substantial amounts of money. In one case, someone was paying £100 a month for a two-apartment flat, which is ridiculous. That is more than I pay for my house.



There is something far wrong with such arrangements. Many older people living in those kinds of communities are paying a very high price for their energy, whereas if they were living in single households they would be eligible for some kind of supportive assistance in the form of social tariffs, or for some of the energy efficiency measures that you have outlined. I know that the subject is complicated, but you might want to comment on it. Maybe you could put it in your in-tray or on an agenda because, clearly, there is an overlap between what we can do here and the relationship with the energy companies.

That is a fair point. I do not have any statutory powers to change that or to force housing associations or owners of sheltered accommodation—because some of that accommodation is in private ownership—to do so. However, if you send me the evidence, I will ask the Housing Regulator whether he would be able to comment on it and to see whether, under housing legislation, the residents of such houses should be given an option. You may also want to feed that into the consultation, when we come to it, on the new Scottish housing charter. I would be concerned if people were not being given a choice. I suggest, Mr McLetchie, that you write to me. I will be happy to take up the issue with the Housing Regulator and with others, including the energy companies, to see if there is anything that we can do to extend the choice of people in that situation.

One aspect of the energy assistance package, which has extended eligibility from the old scheme, is that we provide support, including stage 4 support, to people living in mobile homes. They did not qualify under the old programme, but they do qualify under this one.

I am grateful to you for that, minister.

With regard to choice, when there is a central boiler that services a complex there can be only one buyer. Part of the problem is the energy efficiency of the complex as a whole, the costs associated with heating common areas, for which people are billed, and the fact that the tariff that is negotiated is not discounted to reflect the individual circumstances of people living in the complex who, were they individuals, might be eligible for social tariffs. There is a complex set of issues. One cannot install a boiler in everybody’s house; that would be uneconomical.

I do not know whether the required technology exists, even in the situation you describe. I will explore the possibility of metering the individual houses. Although they feed into a central boiler, the technology might exist to allow the metering of individual usage. If that is the case, we may be able to do more on this front.

That would be helpful. I would be grateful for that. I will send you the information that I have.

I think you can also expect correspondence from tenants of Broomhill and Whinhill. Apart from the cost, I get complaints from people who cannot turn their heating off.

That is right.

That is very inefficient. They complain that their homes are too warm. There is a problem. Perhaps this question can be left to some constructive engagement in the future. We appreciate your offer, minister.

With regard to the effect on families, I think that we are making progress. I do not know what we can do for next year, because this year’s money is committed and spent, so families will not gain anything from it. Next year, will a notional amount be targeted to families, although not to the extent that others lose out?

I have another issue, which is based on experience in my constituency. The issue is not so much about the social rented sector, where much work has been done to install central heating, cavity wall insulation and so on; it is about the private sector. I have come across horrific experiences of families who were unable to trigger support or were unaware of how to do so and whose landlords were not particularly interested in the issue.

There are problems to do with the landlord registration scheme. There is awareness in local authorities of the rental support and rates relief that they provide. However, I do not know whether there is the knowledge at Government and local government level and among social landlords and so on that would enable us to create a target group, to ensure that the fuel poverty forum’s ambition to support families is realised.

11:00

You make a valid point about tenants in the private rented sector. As you know, in the context of the proposed private housing bill, we are tackling issues to do with the extension of tenants’ rights to people who live in the landlorded sector. Perhaps we need to include in the bill the issue that you raise. We can consider how to do so. I will take up that specific point and ascertain whether we can use the bill to build into the new statutory rights of tenants in the private rented sector some provision to ensure that we can force the issue if someone has a reluctant or a rogue landlord. We know that a fair proportion of tenants in the private rented sector come from poorer and more vulnerable sections of the community—although they are not all in that category. If we can do anything to force the issue, I will be happy to consider it.

We deliberately did not set targets for particular groups or geographical areas in the energy assistance package. The approach has been demand led, as the previous programme was. However, there is no doubt that if we had a data-sharing arrangement with the DWP, we could target people and families much more effectively. Therefore, in my discussions with the new ministers in the DWP, I will be keen to pursue data sharing, which will allow us to target families more successfully.

I think that in general we target pensioners quite successfully. However, families are more difficult to reach. One reason for that is that pensioners have been able to access central heating programmes for a long time, whereas families have been able to access the new programme only in the past year. Therefore, awareness and knowledge are not nearly as extensive among families as they are among the pensioner community—that is my experience. A challenge for this year and subsequent years is to reach more families, so that we make people aware of what is available and encourage families who are living in fuel poverty to take up the various options.

You mentioned the boiler scrappage scheme, which I think will be rolled out from 25 May. Are you entirely happy about how the scheme will roll out and how vouchers will be allocated?

I have heard no complaints about the approach, but if you have heard something, convener—

I understand that on 25 May people will be able to log in and get a voucher, but when the vouchers are gone they are gone.

The scheme will be exactly the same as the scheme down south—

I am not much interested in the scheme down south. I do not know how the approach will suit Alasdair Allan’s constituents, who live in an area where broadband connections are not too good. I understand that it will be like bid television. Five thousand vouchers will be available, and people who have access to a personal computer and a good connection on the morning of 25 May will get a ticket to play. For people who have no access to a PC and whose awareness of the system is low, the opportunity will be gone.

This is the first time that the issue has been raised, but I will look into it and ensure that we do not end up with that kind of scenario. I think that it is possible to log in from 25 May to get a boiler assessed to find out whether it needs replaced. I suspect that many more people will apply for replacement than qualify for it and, as you know, the budget is limited to £2 million. However, I will certainly take on board the point that you raise. It is a valid point and I will write to you once I have checked it out.

I will try to select some questions that the convener has not already asked this morning.

I was following up on questions that had already been asked.

That is fine, convener. That is your prerogative as convener of the committee.

Minister, you have thrown a number of figures at us and indicated that the number of people in Scotland who find themselves in fuel poverty has increased. Those of us who have worked on fuel poverty for a while fully understand that it is measured as a percentage of household income. You gave another figure that indicates that we are down to almost 5 per cent of households being without central heating systems. However, how do we tackle fuel poverty when fuel prices continue to rise and we face situations such as the one at the beginning of the year, in which the weather was bitterly cold, which meant that it cost more to heat houses? How do we tackle that? Energy assistance programmes are all fine and well, but what if people do not have the income to use the central heating system? I know from discussions with constituents that people self-regulate their use of energy; they turn it off. How do we get the message over to the elderly and vulnerable in our society that they will not be penalised for using the energy that is required to heat their homes?

As I said earlier, there are three stools to fuel poverty: one is the level of income, the second is energy prices and the third is the energy efficiency of homes, which includes the technology that is employed in them.

I will give you an example on new-build houses. One of the first visits that I made as the housing minister was to a new housing development in Dumfries and Galloway. A lady there had moved from a two-bedroom flat into a new, four-bedroom, upstairs-downstairs house but the standard of insulation was such that her gas bills had gone down by £120 a month.

You are absolutely right. The work that we are doing in the programme, on improved building regulation and on insulation is making a significant difference to a large number of people, but fuel poverty is still rising in Scotland and, indeed, the rest of the United Kingdom. The Office for National Statistics official figure in the latest housing condition survey of 2008 estimates that about 27 per cent of households in Scotland live in fuel poverty.

Let us go back to the three stools. We are playing our part by, for example, trying to install central heating systems in houses that have none; ensuring that, in houses where the system or boiler does not work properly, that is rectified; and ensuring that houses in Scotland are properly insulated. However, even if we spend our entire housing and regeneration budget on those programmes, we will still have a high and probably rising level of fuel poverty if income levels continue to be as depressed as they have been during the recession and energy prices continue to rise.

The UK Government is responsible for tax and benefits. We need it to provide a strategy that increases the level of disposable income for poorer families, poorer pensioners and poorer individuals—that includes people in work, because 15 per cent of people in work live in poverty, including fuel poverty—as well as tighter control on energy prices through Ofgem.

I am not making a political point about the powers of this Parliament or anything like that, but the fundamental fact is that, if we are to eliminate fuel poverty, which is an ambition that we all share, we need all three elements—the income element, the energy price element and what we are doing—to work in unison toward that objective.

I hope that your comments this morning will be taken on board by the new Government in Westminster, particularly in relation to Ofgem. Press reports on Ofgem say that energy prices are likely to rise by 30 per cent, which is worrying, given the fact that, as you mentioned, 15 per cent of people in work are in fuel poverty. Even though we are supposed to be in a regulated market, those prices do not seem to be regulated and Ofgem does not seem to be using its powers.

On the energy assistance package, does the Scottish Government gather information on where requests for assistance come from or where support is given based on tenure type, whether it is social rented housing, owner-occupied housing or, as was mentioned earlier, housing in the private rented sector? That would be useful information.

Earlier, you mentioned the local authorities that have established their own energy assistance packages. How does that relate to where the energy assistance package resources are going? You said that the UK Government and the Scottish Government spent around £185 million last year on various energy assistance packages. It would be useful to find out where those resources went.

What are we doing to tackle fuel poverty and the inefficient use of energy in the non-standard-construction houses that exist in many local authority areas?

We have records of assistance by tenure, which we will provide the committee with. I think that we can also break down that information by local authority area. We will see whether we can do that. Those figures relate to our energy assistance programme and the first year of the home insulation scheme—the new scheme is not up and running yet, although it soon will be, and, as I said earlier, we do not have the information that we would like to have on CERT, so the information that we can give you will be limited to the first two programmes.

The social sector is sometimes forgotten about in discussions on the energy assistance package. In the year that has just finished, we funded energy efficiency measures in 26,079 social sector dwellings. Some 24,000 of those were in local authority housing and 4,000 were in housing associations. That investment complements the insulation work under CERT.

It is a fact that, in the next two and a half years, up to £2.5 billion will be invested as local authorities and housing associations achieve the 2016 target for the Scottish housing quality standard. In some cases, that will include energy efficiency measures and heating systems.

We will give the committee all of the information that we capture in relation to John Wilson’s question.

Fuel poverty is not just about the use of energy; it is also about energy consumption. The outgoing Westminster Government recently approved the introduction of smart metering. What discussions have taken place between the Scottish Government and Westminster officials on the introduction of smart metering in Scottish homes?

11:15

There are two things to say on that. First, I spoke to the UK minister about it on my last visit to London, but I also chair a group involving all the energy companies and I have raised the issue with them as well. As you know, there is a 20-year programme to smart meter the whole country and establish a smart grid, as it were, which could result in substantial savings, but it is quite a long-term investment programme. We will keep a close eye on it and try to ensure that Scotland gets more than its fair share in the early days of the programme. However, to be honest, I do not think that we can rely on that in the short term to reach the 2016 target. It will help, but, compared with the other measures that I have outlined, it will not be a big contributor until beyond 2016.

There was a flurry of statistics at the start of your comments, minister. I scribbled them down, but I want to make sure that I got them right. The headline figure that I picked out was that 96 per cent of people who engaged with the energy assistance package had some form of positive outcome. We have looked in detail at the central heating delivery element, but the energy assistance package is clearly more than a central heating delivery system; it is a one-stop shop and a multi-purpose vehicle for delivering a variety of positive outcomes. That is how we get the figure of 96 per cent.

You also gave some figures for benefits maximisation, which I wrote down. What is the average benefit per year per pensioner household in relation to income maximisation?

It is £126 for pensioners.

If I may correct you, minister, the latest information is that the average increase to annual income from the pensions service is £1,681, and Citizens Advice directors identified average potential increases in annual income for non-pensioner households of £2,241.

Okay. That is potential.

That is right, as those people have to go thorough the claims process. The pensions service is the process through which pensioners claim.

Okay. For the record, can you also give us the figure for money saved on social tariffs?

Yes, I can give you that. A total of 20,055 households were referred to energy providers. Of those, 2,167 households moved to cheaper tariffs with estimated annual savings of, on average, £118, and 243 households moved to cheaper payment methods with estimated savings of, on average, £128 a year.

I wanted those figures not just for clarity but to stress that it is not just an energy assistance package; it is an income and energy assistance package. We should try to ensure that all MSPs use the system appropriately. I often signpost constituents to the energy assistance package whether or not they have a central heating system. However, a culture change is needed in the way in which politicians engage with the system. Given the reserved nature of benefits entitlements and the energy markets, there is a substantial onus on the UK Government to ensure that benefits are taken up and that people are on the correct tariffs for their needs. Have you drawn any comparisons between the energy assistance package and the UK Government’s programmes for income maximisation for people on benefits or in relation to social tariffs? Is there something that we can compare in relation to those?

There is a danger of comparing apples with oranges, because the system down south is quite different. In Scotland, we have other income maximisation services, for example through local authorities. Link Housing Association runs a high-performing service, too, and there are a host of others. We will look at the effectiveness of income maximisation services across the board in Scotland to find the most effective way to maximise people’s incomes. For example, most of the people I have spoken to who have phoned the energy assistance package do not know about the income maximisation service but are pleased to find out about it, and many of them are now getting assistance from it.





The other important point that you touch upon is the total misunderstanding that 70,000 people have phoned the number to ask about central heating systems. As I have said, only 5 per cent of fuel-poor people in Scotland do not have central heating. People are phoning about cavity wall insulation, loft insulation, top-up insulation, social tariffs and so on. It is important that we understand that the package is a comprehensive, holistic, wide-ranging energy assistance package; it is not just a central heating programme.

Thanks for that, minister, but that is not why I asked the question. I am sure that the UK Government is funding benefit entitlement awareness schemes. If the Scottish scheme proves successful, surely we could look to the incoming UK Government to consider the scheme and, rather than try to duplicate it, give some form of direct funding to the Scottish Government energy assistance package for the specific purpose of benefit awareness and income maximisation.

If we were able to get the fossil fuel levy, we could do a lot more on that and in a range of other ways, as well as encouraging renewable energy. I am regularly in touch with the Department for Work and Pensions at various levels, which I understand will introduce pilot schemes, initially in relation to pension credit. I hope that that continues under the new Administration.

At the moment, there is a marketing campaign by the DWP to get more pensioners to take up the pension credit to which they are entitled. Only about two thirds of pensioners take up pension credit, which means not only that they are losing pension credit, but that they are losing access to programmes such as the energy assistance package—pension credit is one of the passports for getting a central heating system. In the pilot, the department will give pension credit to everyone it thinks is entitled to it and then claim it back if they are not entitled to it. It is hoped that if that works, instead of having two thirds take-up, take-up will be much closer to 100 per cent.

My understanding is that that approach will be piloted to see whether it can be done and whether it works effectively. My view is that if it works, it could be applied in relation not only to pension credit but to other benefits, such as council tax benefit, in which the take-up, particularly among pensioners, is not nearly as high as we want it to be. I agree with the thrust of Bob Doris’s question: we do compare notes with the UK Government, but if the pilot—which I think is being run by the DWP—works, it could go a long way to solving the problem of the lack of uptake of some of those key benefits.

Your reply related specifically to pension credit. If I was on family tax credits, I would be worried about what the Conservatives and the Liberals might do.

I am glad that you mentioned the fossil fuel levy, which is trapped in London. I can assure you that I am being rather political when I say this, but I have a long list of similar issues, including attendance allowance, regeneration money for the London Olympics and the Barnett consequentials relating to health care baseline expenditure and prisons expenditure. I am making a serious point. Scotland is down in relation to that money, and that is before cuts from London. We are sitting around this table talking about the success of the energy assistance package, and how to widen it to get more help to those who are most in need. We have a budget of roughly £45 million plus £5 million—£50.9 million—but what hope do you have of protecting that spending in the next budget round for Scotland? If the recession continues to bite, and fuel poverty continues to increase, it is vital that we protect that important expenditure. How confident are you that we can do that?

Obviously, we do not know what our budget will be beyond the current financial year, because there has not been a comprehensive spending review. I understand that there will now be an emergency budget within the next 50 days. I can only answer that question once I know what is in the emergency budget and what is in the comprehensive spending review with regard to the Scottish Government’s total budget.

The analysis by the chief economic adviser to the Scottish Government clearly indicates that, over the next 10 to 15 years, there will be very severe pressure on the Scottish Government’s budget. Clearly, if that becomes a reality, the Scottish Government will have to look at where our priorities lie. Obviously, I very much hope that my colleagues agree that tackling fuel poverty has to be one of the high priorities.

I am happy to endorse that, but I stress that, whatever negotiations the Scottish Government has with the UK Government, in the current climate initiatives to tackle poverty—of which fuel poverty is an extension—and income maximisation probably need more investment than ever before rather than less. I hope that you take that message to the incoming Conservative-Lib Dem Government.

Absolutely. If we believe the rumours and the Liberal Democrat policy of taking the first £10,000 of income out of the income tax net over a period is implemented, I will welcome that, because, as I have pointed out, the level of poverty and consequently the level of fuel poverty among people in work is quite high. If we take those people out of the income tax net, that will make a significant difference, but, like everyone else in the country, I wait to see what the new Government will do.

We are all waiting to see. Let us press on.

Good morning, minister—I think that it is still just about morning.

I was interested in what I think I understood you to say about pensioners knowing that the system is there and about accessing it but there still being a problem in getting to families. I can understand why that would be the case. Many of the families who would have been or are fuel poor will have had new central heating systems, because registered social landlords and local authorities could apply to provide them under the previous scheme. Might Mr Doris’s point about people believing that the scheme is still just about central heating and not about the other elements that have been added be one reason why families are not applying?

As I say, we continue to assist local authorities and housing associations to put new central heating systems in. It is a fair point that young families tend to be in more modern houses because they have been housed more recently than many pensioners, but there are a host of reasons why, in some cases, they are not as aware of the programme or not as proactive as, for example, pensioners in applying for it.

One challenge is to penetrate the family sector more effectively this year and in subsequent years to ensure that families who qualify and are eligible for the programme make maximum use of it. The most effective way to do that would involve data sharing with the DWP to allow us to identify the families who would benefit from the programme. If we could do that, we could just go and chap on their doors.

Or perhaps continuing to work with RSLs and local authorities would help to minimise the number of people who are outside the tent.

We are doing that. For obvious reasons, we work closely with RSLs and local authorities on all these programmes.

Indeed. I am glad to see that that part of the old system is continuing.

I was interested in your comments about perhaps extending provision to include people who have a chronic illness, and I am sure that everyone around the table would welcome that. Is an assessment being done of how many such people might be eligible? Many who would come into that category because of their illness might not necessarily be technically fuel poor, but the nature of their illness might push them into a situation in which the family unit finds it difficult to keep up with the need for additional heating and washing facilities for clothes and for personal reasons.

11:30

That is exactly what the fuel poverty forum is trying to do in working with us. Patricia Ferguson has put her finger on the nub of the problem, which is that we cannot help every chronically sick person through a programme whose purpose is to help those who are fuel poor. Identifying those who are both chronically sick and fuel poor is a challenge. Patricia Ferguson is absolutely right to raise that point.

For example, I recently came across one family who had been helped by nurses from Macmillan Cancer Support, which runs a Scottish Government-funded income maximisation service that, in my view, is one of the most effective such services in the country. By definition, the Macmillan nurses deal with people who are chronically sick. When I met that family—in Glasgow, it so happens—a few months ago, I was told how the lady of the family eventually had to give up her work after she took breast cancer. By any standard, the family were reasonably well-off: their income was well above the median household income; they owned their own home; and their only son was about to go to university. Indeed, convener, spelling out what happened to that family highlights the kind of problem that we face. When the lady of the house had to give up work after taking breast cancer, not only was her income lost to the family but her husband also had to give up his work to become her carer. Although both had been in well-paid jobs, it looked as though their son would not be able to afford to go to university. Thanks to Macmillan Cancer Support, we managed to help the family to retain ownership of their home and enable the son to go to university. By any definition, the family was in fuel poverty because, although the house happened to have a good central heating system, the low level of income meant that they were spending probably well over 10 per cent of their disposable income on fuel.

One issue that the fuel poverty forum is considering intensively is how we identify or reach such people and assess whether they are not just chronically sick but fuel poor. That is the challenge that we face. I hope to receive recommendations from the fuel poverty forum on that. The issue will not be easy to solve, but I am keen to see whether we can do something, because the irony is that it is even more important for a chronically sick person to have access to a warm, energy-efficient home than it is for someone who is not in that situation. Patricia Ferguson has raised a very relevant issue, which we are trying to tackle.

I do not want to extend this morning’s evidence session by discussing individual cases, but I am conscious of a constituency case in which, similarly, the issue was not the need for insulation to make maximum use of the heating—the house was brand-new, so it was well insulated and used all sorts of modern heating technologies—but the health of the father, who required a level of heating that a normal household would consider excessive. The family found it difficult to know where help could be sought. The problem has now been resolved—sort of—by a bit of creative thinking on the part of a number of organisations and individuals, but I am sure that many people out there must face similar problems. I realise how hard it is to reach those people, because they are often the last people who will come forward, although their need is very great.

I wish the minister and his group well in trying to address the problem. It is an interesting issue and, as the number of other people who need assistance with new heating systems and income maximisation diminishes through the process, that group will become one of several groups on which we have to focus our efforts.

I totally agree with what Patricia Ferguson has just said.

I apologise for arriving at the committee a minute or two into the minister’s statement this morning.

I would like to move on from Mr Doris’s party-political broadcast on behalf of the Scottish National Party Government to deal with some serious questions about the issue in hand, in particular the fuel poverty targets. As the minister quite rightly outlined to colleagues in answer to their questions this morning, investment of around £175 million a year has been made in four packages to help to reduce fuel poverty among those who qualify for the schemes. However, we are all well aware that fuel poverty is rising in Scotland and the rest of the UK as the cost of fuel goes up and incomes go down, and it is possible that a rise in unemployment will make the situation worse in the near future. I have been concerned for some time that the 2016 target to eradicate fuel poverty as far as is reasonably practicable will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to meet. Given the level of investment, can we meet the target? What does the Government mean by the phrase

“as far as is reasonably practicable”?

I note that it is possible that, given the new partnership in Westminster, Mr McLetchie and I could bend an ear or two down south to help out with the issue.

The 2016 target is ambitious, given that we are only six years from that date. It would be dishonest to say anything other than that it is extremely challenging. We are dependent on what happens about incomes and energy prices. All we can do is to invest our share and try to ensure that the third part of the triangular approach—our bit—has maximum effect. We are doing that through not only the energy assistance package but the other £25 million that is being spent on insulation and so on and our work with the energy companies on CERT. If Jim Tolson and David McLetchie are able to get access on the fossil fuel levy and things of that nature, we could do even more.

To reach the target, we are dependent on energy prices stabilising and/or income levels rising among people who are fuel poor at the moment. There is no getting away from that. That is why I would welcome an approach from the new UK Government that puts the elimination of poverty—particularly fuel poverty, child poverty and pensioner poverty—at the top of its agenda.

Like you, I am keen to ensure that not only my constituents in Dunfermline but everyone who is in fuel poverty in Scotland gets the chance to get out of fuel poverty as soon as possible, and I will do everything that I can to help in that regard. However, one way or another, it all comes down to pounds and pence.

From discussions with the previous UK Government and its officials, do you think that the £175 million that has been mentioned is enough to ensure that we can meet the target in six years’ time, or should we seek to hike up the investment? If the latter, what level would be suitable?

It is not so much a matter of the budget. As I said, even if we spent the whole of the housing and regeneration budget on energy assistance and insulation packages, we would still have a significant level of fuel poverty in Scotland if incomes remain depressed and energy prices continue to rise at the rate at which they have been rising. I cannot ensure that the target is met without assistance from the Government that controls reserved matters around energy prices and income maximisation.

I am satisfied that we are doing everything that we can, within our resources, to give the issue the level of priority that it merits. However, eliminating fuel poverty—or even making a significant dent in it—will depend on factors such as whether the minimum wage is raised to the level of the living wage, whether the first £10,000 is taken out of taxation, whether there are increases in pensions in line with wages from 2012, whether there are increases in disabled people’s benefits and whether child tax credit and child benefit rise. Those are the issues that will determine how much fuel poverty there is not only in Scotland but in the whole of the UK in the foreseeable future.

I am certain that, even in the short term, people who earn less than £10,000 will be taken out of taxation. Like you, I will be pressing the Westminster Government to ensure that some of the other measures that you mention happen as well.

I thank the minister and his officials for their attendance.

11:41 Meeting suspended.

11:44 On resuming—