Chamber and committees

We are committed to ending the practice of landfilling biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) in line with recommendations from the Climate Change Committee.

While we have not made an assessment of the isolated employment impact of the ban on sending BMW to landfill, landfill will continue to be an important treatment method for some waste types. Moreover, there is no restriction preventing landfills currently accepting BMW from continuing to accept other waste types, for which landfill presents the best environmental outcome, following implementation of the ban on landfilling BMW.

We have an opportunity for renewed impetus in building a fully circular economy in Scotland which will drive materials up the waste hierarchy and keep them in high value use for as long as possible. Many businesses are already promoting the adoption of circular economy practices, for example to actively increase waste prevention and reuse by rethinking operations, diversifying businesses and supporting innovation. Research suggests that the same amount of waste can create far more jobs through recycling, re-use or repair than landfill. The report is available here: Final-briefing-on-reuse-jobs-website-2.pdf (rreuse.org) . In addition, ZWS have also carried out research to identify how many current jobs are associated with the circular economy as well as the future roles and skills required: New research from Zero Waste Scotland and Circle Economy reveals scale of sustainable jobs | Zero Waste Scotland .

The Creative Digital Initiative (CDI) launched on 23 March 2021, with businesses being able to register their interest to be informed when grant funding would be made available.

Businesses who had registered their interest were offered the opportunity in Mid-June 2021 to submit summaries for innovative digital projects. These summaries were appraised by an team consisting of representatives of Scottish Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise, and decisions will be finalised shortly. Successful projects will receive funding of between £20,000 and £50,000, as well as advice, information and development support or a mixture of these in order to fully deliver the project objectives within this calendar year.

South of Scotland Enterprise have also run a number of courses through the CDI that aim to increase confidence in digital understanding while breaking down technical jargon – these courses have been attended by 56 practitioners/organisations. As part of the CDI, Creative Scotland are currently delivering a programme that will support up to 50 individuals and cultural organisations to leverage digital tools and skills in their creative practice, audience engagement and organisational strategy.

In addition, following the success of the DigitalBoost Grant, where the Scottish Government invested £20 million in over 2200 SMEs to help improve their digital capacity and capability, the Scottish Government is investing a further £25 million to re-open the programmes, as part of our 100 days commitment. This forms part of a broader commitment to invest £100 million over the life of parliament to support our SMEs to take advantage of digital technologies to drive forward our economic recovery.

All businesses who have registered on the CDI website (XpoNorth | Register Your Interest) will receive a notification once the DigitalBoost Grant scheme is live.

Scottish Government officials continue to hold frequent meetings with SEPA to support them and to better understand risks, consequences and responses as they recover. SEPA’s progress is reported through their weekly service status update which is published on its website. They have also recently published their Annual Operating Plan which outlines their priorities to March 2022.

The Scottish Government authorised an overspend of up to £2.5m against the approved 2020-21 resource budget allocation to cover unforeseen costs including accessing cyber recovery expertise in the immediate aftermath of the attack and fund recovery work. In 2021-2022 SEPA have been given the flexibility to use all available funding to best effect to ensure a successful recovery.

SEPA continue to manage within their overall allocated annual budget for 2021-2022. This is reviewed on a monthly basis with Scottish Government Officials.

Details of the £10 million grant fund scheme - announced by the Deputy First Minister on 22 June to help tenants who have been financially impacted by the pandemic and are facing homelessness - are being developed at pace and we will provide further information on the delivery and applications process for the fund in due course.

In relation to how the Scottish Government monitors the quality of customer service, specialist expertise and willingness to undertake and quote for work for Warmer Homes Scotland and Area-Based Schemes, I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01002 on 21 July 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

The following information relates to Home Energy Scotland (HES) advice services and the HES loans/cashback scheme, which includes domestic biomass as an eligible measure.

It is a condition of the HES loan/cashback that the customer must use an MCS certified installer for renewable heat systems (including biomass). Furthermore, the measure must be recommended on either the EPC or in a report issued by a HES specialist renewables advisor.

The Home Energy Scotland (HES) advice service, managed by the Energy Saving trust (EST) on behalf of the Scottish Government, is the gateway to the HES loan/cashback scheme and other SG-funded schemes.

Customer service quality at HES is monitored through monthly customer satisfaction surveys. All HES advisors are trained and qualified in accordance with the Home Energy Scotland SQA accredited training programme. HES also recommends that all customers (whether accessing HES loans/cashback or not) use installers with relevant certifications, such as MCS for renewables installations. This ensures that the work carried out meets MCS’ technical standards which also requires membership of a consumer protection body. They also recommend that customers get three quotes for each piece of work to allow reasonable price and detail comparison for work proposed.

Customers are also directed to the Scottish Government-funded Renewables Installer Finder tool to search for local MCS-certified installers. HES are strictly impartial in terms of installer recommendations but this tool provides customer reviews to help support their decision making.

In terms of installer capacity to undertake and quote for work, the Scottish Government funds EST’s sustainable energy supply chain programme to help develop capacity amongst installers through development of support and training in low and zero emissions heating technology installations, webinars and events as well as support for training costs which we deliver in partnership with Energy Skills Partnership.

The following table shows a breakdown of breaches of the Unsuitable Accommodation Order from 2017-18 to 2020-21 by local authority. Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 5 for disclosure purposes.

Data on temporary accommodation taken from the HL3 data collection is only available for all local authorities from 2017-18. Although some local authorities have provided data prior to this, there is not enough to provide a meaningful national picture and this data has not been subject to the rigorous quality assurance procedures required to finalise the data to official statistics standards.

Important:

Over the 2020-21 reporting period i) there was a significant change to legislation and ii) temporary exceptions were put in place at very short notice in response to COVID-19, both of which have had considerable impacts on the data. The urgency of having to adapt to the revised legislation without any specific guidance means that local authorities have reported inconsistencies in the information captured regarding breaches which is likely to affect comparability. For these reasons, these figures should be treated with caution.

Changes in legislation:

Prior to 5 May 2020, a breach was encountered when a household with a pregnant woman and/or child is in unsuitable temporary accommodation for more than 7 days. From 5 May 2020, this was extended to all households. Therefore, the total number of breaches across the year 2020/21 will include those based on both old and new legislation.

Covid-19 exceptions:

Temporary exceptions were put in place to allow local authorities to provide households with accommodation in response to COVID-19.

The legislation noted that a placement was not considered unsuitable if:

• a person in the household has symptoms of coronavirus and the household requires to isolate; or
• the accommodation is required to provide temporary accommodation to ensure that a distance of 2 metres can be maintained between a member of the household and a person who is not a member of the household in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus; or
• the local authority is unable to place the household in suitable accommodation as a result of the impacts of coronavirus on temporary accommodation supply in the area, provided that where a household includes a child or a pregnant woman the household is not placed in unsuitable accommodation for more than 7 days.

(To note: the third of these only came into effect on 30th September 2020, halfway through the 2020-21 reporting period.)

A household placed in unsuitable accommodation for longer than 7 days where an exception did not apply must still be recorded as a breach.

Number of breaches of the Unsuitable Accommodation Order, by local authority: 2017-18 – 2021-2020

The answers to each part of this question are as follows:

• In respect of (a)(i) (housing developments currently connected to residential district heating networks): this information is not held centrally.
• In respect of (b)(ii) – (homes currently connected residential district heating networks): the most recent data held is from 31 December 2018, when there were 29,647 known domestic connections to Scottish heating networks (including communal heating).
• In respect of (a)(i) (housing developments that will (in the future) be connected to residential district heating networks): this information is not held centrally.
• In respect of (b)(ii) (homes that will (in the future) be connected to residential district heating networks): this information is not held centrally.

The data currently held on heat networks comes from data collected by the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) under the Heat Metering and Billing Regulations. Heat network operators are required to notify every 4 years. The latest data held is for 2018. Figures for 2019 and 2020 are not yet available.

Regarding future developments, planning applications for individual homes and housing developments are taken by planning authorities in the first instance. Where planning permission is granted there is no requirement to notify the Scottish Government or the Scottish Ministers of the decision. While the Scottish Government does collect some information on the performance of planning authorities this does not break down into details of individual applications.

The Heat Networks (Scotland) Act sets statutory heat network deployment targets, requiring 2.6 terawatt hours of output by 2027 and 6 terawatt hours by 2030. The targets are broadly equivalent to 120,000 and 400,000 average gas using homes being connected to heat networks for 2027 and 2030 respectively.? As heat networks are generally anchored around large non-domestic buildings, which account for significant portion of heat supplies, these figures should only be considered illustrative.

The Scottish Government has not received specific reports of scammers exploiting the new fire alarm standard. We are, however, recognise that the risk of people falling victim to a scam remains a possibility The Scottish Government launched a comprehensive awareness raising campaign about the new standard on 19 August 2021. This campaign includes messaging on the importance of using reputable tradespeople, looking out for trademarks that products that comply with the new standard as well as signposting to local government Trading Standards teams for further advice and to report suspicious activities.

I refer the member to the question S6W-01692 on 16 August 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

I refer the member to the question S6W-01692 on 16 August 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .