Chamber and committees

Scottish ministers have not refused applications for any pressured area designations outright. Occasionally certain areas within an overall application are not approved for designation because they do not meet the statutory criteria which permit a pressured area to be designated.

There are currently 15 pressured-area designations (PADs) in force across 12 local authority areas. The list below provides the local authority area and a description of the pressured areas.

1. East Renfrewshire (Eastwood area)

2. Highland (all areas excluding Caithness, Sutherland and some estates in Inverness and Fort William)

3. South Ayrshire (29 letting areas comprising much of Prestwick and Ayr, and rural settlements)

4. Moray (Elgin, Lossiemouth and Forres rural)

5. Fife (for St Andrews and East Neuk)

6. Dumfries and Galloway (69 villages of population less than 400 across the local authority area)

7. Fife (13 West Fife villages)

8. Perth and Kinross (21 letting areas across Highland Perthshire and in the rural areas around Perth)

9. Aberdeen City (35 letting areas across the city)

10. North Ayrshire (11 letting areas)

11. Aberdeenshire (88 letting areas)

12. North Lanarkshire (Cumbernauld and Moodiesburn)

13. Moray (Forres letting area)

14. Stirling (35 letting areas)

15. Moray (Speyside and Cairngorm National Park areas).

There are no plans to abolish the Home Report.

Home Reports were introduced to provide buyers with more information upfront, helping them to make informed decisions on what for many is the biggest financial commitment of their lives.

Home Reports are very different from Home Information Packs (HIPs) in England and Wales. The Home Report contains a Single Survey, Energy Report and Property Questionnaire whereas HIPs contain a number of legal documents but no survey. The only document that is common between the two is the Energy Performance Certificate which is an EU requirement.

The Scottish Government published new guidance on the Provision of Equipment and Adaptations on 1 December 2009. It aims to assist local authorities and their NHS partners to integrate their equipment and adaptation services within the wider community care context. The guidance is available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/care/EandA/EandAGuidance.

Funding for adaptations by Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) is provided through the Affordable Housing Investment Programme (AHIP) and is agreed in response to RSLs'' Strategy and Development Funding Plans (SDFPs) and wider consideration of resources at local authority level.

Local authorities have a duty to provide grant assistance for the installation of standard amenities and structural adaptations, excluding conversions and extensions, to meet the assessed needs of disabled people in privately owned properties. Funding for this is included within the main local government settlement. It is for each local authority to determine how it makes use of this funding, taking account of its duties and local and national priorities.

Work on a Funding Guide for Major Adaptations is nearing completion. The guide is aimed at practitioners and will detail the different funding streams and housing tenures encountered by adaptations providers. It will be published this summer. Separate, tenure specific, information leaflets will also be developed for service users.

It is for individual local authorities to decide on the provision of energy advice and insulation schemes. However, the Scottish Government is supporting the delivery of area-based home insulation schemes in parts of ten local council areas. These councils are: Angus, Dundee, Edinburgh, Fife, South Lanarkshire, Glasgow, Stirling, Highland, Western Isles and Orkney. The schemes offer households in selected areas a range of services, including energy efficiency advice and free or discounted insulation. Continuing funding in 2010-11 will enable the scheme to be expanded to cover a number of other councils this year.

In addition, the Scottish Government provides Scotland-wide energy advice and access to insulation schemes through the Energy Saving Scotland advice network. This free service offers tailored advice on energy efficiency, renewables and sustainable transport. A key strength of the network is its links with local authorities whom they work closely with to promote the benefits of energy efficiency to householders as part of local and national campaigns. The network is also a key delivery vehicle for the home insulations schemes, the Energy Assistance Package and Carbon Emissions Reduction Target spend in Scotland.

A total of 564 sheltered housing units have been approved between 2006-07 and 2008-09, attracting an investment in Housing Association Grant of £45.414 million.

Figures for 2009-10 are not able to be supplied at present as they form part of the Official Statistics data which are not published until 27 May 2010. This is in line with the Code for Official Statistics which states that data which is published as an official statistic should not be used publicly (including in parliamentary questions) until they are published on their pre-announced date. The 2009-10 statistics for sheltered housing in this question will be placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 50911), after the official statistics publication on 27 May 2010.

Local authorities will set out their approach to meeting the housing needs of older people in their local housing strategies and identify investment priorities, including those relating to sheltered housing, in their Strategic Housing Investment Plans. Local authorities and registered social landlords must also ensure sheltered housing meets the Scottish Housing Quality Standard and required Care Commission Standards.

The independent Scottish Fuel Poverty Forum monitors the operation of the energy assistance package. It is due to publish its annual report in the summer which will include a review of the first year of the energy assistance package.

There is a monitoring and Inspection contract in place, operated by Bierce, which continually monitors the delivery of Stage 4 of the EAP and is used in the Scottish Gas programme of continual improvement.

Scottish Government is providing residual business plan funding to Glasgow Housing Association, Argyll and Bute Housing Association and River Clyde Homes as it is bound. It is possible that some of that funding could be used for the installation of central heating.

The Fuel Poverty Forum has been monitoring the first year of the energy assistance package and has recommended changes in the course of the year, particularly around eligibility. The new managing agent contract also provided the opportunity to incorporate the lessons learned since the letting of the last contract. Consequently, the new managing agent contract sets a higher proportion of performance related payments allied to demanding performance indicators, than in the past.

There is no data held centrally detailing how many applicants on housing lists are waiting for sheltered accommodation.

The total number of applicants on council housing lists is published annually at local authority level by the Scottish Government.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/HSfS/StockManagement.

In addition, the number of applicants on housing association housing lists is collected by the Scottish Housing Regulator and the figure for Scotland was 244,335 at 31 March 2009. This cannot be broken down by local authority area.

These figures are likely to contain al large degree of double counting as households can apply to more than one list at the same time. They are not considered to represent an accurate measure of need for social housing.