Chamber and committees

Renfrewshire Council reported Castlehead High School as being rebuilt or substantially refurbished in 2008-09, as stated in Table 4 of the School Estate Statistics 2009, with the reported value of works being £4.26 million.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-27659, on 21 October 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx

Scottish Government officials are closely monitoring developments on work to reform financial services regulation at UK, EU and international levels.

We will work closely with the Financial Services Advisory Board, which provides a focus for discussion of issues of this nature, to assess proposals as they emerge and will respond as necessary.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-27655 on 14 October 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The Scottish Government''s Access to Finance survey, which concentrated on business banking, highlighted the extent to which two banks are the main providers of finance to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Scotland, with around three quarters of the market share for SME finance. The survey provided an indication of the concentration of the market and I highlighted this concern in a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 17 July, immediately following publication of the survey. It should be noted however, that the survey examined issues around business banking, and any indication of market shares relate to this aspect and not necessarily to the overall range of financial services provided by the banks

The Scottish Government shared the findings of this survey with the Office of Fair Trading which, under the terms of the Enterprise Act, has the power to refer markets to the Competition Commission for further investigation where it has reasonable grounds for suspecting that any feature or combination of features, of a market is preventing, restricting or distorting competition.

The Scottish Government Access to Finance survey 2009 was published on 16 July 2009 and is available at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Economy/access-finance/report.

The European Commission (EC) is currently in discussion with those banks which received aid from member state governments and under its Rescue and Restructuring guidelines, as applied by Article 87(2)(b) of the EC Treaty, this aid must be followed by an appropriate restructuring plan.

The EC has not opened a formal investigation and as a result we have made no representations prior to 22 September 2009.

Scottish Government officials are continuing to closely monitor the situation.

This question was answered in the Chamber. The answer can be viewed in the Official Report using the following link:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-09/sor1008-01.htm

The Energy Saving Trust (EST), as managing agent for the Home Insulation Scheme, is grant funded by the Scottish Government up to a maximum of £14.95 million to directly deliver a range of services in 2009-10 and to procure the delivery of energy efficiency measures, with related additional financial leverage, by third parties.

The first part of funding within an agreed range of between £5.26 million and £5.8 million (average £5.5 million) directly delivers services to up to 100,000 households in 10 council areas. The services comprise awareness raising, doorstep visits, tailored energy advice, and onward referral of suitable properties for the fitting of insulation measures. The information gathered in this phase will also support better data collection and help councils, government and others to plan future developments.

That leaves a balance of at least £9.15 million within the Scottish Government contribution to the scheme. The sum is larger than anticipated and has allowed ministers to expand the range of free or discounted measures provided beyond those originally foreseen in the budget to include top-up loft insulation and a range of support through an enabling fund.

The Energy Saving Trust will procure the delivery of all insulation measures by third parties. This will include a combination of energy efficiency measures provided under the UK Carbon Emission Reduction Target (CERT) programme, which will be part paid for by able-to-pay households and additional measures, either free or discounted, which are not normally available under CERT, directly funded by the Scottish Government.

£750,000, within the £9.15 million, has been provisionally allocated for an enabling fund to facilitate the uptake of energy efficiency measures in remote rural and island areas, and to support the cost of a list of defined items that enable the provision of energy efficiency measures, for example scaffolding and loft hatches.

The Scottish Government committed £15 million to the scheme and the grant covers £14.95 million. The remaining £50,000 will be used for evaluation of the scheme.

Full details of how the arrangements work is set out in the Scottish Government''s Grant Offer Letter to the EST and I have arranged for a copy of that to be placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 49351).

The Energy Saving Trust has been grant funded £14.95 million to deliver a range of services to benefit up to 100,000 households in 10 council areas. Councils have already committed £750,000 in complementary investment. In addition the process of fitting insulation measures should lever funding from the UK Carbon Energy Reduction Target scheme and from households. That means the total funding spent during 2009-10 will not be known until the end of the financial year. Most funds will be spent on direct services to benefit up to 100,000 households. Funds spent by Energy Savings Trust in centrally-based staff and IT are estimated to be £623,000. (a) That figure represents 4% of government grant but will be a much lower percentage of the total scheme funds once the additional contributions have been included. (b) The central overheads represent a little over £6 per home visited.

The Energy Saving Trust (EST) was appointed to act as managing agent for the Home Insulation Scheme (HIS) using powers contained in section 153 (1) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, as varied by S.I. 1995/554, which allows the grant funding of named bodies, including the Energy Saving Trust, for environmental expenditure. Details on the duration and value of the contract are provided in the answer given to S3W-27661 on 8 October 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

EST is already the grant-funded provider of the Energy Assistance Programme. The decision to run EAP and HIS through the same provider minimised the funds associated with a national delivery infrastructure and shortened the learning curve of how to establish a scheme as well as simplifying the customer journey.