Chamber and committees

As part of the newpartnership arrangements, the Scottish Government is seeking to agree there willbe a move to a Single Outcome Agreement (SOA) for every local authority based onan agreed set of national outcomes and indicators. SOAs are expected to be in placefor all authorities during 2008-09.

The Scottish Governmentwill work with local government on a new performance reporting system to underpinthe move to SOAs, which will replace over time the myriad of existing systems andwill provide regular reports to the Scottish Government on progress. Further detailson these new arrangements can be found in the Scottish Budget Report and relatedconcordat with local government. The concordat also sets the full package of measuresagreed, including the delivery of specific manifesto commitments. Copies of bothdocuments are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. numbers44076 and 44077 respectively).

The Scottish Government believes that it willalways be necessary to balance the cost and emission caused by travel againstthe fact that face-to-face meetings are important for good government. Becausethis will inevitably involve ministers and officials in travel, ScottishGovernment has chosen to offset the emissions resulting from its necessarytravel as well as setting targets for reducing travel related carbon emissions.

I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-4254 on 21 September 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

the Scottish Government will be issuing a consultation in January on proposals for the Climate Change Bill which will include a target ofreducing emissionsby 80% by 2050. The levels of reduction required in each sector have not beendetermined. We believe that we need independent, expert advice on what thetrajectory of emissions reductions should be, because it is important that theprocess under which the trajectory is set is transparent and robust. To thisend, the UK Climate Change Bill makes provision for the devolvedadministrations to seek advice on targets they may set, from the UK Committeeon Climate Change. We plan to use this facility in the short term but  the consultation will seek views on thesignificant issue of how we receive such advice in the longer term, once our Climate Change Bill is commenced.

I have asked JamesHynd, Acting Chief Executive of Communities Scotland to respond. His response isas follows:

The managingagent has indicated that, between January and March 2007 the average waiting timewas four to five months and between September and November 2007 the average waitingtime was five to six months.

We have a target tohalt the growth of municipal solid waste by 2010. Latest figures suggest municipalwaste growth is between 1% to 1.5%.

We have no targetsfor the reuse of waste but the impact of successful programmes on reuse is to contributeto the target on halting waste growth.

We have a target ofrecycling/composting 30% of waste by 2008. Latest figures for the year July 2006to June 2007 show that we are recycling 29.8% of municipal waste. We estimate thatScotland needs to achieve around 40% recycling/compostingof municipal waste by 2010, to meet our share of the EU Landfill Directive targeton reducing the amount of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill.

The National WastePlan also has a target of 55% recycling/composting by 2020.

Finally, there arerecycling targets laid down in producer responsibility regimes, such as the producerresponsibility system for packaging. The Scottish Government, and other governmentdepartments across the United Kingdom, are consulting on recyclingtargets for packaging for 2008 and thereafter. This consultation can be found athttp://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/packaging-reg07/consultation.pdf.It includes information on current performance.

The current NationalWaste Plan envisaged that energy would be recovered from 14% of municipal wasteby 2020.

The Scottish Governmenthas received an Outline Business Case from the City of Edinburgh Council, West Lothian Council, East Lothian Council, MidlothianCouncil and Scottish Borders Council outlining their proposals for residual wastetreatment as an alternative to landfill. This Outline Business Case is not technologyspecific. We are expecting another Outline Business Case from North LanarkshireCouncil and South Lanarkshire Council shortly. The Scottish Government has not yetdecided whether these Outline Business Cases should receive any funding fromgovernment.

We are consideringthe way ahead on waste policy generally, following the Scottish Government’s wastesummit on 3 October 2007. Our consideration includes dealing with thequestion of the role of energy from waste as we move towards a zero waste Scotland. We intend to make an announcement in the New Year onwaste policy.

We are aware of anumber of proposed energy from waste plants being built without financial supportfrom government. Any such plants would be subject to planning permission requirementsand would need to be licensed by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

The Glasgow 2014 CandidateCity File (CCF) set out the environmental plans for the games. The CCF made specificcommitments that all new and refurbished games associated buildings will be no orlow carbon, to low emission zonesaround games venues, car-free venues, high technology vehicles in the gamesvillage and the use of renewable energy. The CCF also committed to the provisionof a fund, by the Scottish Government, to Commonwealth countries for off-settingcarbon emissions generated by the games. This will be targeted at climate changeadaptation and mitigation in Commonwealth countries. Furthermore, the Scottish Governmentis committed to ensuring that the games village is carbon-neutral.

Delivery of the measurescontained within the CCF is a matter for the Games Organising Company, in conjunctionwith the key games partners – the Scottish Government, Glasgow City Council andthe Commonwealth Games Council for Scotland – and in consultation with key environmentalbodies represented on the Glasgow 2014 Environmental Forum.

Officials are currentlycarrying out an internal review of the extent of fuel poverty in Scotland whichwill assess how effective current programmes have been in making progress towardsour target to end fuel poverty, as far as is reasonably practicable, by 2016 andwhether the resources deployed on current programmes are being used to best advantage.

The annual reporton the central heating programme and warm deal provides an estimate of annual reductionsin carbon emissions as a result of measures installed. For example over 2005-06programmes achieved a predicted annual reduction in CO₂ emissions of66,687 tonnes. As well as improving the approach to tackling fuel poverty the currentreview will examine opportunities to strengthen the links between fuel poverty,energy efficiency and climate change objectives as part of our progress towardsa fairer Scotland.

The SpendingReview document confirmed that policies and initiatives across all portfolioswill take full account of our ambitions for a Greener Scotland, and that we arecommitted to introduce carbon impact assessments for policy options.

Measures takenforward under the rural affairs and the environment programme will beconsistent with this, and carbon impact assessments will be developed overtime.