Chamber and committees

The relevant UK certification scheme for organisations which engage in telemarketing (i.e. which engage in outbound marketing calls to UK consumers or which outsource to a company that makes such calls) is "Telephone Preference Service (TPS) Assured". TPS Assured is an annual audit and certification service operated by the TPS that assesses whether an organisation complies with:

Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations;

Ofcom guidance; and

TPS Assured's guidance on outbound telemarketing best practice.

Existing Scottish Government contracts do not include clauses designed to promote telemarketing certification schemes. The Scottish Government does, however, engage actively with the marketing industry in Scotland and expects its suppliers to operate to the highest professional standards and in accordance with the law relating to telemarketing practice, where it is applicable and relevant to the contract.

The Scottish Government has not proposed to reduce the domestic energy efficiency budget by 13% in 2016-17. In the budgets that we have under our control, we have broadly maintained the expenditure available for fuel poverty and energy efficiency in what is a tough financial climate. £15 million of consequentials from the UK Government’s Green Deal Home Improvement Fund cannot be added to the budget for 2016-17 because this scheme was ended earlier than expected by the UK Government as part of a series of announcements reducing support for energy efficiency.

We have allocated £103 million to tackle fuel poverty and climate change in 2016-17, which is a significant commitment in light of on-going spending pressures and UK Government cuts. This money will be used to help install energy efficiency measures, including solid wall insulation, in 14,000 homes, building on the more than 900,000 measures delivered since 2008.

The Scottish Government’s long term commitment of sustained funding over many years has helped to prevent an increase in fuel poverty in Scotland in the latest statistics (for 2014). All of the increase in fuel poverty since the target was introduced can be explained by above-inflation energy price increases. The fuel poverty rate for 2014 would have been around 9.5% instead of 35% if fuel prices had only risen in line with inflation between 2002 and 2014.

Our long-term investment is helping to improve the energy efficiency of Scotland’s homes – the share of homes rated Energy Performance Certificate band C and above has increased by 71% since 2010, and 11% in the last year. This is helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions and we are on track to meet our 42% emissions reduction target (by 2020) ahead of schedule.

The Scottish Government has confirmed energy efficiency is a national infrastructure priority and has a clear commitment to develop ‘Scotland’s Energy Efficiency Programme’ (SEEP) which will provide an offer of support to buildings across Scotland to improve their energy efficiency over the next 15-20 years. Additionally we will continue to invest over £34 million in 2016-17 in low carbon infrastructure including district heating; heat recovery; non-domestic and industrial energy efficiency which will also support the development of SEEP.

This demonstrates the Scottish Government’s short, medium and long term commitment to improving energy efficiency in Scotland.

Scotland is on track to meet its statutory 2020 target of a 42% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The Climate Change (Scotland) Act does not set sector specific targets, allowing for abatement to be delivered where it is most cost effective to do so across the Scottish economy. Our plan for meeting the climate change targets is set out in the second report on proposals and policies (RPP2).

In RPP2 we outlined our ambition to use Scottish Government funding to lever in private investment under the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) to create a combined fund of around £200 million per year. We are on track to achieving this ambition and estimate that the combined investment will have exceeded £600 million over the last three years.

However, our efforts are being undermined by the UK Government who have reduced the value of ECO by 35% since it was first introduced, and further reductions have been announced reducing it to 50% of its originally intended value.

We are already making changes to our domestic energy efficiency programmes. Energy efficiency has been designated a national infrastructure priority and we are developing ‘Scotland’s Energy Efficiency Programme’ which will for the first time integrate action on the domestic and non-domestic sectors and provide an offer of support to buildings across Scotland to improve their energy efficiency over the next 15-20 years.

We will use the new powers set to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament over energy efficiency to create a programme that is better suited to Scotland’s needs and look to introduce multi-year funding to give our delivery partners the certainty they need to deliver ambitious energy efficiency projects.

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing the stillbirth and infant mortality rate in Scotland with a number of initiatives underway to help achieve this, including the following:

The Scottish Government funded Maternity and Children’s Quality Improvement Collaborative (MCQIC) that operates as part of the Scottish Patient Safety Programme and has key aims of reducing stillbirth and neonatal death. The Scottish Government has provided over £1 million to fund MCQIC since 2012;

The Scottish Government jointly funds, alongside other UK countries, the Mothers and Babies, Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK (MBRRACE-UK), which reports on investigations into perinatal deaths and makes recommendations for policy and practice. The Scottish Government currently contributes in the region of £60-£70k per year for this work;

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office (CSO) has jointly funded the stillbirth research project AFFIRM with £219,250, being led by the University of Edinburgh alongside Sands, Tommy’s and SiMBA (AFFIRM: Can Promoting Awareness Fetal movements and Focussing Interventions Reduce Fetal Mortality);

Since 2012 CSO has awarded £0.69 million to research projects specifically related to stillbirth or infant death. CSO also currently contributes around £10 million annually to the Department of Health National Institute for Health Research, which currently funds several research projects focused on perinatal mortality;

The Scottish Government has also provided Sands with £25,000 funding to be allocated to their UK-wide research fund for 2015-16; and,

The Scottish Government has provided funding of £117,200 over the past three years, to Bliss Scotland to provide support and information to families with premature and sick babies.

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing the stillbirth and infant mortality rate in Scotland with a number of initiatives underway to help achieve this, including the Scottish Government funded Maternity and Children’s Quality Improvement Collaborative which was launched on 7 March 2013. The maternity care strand aims to support clinical teams in Scotland to improve the quality and safety of maternity healthcare and includes the stillbirth stretch aim of reducing the proportion of stillbirths and neonatal mortality by 15% by 2015. The neonatal care strand’s key objective is to achieve a 30% reduction in avoidable harm in neonatal services by December 2015.

In addition, the Scottish Government supports a number other initiatives to further contribute to the aim of managing risks associated with stillbirth, such as the AFFIRM study, which raises awareness of monitoring fetal movements, and the growth assessment protocol, which trains midwives and clinicians in improved antenatal identification of pregnancies at risk due to fetal growth problems.

The government’s stillbirth group and maternity bereavement Care sub-group will meet in January 2016 to develop a workplan looking at where the focus of their work should be over the next three years.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-28002 on 10 November 2015. 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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

As set out in a letter to Willie Rennie MSP on 3 September 2015, having carefully considered the matter, including taking advice from the Permanent Secretary, the First Minister is satisfied that the decision taken by the Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Europe and External Affairs to award funding was based solely on the merits of the case following an objective assessment by Scottish Government officials. Neither the cabinet secretary’s decision nor the objective assessment undertaken by officials was in any way influenced by factors external to the merits of the case.