Chamber and committees

(a)The Scottish Government supports the installation of solar panels on public sector buildings through the Scottish Green Public Sector Estate Decarbonisation scheme which provides several funding routes for public sector organisations to decarbonise their buildings.

The Scottish Government have invested over £65 million in ChargePlace Scotland (CPS), Scotland’s public charging network, which now has more than 2500 publicly available charge points, over 90,000 member registrations and over 2.3 million successful charging sessions recorded in the last 12 months.

The figure of 7977 does not relate to ‘complaints’. This was the total of number of customer service tickets raised by the ChargePlace Scotland helpdesk over the 12 month period.

There are many reasons why a ticket can be raised, but these are not always a complaint and do not necessarily relate to issues which affect the operation of the charge point itself. If it relates to a ‘fault’, then that fault may be reported by more than one member of the public and this will also be reflected in the figures. Ticket and fault information are published monthly on the ChargePlace Scotland website for the general public to view.

The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 (‘the 2022 Act’) is emergency legislation and is intended to provide support to tenants through stabilising rents and providing additional evictions protections for a time limited period. The provisions it contains are temporary, with the ongoing necessity to review the measures to make sure they remain proportionate in relation to the cost crisis.

Whilst we are committed to taking forward longer-term reform to the rented sector, the 2022 Act would not have been an appropriate legislative vehicle to take forward more fundamental changes to the rented sector. Parliament agreed to an accelerated timescale for the Bill, recognising the urgency of the circumstances and the temporary nature of the provisions. More fundamental reforms would not have been consistent with that urgency and with the highly-focused scope of the Bill.

The 2022 Act ensured that the majority of tenants - including those who are part of a joint tenancy in an applicable private rented sector tenancy - are protected by the temporary emergency measures, by capping in-tenancy rent increases.

We remain committed to delivering a New Deal for tenants. As part of that consultation, we sought views on the existing approach to ending joint tenancies and any impact this is has on tenants to inform our considerations.

In March this year the Scottish Government ran a marketing campaign using TV, radio and digital media platforms to promote our newly launched Home Energy Scotland (HES) Grants & Loans scheme. There has been strong demand for the updated scheme – during the campaign we saw a 23% increase in applications compared to the previous month, with over 3000 grant and loans offered through the scheme across Scotland since launch.

We will continue to deliver an awareness raising campaign that builds on this early activity. Plans are in place for further national marketing activity to commence in January 2024 until mid-March 2024. This nationwide campaign intends to target those who currently have the highest propensity to take out a heat pump. Promotion will be bolstered by further activity under our Let’s Do Net Zero marketing campaign, which will highlight carbon emitting heating systems as being a major contributor to climate change.

The Energy Savings Trust, who manage the HES service on behalf of the Scottish Government, also regularly promote the Loans and Grants scheme through their own channels including digital promotion and work through the HES advice centre network.

Later this year we will publish our Heat in Buildings Public Engagement Strategy setting out how we will work with stakeholders to increase public awareness and understanding of zero emission heating systems, the different technological options available and how to access advice and support.

The Scottish Government remains committed to ensuring that everyone who needs it can access seamless, timely and high-quality palliative care.

We are currently developing a new National Strategy for Palliative and End of Life Care for Scotland. As part of this work, we are reviewing the information and evidence we have, and need, to develop the strategy. This includes gathering data on current and projected needs for palliative care at a population level, mapping services and support across Scotland, and building on our understanding of people’s experiences of palliative and end of life care.

The outputs of this work will give us a clearer picture of the delivery and accessibility of palliative care across Scotland, and will inform a new strategy that reflects what really matters to people experiencing serious illness, dying and bereavement.

Housing to 2040 sets out a vision for what the Scottish Government wants homes and communities to look and feel like for the people in Scotland. We set out an ambitious vision that by 2040 everyone living in Scotland would have access to a safe, warm, affordable, high quality and energy efficient home that meets their needs in the place they want to be.

The 2014 Housing (Scotland) Act introduced a provision for 'tenants of houses which are held by a social landlord and which the social landlord selecting its tenants considers to be under-occupied' as one of the reasonable preference groups social housing landlords must take into account when allocating tenancies. This supports social landlords to make best use of their housing stock and giving priority to social rented sector tenants who are under-occupying their home is one way of doing this, by encouraging downsizing and releasing larger homes for households who need them.

We recognise that downsizing is a personal choice, and that people may find it difficult to leave a property that has been their home for some time. Scottish Government guidance to social landlords encourages them to take a proactive approach to support tenants to consider whether their current home meets their needs and to consider whether a move might help them live independently for longer.

The private rented sector can provide tenants with greater flexibility in terms of size and location, and enable a tenant to rent a property which meets their needs and circumstances and downsize when appropriate. Where a tenant is eligible for Local Housing Allowance (LHA), the LHA rate and the amount of support they receive depends on their individual circumstances. This may influence the size of property they can afford to rent.

The Scottish Government publishes details of all awards made from the Fund to Local Authorities and Registered Social Landlords at https://www.gov.scot/publications/ukraine-longer-term-resettlement-fund/pages/list-of-approved-projects/

The Scottish Government have commissioned Energy Systems Catapult to model six different archetypes of Scottish homes, comparing the operation of zero direct emission heating systems (including air source heat pumps and electric boilers) with gas boilers. This will provide information on the energy required to heat homes using these systems, and their running costs.

The Scottish Government remains committed to ensuring that everyone who needs it can access seamless, timely and high-quality palliative care.

We are currently developing a new National Strategy for Palliative and End of Life Care for Scotland and, as part of this work, we are reviewing the information and evidence we have, and need, to develop the strategy. This includes gathering and analysing data on current and projected needs for palliative care for the population of Scotland.

We will study the Marie Curie figures in comparison to our own ongoing analysis in order to assess increased palliative care need over future years to inform the development of the new strategy.

The Scottish Government is committed to the creation of a Scottish Veterinary Service (SVS) to ensure there are highly trained staff to provide Scotland with good animal health and food safety to meet all our needs across the public and private sector for animal health issues.

The Extension to the Review of Field Delivery of Animal Health Services in Scotland report, conducted by Professor Charles Milne, followed up on the earlier Field Delivery of Animal Health Services in Scotland, and was based on interviews with individual sand organisations involved in animal health services in Scotland and beyond.

A Programme has been established to manage the work required to create an SVS. The Programme continues to collect evidence on staff turnover and retention, career progression etc from organisations with different delivery models and in particular from Northern Ireland, where the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs provides an integrated veterinary service.