Chamber and committees

Charge points on the ChargePlace Scotland network are owned by a range of local authorities, businesses and third sector organisations. These organisations are responsible for procurement, maintenance and commercial decisions relating to their own charge point assets The ChargePlace Scotland contract provides ‘back office’ functions for these chargers, and has the option to run until at least 2025.

Scotland’s public EV charging network will evolve over the coming years to be less focussed on ChargePlace Scotland, while retaining the ability for drivers to seamlessly travel across a more diverse charging network with greater charging opportunities and offering an exemplar driver experience.

Our draft Vision for the future of public charging emphasises the need to attract greater private investment to deliver infrastructure at scale and pace, as the public sector cannot deliver this alone. The organisations who own charge points on ChargePlace Scotland will ultimately determine which future delivery models are most appropriate to them.

Through our Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund we are supporting local authorities to develop public electric vehicle charging strategies and expansion plans. As part of the development of these plans, local authorities are considering the opportunities to roll existing ChargePlace Scotland charge points into alternative models of delivery.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-18527 on 15 June 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

In January 2022 the Scottish Government published its draft vision for Scotland’s future public electric vehicle charging network that meets the needs of the people of Scotland and which supports a just transition and the delivery of our climate commitments. It recognises the need to attract private sector capital, skills and resources to enable investment and operation of a public charging network that meets the future needs of all of Scotland. A range of public bodies and other organisations, including COSLA, have been engaged over the past year as part of our work to finalise the Vision.

COSLA have also been engaged throughout the development of the EV Infrastructure Fund through which Transport Scotland is supporting Local Authorities to develop public electric vehicle charging strategies and expansion plans. These plans will help to identify future public charging needs, investment requirements and operating models for existing and new local authority owned public charging points.

As set out in the Scottish Government publication of 28 February 2023 on “Timeline and process for securing an Internal Market Act exclusion for DRS”, in July 2021 the Scottish Government proposed a broad exclusion from the Internal Market Act under the Resources and Waste Common Framework which would have covered future policy such as DRS. The UK Government’s decision to agree only a narrow exclusion for single-use plastics resulted in the need for Scottish Government to again follow the agreed and published process in preparing a separate proposal for an exclusion for DRS. UK Government advised that cross-administration discussion should follow official level agreement on the interim Resources and Waste Common Framework – which was agreed in September 2022 - and clarity on UK Government Ministers following the 2022 Conservative Party leadership contest. Cross-administration discussions under the Common Framework began as soon as practicable thereafter.

In January 2022 the Scottish Government published its draft vision for Scotland’s future public electric vehicle charging network that meets the needs of the people of Scotland and which supports a just transition and the delivery of our climate commitments. It recognises the need to attract private sector capital, skills and resources to grow the public charging network at scale and pace. A range of public bodies and other organisations, including COSLA, have been engaged over the past year as part of our work to finalise the Vision.

COSLA have also been engaged throughout the development of the EV Infrastructure Fund through which Transport Scotland is supporting Local Authorities to develop public electric vehicle charging strategies and expansion plans. These plans will help to identify future public charging needs, investment requirements and operating models for existing and new local authority owned public charging points.

There were 17 new build or substantial refurbishment projects completed in the Glasgow Kelvin constituency between 2007-08 and 2021-22 relating to primary schools. None were reported for Secondary schools. Data is collected only for builds or refurbishments with a cost of £500,000 or more for primary and £1 million or more for secondary schools.

Transport Scotland has not made a decision to privatise charge points on the ChargePlace Scotland network.

ChargePlace Scotland’s charging assets are owned by over 400 separate organisations across the public, private and third sectors and therefore are not all in public ownership. These organisations are responsible for procurement, maintenance and commercial decisions relating to their own charge point assets.

ChargePlace Scotland is a charge point management service paid for by the Scottish Government under a Framework Agreement to provide back-office, frontline call-handling and fault management functions on behalf of the charge point owners.

Circularity Scotland are a private limited company established to deliver DRS on behalf of drinks producers. They do not report to the Scottish Government. However officials and I have met regularly with Circularity Scotland as part of preparations for the DRS scheme

The Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations 2020 require a scheme administrator to report to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), on behalf of producers, as required, (a) the number of scheme articles first made available by that producer to be marketed, offered for sale or sold for the purposes of its retail sale in Scotland, (b) whether the scheme packaging in which those scheme articles were contained or sold was made wholly or mainly from PET plastic, glass, steel or aluminium, (c) the number of items of scheme packaging returned to the producer by wholesalers and retailers, (d) the number of items of scheme packaging collected by the producer from each return point operator, retailer providing a takeback service and hospitality retailer. A scheme administrator must also provide any information requested by the Scottish Ministers or SEPA for the purposes of monitoring compliance with the requirements in regulations 10(1) and 11(1) that relate to producer obligations.

Circularity Scotland also play a key role in the system wide governance framework and are represented in both the Ministerial Strategic Assurance Group and the Executive Oversight Group.

Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme has been based on successful schemes across Europe. The Minister has been thoroughly briefed by Zero Waste Scotland on relevant research findings throughout the policy’s development.

As stated in question S6W 18000 on 31 May 2023, research was undertaken by Zero Waste Scotland, who designed the scheme, and met with a range of international scheme administrators and operators, including those from Norway, Estonia, Sweden, Lithuania, Germany, Iceland, Denmark and Finland.

This research and briefing has meant that the minister has been fully appraised of the main characteristics of schemes across Europe and has not therefore personally travelled to the countries listed.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The economic impact of the pilot removal of peak fares from the rail system will depend primarily on how rail and other demand responds to the change. As Scotland is leading the UK with such a measure, it is necessary to pilot the change in order to determine if a permanent change would represent value for money.

Analysis undertaken before the scheme was announced, based on historical data, suggested that there are sufficient grounds to explore the impacts through a pilot which will also allow operational impacts to be assessed.