Chamber and committees

The Island Communities Impact Assessment makes clear that the introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme will not increase the amount of waste that will arise in island communities as most waste is currently transported off the islands. Furthermore, as part of the Scottish Government’s ‘Deposit Return Scheme Strategic Environmental Assessment: Post Adoption Statement’ at table 3.1 Mitigation of environmental effect does set out the “effects (including greenhouse gas emissions) from the potential for increased vehicle movements from consumers, retailers and reprocessors” and it highlights a number of proposed mitigation actions to minimise carbon emissions. The Scottish Government, Circularity Scotland, and our business partners are developing solutions which build on these proposals where possible. The Scottish Government does not consider an additional assessment necessary at this stage.

A) SEPA is the regulator for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), responsible for the producer registration service and checking compliance with the Regulations. It is not within SEPA’s remit to model the carbon footprint of any transportation used for the scheme, and it has not conducted this modelling. SEPA was consulted on and responded to the consultation relating to the Deposit Return Scheme’s strategic environmental assessment (SEA) which considered the carbon emission associated with the DRS.

B) Circularity Scotland has not conducted carbon footprint modelling on their transportation network, but seek to operate to the highest ethical and environmental standards. This includes developing with their partners a solution for the collection of scheme articles on islands which makes use of local supply chains where possible in order to minimise carbon emissions.

The current Warmer Homes Scotland contract is drawing to a close and new applications for the scheme have now ended to allow for the current customer journeys to be completed before the end of the contract. All applications received from 1 April 2023 will be assessed by Home Energy Scotland under the eligibility criteria for the successor scheme and will be passed to the managing agent for delivery when the new contract goes live on 2 October 2023. The successor scheme will run for a minimum of 5 years and the contract includes the option to extend a further 2 years which would see the programme run until October 2030.

Warmer Homes Scotland is continuing to provide energy efficiency measures to fuel poor households. Improvements will continue to be installed up until the end of the current Warmer Homes Scotland contract on 29 September 2023.

The successor scheme expands significantly on the offer of the previous scheme with a greater focus on deep, whole-house retrofit and zero emissions heating where this is not detrimental to the fuel poverty objectives. This new approach requires significant preparation from the managing agent and sub-contractors which will take place between now and October.

Scottish Goernment funded support for households is still available through the Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loans Scheme, Area Based Schemes and the Fuel Insecurity Fund.

The Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group (HPSG) meeting on 30 March was postponed as the SNP leadership election result was announced on 27 March 2023 and it was not clear at that point who would have responsibility for housing and homelessness policy.

While we had provisionally rescheduled the meeting for 20 April 2023, it was agreed that a further reschedule to 23 May would be appropriate to allow the Minister for Housing time to be fully briefed on his new portfolio and to meet with Councillor Chalmers, co-chair of HPSG.

The last HPSG meeting took place on 23 May 2023 and was chaired by the Minister for Housing.

This information is not held centrally.

The Compost at Home campaign ran from 2007 to 2010. It predates the formation of Zero Waste Scotland in 2014, therefore information on funding and staff resource is not available.

The Scottish Government is committed to tackling fuel poverty, with £119 million allocated this year to provide heat, energy efficiency and fuel poverty measures to fuel poor households throughout Scotland.

This incudes funding for our Area Based Schemes (ABS) delivered in partnership with local authorities. This year North Ayrshire council has been allocated £1.8 million to help fuel poor households living in `hard to treat’ properties (typically requiring external wall insulation).

Since the start of our ABS programme in 2013, we have invested £13.2 million in improvements benefitting over 2,800 fuel poor households in the North Ayrshire council area.

More than £210 million has been invested through our national Warmer Homes Scotland scheme since its launch in September 2015. This has helped over 32,000 households throughout Scotland to achieve an estimated average saving of £160 per year on their energy bills.

The Scottish Government has also established our Fuel Insecurity Fund (FIF), working with trusted third sector partners to deliver direct emergency funds to people struggling to pay their energy bills, and who were at risk of self-disconnection or self-rationing their energy use as a result. We have increased our overall funding to £30 million this financial year.

We are currently considering the Flexible Workforce Development Fund in 2023-24 as part of ongoing budget discussions. We will communicate the outcome as soon as a final decision has been reached.

The Affordable Housing Supply Programme supports delivery of homes across various methods of construction, including modular, but the factories the member mentions are not part of that.

Modular construction is one of a range of offsite methods used to build new homes in Scotland. It has been used in the delivery of affordable and private homes across the country in urban, rural and island locations.

The latest available information at national level relates to the position at 31 December 2022:

Ongoing waits: For those patients still waiting for a new outpatient appointment in Gastroenterology, the median wait was 130 days and 9 out of 10 waits (90th percentile) had lasted no longer than 382 days.

Completed waits: For those patients seen as an outpatient in Gastroenterology, the median wait was 58 days and 9 out of 10 waits were no longer than 509 days.

The publication, Scotland's Marine Economic Statistics provides details on the sources and calculations used to produce the offshore wind turnover and employment information. It also provides some summary information on the uncertainty present within this data as well as a link to the source, the Office for National Statistics' Low carbon and renewable energy economy survey, data which provides more details on the quality and uncertainty of this data. The Scotland's Marine Economic Statistics publication is currently an experimental statistics publication, which means it is under development. The offshore wind data is one of the areas that will undergo further work as data sources expand.

We have finished our investigation into whether it is possible to more accurately measure the offshore wind farm economic activity. We have concluded that currently there is no more accurate way to measure using existing data sources, however this will be reassessed in future. The reasons for this conclusion are:

• The main source for economic data for businesses is the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Annual Business Survey. This uses Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes to classify businesses by main activity. There is a ‘Production of electricity’ SIC code, but the source of the electricity generation (e.g. offshore wind) is not separately identified within the SIC system.
• It is currently not possible to accurately calculate the gross value added of offshore wind using existing data or collecting it directly due to business structures. This is why the current source for the offshore wind economic activity, the low carbon and renewable energy economy survey, only estimates turnover and employment.
• Financial records at Companies House also use the same SIC codes as the ONS Annual Business Survey so it is difficult to identify relevant businesses. Even when identified their complex and interlinked business structures mean that is it not possible, using current sources, to separately calculate reliable gross value added associated specifically with offshore wind.

There is potential for future improvements in the measurement of the economic activity associated with renewables. As, for example, there is work ongoing led by the United Nations Statistics Division on a revision to the SIC codes, which were last updated in 2007. This planned update should better account for newer sectors such as renewables.

Our 2022 consultation on a new National Litter and Flytipping Strategy included proposals to explore the role of technology to obtain better data, deter litter and flytipping and aid enforcement of offences. ‘Littercam’ technology is currently being trialled on part of the trunk road network in a targeted scheme for the purpose of monitoring litter levels. The final National Litter and Flytipping Strategy will be published this year.