Chamber and committees

We wish to see a sustainable future for the Scottish steel sector, building on the long and proud heritage of steelwork in Scotland. We can see real opportunities for the steel sector in the move to a net zero economy, with Zero Waste Scotland commissioning a series of reports looking at the circular opportunities for the energy transition in Scotland to help inform efforts in this area.

The Scottish Government is determined to maximise the economic opportunity for the Scottish supply chain from our offshore wind potential. That is why we asked Crown Estate Scotland to introduce the Supply Chain Development Statement as part of the ScotWind leasing round to demonstrate how serious the Scottish Government is about holding developers to account if they do not honour their supply chain commitments and create green jobs.

Official statistics on trends in the number of properties in the rented sectors over time can help to track the net effect of additions and removals of stock. These include survey based estimates of the number of households living in the private rented sector each year available from Scottish Household Survey publications . Although the latest published figures for 2020 are not directly comparable to results for previous years due to the change to a telephone survey based approach during the pandemic period. The Scottish Household Survey based estimates also feed into annual Scottish Government annual Dwelling Stock by Tenure figures , which provide annual estimates of the number of dwellings which are either privately rented or where the household is living rent-free. In addition, the Dwelling Stock by Tenure figures include the number of local authority and housing association dwellings each year to 2020, based on annual social landlord stock data. These figures include Local Authority stock data collected by Scottish Government and Housing Association stock data collected by the Scottish Housing Regulator. More recent figures for the year 2021 available as part of the latest Housing Statistics Annual Key Trends publication .

The Annual Key Trends publication also includes figures on demolitions and closures of housing stock, although there are data quality caveats associated with these figures, and in addition whilst the figures are presented with a local authority housing category separately identified there is no split available into private rented or for the total social sector component. In terms of new supply of social housing, quarterly affordable housing supply figures published as part of Quarterly Housing Statistics updates on the Housing Statistics webpages include information on the number of completions for social rent each quarter.

Alongside these sets of annual official statistics, the Scottish Government receives monthly aggregate information extracted from the Private Rented Sector Landlord Register system. This include figures on the total number of active registrations each month and the total number of properties that these relate to, although it does not contain a breakdown of the number of properties added to or removed from the system. Local authorities are responsible for the administration and enforcement of landlord registration, and are the data controllers of the information on the landlord registration IT system for landlords in their area. It should be noted that the Landlord Registration System is an administrative system used primarily to manage the registration of landlords and rental properties, and has not been designed to produce robust statistical figures on the sector. Figures from this system should therefore be considered in the context of data quality issues which include impacts from changes to IT systems over time, a risk of duplicated data and double counting of rental properties in certain instances for joint owners, as well as data issues stemming from any potential lags in the provision of information by landlords on changes to circumstances to existing registrations. The Scottish Government set out ways to improve data from the Private Rented Sector Landlord Registration system within the ‘New Deal for Tenants’ Consultation Paper.

The Scottish Government already provides funding to support energy efficiency works which contribute to our net zero target. Between 2018 and 2021, £7 million was made available to Local Authority and registered social landlords through the Energy Efficient Scotland Transition Programme’s Decarbonisation Fund to assist in compliance with the Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing.

The Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund, which launched in August 2020, has been designed to accelerate the delivery of energy efficiency measures and zero emissions heating systems in social housing across Scotland. It will make at least £200 million available to registered social landlords until 2026.

Acknowledging that the public sector alone cannot bear the long-term cost of converting homes, the Green Heat Finance Taskforce has been established to assess and recommend ways the public sector, communities and private finance can collaborate to scale up investment. A dedicated sub-group has been established to consider the best routes to financing and funding the retrofit of the existing social housing stock.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-11821 on 11 November 2022, work is currently ongoing with local authorities and COSLA to determine how best to allocate funding in light of the emergency budget review. 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 .

Social Security Scotland has 16 working days to complete a re-determination for Low Income Benefits. In the case of Adult Disability Payment and Child Disability Payment, the timescale for completion of a re-determination is 56 calendar days. Work on a particular case may fluctuate during these time periods depending on progress to reach a conclusion. The number of hours invested by colleagues will depend on the complexity of the case.

Therefore Social Security Scotland is unable to provide an estimated cost of a re-determination request. How long it takes can vary depending upon the benefit involved and the complexity of the case - with a key factor in this being time taken to gather any further evidence. We do not monitor hours spent on processing a re-determination, we monitor the total turnaround time for providing a response to clients to ensure we do this in a timely manner and within the statutory periods. As our staff become more experienced, we would expect to see further efficiencies in this service.

Re-determination is an important part of our decision-making process and gives people the opportunity to ask us to look again and reconsider their application. At the re-determination stage, people often provide additional information that can be used to determine eligibility.

If on re-determination someone is found to be eligible, they will be paid from the date they first applied. Providing the option for re-determination minimises the need to go through the Tribunal Service with an appeal.

On behalf of the Scottish Government, Element Energy conducted analysis of the technical suitability of low-carbon heating technologies in Scottish domestic buildings, which included Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHPs) in off-gas areas. A copy of this report is available below.

Scottish Government (2020). Technical Feasibility of Low Carbon Heating in Domestic Buildings. URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/technical-feasibility-low-carbon-heating-domestic-buildings-report-scottish-governments-directorate-energy-climate-change/

The research concluded that, where homes were able to adopt the energy efficiency improvements required to reach EPC C, the number technically unsuitable for an ASHP would sit around 39,500 and 40,400. This is out of a total of around 170,000 off-gas-grid homes using high-emissions fuels. The underlying data is not published. For the minority of properties where ASHPs may not be viable, alternative options under current technology include air-to-air heat pumps, other electric heating or bioenergy from sustainable sources. We continue to review which technologies may be considered as zero direct emissions.

The Scottish Government has engaged with a wide range of drinks businesses throughout the policy development and implementation stages for our Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), including through two stages of consultation (running from 25 June 2018 – 25 September 2018 and 10 September 2019 – 10 December 2019) which any business could participate in. We have not carried out any engagement relating to DRS specifically directed at retailers selling hampers, parcels, or gift sets, but many such retailers would have been captured by this wider engagement.

We are continuing to engage with industry in order to ensure a successful launch of Scotland's DRS in August next year.

It is currently the intention to regulate to prohibit direct emissions heating (DEH) systems being installed in new buildings applying for a building warrant from 1 April 2024 through amendments to the Building Regulations. Therefore, enforcement/penalties would be through the existing legislative framework.

As all new buildings require a building warrant prior to construction, the absence of a direct emission heating system will be demonstrated to the local authority verifier as part of that process and also confirmed on completion of building works.

Enforcement of any subsequent non-compliance with building regulations is the responsibility of the local authority in the area the building is sited.

The full scope is available to interested suppliers via the Public Contracts Scotland website and includes: 1) an overview of Scotland’s empty homes; 2) the key barriers and opportunities for bringing homes back into use; 3) an assessment of the effectiveness of current approaches and interventions; 4) suggestions on how these could be improved. We anticipate the exercise will be complete by summer 2023.

The first meeting of the stakeholder review of the Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing post-2020 took place on 5 September 2022. We expect the Review Group to conclude by mid-2023.