Question reference: S6W-04400
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 15 November 2021
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Current status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 1 December 2021
Question
To ask the Scottish Government how many households in the (a) North Ayrshire and (b) Inverclyde local authority area have experienced fuel poverty in each of the last 10 years.
Answer
The number of households in each local authority that are experiencing fuel poverty is published annually in the Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) local authority tables.
The latest published set of tables for 2017-2019 is available at:
Scottish House Condition Survey: Local Authority Analysis 2017-2019 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .
Local Authority figures are based on a 3-year pooled sample to allow sufficient sample sizes to produce results on each local authority. The figures in the table below show number of fuel poor households, and the fuel poverty rate, based on the last 10 years for North Ayrshire and Inverclyde.
North Ayrshire | Inverclyde | |||
Publication years | Estimated households in Fuel poverty 000's | La fuel poverty rate | Estimated households in Fuel poverty 000's | La fuel poverty rate |
2010-12 | 23 | 38% | 12 | 34% |
2011-13 | 24 | 38% | 13 | 37% |
2012-14 | 25 | 40% | 16 | 42% |
2013-15 | 23 | 36% | 15 | 41% |
2014-16 | 19 | 30% | 14 | 38% |
2015-17 | 17 | 26% | 11 | 31% |
2016-18 | 18 | 28% | 12 | 31% |
2017-19 | 18 | 28% | 11 | 28% |
* Results from 2010-12 to 2015-17 are based on the definition of fuel poverty set out in The Scottish fuel Poverty statement 2002 .
Results from 2016-18 to 2017-19 are based on best estimates under the new definition of fuel poverty as set out in the Fuel Poverty (Targets, Definition and Strategy) (Scotland) Act 2019 . They reflect amendments made to the legislation during the Bill process up to and including Stage 2.
By the end of 2021, we will have allocated over £1 billion since 2009 to tackling fuel poverty and improving energy efficiency, including £114 million on our Warmer Homes Scotland and local authority Area-Based Schemes this year alone.
This has included over £11 million in funding for Inverclyde Council as part of our Area Based Schemes to target support on fuel poor communities and similarly, over £14 million in ABS funding for North Ayrshire since 2013.
The budget for Fuel Poverty/Energy Efficiency in 2021-22 is £145.6m. This compares to £137.1m in 2020-21 and £119.6m in 2019-20.
Notes
1. Source Scottish House Condition Survey.
2. The SHCS is a sample survey and therefore all figures are estimates which lie at the midpoint of a confidence interval which depends primarily on sample size. For the table above, the 95% confidence intervals for the fuel poverty rates range between +/-5.9 and +/-7.0 percentage points.
Published Local Authority estimates along with confidence intervals around the survey based results for 2010-12 to 2016-18 are available here:
https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/SHCS/keyanalyses
This has included over £11m in funding for Inverclyde council as part of our Area Based Schemes to target support upon fuel poor communities and similarly over £14m in ABS funding to North Ayrshire council since 2013.