Chamber and committees

The regulation of energy suppliers is a reserved matter and the principal duty of Ofgem, as the energy sector regulator, is to protect the interests of gas and electricity consumers. Ofgem published its “Consumer Vulnerability Strategy” and workplan on 4 July 2013 which challenges energy suppliers to improve their approach to identifying all those vulnerable groups with particular energy needs and addressing those needs.

The independent Scottish Fuel Poverty Forum, put in place by the Scottish Government, will be watching closely to see how the strategy is used in practice by suppliers to ensure that the energy needs of all vulnerable people are met.

In addition, the Scottish Government has created a £200 million per year initiative (£79 million from Scottish Government funding and £120 million from obligated energy companies) to upgrade Scotland’s housing stock and tackle fuel poverty. Our schemes under this initiative aim to ensure vulnerable consumers are prioritised to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, increase comfort and reduce energy bills.

The Scottish Government has a statutory duty, “to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, that people are not living in fuel poverty in Scotland by November 2016”. The Scottish Government is committed to eradicating fuel poverty and is increasing funding to do so. This year alone we have allocated £79 million to tackle fuel poverty, almost 40% higher in cash terms than the last Labour budget of £56.5 million in 2006-07. In total we will spend around a quarter of a billion pounds over this spending review period on fuel poverty and energy efficiency.

Fuel poverty statistics published in December 2012 show that Scottish Government action is mitigating swingeing fuel price increases. Despite punishing 14% fuel price increases in Autumn 2011, improved household energy efficiency prevented a further 35,000 households falling into fuel poverty.

The regulation of energy suppliers is a reserved matter and the principal duty of Ofgem, as the energy sector regulator, is to protect the interests of gas and electricity consumers. Ofgem published its “Consumer Vulnerability Strategy” and workplan on 4 July 2013 which challenges energy suppliers to improve their approach to identifying all those vulnerable groups with particular energy needs and addressing those needs.

The independent Scottish Fuel Poverty Forum will be watching closely to see how the strategy is used in practice by suppliers to ensure that the energy needs of all vulnerable people are met.

In addition, I have met with each of the major energy suppliers individually to raise concerns about energy price rises and to press the individual energy suppliers to support vulnerable consumers. Earlier this year, Scottish Ministers co-hosted with the UK Government a fuel prices summit, which included representation from all the major energy suppliers, to press for further action to protect vulnerable consumers in Scotland.

This information is not held centrally.

The available statistics on rough sleeping in Scotland provide information on homeless applications where the council recorded that a household member slept rough the night before applying for homelessness assistance. The following table shows the number of such applications in each local authority area from 2007-08 to 2012-13.

Source:- Homelessness statistics HL1 returns from local authorities.

SPCB officials recently met with Stonewall representatives to find out more about the Workplace Equality Index. It was useful to gain a fuller understanding of the index. The SPCB is confident that its existing framework for equality takes account of the needs of all protected characteristics, including sexual orientation. This is reflected through our work on employee engagement; staff training; workforce monitoring; procurement; community engagement and staff feedback all of which are included in the criteria specified in the index.

The SPCB has committed this year to meeting other priorities in respect of equality – in particular we will concentrate on making it easier for people to engage with the Parliament and also to assist visitors to the Parliament. Given the need to prioritise resources, we do not currently plan to register with the index in 2014.

That said, the SPCB reviews its progress on equality every year to identify its key priorities for the year ahead. Sexual orientation will be reviewed as part of this process and any further work identified will be carried out in this area as necessary. The SPCB’s Equality Advisory group which is made up of representatives from each of the protected groups, including Stonewall, will assist us with any work we take forward.

The Scottish Government is leading by example by taking part in this year’s WEI in which our participation began in 2006.

Yes, the Scottish Government will take part in Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index 2014.

This information is not held centrally.

The following table shows the number of patients dispensed Z drugs, Benzodiazipines or SSRIs during the financial years 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12. Please note that the data is collected in time bands relating to the financial year, not calendar years.

Source: Prescribing Information System.

Z Drugs included are zaleplon, zolpidem and zopiclone as listed in section 4.1.1 (Hypnotics) of the British National Formulary (BNF).

Benzodiazepines are those included in BNF section 4.1.1 (Hypnotics), and BNF section 4.1.2 (Anxiolytics).

SSRI figures are taken from the Medicines for Mental Health publication from September 2012:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Prescribing-and-Medicines/Publications/index.asp

Patient count is a count of all unique Community Health Index (CHI) numbers, which act as unique patient identifiers, within each financial year. This will not include prescriptions of these drugs made to patients for whom no CHI number could be ascertained.