Chamber and committees

Again, I will ask David Blair to respond.

I am sure that Monica Lennon and I agree that not only local government but the heat in buildings agenda more generally are extremely exciting places to work.

Beyond LHEES, we also have the clear commitment to introduce a phased schedule of regulations to ensure that our homes and buildings are brought up to standard on energy efficiency and the transition to zero-emissions heating. The clear sense that the Scottish Government and local government working together are committed to that long-term agenda will give the industry confidence to invest in the recruitment, training and skills that are necessary. That, in turn, will send strong signals to the further education sector about the opportunities.

I believe firmly that there are not only good jobs but long-term, high-quality careers to be had in the transition. It is a massive investment in the transformation of our building stock. That must be done to a high quality and in a way that meets people’s needs on fuel poverty. It has to be a just transition. That means that a huge amount of work needs doing. The Scottish Government is committed not only to signalling the long-term commitment to seeing that work through but to maximising the investment from public and private sources to ensure that it is well funded.

We should see the situation more as an opportunity than a challenge. It is a huge technical challenge, but it is a really big opportunity for our economy as well.

The launch of the agency on a virtual basis in the first instance is the right way forward. We already have a huge amount of work in the area that can be brought together under the auspices of that agency, and can continue and develop from there on. It would be a mistake to think that the creation of the agency is simply about infrastructure such as a building and a front door rather than about cracking on with the work that is already happening and continuing to develop it. The launch of the agency on a virtual basis in the first instance will support the continued, incremental improvement to the agenda that is already being taken forward across Scotland. I also see it as a huge opportunity for sharing the skills and best practice that will be necessary to support the public, private and community sectors to take that forward.

Our experience of working through the pilot phases gives us confidence that, with the right resources and capacity in place, local authorities will be able to complete that work on the timescale that we have set out. As I said in my opening remarks, we have worked very well and closely with COSLA as a body and with the individual local authorities that have been taking forward their pilots, and I do not think that significant concern has been raised about the timescale for the first strategies.

It would be inappropriate to predict the outcome of the discussions that we are having with COSLA. We need to work in a co-operative and collegiate way with local government, and that is the spirit in which we are entering the process.

However, as an indicative example, the most recent pilot phase offered local authorities the option of bidding for up to £50,000 for staff or consultant capacity to allow them to undertake their work. I think that, of those that followed things through to completion, most drew down slightly more than half of the £50,000 on offer—from £25,000 up to the mid-£30,000s. That is an indicative example of the kind of ballpark that we might be talking about but, as I have said, it would be wrong to pre-empt the discussions that we are having with COSLA by trying to predict the outcome at this stage.

Yes, I do, and it is nowhere near our intention simply to give the duty to councils and leave them to get on with things. We intend to continue the very strong collaborative work between central and local government that has got us to this stage, which shows that, in many parts of the country, there is great enthusiasm for taking forward this agenda.

Fiona Hyslop is quite right to say that needs with regard to capacity and skills might change over time, and what councils will need to go through the first iteration and get their first strategies and delivery plans published might well be different from what they will need two, three, five or seven years down the line, as they continue to deliver the strategies and see a range of different solutions in place.

For example, there will be differences not only in building stock, geography, climate and so on, but in the mix of energy sources that local authorities can draw on. Some authorities will already have their own local energy companies delivering heat networks and decarbonisation, while others might not be at that stage yet but might see the opportunity to develop those. The capacity that has been developed through that experience will also vary from council to council. That is why we need to work with councils on their own terms and in a way that is empowering to them. We aim to achieve the Scotland-wide net zero and fuel poverty targets, while empowering each local authority to decide the best way to do that in its local circumstances.

A huge amount of work is happening in this space, not only in the next year or two, when local authorities have to deliver their first LHEES, but in the longer term. This is a multidecade programme of work.

The green heat finance task force is already up and running, and its membership has been published. If the committee has not been sent that, we can point you to the part of the Scottish Government website that details that work. The task force will be looking at the wide range of finance solutions that will be necessary in the long term to deliver that multidecade programme of work and the large-scale investment—both private and public—that will be required.

It is tempting to think that we will not have gone far or fast enough until we have completed every element of that multidecade programme of work. I am the first to say that Scotland and other countries are not yet where we should be. Many people would say that a lot of the transition should have taken place a long time ago. Now that we are under way, it is clear that local authorities, using the resource that we are discussing with COSLA, will have the capacity to deliver their first LHEES by the end of next year. It would be wrong to assume that they cannot undertake that work until the finance task force has answered every question about the longer-term funding of the whole heat transition.

In many ways, the first iteration of the strategies will be about identifying issues that local authorities are already looking at, such as the nature of their building stock and the likelihood of heat networks in different parts of the country. The maps that have been developed by the Scottish Government to inform the first national assessment of heat networks are already available and more information is coming down the pipeline.

A huge amount of work is already under way, and I have no doubt that local authorities will be able to complete their first LHEES by the end of next year. The green heat finance task force will continue to indicate the longer-term solutions that are necessary for the much more substantial task that lies ahead in the years and decades to come.

I ask Paul Gilbert to jump in and say a little more about local authorities’ experience of the pilot phase and the types of skill sets that they have built up during it.

The green heat finance task force is already up and running and meeting. It might be more appropriate if I were to provide a written update to the committee in the near future about the work that the task force is already doing. That is rather separate from the question of resourcing local authorities to undertake the work that they will be given a duty to undertake by the order, if it is approved.

The scale of investment that is needed for the development of the strategies in the first instance over the next year and a half or so is of a significantly lower order than the scale of investment that is needed for the transformation of our building stock over the coming years and decades. It would be helpful to separate out those two issues, and I will provide the committee with a written update on the work of the task force at some point in the near future.

Given that that is separate from the LHEES order that we are debating, it might be appropriate for either me or the cabinet secretary to write to the committee if there has not been a recent update on that.

We are already working with agencies and organisations to deliver not just the heat in buildings agenda but support on fuel poverty and energy efficiency. That work is already resourced, and there have been increases in resources since the beginning of the current cost of living crisis. We have been keen to ensure that we maximise the uptake and availability of the grant, loan and other advice services that are available as we continue to develop and embed that throughout Scotland. The new agency will take on a key role in not only bringing that together but improving how it is delivered throughout Scotland.