Chamber and committees

During his Budget speech on 4 February 2009, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth announced proposals for the first stage of an ambitious area based Home Insulation Scheme supported by £15 million of new government funding in 2009-10 plus £15 million from other sources. Since then, the Scottish Government has been working with stakeholders, including COSLA, to finalise details of the scheme and announcements will follow in due course.

During his budget speech on 4 February 2009, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth announced proposals for the first stage of an ambitious area based Home Insulation Scheme supported by £15 million of new government funding in 2009-10 plus £15 million from other sources. Since then, the Scottish Government has been working with stakeholders, including COSLA, to finalise details of the scheme and announcements will follow in due course.

The Scottish Government''s Public Sector Pay Policy encourages a total reward approach to public sector pay, including non-pay rewards such as salary sacrifice schemes.

Salary sacrifice schemes for other public sector workforce groups in Scotland are a matter for the employers within these groups.

The Scottish Government is actually encouraging more employers in Scotland - public, private and voluntary sector - to offer their staff childcare vouchers, which are a form of salary sacrifice scheme.

We have received letters from three Members of the Scottish Parliament claiming that there is a loophole in the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation) Order 2000, in that the regulatory regime established by that Order does not cover holiday lets.

In fact, the system of licensing of houses in multiple occupation is a regulatory regime with conditions designed to protect tenants whose principal or only residence is a multiply-occupied house. The legislation was not designed to cover holiday lets.

A three year grant to Community Service Volunteers for its Retired and Senior Volunteers Programme came to its planned and expected conclusion at the end of March. Various discussions have taken place over the last nine months or so at official and ministerial level about the possibility of a further grant, which is not possible under the new arrangements for funding local projects by local authorities.

The concordat with local authorities reinforces the principle that local delivery decisions should be made locally to ensure the delivery of local outcome agreement. Third sector organisations such as Community Service Volunteers can make a contribution to delivering single outcome agreements by engaging with community planning partnerships and local authorities.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-17400 on 11 November 2008. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

A three year grant to Community Service Volunteers for its Retired and Senior Volunteers Programme came to its planned and expected conclusion at the end of March.

On 5 February 2009, I met the Director Scotland and a board member of CSV to discuss the contribution it could make to advancing volunteering. Officials from the Third Sector Division met representatives of CSV on 24 November 2008 and 2 February 2009 to discuss their request for a further grant for its Retired and Senior Volunteers programme, which matches volunteers to local projects. No minutes were taken of these meetings.

There is no recent research to ascertain the number of properties operating in Edinburgh as holiday lets. However, the Edinburgh and the Lothians Visitor Accommodation Audit 2006 identified 646 self-catering properties in Edinburgh.

The full audit report is available at the VisitScotland website at:

http://www.visitscotland.org/about_us/local_network_offices/edinburgh_and_lothians/tourism_accommodation_audit.htm.

The Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS) was introduced in 2004 to give Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) and Local Authorities a minimum standard to aim for in improving housing stock. All social landlords are expected to produce Standard Delivery Plans indicating how they will bring their properties up to the standard by 2015. From April 2008 the Scottish Housing Regulator is responsible, on behalf of the Scottish ministers, for monitoring landlords'' progress towards achieving the SHQS.

Responsibility for enforcing standards in private rented accommodation lies with local authorities. Mandatory landlord registration and licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) set minimum standards for private rented housing and give local authorities a range of enforcement powers to tackle bad landlord practice. We would encourage all councils to use the full range of their powers to tackle the minority of landlords who can give the sector a poor reputation.

From September 2007, the Housing Act (Scotland) 2006 gave tenants in most types of private rented accommodation the right to apply to the Private Rented Housing Panel (PRHP) where they feel that the landlord has not complied with the duty to ensure that the house meets the repairing standard. The PRHP has the power to make Repairing Standard Enforcement Orders, and ultimately rent relief orders, if mediation is not appropriate or fails. Under the 2006 Act councils also have powers to act earlier when a house is falling into poor condition.