Chamber and committees

Loft and cavity wall insulation, which is prioritized under the UK Government''s Carbon Emissions Reductions Target scheme is the main focus of insulation measures under the Home Insulation Scheme (HIS) and is not appropriate for many hard-to-treat homes. However, within HIS areas, owners of hard to treat properties have been offered support to install such measures where these are appropriate. For example, properties that are of solid brick or stone walled construction, or those with timber frame cavities, are normally regarded as hard to treat, but may require measures such as loft insulation. On this basis, 32% of HIS insulation measures have been installed in hard to treat properties.

Owners of hard to treat properties in HIS areas have also been assisted in a range of other ways, including through energy efficiency advice, benefits and tariff checks to increase incomes and tackle fuel poverty (through the Energy Assistance Package), heating systems and other measures (through the Energy Assistance Package, where households are eligible) and interest free loans for more expensive energy efficiency measures.

The breakdown is as follows :

Percentage of Home Insulation Scheme (HIS) 2009-10 Budget Allocated

Category
A/B - insulation materials/labour1	35%
C “ publicity and promotion	3%
D “ administration2	7%

Notes:

1. Information is not collected on the breakdown between labour and materials costs. Includes enabling fund to assist in installation costs, e.g. loft clearance, reduction of installation costs in island areas. Does not include funding for insulation measures funded under CERT or from householder contributions.

2. Covers central managing agent staff and IT.

The remainder of the HIS 2009-10 budget has been allocated to support delivery costs (48%) which covers the costs incurred by the Energy Saving Scotland Advice Centres in providing and managing teams of energy assessors to engage with households living in the 180,000 houses in the HIS areas covered by the 2009-10 programme in order to generate uptake of insulation measures and provide services on the door step. This included the delivery of services such as energy efficiency advice, home energy checks and referrals to a range of energy efficiency and fuel poverty programmes. The remaining 7% of the budget is allocated to provision of other energy efficiency measures, including loans.

The Home Insulation Scheme (HIS) achieved its target of ensuring that all dwellings in the identified areas were visited and free or discounted loft and cavity wall insulation measures and other services, where appropriate, offered to those households which it was possible to contact after three visits.

Our draft report on proposals and policies sets out a series of milestones for Scottish homes. This includes for every home to have loft and cavity wall insulation, which is cost-effective and technically feasible by 2020.

Installers under the HIS are contractually obliged to comply with British and European insulation standards and best practice guidelines.

The Scottish Government has provided smart enabled electronic ticket machines to the entire Scottish bus fleet, as part of its administration of the National Concessionary Travel Scheme, and is working with First Scotrail on a trial of similar systems for the rail industry. We will continue to work with transport operators, local authorities and Regional Transport Partnerships to support the creation of a multi-modal smartcard ticket for public transport.

The roll-out of smart enabled electronic ticket machines to the entire Scottish bus fleet has allowed Transport Scotland to introduce processes that enable it to manage the National Concessionary Travel Scheme more efficiently and more effectively. Transport Scotland will continue to review these processes and introduce further improvements as appropriate.

The £9.5 million allocated to the smartcard programme quoted in the draft budget 2011-12 paper will be used to fund the managed services that support the current ITSO interoperable smart systems, ITSO fees and charges, necessary software and hardware upgrades including back office systems development as well as supporting further development of smart and integrated ticketing.

All contract models for the future franchise are being fully explored, including not-for-profit models. Discussions with the Scottish Trades Union Congress and its affiliate rail unions have already taken place as part of the preparatory work currently being undertaken to launch a full consultation exercise on the form and content of the next franchise.

The UK''s membership of the World Trade Organization''s Government Procurement Agreement allows Scottish businesses certain rights to participate in competitive tendering opportunities in those international markets covered by the agreement; withdrawal from the agreement may result in Scottish businesses being denied access to these markets. There are no current plans to urge the UK Government to withdraw from the agreement or to amend it to implement boycotts against other parties to the agreement.

All students who meet the relevant qualifying criteria will be eligible for an exemption from council tax charges and thus will benefit equally.

The Scottish Government is supportive of students accessing education through all routes. Students leaving one institution before enrolling at another to commence further studies are not deemed to be students during that period. Consequently, they may be liable to council tax. However, where they are liable, they may be eligible for council tax benefit of up to 100% to help pay their council tax bill.