Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is providing local government in Scotland with record levels of funding. The vast majority of funding, including funding for a public analyst service, is provided by means of a block grant. It is the responsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financial resources available to it on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled its statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities including the Scottish Government''s key strategic objectives and manifesto commitments.

The latest settlement gave local authorities 5% additional funding for environmental health.

The Scottish Government has had no discussions on this matter with Aberdeen City Council. However, the Food Standards Agency Scotland has been kept informed of proposals relating to the future of Aberdeen City Council''s Public Analyst Laboratory, given the agency''s interest in ensuring the provision of adequate analytical services for food testing across Scotland. The Aberdeen laboratory will be considered in wider discussions on how the agency ensures these services are maintained across Scotland.

It is the statutory responsibility of local authorities to appoint public analysts for the purposes of ensuring food safety, and to take any necessary action in pursuit of that duty.

In addition, as part of the Food Standard Agency Scotland''s overview of local authority food enforcement and their audit of these services, the agency ensure that each local authority has appointed a laboratory that operates, and is assessed and accredited in accordance with, the European standards specified in Regulation (EC) No 882/2004, and which meets the requirements of the Food Safety Act 1990.

The Statement of Intent is the first of a two stage application process to the Rural Development Contracts - Rural Priorities. The statement of intent allows applicants to register their interest in Rural Priorities and give an outline of their ideas under the scheme. Case officers use the statement of intent to give feedback on the suitability of these ideas based on the regional priorities, and detail any financial constraint or negative impacts evident.

On that basis, the statement of intent is working effectively. The statement of intent allows an applicant, before committing significant expenditure or personal time, to make an informed choice before progressing to the second stage of the application process, full proposal.

The effectiveness of the statement of intent will be one of the areas considered in the upcoming review of the Scottish Rural Development Programme.

The Scotland Rural Development Programme (SRDP) 2007-2013 has eight delivery mechanisms. These are:

Crofting Counties Agricultural Grant Scheme

Food Processing, Marketing and Co-operation Grant Scheme

Forestry Commission Challenge Funds

The LEADER initiative

Less Favoured Area Support Scheme

Rural Development Contracts “ Land Manager Options

Rural Development Contracts “ Rural Priorities

Skills Development Scheme.

The only competitive element administered by SGRPID Area Offices is Rural Development Contract “ Rural Priorities (RDC-RP). I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-18805 on 15 January 2009 which details the monthly submission statistics for applications to Rural Priorities and the number of applications received per RPAC region. The written answer also explains the scheme is administered using 11 RPAC regions therefore the statistics available are based on these RPAC regions.

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.

Rural Priorities can only be applied for on-line and one of the main advantages of this is that it helps guide people to the information that is relevant to their particular situation, thereby making it more straightforward to complete. The Scottish Government recognise that this may present some difficulties for some applicants, and for this reason is continuing to work actively to provide assistance for potential applicants. A series of workshops and surgeries have been held by SEARS staff and organisations such as NFUS to provide an introduction to Rural Priorities and further workshops may be undertaken if local demand is sufficient.

Further assistance available includes:

Identifying liaison officers in every region to develop local solutions to internet access;

Working with BT to extend broadband coverage across rural Scotland;

Providing IT helpdesk to assist with login problems;

Providing applicants with information about alternative local internet access points;

Providing training material to NFUS for use in one to one surgeries across the country, and

Part-funding for applicants who choose to use agents services.

We take concerns very seriously and these will be taken account in my recently announced review of the Rural Priorities mechanism.

Work on data sets to monitor future energy use, to complement existing information, continues to develop. Since the Scottish Government''s response to the strategy consultation was published in June 2008, a number of new reports have been issued. These include Volume 5 of the Scottish Energy Study, published in November 2008, which includes projections of energy demand, supply and carbon emissions up to the period 2020. This includes data from 2002 as a baseline and complements earlier volumes of the study to allow assessment of changes in the level of energy and carbon usage to be monitored.

A report was also published in November which assessed a range of possible policy options which could be considered in order to meet the ambitious target of an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.

We are continuing to consider what further data is required as part of the process of monitoring future change. For example, we will monitor the change in emissions from Scottish Government policies.

We have included a mandatory provision within our ambitious Climate Change Bill to introduce an energy efficiency action plan for Scotland within one year of the Bill coming into force. We will publish an outline of the action plan in Spring 2009 and will publish the final plan when the Bill becomes an Act.

Specific Scottish Government targets already set include:

(a). For new buildings, we have set targets to limit both the carbon emissions and energy demand through the building standards system. Scottish standards are currently the most demanding in the UK. A further review of these standards is presently underway, investigating improvements recommended in The Sullivan Report “ A low Carbon Building Standards Strategy for Scotland.

(b). We have set a target in the social housing sector that, by 2015, all properties should have cavity wall insulation, water tank and pipe insulation and at least 100mm of loft insulation (where these measures are technically feasible in the property). All social rented properties should also, by 2015, have a full, efficient central heating system and a National Home Energy Rating score of at least five.

In addition, from 1 April 2009, houses in all tenures will require to have satisfactory thermal insulation in order to fulfil the requirements of the tolerable standard, which is the minimum standard which all houses must meet.

The most recent Scottish House Condition Survey showed that 50 per cent of dwellings were rated good in terms of energy efficiency on the National Home Energy Rating scale, one of the methodologies used for measuring energy efficiency. This demonstrates a continuation of the upwards trend, from 31 per cent in 2002 to 40 per cent in 2003-04, 44 per cent in 2004-05 and 47 per cent in 2005-06. Just 4 per cent of dwellings were rated poor.

However, more needs to be done to continue to improve energy efficiency and increase the uptake of microgeneration across Scotland. We will address this through the introduction of the mandatory energy efficiency action plan, proposed under the Scottish Climate Change Bill. This will report on the progress of improvements, including relevant milestones, targets and anticipated carbon savings.

We will report on the progress on energy efficiency and microgeneration across all programmes and initiatives, across all Directorates, including relevant milestones, targets and anticipated carbon savings as part of the mandatory energy efficiency action plan for Scotland, proposed under the Scottish Climate Change Bill.