Chamber and committees

Public bodies and agencies are under a direct duty under the public sector equality duties in UK equality legislation to take action to eradicate discrimination and to pro-actively promote equality of opportunity. How they do that is a matter for each public body and agency to consider and apply individually.

The Principles of Inclusive Communication - An information and self-assessment tool for public authorities will help them consider how they communicate with people with visual or hearing impairments and people with a learning disability.

Communication Forum Scotland has agreed to take forward work that will promote nationally the Principles of Inclusive Communication - An information and self-assessment tool for public authorities.

The Scottish Government already use the principles of inclusive communication where appropriate in working with people with learning disabilities and people with visual or hearing impairments. We have just published Principles of Inclusive Communication - An information and self-assessment tool for public authorities developed by the Independent Living in Scotland Core Reference Group sub group, which will inform this.

As a matter of good practice, public bodies and agencies should already be using principles of inclusive communication where appropriate. The new publication will help them consider how they communicate with people with visual or hearing impairments and people with a learning disability: it is not a tool for accountability to the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government is planning to issue a consultation on the Renewables Obligation Scotland Banding Review by the end of September. The consultation will seek views on proposed changes to support for large scale electricity-only biomass plants.

The Draft Electricity Generation Policy Statement 2010 sets out the Scottish Government's latest position on the role of renewable electricity and fossil fuel thermal generation (coal, gas, oil) in Scotland's future energy mix and is currently being updated to take account of our 100% renewable electricity target.

It highlights that we see the main role of biomass being in heat-only or combined heat and power plants, particularly off gas-grid, and to a scale which maximises heat use and local supply.

The Wood Fuel Task Force previously recommended that the development of the biomass industry in Scotland follows the approach adopted by the Scottish Government, prioritising the use of biomass for renewable heat at a scale appropriate to local supply.

The task force’s second report concluded that there is no capacity to support further large scale electricity generation biomass plants from the domestic wood fibre resource.

That is why we are reviewing support for such plant and are lobbying UK Government to recognise the impacts of support at a UK level.

Scottish Government has a policy to support the deployment of biomass in heat-only or combined heat and power plants, particularly off gas-grid, and to a scale which maximises heat use and local supply.

Clearly with a limited resource, maximum efficiency needs to be encouraged. Use of available heat in heat-only schemes achieves 80-90% energy efficiency. Whereas CHP schemes achieve an average of 50-70% and electricity-only schemes achieve only 30% efficiency on average.

The use of biomass first and foremost off the gas-grid ensures the highest carbon savings (given that in most cases it will be displacing oil or coal), and can also make the greatest impact on alleviating fuel poverty.

We are reviewing support for biomass under the Renewables Obligation Scotland in order that it aligns with this policy.

The UK's ambitious targets for electricity generation using woody biomass are inappropriate given the significant uncertainty around the global availability of biomass in the medium term. We are working to influence UK policy in order that it recognises impacts on other wood users and makes best use of biomass.

Studies into Global biomass resource have been carried out at a UK level. The UK and Global Bioenergy Resource study was published in March this year. It was produced by AEA on behalf of the UK Government.

The AEA figures suggest that if all currently planned large scale biomass plants in the UK went ahead, they would require between 17.3 and 18.3 million tonnes of biomass (not necessarily wood) per year.

The current UK timber harvest is about 10.2 million green tonnes per annum.

The General Register Office for Scotland (now part of National Records of Scotland) made every effort to ensure that those who may have difficulty in completing the census questionnaire were provided appropriate help and guidance. Where possible, householders were able to request help directly through their local census enumerator or alternatively could visit the Scotland’s Census website, where guidance and interpretations of every census question was provided in British Sign Language (see http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/en/help/bsl.html). Assistance was also available through our textphone service. In researching and providing these help facilities, we engaged with organisations such as Royal National Institute of Deaf People and Deaf Connections.

Question 20 on the 2011 Census questionnaire, which asked about long-term conditions, included a tick box for “Deafness or partial hearing loss”, as well as including an option to allow respondents to specify an alternative response, as required. It is based on self assessment and self declaration, and as such was not designed to give counts of specific groups.

The completed questionnaires are currently being processed (in geographical units) at the data capture centre. A number of statistical processes are applied to the data before final, quality assured census outputs can be released and used. The timetable for release of detailed census output data will be made available in spring 2012.