Chamber and committees

The second milestone of the Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing to 2032 (EESSH2) requires social landlords to ensure their stock meets, or can be treated as meeting, EPC Band B, or is as energy efficient as practically possible, by the end of December 2032 and within the limits of cost, technology and necessary consent.

The EESSH2 milestone does not change landlords’ responsibility to manage their investment policy to ensure that it is cost-effective, especially where substantial additional investment has a potential impact on rents. The Scottish Government guidance for landlords makes it clear that we do not expect landlords to invest in measures that are unaffordable or where the costs are disproportionate to the benefits to tenants. Landlords have broad discretion to decide if potential energy efficiency measures are too expensive or are not value for money in their stock. We will continue to work in partnership with the sector to find the most effective ways to tackle the shared challenge of the climate emergency together.

Scottish Government modelling suggests that it could cost a total of £3.4 billion to bring 62% of Scottish social housing up to EPC band B using existing technology. Historically, a large part of the expenditure needed to improve homes has come from landlords' own resources or borrowing as part of their continuing investment to improve their homes. The Scottish Government provides guidance to help landlords identify funding sources, including Energy Company Obligation, UK Government Schemes, and funding from the Scottish Government.

Through our Social Housing Net Zero Heat fund, the Scottish Government has already committed to make available £100 million over the next parliament to support existing social landlords across Scotland to install zero emission heating systems and energy efficiency measures across their housing stock. In addition, the Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme and its successor programme will invest £400 million over the next five years in large-scale heat decarbonisation infrastructure. We will continue to work with the sector to assess the impact of funding to date and ensure that our funding effectively supports further acceleration of the decarbonisation of our social housing stock alongside the ongoing investment of social landlords in maintaining the efficiency and quality of their stock.

Before the Scottish Parliament election, the First Minister launched an action plan which set out a series of key steps for the first 100 days of an SNP government.

Following the election, strategic discussion on the implementation of the 100 days commitments took place with key stakeholders such as COSLA and individual policy areas worked in partnership with COSLA’s officers to develop the commitments which required input or delivery of local authorities.

The level and distribution of funding for all the Scottish Government 100 days manifesto commitments which will be delivered by local authorities have now been agreed with COSLA political leaders.

On 22 June 2018 the Scottish Government and COSLA wrote to public sector leaders, including all chairs and Chief Executives of public bodies, inviting them to submit proposals to the Local Governance Review. 20 Local Authorities, 6 Community Planning Partnerships and 16 other public bodies responded. Appendix One of the summary report published in May 2019 sets out the full list of respondents.

On 28 November 2019, the Scottish Government and COSLA provided an update to all public sector leaders . This highlighted opportunities for functional, fiscal and community empowerment and invited place-specific proposals for alternative governance arrangements. Councils have been working with local partners to develop proposals and dialogue with Scottish Government officials has commenced to explore the proposed changes and how they could improve outcomes.

This Scottish Government is committed to concluding the Local Governance Review within this parliament.

This Scottish Government is committed to concluding the Local Governance Review within this parliament. During the first phase of the Review, the Scottish Government, COSLA and the community sector undertook a highly inclusive engagement process called Democracy Matters. People from diverse backgrounds overwhelmingly wanted to see bold changes to how power is shared. Further extensive engagement with communities - of place and interest - will be an important part of understanding how best to respond to people’s aspirations for genuine control over those decisions which affect them the most.

In section 126 of Scottish Planning Policy, affordable housing is defined broadly as housing of a reasonable quality that is affordable to people on modest incomes and this includes social rented accommodation, mid-market rented accommodation, shared ownership housing, shared equity housing, housing sold at a discount (including plots for self-build), and low cost housing without subsidy.

The Scottish Planning Policy definition is therefore at a high level, since it will apply across a variety of housing types and areas. While the definition of affordable housing includes reference to people on modest incomes this term is not defined as affordability can be affected by a range of factors such as tenure, income and location.

Further advice on the types of affordable housing that can contribute to affordable housing requirements is set out in Planning Advice 2/2010 - https://www.gov.scot/publications/planning-advice-note-2-2010-affordable-housing-housing-land-audits/

As there is no universally accepted definition of rent affordability, Housing to 2040, Scotland’s first long-term housing strategy, which was published in March 2021 includes a commitment to work with stakeholders to develop a shared understanding of affordability which is fit for the future

The Homelessness in Scotland statistics series reports data from the HL1 (homelessness applications), HL2 (snapshot temporary accommodation) and HL3 (placement level temporary accommodation) data collections.

Information on the number of children within the household applying for homelessness support and in temporary accommodation is currently collected and reported on through the HL1 and HL2 collections respectively.

Data is published in the Homelessness in Scotland statistics series. Data is published on a 6-monthly basis, with the most recent publication relating to the annual data for 2020-21. Table 15 of the latest publication reports the number of children in homelessness applications and Table 27 reports the number of children in temporary accommodation as at the end of a quarter. A link to the latest publication can be found here:

Homelessness in Scotland: 2020 to 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

An additional question was added to the HL3 data collection in 2019 to gather information on the number of children living in temporary accommodation placements. However, not all local authorities have so far been able to provide this information as there is a lead in time required to update local authority management information systems and data extraction processes. Scottish Government are continuing to work closely with local authorities to assist with the provision of this data and understand timescales for when this can be made available.

On 26 April free lateral flow device (LFD) test kits were made available to everyone in Scotland, for twice-weekly asymptomatic COVID-19 testing via the universally accessible testing offer. In addition to this, free LFD test kits are available through the Scottish Government’s targeted asymptomatic testing programme which includes routine testing for:

• health care workers
• educational staff, senior phase pupils and HE/FE students
• prioritised workforces in the public sector and in critical national infrastructure
• high risk private sector settings such as food processing businesses

Free access to LFD test kits has been extended through the summer period until September, when a formal review will be undertaken by the Scottish Government. Workforce testing is currently being expanded to all private sector organizations with more than ten employees.

The Scottish Government subsidised a total of 3,595 mid-market rent properties which were completed by Registered Social Landlords between 2016-17 and 2021-22. The following table shows the number which had a starting rent level exceeding the relevant Local Housing Allowance broken down by local authority area and More Homes Division Area team.

(a) The Joint Housing Resilience Chairs Group was convened by the previous Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning at his request and were held over the period at the height of the pandemic. The need for specific meetings with the resilience group reduced as the recovery progressed. The group last met on 17 March and has not reconvened.

(b) No meetings of the Local Government Resilience Group have taken place since 6 May 2021 as this meeting was chaired and organised by COSLA. It has now been moved to meeting by exception.

(c) The Private Rented Sector Resilience Group met on the 17 May, 7 June and 23 June. The next scheduled meeting of the group is 26 July.

(d) The Social Housing Resilience Group met on the 25 May and 22 June. The next scheduled meeting of the group is 27 July.

(e) Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans Sub-group met on the 18 May and the next meeting of the group is on the 17 August.