Chamber and committees

I have asked John Ewing, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

The 2011 Prisoner Survey contained, for the first time, a question about prisoners who had previously been in care. Responses to the survey are being collated and the findings will be published in December 2011. I will write to the member with the information as soon as it is available.”

The Scottish Government has funded the Energy Savings Trust (EST) and Community Energy Scotland (CES) to deliver schemes for communities and householders. The Scottish Government also funds the Climate Challenge Fund managed by Keep Scotland Beautiful.

EST have received over £23 million to deliver a number of renewables specific programmes since April 2007, designed to incentivise the uptake of renewables systems in domestic households, the public sector and/or community schemes. CES have deliver over £16 million of grants for communities.

(a) Financial Support for communities

Scottish and Community Householders Initiative (SCHRI) – Community Stream

The SCHRI (Community stream) was jointly managed by EST and Community Energy Scotland from 2003 to 2009. The scheme provided both development and capital grants to community groups, charities, and public sector organisations for installation of renewables systems.

Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES)

CARES replaced the SCHRI community stream and is managed jointly by CES and EST. The scheme was available to community groups, not for profit organisations, Registered Social Landlords and Housing Associations. It closed in February 2011 to be replaced by CARES loans for communities and farmers.

The grants provided under these two schemes

Energy Saving Scotland small business loans

EST has been delivering the upgraded small business loans scheme since 2008. The scheme offers interest free loans from £1,000 to £100,000 to help SMEs install measures that reduce energy consumption or to install renewable energy technologies. The total amount of small business loans provided to third sector organisations (ie, charities and not-for-profit organisations) is £0.912 million since December 2008.

Climate Challenge Fund

Under the Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) 2008-12, 31 community projects have included action on energy generation and have shared over £1.7 million of funding to reduce their local community carbon emissions. Either all or part of the grants awarded to these communities were to carry out feasibility studies into community renewable schemes that included geothermal power, hydro power and wind turbines.

For the recently announced CCF rounds, renewable energy feasibility studies will no longer be eligible for funding. Communities will be directed to relevant sources who may be able to provide advice and funding.

(b) Financial Support for households

Details of the financial support provided to households under various grant schemes is provided in the answer to question S4W-03176 on 2 November 2011. 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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Figures for the number of renewable energy generators for households are based on the number of households which have drawn down grants and loans since April 2007. Figures for local authority and housing association households have been provided by the Energy Savings Trust who are undertaking research for the Scottish Government. This is not a complete dataset but contains information currently available and work is continuing to secure data from local authorities and social housing associations.

Note: 1. that there may be some properties which have received both loan and grant funding. It has not been possible to identify these properties in the available timescales.

A number of scheme have been available to householders to provide financial support for renewables. The grants paid under these schemes since 2007-08 are:

Note: 1.The total RHPP vouchers issued to householders in Scotland is £290,650

In addition, to the end of September 2011, 4,765 systems had been registered under the Feed In Tariff scheme in Scotland. These will benefit Scottish householders and the wider economy by drawing in over £115 million in lifetime FITs income and savings on electricity bills.

The Scottish Government offers direct financial support for household renewables through the Energy Saving Scotland homes renewables scheme, managed by the Energy Savings Trust (EST). The scheme offers interest-free loans for renewables systems to private householders in Scotland for up to £2,000 or 30% of the total capital costs, whichever is the lower. The total loan fund is £1.138 million.

In addition the Scottish Government funds EST to manage a bulk procurement scheme to identify the best offers from installers for solar PV installations. The discount secured, typically 5-15% off the installers standard price for a PV system, is then promoted to targeted individuals in specific “hotspot” areas of Scotland.

Householders in Scotland can also benefit from two key UK Government incentive schemes for renewable heat and renewable electricity.

The Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) is a grant scheme available to private householders across Great Britain to incentivise the installation of renewable heat-generating technologies. The RHPP scheme is planned to run from 1 August 2011 to 31 March 2012 with total funds available of £12 million with a further £3 million for social housing.

The Feed in Tariff scheme (FITs) provides payments from FITs registered suppliers to householders and others who generate their own electricity from renewable sources. A typical Scottish householder in a typical property with an average size PV system could benefit by approximately £24,000 over the lifetime of the system.

Further details on the schemes available to householders and how to access them are available from the Energy Savings Trust:

www.energysavingstrust.org.uk/scotland.

Low pay is an issue that the Scottish Government takes very seriously and we support the principles of the living wage campaign. The Public Sector Pay Policy for Staff Pay Remits 2011-12 published by the Scottish Government requires employers covered by the policy to pay their employees a Scottish living wage. This is currently set at £7.15 per hour.

Private sector pay, however, is a matter for individual companies. In addition, including conditions in procurement processes which require contractors or subcontractors to pay their employees more than the national minimum wage could amount to a restriction of the freedom to provide services guaranteed by article 56 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

The European Commission is currently undertaking a review of the public procurement rules and is considering whether and how public bodies should be able to take strategic policy objectives (including social objectives) into account in the procurement process. We are contributing to the commission’s review and are monitoring developments in this area.

The Scottish Government’s Children Looked After Survey does not collect exactly the level of detail requested.

However, the most detailed information that is available can be found in Table 2.2 of the additional tables published alongside the Children Looked After Survey, 2009-10 statistical publication on 23 February 2011.

This table contains information on the number of looked after children, by type of accommodation, for the years 2001 to 2010.

A copy of the table can be found here:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Children/CLAS0910AdditionalTables

This information is not centrally held.

Under the Scotland Act 1998, the National Minimum Wages Act 1998 is a reserved matter. However, there are no legal barriers to public bodies paying their staff a living wage rate that exceeds the national minimum wage.

The Scottish Government’s Public Sector Pay Policy requires employers who are subject to the policy to apply a Scottish Living Wage. The policy covers the Scottish Government, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies and the subsidiaries of these bodies. www.scotland.gov.uk/publicsectorpay.

It is a matter for any other public body (i.e. a public body not covered by the Scottish Government’s Public Sector Pay Policy) to decide whether to adopt an equivalent/similar policy in relation to staff pay.