Chamber and committees

The 1980 Education (Scotland) Act places a statutory responsibility on local authorities to provide and maintain schools across Scotland.

However, through this Government's Schools for the Future programme we are currently replacing three primary schools, Craighill, Knockbreck and St Duthus as part of a new 3 to 18 Campus in Tain including Tain Royal Academy. Further to this we are also replacing another three secondary schools in Highland as part of a significant investment package of almost £63million to the Council, the second largest beneficiary from the programme.

The Scottish Government's International Development Fund (IDF) began in 2005, with a budget of £3 million for Malawi. In 2008, the IDF was increased and now has a budget of £9 million per annum, currently supporting projects in our seven priority countries of Malawi, Zambia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the three poorest states in India. These projects cover a range of themes, including health, education, economic development, renewable energy, civic governance, water and sanitation.

The Scottish Government has previously supported volunteers from Scotland to work in its priority countries, from the IDF. This includes funding to support a partnership between VSO and NHSScotland in finding ways to encourage NHSScotland health professional staff to consider volunteering overseas, to support Malawi and other Sub Saharan African countries to sensitively and holistically tackle their human resource crises. More recently, the Scottish Government provided match funding from the IDF to the McConnell International Foundation for their Livingstone Volunteers 2016 scheme, which helps support the fundraising efforts of young Scots (15-19 year olds), from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are in care or recently left care or those with a disability, who have the chance to volunteer in Africa, but are struggling to meet the costs.

The information requested is not held centrally. However, we do have some information that may be useful. The reply refers to electricity and heat, both of which can be generated from renewable sources.It is estimated that, in 2015, Scotland generated enough renewable electricity to power the equivalent of around 4.6 million households - close to double the number of households in Scotland. A year earlier, in 2014, this figure was just over 4 million households. Provisionally, 56.9% of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption came from renewables in 2015.Figures published by the Energy Saving Trust in October 2015, on behalf of the Scottish Government, estimate over 1 gigawatt of renewable heat capacity was in operation in Scotland in 2014. This accounts for an estimated 3.8 per cent of the total non-electrical heat demand.The Scottish Government does not hold a complete dataset of the number of homes heated from renewable sources. Latest data on the number of domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) accreditations in Scotland, which represents a proportion of renewably heated homes, shows there have been 10,280 accreditations to the domestic RHI scheme from April 2014 (when the scheme commenced) up to end of June 2016. This equates to 21% of all UK installations as at end of June 2016.Further information is also available in the Energy Saving Trust’s Renewable Heat Report. Additionally a proportion of homes are heated via district heating supplied with renewable heat. Further data on the scale of deployment of district heating is expected later this year.It should be noted that renewable generated energy will be used both domestically and non-domestically

We do not hold information directly regarding churches and their energy sources and this information might best be sought from central contacts for each denomination in Scotland. However, the Energy Saving Trust has supported four churches with funding to install renewable technologies through the Resource Efficient Scotland SME loan while other groups, such as Eco-congregations, have been active in the promotion of renewable energy through engagement with a number of Climate Challenge Fund projects.

The information requested is not held centrally. However, the following information may be useful. The reply refers to electricity and heat, each of which can be generated from renewable sources.

It is estimated that in 2015, Scotland generated enough renewable electricity to power the equivalent of around 4.6 million households, which is close to double the number of households in Scotland. Provisionally, 56.9% of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption came from renewables in 2015.

Figures published by the Energy Saving Trust in October 2015, on behalf of the Scottish Government, estimate over 1 gigawatt of renewable heat capacity in operation in Scotland in 2014. This accounts for an estimated 3.8% of the total non-electrical heat demand.

The Scottish Government does not hold a complete dataset of the number of homes heated from renewable sources. The latest data on the number of domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) accreditations shows that the Highland local authority area has the largest proportion of accredited domestic RHI installation in Scotland totalling 1,751 installations. This equates to 17% of all Scottish installations as at end of June 2016.

It should be noted that renewable-generated energy will be used both domestically and non-domestically.

Registration of the Scottish Governments’ land and property in the Land Register of Scotland is underway. Currently 21% of the Scottish Governments’ eligible land and property has been registered; applications for a further 12% have been submitted to Registers of Scotland. The Scottish Government aims to have 70% of its land and property registered by the end of 2016 with all of its relevant property registered by the end of 2018, within the five year target for registration of public land.

The Scottish Government continues to provide strong support to developers of schemes to harness wave and tidal energy.

In 2014, we established Wave Energy Scotland (WES), which brings together experts to accelerate wave technology further. With a new budget of £10 million for 2016-17, WES is the biggest technology development programme the wave sector has ever seen, attracting global interest.

We have also invested in first-of-a-kind tidal schemes that will be a catalyst for the global tidal power market. The Scottish public sector’s £23 million investment in phase 1A of the MeyGen tidal array in the Pentland Firth is a clear signal of our belief in this sector.

On top of this, we have provided £1.9 million to help Nova Innovation develop the Shetland Tidal array and £4.2 million to enable Scotrenewables develop the world’s largest floating tidal turbine.

In 1999 there was a total of 2051 children throughout Scotland receiving Gaelic-medium education and in 2007, this had risen to 2486. The current figures show that this has risen to 4197. As shown in the following table, this covers primary and secondary but not early learning and childcare. This is a 68% increase since 2007 and a 104% increase since 1999.