Chamber and committees

Free and impartial advice on energy efficiency measures and eligibility for fuel poverty support, is made available to all households in Scotland through Home Energy Scotland (HES). The Scottish Government liaises closely with the Energy Saving Trust (EST) – which manages the HES advice network on our behalf – to ensure programme delivery and any associated awareness raising campaigns focused on energy advice provision are monitored and evaluated appropriately. This is to ensure a quality service continues to be offered to clients.

We carried out a Scottish Government HES Marketing Campaign in 2016-17. This was evaluated to assess the effectiveness of awareness-raising and to shape programmes and future engagement. This marketing campaign used a variety of sources: Facebook, Organic, PPC, Display, Campaign URL, Referral, Direct Mail and Email. We assessed the success and impact of the mediums used. The outcome of this impact assessment shaped the development of our engagement to maximise uptake of our energy efficiency and fuel poverty programmes. This influenced our partnership approach, how and who we engaged with, such as introducing more online options. Following the evaluation, HES reached out to people through a variety of different methods including using more online forums and structured events.

EST also provided a Home Energy Scotland Network Evaluation Report 2016-17 on the impact of the HES advice service in terms of carbon dioxide savings and fuel bill reductions achieved by householders advised. Evaluation interviews with customers are carried out three to six months after the customer’s interaction with HES, to allow time for the customer to have acted on the advice, and the analysis of results is completed thereafter.

Continuing to assess the effectiveness of existing energy advice provided through HES will remain important moving forward as we work to develop and introduce a Final Fuel Poverty Strategy next year and deliver on its ambitions.

The Scottish Government used the National Household Model to analyse and estimate the costs for improving residential buildings. The National Household Model is a domestic energy-policy modelling and analytical tool, commissioned from the Centre for Sustainable Energy by the UK Government, and also used by the Committee on Climate Change.

Our estimates of the costs of improving Scotland’s domestic and non-domestic buildings were set out in the Energy Efficient Scotland Consultation. We estimate that the cost of meeting the programme for domestic properties is in the region of £8 billion, to bring around 75% of Scotland’s private sector domestic buildings to EPC C and around 50% of its social rented sector properties to EPC B.

For the social housing sector, alongside outputs from the National Household Model, the Scottish Government also undertook a case study exercise with selected social landlords, who modelled upgrades to their own stock.

Further details about the modelling methodology are set out in the Partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment, which can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/Resource/0053/00534964.pdf

Low Emission Zones are one of a range of measures aimed at improving air quality and encouraging modal shift towards active and sustainable travel. The Scottish Government has doubled the active travel budget from £40 to £80 million in 2018-19. This will allow us to continue to build an Active Nation for Scotland, boosting investment in walking and cycling and putting active travel at the heart of our transport planning.

The physical infrastructure and administrative processes will be for Glasgow City Council to decide upon for their city specific Low Emission Zone. It is anticipated that £2.2 million capital funding will be available in 2018/19 to support local authorities introducing Low Emission Zones to progress these aspects.

The Scottish Government has frequent dialogue with stakeholders, including public bodies, on many aspects of environmental policy including arrangements that might need to be developed following the Brexit process.

The Scottish Government has continued to engage constructively with the UKG and the other devolved administrations to explore where UK-wide frameworks may be necessary or desirable and how such frameworks would work. The Scottish Government is not opposed to UK wide frameworks where these are in Scotland’s interests, but these must be agreed and not imposed.

The range and volume of employment opportunities as a result of the implementation and enforcement of the forthcoming Low Emission Zone in Glasgow is not yet known. These will be dependent upon a variety of factors related to how Glasgow City Council choose to operate, monitor and enforce the zone.

Transport Scotland does not hold information on the number of electric vehicle charge points by constituency area. Local Authority funded charge points are shown in the table below, along with the total amount offered to each Local Authority since 2010.

A national Low Emission Zone communications strategy is being developed by the Scottish Government with the primary goal of raising awareness amongst businesses and the general public prior to the introduction of Scotland’s first Low Emission Zone by the end of 2018.

The number of peatland action applications and grants in the relevant years are as follows : -

Peatland Action Grants from April 2018

Table 1. Number of CRtB registrations per year as at 15 August 2018 (legislation came into force on 14 June 2004).