Chamber and committees

Working with industry, we have developed a set of installer skills requirements to help professionalise services in this sector, and provide clearer career pathways for young people. We consulted on these earlier last year and we are now integrating these requirements into the relevant industry standards.

We have partnered with Scottish Renewables and Skills Development Scotland (SDS) to undertake a 'Heat in Buildings Workforce Assessment Project' which will help us define the timing of workforce growth and how best to support people transitioning into key roles. This work will report back in Spring 2022. This will improve our understanding on how best to support workforce investment and ensure that jobs will be available for people to move into as they complete their training.

At the end of 2020 the Scottish Government and Skills Development Scotland (SDS) published the Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan (CESAP) setting out the actions we need to take to ensure our workforce is able to support the transition to net zero.

As part of the implementation of the CESAP, Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) are currently reviewing training needs and available provision required to deliver the ambitions of our Heat in Buildings Strategy. We have commissioned a workforce assessment which will serve as an evidence base for this review.

Modern Apprenticeships are the key pathway for young people into the heating and plumbing industry. The Scottish Government provides a contribution towards training of Mas through SDS. The public funded training contribution is structured by age and level, and prioritised to support outcomes within the Scottish Government's skills and economic strategies.

Three colleges are currently offering insulation apprenticeships - West College Scotland, South Lanarkshire College and Edinburgh College. A further two training facilities at West Lothian College and Dundee & Angus College are due to open August 2022 to meet the increased demand.

In addition the new Insultation Building Treatments (IBT) Level 5/6 qualification approved by Apprenticeship Approvals Group (AAG) to support external wall apprenticeships. This qualification will be supported within Scotland's colleges insultation training facilities with funding received from SP Energy Networks Green Economy Funding and Scottish Government.

This new qualification will further improve the quality and standards of installations in Scotland, in addition to creating new Apprenticeship Opportunities.

The New Supply Shared Equity Scheme is only available for the purchase of new build homes being sold by a local authority or registered social Landlord . This is an affordable housing scheme and counts towards the target of delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032.

Marketing for the Open Market Shared Equity scheme is carried out by the administering agent as part of their contract to administer the scheme on behalf of the Scottish Government.

It is the responsibility of Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) who deliver the New Supply Shared Equity scheme to carry out marketing for each of their developments.

Annual New Supply Shared Equity (NSSE) sales are published as part of the attached Affordable Housing Supply Programme Out-turn Reports.

More homes: Affordable Housing Supply Programme - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The number of NSSE sales with a golden share attached and retained are included in the following table by local authority.

We engage regularly with the UK Government, COSLA, local authorities and other partners to ensure that people are provided with the safety and security they need to rebuild their lives.

All 32 local authorities have confirmed their participation in Afghanistan Relocation and Resettlement Schemes and as of 4 March, 101 families (415 individuals) have been relocated to 20 Scottish Local Authorities.

Local authorities continue to experience lengthy delays in the matching process, resulting in significant costs due to properties set aside to support Afghans lying empty. We urge the UK Government to address these delays as quickly as possible.

The new standard requires an alarm in a kitchen and in most cases this should be a heat alarm. In a kitchen with a log burner, a heat alarm should be installed to avoid false alarms.

As there is a log burner in this area, a Carbon Monoxide alarm will also be required.

Further guidance can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/fire-and-smoke-alarms-tolerable-standard-guidance/

Our clear preference would be for people to move into housing as soon as possible, however due to the speed and size of the evacuation we recognise that the use of temporary hotel accommodation was necessary. Refugee resettlement and relocation are UK Government schemes and the Home Office is responsible for the sourcing of hotels to accommodate people.

There are currently 6 hotels located in Scotland used for bridging accommodation (2 in Edinburgh, 1 in Fife and 3 in Aberdeen). In line with the key principle of the New Scots refugee integration strategy, local authorities are working to support integration from day one of arrival in Scotland, including those within hotels.

We continue to engage with the UK Government to ensure that property offers that local authorities have already made can be matched with Afghan families as soon as possible.

The Scottish 4G Infill Programme (S4GI) was established in 2017 to address clear market failure and mitigate the absence of any policy from the UK Government at the time to tackle rural notspots. When we established S4GI, the UK Government’s earlier Mobile Infrastructure Project (MIP) had failed to deliver meaningful outcomes for Scotland. Of 84 planned MIP sites in Scotland, only three were ultimately delivered. S4GI forms part of our wider 2016 Mobile Action Plan, which committed to exploring direct intervention in delivery of mobile coverage in areas of market failure.

We engage regularly with the UK Government about the Afghanistan Relocation and Resettlement Schemes and continue to press the UK Government to address lengthy delays in the matching process and ensure local authorities receive adequate funding.

Refugee resettlement is reserved to the UK Parliament and handled by the Home Office but Scotland remains committed to playing our part in welcoming and supporting people fleeing Afghanistan. All 32 local authorities have confirmed their participation in the Schemes.

The UK Minister for Afghan Resettlement committed to regular Four Nations discussions when she met with the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government in January and we look forward to further arrangements being made.

The Scottish Government formally adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in June 2017. As such, the Scottish Government and its agencies have been expected to adhere to the definition since June 2017.

The adoption of the definition demonstrates our determination to tackle antisemitism, and sends a strong message that it is entirely unacceptable in Scotland. While the IHRA definition is not legally-binding, we find it to be helpful in bringing clarity to what is often a complex issue.