Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government’s national fuel poverty scheme Warmer Homes Scotland offers eligible households High Heat Retention Storage Heating systems where these are technically appropriate for the property. Households may also be offered micro-generation measures, such as Micro-hydro, Micro-wind or Solar PV and/or domestic battery storage systems where these are technically feasible. Local councils can also provide high heat retention storage heaters and microgeneration measures as part of their Area Based Schemes.

Households that are not eligible for help as part of our fuel poverty programmes can apply for a Scottish Government loan via Home Energy Scotland. Help is available with the costs of purchasing and installing an electric heating system (warm air units or high heat retention electric storage heaters). Loans of up to £5,000 are available (£4,600 loan plus £400 cashback). Households can also apply for up to two home renewables systems per home as part of an overall loan package worth up to £17,500.

In addition we offer funding for energy efficiency measures up to £15,000 (including a maximum cashback amount of £6,000). More information about the cashback and loans available from the Scottish Government is published on the Home Energy Scotland website.

The design of the Just Transition Fund is currently being developed through discussion with regional partners to ensure that together we secure maximum impact. This work will also be supported by the engagement that is being undertaken to support the development of the draft Energy Just Transition Plan. An update on plans will be given in due course.

We expect the first £20 million of the Fund to be allocated within this financial year (2022-23).

The Scottish Government has been clear since early in the pandemic that there should be where feasible a whole system response. This includes deployment of mutual aid between and across Health Boards, Health and Social Care Partnerships and Local Authorities and the deployment of staff (including nurses) to care homes to meet shortages but also strengthen senior and experienced nursing in these settings.

We continue to take other measures to support the sector including workforce at this time. We recognise the pressures currently being experienced across the social care system. On 5 October, we announced a £300 million investment in health and social care as a direct response to winter planning and systems pressures. This includes £20m to enhance Multi-Disciplinary Teams, so that more social work assessments can be carried out, and to support joint working between health and social care.

We have made funding available to recruit up to 1,000 additional healthcare support staff by March 2022 to support patients in hospitals and in community health teams, including care homes. Funding of up to £15m is being provided to take forward recruitment to these posts.

Up to £48 million of funding has been made available to enable employers to update the hourly rate of Adult Social Care Staff offering direct care. This funding is critical to support retaining and recruiting staff in the sector and to alleviate the immediate pressures in Social Care and NHS/Community based health services. We have extended and will continue to raise awareness of the Disclosure Scotland Priority COVID Staff process to support the prompt recruitment and appointment of additional resource.

SEPA publish the waste sites and capacity data via a tool on their website to provide capacity information about permitted waste sites across Scotland, which includes recycling facilities. The waste sites and capacity tool is available here: https://www.sepa.org.uk/data-visualisation/waste-sites-and-capacity-tool/

The tool is normally updated yearly with capacity information and quarterly with actual waste accepted. It currently contains data from 2014 – 2019 but has not been updated since the SEPA cyberattack. The next update is scheduled for March 2022.

Projections for municipal recycling capacity in Scotland for 2025 are not held centrally.

We wrote to NHS Boards on the 10 December to set out measures intended to support NHS Scotland to manage the continuing pressures resulting from the pandemic and the emerging threats posed by Omicron. Services which were considered essential under this direction included primary care services, vaccination, urgent and unscheduled care and drug and alcohol services. It is for local Boards to determine how they apply this guidance.

Boards were advised to review their planned care activity in line with the Clinical Priority Framework to support the delivery of urgent care and urgent cancer care. Patient safety will always remain at the forefront of any decisions made related to service delivery.

The Scottish Government is working with the other UK administrations to introduce extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging. How much producers pay for a particular type of packaging will depend on its environmental impact. This will create a powerful incentive to adopt more recyclable packaging.

The Scottish Government has laid regulations before Parliament that ban some types of packaging products such as expanded polystyrene cups and food containers that, if incorrectly disposed of, contaminate kerbside recycling bins.

I recently announced the first £20 million of landmark investments from the Recycling Improvement Fund, to increase the quantity and quality of recycling. We are funding a range of improvements to improve the quality of recyclate, including local service redesigns to align with Scotland’s Household Recycling Charter, and new ‘in cab’ updates to help councils tackle contamination. New funding will also enable Fife Council to become the first local authority in Scotland to locally sort and separate the plastic films it collects for recycling, and boost Scotland’s capacity to recycle this problematic material. This will allow the council to accept flexible plastics and films for recycling within the existing kerbside schemes.

We are working with industry, local government and environmental groups to develop a route map to deliver our waste, recycling and climate change targets. This work will include consideration of recyclate capture and quality. We will also introduce a Circular Economy Bill this parliamentary session which will include measures to encourage reuse of products and the reduction of waste.

The Scottish Government is engaging closely with COSLA and Heads of Planning Scotland to understand the pressures faced by the planning service and to promote a highly performing system which can deliver on the ambitions for planning set out in the emerging NPF4.

Consideration of capacity and skills in planning is informed by recent research commissioned by Skills Development Scotland, undertaken by EKOS and published by Partners in Planning, available at https://www.partnersinplanning.scot/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/23623/Skills-in-Planning-Research-Final-February-2021.pdf The research report provides an independent perspective on the challenges faced and a series of proposed actions. Scottish Government is working with the other partner members of Partners in Planning to take forward the proposed actions to help ensure the future pipeline of planners needed to deliver on our ambitions. This includes supporting a short project recently commissioned by Heads of Planning Scotland and the RTPI to explore options and set out proposals to help increase the numbers of people entering the planning profession.

Reviewing the planning performance and fee regime is a key part of our planning reform programme. We are currently progressing proposals to increase planning fees, following a public consultation carried out in 2019-2020. Although implementation of these proposals was postponed during the pandemic, this work has now recommenced and we will shortly lay regulations in the Scottish Parliament bringing the proposed fee increases into effect. The new regulations are expected to come into force in April 2022, subject to parliamentary scrutiny. The proposed measures would increase fees by between 25 and 50% in some cases, moving fees closer to covering authorities’ costs in determining the applications and providing substantial additional income to authorities.

Ministers will also shortly undertake recruitment and appointment of a new national planning improvement coordinator for Scotland. The core purpose of the coordinator’s role will be to support improvement within the Scottish planning system, by providing constructive input which promotes an outcomes-based approach.

Alongside the Heat in Buildings Strategy we published a Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment which sets out the evidence relating to capital and running costs of converting to zero emissions heat.

We recognise that the costs of conversion for island and rural homes can be higher than equivalent urban properties for a variety of reasons, including supply chains, transport needs and weather disruptions. Further details and mitigating actions are set out in the Heat in Buildings Strategy Island Communities Impact Assessment , and we will publish an Islands Energy Strategy later this year. Our Heat in Buildings Supply Chain Delivery Plan will include a specific focus on developing local supply chains particularly in our islands and remote communities to help bring costs down.

The financial implications for households will depend on how heat and energy efficiency measures are funded and financed. This is an area of active policy development. We already run schemes to help households retrofit their properties to cut emissions, and are committed to supporting those least able to pay. We have established a new Green Heat Finance Taskforce which will recommend ways the Scottish Government and private sector can collaborate to scale up investment.

In the 2021-22 Programme for Government, the Scottish Government committed to the introduction of a Human Rights Bill within this Parliamentary session.

The Human Rights Bill will incorporate into Scots law, as far as possible within devolved competence, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This includes a right to adequate food, as an essential part of the overall right to an adequate standard of living.

The Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) has a range of clinical nurse advisors who offer advice and support to both the CNO and Scottish Ministers on a range of issues, including the care of individuals with a stoma. As part of the CNO’s Transforming Nursing, Midwifery and Health Professionals programme, a review of the role definition and education of clinical nurse specialists was taken forward. The review didn’t look at (and has no plans to consider) specific specialties such as stoma nursing and we have no plans to appoint a lead for stoma clinical nurse specialists.