³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

The Scottish Government is committed to working closely with local authorities on the shared national endeavour to tackle the global climate emergency by achieving net zero emissions by 2045, recognising that local climate action is crucial to achieving our national climate ambitions.

Through the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, we have provided new powers for local authorities to introduce Low Emission Zones to improve air quality. We are also providing other forms of support to local government including the Green Growth Accelerator which will unlock £200m of investment in local authorities for emissions reduction infrastructure, and supporting local authorities to develop Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies and accompanying delivery plans.

More broadly, the joint Local Governance Review with COSLA is considering how powers and resources are shared between national and local government, to ensure that we are doing all we can to achieve our shared national outcomes.

My officials have sought confirmation on this issue from panel members. There are 25 panel members, of whom 18 have responded to date.

Of those responses:

• 1 member of the 2018 panel and 3 members of the 2020-21 panel had a role in designing BS 8414;
• 1 member of the 2018 panel and 2 members of the 2020-21 panel have worked for organisations that carry out BS 8414 tests on behalf of commercial sponsors; and

Once a full response is received I will provide an update on the above information.

Housing to 2040 is Scotland’s first ever long-term national housing strategy and makes clear our ambition to deliver 100,000 affordable homes by 2031-32, 70% of which will be for Social Rent.

Local authorities as the statutory housing authority are responsible for assessing housing requirements in their area and setting out their plans to meet these requirements as part of their Local Housing Strategy and Strategic Housing Investment Plan.

The second milestone of the Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing to 2032 (EESSH2) requires social landlords to ensure their stock meets, or can be treated as meeting, EPC Band B, or is as energy efficient as practically possible, by the end of December 2032 and within the limits of cost, technology and necessary consent.

The EESSH2 milestone does not change landlords’ responsibility to manage their investment policy to ensure that it is cost-effective, especially where substantial additional investment has a potential impact on rents. The Scottish Government guidance for landlords makes it clear that we do not expect landlords to invest in measures that are unaffordable or where the costs are disproportionate to the benefits to tenants. Landlords have broad discretion to decide if potential energy efficiency measures are too expensive or are not value for money in their stock. We will continue to work in partnership with the sector to find the most effective ways to tackle the shared challenge of the climate emergency together.

Scottish Government modelling suggests that it could cost a total of £3.4 billion to bring 62% of Scottish social housing up to EPC band B using existing technology. Historically, a large part of the expenditure needed to improve homes has come from landlords' own resources or borrowing as part of their continuing investment to improve their homes. The Scottish Government provides guidance to help landlords identify funding sources, including Energy Company Obligation, UK Government Schemes, and funding from the Scottish Government.

Through our Social Housing Net Zero Heat fund, the Scottish Government has already committed to make available £100 million over the next parliament to support existing social landlords across Scotland to install zero emission heating systems and energy efficiency measures across their housing stock. In addition, the Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme and its successor programme will invest £400 million over the next five years in large-scale heat decarbonisation infrastructure. We will continue to work with the sector to assess the impact of funding to date and ensure that our funding effectively supports further acceleration of the decarbonisation of our social housing stock alongside the ongoing investment of social landlords in maintaining the efficiency and quality of their stock.

Before the Scottish Parliament election, the First Minister launched an action plan which set out a series of key steps for the first 100 days of an SNP government.

Following the election, strategic discussion on the implementation of the 100 days commitments took place with key stakeholders such as COSLA and individual policy areas worked in partnership with COSLA’s officers to develop the commitments which required input or delivery of local authorities.

The level and distribution of funding for all the Scottish Government 100 days manifesto commitments which will be delivered by local authorities have now been agreed with COSLA political leaders.

On 22 June 2018 the Scottish Government and COSLA wrote to public sector leaders, including all chairs and Chief Executives of public bodies, inviting them to submit proposals to the Local Governance Review. 20 Local Authorities, 6 Community Planning Partnerships and 16 other public bodies responded. Appendix One of the summary report published in May 2019 sets out the full list of respondents.

On 28 November 2019, the Scottish Government and COSLA provided an . This highlighted opportunities for functional, fiscal and community empowerment and invited place-specific proposals for alternative governance arrangements. Councils have been working with local partners to develop proposals and dialogue with Scottish Government officials has commenced to explore the proposed changes and how they could improve outcomes.

This Scottish Government is committed to concluding the Local Governance Review within this parliament. During the first phase of the Review, the Scottish Government, COSLA and the community sector undertook a highly inclusive engagement process called Democracy Matters. People from diverse backgrounds overwhelmingly wanted to see bold changes to how power is shared. Further extensive engagement with communities - of place and interest - will be an important part of understanding how best to respond to people’s aspirations for genuine control over those decisions which affect them the most.

This Scottish Government is committed to concluding the Local Governance Review within this parliament.

In section 126 of Scottish Planning Policy, affordable housing is defined broadly as housing of a reasonable quality that is affordable to people on modest incomes and this includes social rented accommodation, mid-market rented accommodation, shared ownership housing, shared equity housing, housing sold at a discount (including plots for self-build), and low cost housing without subsidy.

The Scottish Planning Policy definition is therefore at a high level, since it will apply across a variety of housing types and areas. While the definition of affordable housing includes reference to people on modest incomes this term is not defined as affordability can be affected by a range of factors such as tenure, income and location.

Further advice on the types of affordable housing that can contribute to affordable housing requirements is set out in Planning Advice 2/2010 -

As there is no universally accepted definition of rent affordability, Housing to 2040, Scotland’s first long-term housing strategy, which was published in March 2021 includes a commitment to work with stakeholders to develop a shared understanding of affordability which is fit for the future

The Homelessness in Scotland statistics series reports data from the HL1 (homelessness applications), HL2 (snapshot temporary accommodation) and HL3 (placement level temporary accommodation) data collections.

Information on the number of children within the household applying for homelessness support and in temporary accommodation is currently collected and reported on through the HL1 and HL2 collections respectively.

Data is published in the Homelessness in Scotland statistics series. Data is published on a 6-monthly basis, with the most recent publication relating to the annual data for 2020-21. Table 15 of the latest publication reports the number of children in homelessness applications and Table 27 reports the number of children in temporary accommodation as at the end of a quarter. A link to the latest publication can be found here:

An additional question was added to the HL3 data collection in 2019 to gather information on the number of children living in temporary accommodation placements. However, not all local authorities have so far been able to provide this information as there is a lead in time required to update local authority management information systems and data extraction processes. Scottish Government are continuing to work closely with local authorities to assist with the provision of this data and understand timescales for when this can be made available.