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The managing agent is responsible for delivery of the measures available under Stage 4 of the Energy Assistance Package. The individual surveyors and installers through which the managing agent delivers these are appointed following a tendering process which is open to all competent suppliers and is consistent with EU procurement rules.

The Energy Saving Trust, as the Scottish Government''s managing agent for the Home Insulation Scheme (HIS) is currently carrying out a procurement exercise to appoint the supplier offering the best deal for HIS customers in a given area. This will be an open and competitive process in order to obtain the most economically advantageous tender and reflect EU procedures and regulations. It will be the responsibility of each supplier, when appointed, to enter into contracts as they see fit to ensure that the required skills are available to ensure installation of appropriate insulation measures in each area.

The managing agent is responsible for delivery of the measures available under Stage 4 of the Energy Assistance Package. The network of surveyors and installers appointed by the managing agent to deliver these, is appointed following an open tendering processes, consistent with EU procurement rules, based on both quality and price.

Under the Home Insulation Scheme procurement process, suppliers will be appointed on the basis of the most economically advantageous tender and the procurement process will assess a range of relevant factors in order to ensure this.

A person is considered to be fuel poor if the ratio of household income required to heat their dwelling to a standard heating regime is greater than 10%.

The Energy Assistance Package provides a four stage approach to helping people vulnerable to fuel poverty. Stages one and two include energy efficiency advice, income maximisation and social tariff checks. Stages three and four are targeted at those who are most likely to be fuel poor and offer standard and enhanced physical measures to improve the energy efficiency of the home. Eligibility for stages 3 and 4 is based on a number of factors including age and income of the household and the energy efficiency of the dwelling.

The Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS) sets out the standard that all homes in the social rented sector are expected to meet, independent of the household characteristics. The standard is based on a number of broad quality criteria, including the presence of certain physical energy efficiency measures. SHQS is not used as a yardstick to determine or measure levels of fuel poverty: the income level and fuel charges faced by the householder are required for this purpose and neither is a factor in the SHQS.

The purpose of Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) is to rate the energy efficiency and environmental impact of a particular dwelling and recommend cost effective ways to improve the energy performance of that dwelling. They are a labelling system to allow prospective buyers and tenants to compare the energy efficiency of different properties.

Fuel poverty levels are based on the ratio of household income required to heat a dwelling to a standard heating regime. A ratio above 10% means that a household is considered to be fuel poor. EPCs do not provide the energy costs nor the income level of the household resident in the dwelling and so cannot be used to measure fuel poverty.

Indicative targets set for the Energy Savings Trust were to achieve 75,000 individual contacts for the Energy Assistance Package in 2009-10. Targets for the number of households were not specified.

Energy Saving Trust (EST) has developed and is managing a campaign to raise awareness of the Energy Assistance Package (EAP) among fuel poor households and their influencers. Since April 2009 a number of initiatives have been underway such as direct mailings, health centre promotions, PR, print advertising and radio. An integrated campaign based on customer insight will be launched in September and will go out via television advertising, partnerships and direct mail. Information about the package is also available online at www.energyassistancepackage.com and has been sent to all MSPs.

Sufficient resources are in place to meet the call volumes anticipated under the Energy Assistance Package with the Energy Saving Trust having recruited and trained many new advisors to work on the Package. One of the strengths of delivering EAP through the EST advice network is the availability of trained advisors who can handle the wide variety of energy advice calls to the network; this arrangement provides flexibility at times of high demand. Reflecting this combination of investment and flexibility the advice network has responded successfully to recent direct mail activity which resulted in a doubling of call volumes to the 0800 number for the package.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-26896 on 10 September 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The changes which have been made to the eligibility criteria for student bursaries and loans since May 2007 can be found at the following link.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Education/Funding-Support-Grants/FFL/PMB/Completed.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-26904 on 9 September 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-26904 on 9 September 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.