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The Scottish Government is committed to eradicating fuel poverty and has allocated over half a billion pounds since 2009 on a raft of measures to help people in all of Scotland heat their homes affordably.

Since 2013-14, we have allocated almost £18 million of funding through our Home Energy Efficiency Programmes for Scotland: Area Based Schemes to combat fuel poverty in Shetland, Orkney, Highlands and the Western Isles. We anticipate that this will result in more than 3,900 energy efficiency measures installed in homes in these areas.

Notes:

1. Figures for 13-14 measures are actual as reported in the summary delivery report.

2. Figures for 14-15 measures are per the final monitoring return except for Orkney – they were unable to agree a contract and returned their 14-15 allocation – figures are for what they expect to do with their 15-16 allocation only.

3. Figures for 15-16 measures are estimated taken from their offer of grant S.1 for the measures they said they would do.

The most recent statistics on fuel poverty were published in December 2015 (Scottish House Condition Survey: Key Findings 2014 http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/12/8460) and do not show an increase in fuel poverty between 2013 and 2014. The Scottish House Condition Survey 2012-2014 publication is based on a different time period to the national report. It is based on three year rolling averages to ensure reasonable sample sizes for local authority analysis and is therefore not designed to measure year-on-year change. Given the small sample sizes and overlapping samples, the local authority results in this publication do not show a statistically significant increase in fuel poverty and extreme fuel poverty between 2011-13 and 2012-14 for any local authority area.

Since 2009, we have allocated over half a billion pounds to make Scotland’s homes more energy efficient and over 700,000 of the most vulnerable households in our society have received assistance to help them heat their homes affordably.

In 2015, we launched our new flagship national fuel poverty scheme – Warmer Homes Scotland. This new scheme, which is focussed on the installation of a wide range of energy efficiency and heating measures, is expected to help around 28,000 of the poorest and most vulnerable households, including pensioners and fuel poor families, across Scotland during its lifetime. Warmer Homes Scotland has been designed to ensure that customers are not disadvantaged because of where they live, so householders in Orkney and the Highlands and Islands will receive the same high quality service as those in the central belt.

With the devolution of cold weather payments and winter fuel payments, we are also considering how best to use winter fuel payments to tackle fuel poverty and make homes warmer. This includes looking at whether it is appropriate to extend eligibility and if fuel bill rebates should be considered. We want to help people who are struggling to keep their homes warm – and this is one area we are exploring to see if are able to do that.

We are asking for views on how effective the cold weather payments and winter fuel payments are in tackling fuel poverty and what, if any, changes might be welcomed.

The Scottish Government meets with COSLA representatives regularly to discuss waste and resource management issues, including deposit return.

The amount of funding Scottish Government has provided for VisitScotland in each year since 2011 is provided in the following table:

VisitScotland cash budget since 2011 (£ million)

Notes:

(1) Data from annual accounts except for 2015-16 (sourced from VisitScotland business plan for 2015-18).

(2) The % difference is based on the budget allocation from the previous year.

(3) Above figures exclude ring-fenced DEL (non-cash).

Orkney benefits from the following types of direct funding provided by VisitScotland.

Funding under the memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Orkney Islands Council and VisitScotland.

This delivers regional marketing campaigns and activities for the islands and includes ERDF funding secured by VisitScotland to boost expenditure.

Investment through EventScotland funding programmes.

The levels of investment are set out in the following table:

VisitScotland also provides financial support for and organisation of trade familiarisation trips for the travel trade, which is set out in the following table.

Orkney is also promoted as part of national campaigns, through online presence (visitscotland.com, marketing emails, and in its VisitScotland Information Centres, both in Orkney and elsewhere.

Regulation of nuisance calls is currently reserved to Westminster. The Scottish Government does not, therefore, have the powers needed to fully address the issue, which currently sit with Ofcom, the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Telephone Preference Service.

We will continue to work with the UK Government, and key stakeholders such as Which?, to ensure that UK-wide regulation in this area is made as effective as possible. In addition, when consumer advocacy and advice are devolved under the Scotland Bill, we propose to establish a unified consumer body in Scotland that will give consumers – particularly those in vulnerable positions – greater clarity on where to turn for help and advice and, in the case of nuisance calls, lead to earlier identification of malpractice.

Our £410 million investment in the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme will extend fibre broadband access to at least 95% of homes and businesses in Scotland by the end of 2017. The programme has already met its target of 85% coverage across Scotland. Coverage in the Highlands and Islands will reach 84% whereas planned commercial rollout would only have served 21% of premises. 75% of premises on Orkney will be covered by the Digital Scotland programme. No commercial coverage was planned on Orkney.

A key priority is to ensure that the remaining 5% have access to superfast broadband as early as possible. We have established Community Broadband Scotland to progress community led solutions and are working closely with partners to develop plans to extend coverage even further. We expect to announce plans later in 2016.

The Scottish Government does not collect or hold information on mobile broadband services and Wi-Fi on bus and coach services, which form Scotland's principal modes of public transport. These are provided either through local authorities or directly by operators on a commercial basis.

In terms of the ScotRail network in Scotland, which is managed and let by Transport Scotland, there has been a rolling programme of Wi-Fi installation on trains since December 2013. Approximately 45% of the ScotRail fleet is currently Wi-Fi enabled. The present Abellio franchise commits ScotRail to fit all of the fleet with Wi-Fi by December 2018.

CalMac Ferries Ltd, which is owned by the Scottish Government, provides public Wi-Fi on the Wemyss Bay to Rothesay route, which covers those two ports and the MV Argyle and MV Bute. The service has been available on this route since February 2015. CalMac Ferries Ltd will be providing Wi-Fi across their remaining ports and vessels and is working with the suppliers to make sure that this will happen as soon as possible. The programme of works is being developed with an anticipated completion date of spring 2016.

Serco NorthLink Ferries provide Wi-Fi on all their passenger ferries to/from Aberdeen-Orkney-Lerwick and on the Scrabster-Stromness route. Wi-Fi is also available in the ports served by NorthLink. The Scottish Government does not hold any figures on usage.

The following table sets out the non-cash departmental expenditure unused in each of the last five years:

*There was a budget overspend in 2011-12.

The non-cash departmental expenditure budget is only available for spend related to the student loans resource accounting and budgeting charge, underspend cannot be used elsewhere.

The Scottish Government maximum budget for the cost of loans in 2016-17 and each of the last five years is in the following table. The figure for 2016-17 is an initial estimate.

*Includes income contingent student loan writedown, additional budget secured at Spring Budget Revision.

**Includes £61.4 million mortgage-style loan book writedown for sale of loan book and £16.4 million for income contingent additional interest subsidy.