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Our Commitment to Childminding , published in January 2021, sets out how the Scottish Government will continue to work with partners to promote childminding as a positive career choice and as a choice for parents and carers when they decide the most appropriate childcare option for their family.

This includes promoting childminding careers by working with employability bodies, including the Department of Work and Pensions and Skills Development Scotland, and exploring the opportunities to ensure that Early Learning and Childcare students are exposed to the career options of childminding within student placements during the course of their study.

The Scottish Government will continue to monitor trends in the number of childminding services and to ensure that our approach reflects the evidence obtained from the recently published Financial Sustainability Health Check . We also want to ensure that childminders continue to play a vital role in ongoing delivery of the 1140 programme and in how we implement our new Programme for Government Commitments for one and two year olds over the course of this Parliament.

The Care Inspectorate for Scotland are responsible for setting and reviewing the ratios for all childcare setting in Scotland. Usually, childminders can care for a maximum of eight children at any one time under the age of 16 years, of whom a maximum of six children will be under 12 years, no more than three children will be under primary school age, and only one child will be under one year old.

The number of children cared for at any one time includes the childminder’s own children or family members, whether or not they are present in the service. Evidence indicates that these ratios provide good outcomes for children.

In discussion with a setting, The Care Inspectorate may vary the adult to child ratios to take account of special circumstances that support the best outcomes for children, such as the presence of siblings under the age of one, the presence of children with additional support needs or the layout of the premises being used. Ratios will also be varied where more than one childminder works from the premises, or the childminder employs an assistant.

Guidance was last published on these ratios in 2018. It was last reviewed in 2019.

The next round of allocations will be confirmed and dispersed to local authority areas this Autumn.

Households eligible for assistance under Warmer Homes Scotland will be offered low-carbon alternatives, where these are technically appropriate for the property. These include High Heat Retention Heating Systems, Air Source Heat Pumps, Ground Source Heat Pumps, Micro-hydro, Micro-wind and Micro-CHP systems (Micro-CHP systems are not suitable for off gas grid properties). Some of these measures may be of particular benefit to households living in rural and island areas that are not served by the gas grid. Warmer Homes Scotland operates a national pricing mechanism, meaning that rural and island homes aren’t disproportionately affected.

Since April 2021 our Area Based Schemes have included additional funding to provide low carbon and micro-generation measures as part of a whole house approach. Local councils are encouraged to offer these measures to households living in or at risk of fuel poverty, where this is technically feasible and will result in lower energy bills. We also provide additional funding and support for remote rural and island communities to reflect the delivery challenges in these locations, including higher installation costs.

The shared policy programme also commits to provide additional support for rural and islands homes which require bespoke and targeted advice.

Warmer Homes Scotland is a demand led scheme, and as such does not set regional intervention targets for future delivery. The following table shows the completed applications under Warmer Homes Scotland by KPI region for 2020-21:

The Scottish Government has established the Bus Decarbonisation Taskforce, comprised of leaders from the bus operating, bus manufacturing, energy and finance sectors, including representation from rural bus operators. At its first meeting the group set out its vision for a future where “Bus operators are exclusively running zero-emission battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell buses, and the bus sector provides an excellent service meeting passengers’ day-to-day needs”. The guiding vision informs all aspects of the Taskforce’s work. The Scottish Government is making £120 million available over the coming years to support operators in both urban and rural areas transition to zero-emission technology. The first phase of our Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund, worth £50 million, is currently open for bids. A second phase will be subject to review of the first.

The Scottish Government ran two rounds of the Scottish Ultra Low Emission Bus scheme in 2020/21, awarding a total of £39.6 million to support operators acquire new zero-emission buses, and £11 million to support operators install the necessary depot charging infrastructure. Phase one of the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund, has a total of £50 million available and is currently open for bids. The funding is to support the cost of both zero-emission buses and the associated charging infrastructure. Bidders can request up to 75% of the cost of battery-electric charging infrastructure, and up to 85% of the cost of hydrogen fuel-cell charging infrastructure.

The Scottish Government has established the Bus Decarbonisation Taskforce, comprised of leaders from the bus operating, bus manufacturing, energy and finance sectors, including representation from rural bus operators. The Taskforce has explored energy infrastructure in depth and actions now being undertaken by the Taskforce include production of a “How To” guide for bus operators about working with the electricity sector to plan for and install the necessary charging infrastructure. The Taskforce has also discussed the suitability of hydrogen fuel-cell buses for rural bus services, and the challenges and opportunities associated with hydrogen refuelling stations. The Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund is currently available to bidders and is designed to encourage collaborative and consortium bids, with support of up to 75% of the cost of battery-electric charging infrastructure, and up to 85% of the cost of hydrogen fuel-cell charging infrastructure.

In 2019 the Scottish Parliament set ambitious climate change emission reduction targets to net zero emissions by 2045 and a 75% reduction by 2030. This means that by 2030, emissions from homes and buildings will have to fall by 68% against current levels. Transforming the way we heat our homes and buildings, in order to meet these legally binding targets, will touch the lives of almost everyone in Scotland.

The Scottish Government recently consulted on the draft Heat in Buildings Strategy which states that by 2030 around 50% of homes will need to convert to a zero or low emissions heating system, including the vast majority of 167,000 off-gas homes that currently use high emissions oil, LPG, and solid fuels.

A number of respondents offered their support for the consultation paper’s suggestion that the immediate focus should be on low and no regrets interventions and that one of these should be the deployment of individual building heat pumps in buildings off the gas network which currently use high carbon heating fuels. However, there was also concern that the combination of being off-gas grid and living in a hard-to-treat property presents risks around increased fuel poverty.

The Scottish Government has a strong offer of fuel poverty support suitable for those in rural and island areas. Both Warmer Homes Scotland and our Area Based Schemes, which target fuel poor households, take a “zero emissions first” approach to the provision of new heating systems. Ending the provision of new oil/LPG systems through these schemes, in favour of offering low carbon alternatives, is a further step on this path to phasing out these polluting technologies. This year we have increased funding to a record £50 million for Warmer Homes Scotland (an increase from £32 million in 2020-21) and £64 million for our local authority led Area Based Schemes (an increase of £9m compared with 20-21).

The shared policy programme also commits to provide additional support for rural and islands homes which require bespoke and targeted advice.

No evaluation has taken place of the ScotZEB scheme as it is still open for applications until 4 November 2021.