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The Scottish Government has invested a total of £14,751,739 since 2018 to support the delivery of specific Welfare Advice Services in Scotland. The amount for each year is as follows:

The Warm Home Discount is a rebate upon energy bills that large energy suppliers are obliged to provide, not a social security payment administered by the Scottish Government. Whilst some powers are provided to Scottish Ministers to design a separate Warm Home Discount scheme in Scotland, these require the consent of the UK Government.

All households in receipt of Pension Credit Guarantee Credit are automatically eligible for a WHD rebate in Scotland, England and Wales (Core Group 1). Households in England and Wales in receipt of low income benefits or tax credits (Core Group 2) are not automatically eligible for a WHD rebate. The UK Government further restricts eligibility for this group in England and Wales based upon data matching.

These low income households only receive a rebate if they also live in a property that is assumed to have low energy efficiency. The UK Government uses Council Tax data held by the Valuation Office Agency to estimate energy costs and uses this as a proxy for low energy efficiency. This approach reflects the definition of fuel poverty adopted by the UK Government in England (low income, low energy efficiency).

Scottish Ministers do not agree that energy efficiency is the main driver of fuel poverty. The Scottish Parliament has unanimously agreed a definition of fuel poverty that is not dependent upon the energy efficiency of people’s homes. The valuation roll data held by the Scottish Assessors Association is not relevant in establishing fuel poverty on this basis.

In 2021, Scottish Ministers formally proposed a more flexible, fairer and simpler fuel poverty scheme to replace the WHD scheme in Scotland. This would have provided an automatic rebate to vulnerable households across Scotland. We have also repeatedly pressed UK Ministers to increase funding for the WHD rebate to reflect the higher level of need in Scotland. UK Ministers did not agree to do so and continue to decide the total value and number of rebates provided. Nevertheless we remain willing to work with the UK Government to improve the help available to vulnerable families across Scotland.

Scottish Ministers have limited powers to design and implement a separate scheme in Scotland. These require the consent of the UK Government. Previous proposals by Scottish Ministers to increase the value and number of rebates provided to vulnerable households were not agreed by UK Ministers. The UK Government continue to reserve to themselves the powers to set the value of the rebate and the total value of the obligation in Scotland. However we remain willing to work with the UK Government to improve the help available to vulnerable families across Scotland.

Scotland's first Data Strategy for Health & Social Care brings together a range of existing activity, along with its associated funding. The Strategy provides a framework for how improvements to data will be driven forward to the benefit of the people of Scotland.

A newly formed Data Board for Health and Social Care will oversee the delivery of the Strategy and any investment cases required to progress specific actions. The Board will also consider what further work is required for the next iterations of the Data Strategy.

Delivering the principles and priorities set out in the Strategy should be seen as a long term commitment of the Scottish Government and COSLA. Implementation of each iteration of the Strategy will be accompanied by a delivery plan.

We have proposed to bring forward amendments to the Deposit Return Scheme regulations so that only the largest grocery retailers will initially be obliged to provide an online takeback service and all other businesses will be exempt.- Further work will be undertaken to identify how older and disabled people will be protected during this phasing-in of online takeback to ensure the scheme is accessible to everyone.

Management Agreement Costs

Schemes for Annex 1 goose species (barnacle geese, white-fronted geese) and pink-footed geese at Strathbeg

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-15692 on 20 March 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

We intend to publish a consultation on the third phase of our review of permitted development rights (PDR) in the Spring. Phase 3 will consider PDR for renewable energy equipment, which will include the proposal to remove the 50kW restriction on domestic and non-domestic solar PV sites.

Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland provides census data on numbers of registrations for funded early learning and childcare (ELC) at the local authority level as of September 2022. These figures are shown in the following table. The census does not currently record the number of hours being accessed by each child.

The Scottish Government has accepted that this statistic relating to Scotland’s offshore wind potential needs revising. In response to the issues raised in the UK Statistics Authority’s letter, dated 7 December 2022, the Scottish Government has engaged directly with the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) setting out the steps that have been taken to ensure the statistic is not used further, and provided an update on the analytical work that is underway to produce a replacement statistic, which will be published in due course.