Energy Efficient Scotland: consultation analysis

Introduction

Background

This report presents analysis of responses to the Energy Efficient Scotland Consultation: Making our homes and buildings warmer, greener and more efficient.

Energy Efficient Scotland brings together work to improve the energy efficiency of Scotland's buildings under a programme that will run until 2040, previous consultations having identified a consensus that long-term standards are essential to allow property owners to plan for the future. The vision that, by 2040, homes and buildings will be warmer, greener and more efficient supports the Climate Change Plan, the Energy Strategy, and also Scottish Government action to reduce fuel poverty.

The main focus of this consultation was on proposals for setting long-term domestic energy efficiency standards for homes in the private rented and owner occupied sectors. It also sought views on standards for non-domestic buildings, use of Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) data, and on potential legislative changes that may be required.

The consultation opened on 2 May 2018 and closed on 27 July 2018. The consultation paper is available at: https://consult.gov.scot/better-homes-division/energy-efficient-scotland/.

Partner consultation

In parallel with the Energy Efficient Scotland consultation, the Scottish Government also ran a consultation on the Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing post-2020 (EESSH2). This consultation sought views on proposals for new milestones for the Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing.

The EESSH2 consultation paper is available at: https://consult.gov.scot/better-homes-division/social-housing-post-2020/user_uploads/00534991.pdf).

Profile of respondents

In total 130 responses were received to the Energy Efficient Scotland consultation, of which 94 were from groups or organisations and 36 from individual members of the public. The majority of responses were received through the Scottish Government's Citizen Space consultation hub. Where consent has been given to publish the response it may be found at https://consult.gov.scot/better-homes-division/energy-efficient-scotland/consultation/published_select_respondent.

Respondents were asked to identify whether they were responding as an individual or on behalf of a group or organisation. Organisational respondents have been allocated to one of ten categories by the analysis team. A breakdown of the number of responses received by respondent type is set out in Table 1 below and a full list of organisational respondents can be found in Annex 1.

Table 1: Respondents by type

Analysis and reporting

In total there were 32 questions, of which four had a multiple-choice element that has been analysed quantitatively. The remainder were open questions.

The remainder of this report presents a question-by-question analysis of the comments made. A small number of respondents did not make their submission on the consultation questionnaire but submitted their comments in a statement-style format. This content was analysed qualitatively under the most directly relevant consultation question.

As with any public consultation exercise, it should be noted that those responding generally have a particular interest in the subject area. However, the views they express cannot necessarily be seen as representative of wider public opinion.

A list of acronyms used in the report is provided at Annex 2.