Developing an Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing: consultation

Ministerial Foreword

This document sets out the Scottish Government's proposals for a new energy efficiency standard for social housing ( EESSH). The standard aims to improve the energy efficiency of social housing and thereby help to reduce energy consumption, fuel poverty and the emission of greenhouse gases. Social landlords clearly recognise the need to invest in the quality of their housing stock and have made great strides toward achieving the Scottish Housing Quality Standard ( SHQS). The draft standard set out in this consultation paper is about building on the work done to date and further improving the energy efficiency in Scotland's social housing stock.

This standard is part of our wider Sustainable Housing Strategy ( SHS) which aims to provide for warm, high quality, low carbon homes and contribute to the establishment of a successful, low carbon economy. The SHS will also consider the possibility of introducing regulation of private sector housing to support these aims.

The intention is to set a rating that is challenging for landlords, but achievable in the proposed timescales. We have stressed from the beginning that the financial sustainability of landlords will be a key consideration and we believe that the proposed ratings are achievable without significant additional investment beyond that planned for meeting the SHQS.

Meeting the energy efficiency standard will mean that tenants will live in warmer homes with the potential to manage their energy consumption more efficiently, giving them the scope to reduce their fuel bills. It will also make a significant contribution towards meeting our climate change and energy efficiency targets.

We are offering these suggestions to encourage social landlords and others to discuss their own ideas for the proposed energy efficiency standard. We hope that landlords, individual tenants, tenant groups and other stakeholders will take this opportunity to feed their ideas about what social landlords should be achieving for energy efficiency for their customers. We will take account of these views in preparing a finalised standard.

KEITH BROWN MSP
Minister for Housing & Transport