Home Energy Scotland (HES) applications: EIR release

Information requested

In the year, January 2023 to January 2024, how many applications have been received by Home Energy Scotland (HES) under the HES Loan Scheme. 

How many were submitted, successful, unsuccessful and still to be processed? 

What is the overall percentage of those submitted vs. those successful?

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

From 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2023, 7,513 applications have been received for the Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan scheme. A breakdown of the status of these applications as of 1 April 2024 is below:

• Applications approved: 6,007
• Applications denied: 277

1,299 applications are still to be processed.

Of the 7,513 applications received between 1 January – 31 December 2023, 80% have received a legally committed funding offer as of 1 April 2024.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.