Dr Ian Cochran, Head of Consultancy, has served on the Scottish Government’s Green Heat Finance Taskforce since its inception in early 2023.
Changeworks welcomes the publication of the Green Heat Finance Taskforce’s second report at a moment when mobilising investment from all possible sources for domestic retrofit is increasingly critical.
Access to the expertise and capital required for the installation of energy efficiency measures and decarbonising heat remains a challenge for households, registered social landlords and local authorities. As a result, Scottish homes remain among the least efficient across the UK with occupants unable to reap additional health, wellbeing and economic benefits that come along with retrofit.
The continued tightening of public budgets paired with the continued cost of living crisis are making access to these resources even more challenging. Over 30% of the Scottish population is in fuel poverty and recent increases in caps on energy bills will only worsen the situation.
The report rightly identifies that finance alone is not enough. We therefore call on the Scottish Government to take urgent action to help overcome one of the most significant barriers to action: continuing regulatory uncertainty.
The multi-year delay around both the Heat in Buildings Bill as well as the Social Housing Net Zero Standard is having a visible impact across the sector. Over the length of the taskforce alone, the perception of Scotland as a being ahead of the rest of the UK has been tarnished as ambitious strategies have not been followed up by regulatory action.
More worryingly, continued delays risk slowing down both innovation as well as reversing the essential hard-won progress on skills and supply chains seen over the past few years.
The Scottish Government’s announcement to bring forward a revised bill is a positive first step. It is essential, however, that the bill introduced in parliament provides clear targets, support policies, exemptions and statutory requirements to counteract the uncertainty that is growing within the sector.
As the taskforce rightly notes “the key leadership role must fall to government”. However, like many others in the sector, at Changeworks we are ready to do our part to meet the imperative to act.
Changeworks agrees that Taskforce’s focus on “collective approaches” is critical, whether via heat networks, social housing retrofits or joined-up place-based strategies.
Along with a similar call from Existing Homes Alliance for one-stop-shop models, there is a growing recognition that by working together we can reduce the cost of retrofit, help people to access cheaper finance, and overall reduce the barriers that households would face if they tried to take action on their own.
We are already a leading actor in Scotland supporting existing place-based approaches, whether in partnership with local authorities through the Scottish Government’s own Area Based Schemes or with communities through our work across the Highlands and Islands in particular.
We strongly support the creation of a place-based demonstrator programme and have extensive experience in providing many of the support and services that a programme development unit would offer.
We are already working with partners to explore new funding models to help increase access to finance for social housing providers. In line with the Scottish Future Trusts recent report, we believe that derisking the retrofit process can be an important part of improving the conditions of finance for registered social landlords.
Changeworks stands ready to work with the Scottish Government and its partners to chart a pathway forward.
It is imperative that the Scottish Government remains true to its ambitions to drive the investment critical to address both the climate and housing emergencies.
Our recent analysis with partners demonstrates that if properly designed the costs of meeting the regulatory standards laid out in the Heat in Buildings Bill consultation in 2024 are manageable and have little risk of disrupting property nor mortgage markets.
Changeworks is committed to working with partners to build and test financial and delivery models for retrofit that ensure that the cost of decarbonising heat is not paid for by those who are least able to do so.