Climate Delivery Oversight Group minutes: March 2026

Attendees and apologies

• Chair: Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy
• Co-Chair: Councillor Macgregor, COSLA Spokesperson on Environment and Economy

Members:

• Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Goverment
•  Cabinet Secretary for Transport
•  Minister for Business and Employment
• Councillor Heddle, COSLA Vice-President

Official Support:

• Phil Raines, Joint Deputy Director, Domestic Climate Change Division, Scottish Government
• James Fowlie, Director of Place Policy, COSLA
• Robert Nicol, Chief Officer Environment and Economy, COSLA
• Jessica Niven, Head of Housing Markets and Taxation Unit, Scottish Government

Presenters:

• Head of Policy and Implementation Unit, Domestic Climate Change, Scottish Government

• Co-Directors of Scottish Climate Intelligence Service: Judi Kilgallon (Improvement Service) and Clare Wharmby (Edinburgh Climate Change Institute (ECCI))
• Head of Unit, Investment and Financial Services Division, Scottish Government

Secretariat:

• Head of Strategy and Governance Unit, Domestic Climate Change Division, Scottish Government
• Team Leader, Public Sector Team, Domestic Climate Change Division, Scottish Government
• Senior Policy Officer, Domestic Climate Change Division, Scottish Government
• Policy Officer, Domestic Climate Change Division, Scottish Government
• Policy Officer, Environment and Economy, COSLA

Apologies:

•  Cabinet Secretary for Housing
• Councillor Chalmers COSLA Spokesperson for Community Wellbeing
• Councillor  Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, Scottish Cities Alliance

Items and actions

Chair’s welcome and introduction

The Chair opened the meeting, welcomed attendees and presenters, and noted apologies from members who were unable to attend due to other commitments.

The Chair explained that the meeting would focus on three main agenda items. Administrative matters, including the previous minutes and the updated action log, would be handled by correspondence because of time constraints.

Minute of previous meeting and action log update

A senior official introduced the papers on the minute of the previous meeting and the action log. Members were invited to provide any comments by correspondence following the meeting.

Members were content for the previous minute to be cleared and prepared for publication ahead of the pre-election period. Most actions were being addressed through items scheduled for discussion at this meeting.

Officials highlighted ongoing work with major finance bodies, which would continue beyond the election period. Remaining actions were expected to be completed ahead of the next meeting after the election.

No issues were raised during discussion. The Chair confirmed that, unless comments were received afterwards, both documents would be treated as cleared.

Presentations on Climate Delivery Framework priority themes

Supporting the Climate Change Plan (CCP)

A Scottish Government official provided an update on work to finalise the Climate Change Plan. Two workshops had recently taken place with local councils to gather feedback on the draft Plan. Participants were positive and expressed a strong willingness to continue collaboration during implementation.

Officials were reviewing feedback from the workshops, public consultation responses, stakeholder input, recommendations from Parliamentary Committees and advice from the Climate Change Committee. The intention remained to publish the final Plan before the end of the current Parliamentary session. Independent analysis of the consultation emphasised the important role of local councils and wider delivery partners in achieving the aims of the Plan, which aligned with the Scottish Government’s emerging approach.

Areas identified for strengthening in the final Plan included:

• a clearer message that the Plan is a long-term, dynamic document that can adapt to changing markets and technological change
• a monitoring and evaluation framework including key performance indicators, such as electric vehicle uptake and heat pump rollout
• a stronger focus on delivery, including updated governance arrangements
• greater emphasis on wider social, economic and health benefits of climate action
• updated references to reflect policy changes since the draft Plan
• expanded explanation of modelling methodology, baseline data and assumptions

Views were invited on how the Group could support the implementation phase of the Plan, with particular emphasis on maintaining joint working, co-development and place-based approaches between national and local government.

Members welcomed the constructive engagement through the workshops and the inclusion of local government perspectives. Members noted that the Climate Change Committee considered the Plan achievable, while stressing the need for a clear delivery roadmap. Members also highlighted opportunities for collaboration with the private sector.

Another official confirmed that future work through the Climate Delivery Framework would enable continued joint working. Some sector teams already had well-established operational relationships, but further coordination would be required across sectors to support effective delivery.

The Chair noted that publication of the Plan would mark the beginning of the next, delivery-focused phase.

Improving the data and evidence

Representatives from the Scottish Climate Intelligence Service (SCIS) provided an update on the programme’s progress, including the collated intervention data set and ongoing workshop activity with national agencies.

The intervention data set included more than 1,500 climate interventions, collected in partnership with local councils. These ranged from infrastructure projects, such as active travel routes, to enabling and partnership actions. The data set remained a work in progress, with gaps in information and stronger coverage on heat, transport and waste. All data was aggregated and did not identify individual councils.

Three themes were emerging from analysis:

• walking and cycling interventions formed the largest category, alongside activity in retrofitting, district heating and electric vehicles
• funding constraints, lack of economies of scale, engagement challenges, limited political support and high infrastructure costs were common barriers
• individual interventions often produced small carbon reductions, highlighting the need for cumulative, system-level change

The Scottish Climate Intelligence Service noted that the data could help identify delivery hotspots, show where policy was stimulating activity and reveal gaps where interventions might be expected. It could also support shared learning on addressing common challenges. Carbon measurement for enabling actions remained complex, reinforcing the need for a broader suite of indicators.

Insight from the data was feeding into a series of sprint workshops with national agencies. Early sessions had been positive.

Members welcomed the work and noted that it was providing a helpful shared evidence base. Members highlighted that many interventions remained at concept stage due to short-term and uncertain funding. Multiyear funding and revenue support were considered essential for progression to delivery. Members also noted wider financial pressures, including maintenance costs, behaviour change and enabling activity.

Some interventions had recently been removed from local plans due to financial constraints. Members welcomed the intelligence being provided and the value of building a shared understanding of challenges.

The Chair emphasised the importance of ensuring that the data and intelligence contributed to the emerging monitoring and evaluation framework for the Climate Change Plan. The Scottish Climate Intelligence Service confirmed ongoing work to align leading and lagging indicators and connect intervention-level data with system-level measures.

Members also noted the importance of reflecting wider non-carbon social and community outcomes in evaluation.

Financing the response to climate change

The Investment Unit provided an update on work over the previous year to improve understanding of private investment and develop investable opportunities.

A national project pipeline had been established to track opportunities for private capital investment across a range of areas including renewable generation, battery storage, pumped hydro, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and heat networks. This had improved visibility of the national capital pipeline.

Officials described improvements to how opportunities were promoted to investors, including a public investment portal and increased international engagement.

The Scottish Government was working to understand investor appetite and strengthen relationships with priority investors. This had helped identify where viable opportunities existed, where markets were immature and where enabling conditions were needed before private investment would flow. It was noted that investors were only likely to commit where an appropriate return was expected.

There was ongoing work with a major urban council and its wider region on developing portfolio-based propositions for heat networks. This was producing valuable learning that could be shared more widely.

Members discussed the need to ensure investor intelligence informed agile implementation of the Climate Change Plan. Markets could shift quickly, and delivery plans needed to respond to changes in risk and viability. Hydrogen was noted as an example of a volatile emerging market.

Members supported wider sharing of learning from the regional partnership while noting that replication in rural and remote areas would be more challenging due to infrastructure limitations, particularly grid capacity. Much of the enabling infrastructure was the responsibility of UK-level bodies.

The Chair confirmed ongoing engagement with relevant system operators and noted that the issue had been raised at senior forums. Action was being taken to press for prioritisation of Scottish grid connections and other enabling infrastructure given the number of ready projects.

Members agreed that strengthening links between intelligence, delivery planning and financing arrangements was essential. Members also supported collective advocacy on infrastructure needs.

Overview of the Climate Delivery Framework for 2026 to 2027 and closing remarks

Members agreed that any additional comments on the overview paper and action log update would be provided by correspondence.

The Chair noted that this was expected to be the final meeting of the Climate Delivery Oversight Group before the election period and thanked members for their contributions.

Members recorded their appreciation for the longstanding contributions of several colleagues.

The Chair thanked all attendees and closed the meeting.