Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan Scheme information: EIR release

Information requested

1) The number of applications to the Home Energy Scotland grant and loan scheme in financial years a) 2022-23 b) 2023-24 and c) 2024-25.

2) The number of such applications in each year which included funding for heat pumps.

3) The number of Home Energy Scotland grant and loan scheme customers whose applications were completed and paid out in financial years a) 2022-23 b) 2023-24 and c) 2024-25. Please include customers for all measures provided as part of the scheme.

4) The number of such customers whose applications included funding for heat pumps.

5) The amount spent on Home Energy Scotland Advice Services and the amount paid to Energy Saving Trust to administer the scheme in financial years a) 2022-23 b) 2023-24 and c) 2024-25.

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.

I have included most of the data that you have requested below.

The Home Energy Scotland (HES) Grant and Loan Scheme launched as an update to the HES Loan and Cashback in December 2022. To meet your request for information to include the full 2022–2023 financial year, data relating to application and paid claims within this year include those received or paid out through the predecessor scheme. Additionally, some paid claims after the HES Grant and Loan Scheme was launched will relate to funding commitments made through the predecessor scheme, given the length of time entailed to complete and claim for works.

1) The number of applications to the Home Energy Scotland grant and loan scheme in financial years a) 2022-23 b) 2023-24 and c) 2024-25.

The following table shows the number of applications received for the financial years 2022-2023, 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.

	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25
Total applications received	7,540	6,516	5,120

2) The number of such applications in each year which included funding for heat pumps.

The following table shows the number applications containing heat pumps received for the financial years 2022-2023, 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.

	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25
Applications received including heat pumps	2,537	3,085	3,130

3) The number of Home Energy Scotland grant and loan scheme customers whose applications were completed and paid out in financial years a) 2022-23 b) 2023-24 and c) 2024-25. Please include customers for all measures provided as part of the scheme.

The following table shows the number of applications that were fully completed and paid out in financial years 2022-2023, 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.

Installation timelines mean that the number of completed and paid applications is not a direct subset of applications received, for all that there will be crossover.

	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25
Total applications paid	3,711	6,171	4,224

4) The number of such customers whose applications included funding for heat pumps.

The following table shows the number of applications that were fully completed and paid out that contained heat pumps for the financial years 2022-2023, 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.

Installation timelines mean that the number of completed and paid applications is not a direct subset of applications received, for all that there will be crossover.

	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25
Total applications paid	1,801	2,222	2,570

5) The amount spent on Home Energy Scotland Advice Services and the amount paid to Energy Saving Trust to administer the scheme in financial years a) 2022-23 b) 2023-24 and c) 2024-25.

The following table shows the amount spent on the HES Advice Services for the financial years 2022- 2023, 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.

	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25
Amount spent on HES Advice Service	£12.3 million	£13.5 million	£12.7 million

The following table contains some of the information regarding the amount paid to Energy Saving Trust (EST) to administer the scheme in financial years a) 2022-23 b) 2023-24 and c) 2024-25.

	2022-2023	01 April 2023 – 30 November 2023
Amount paid on the administration of HES Grant and Loan Scheme (including predecessor scheme)	£1,581,036	£1,627,420

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exception under Regulation 10(5)(e) - Confidentiality of commercial or industrial information of the EIRs applies to that information.

The information we are unable to provide relates to the amount paid to EST for the administration of the HES Grant and Loan Scheme from December 2023 onwards. The reason why that exception applies is explained in the Annex to this letter.

Annex

An exception under regulation 10(5)(e) of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested. Regulation 10(5)(e) allows authorities to withhold information where disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the confidentiality of commercial or industrial information where such confidentiality is provided for by law to protect a legitimate economic interest.

The exemption applies to your question regarding the amount paid to EST to administer the scheme. EST were awarded a new contract as part of a competitive tender exercise to administer and manage Scottish Government Heat and Energy Efficiency live and closed grant and loan schemes from 01 December 2023. The initial term of the contract runs until November 2026 and we are unable to provide you the amount paid to EST in relation to this contract.

The exemption under Regulation 10(5)(e) has been considered because the terms of the contract related to pricing are not publicly available. This information is commercial in nature and a duty of confidence exists between the Scottish Government and EST through the contract. Moreover, disclosure is likely to harm the legitimate economic interest.

This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception.

We recognise that there is some public interest in release of the information requested because the amount paid to EST to administer Heat and Energy Efficiency Grant and Loan Schemes is funded through the Scottish Government’s budget and there will be an interest in whether this represents value for money.

However, this is outweighed by the public interest in withholding this information as the release of payment data relating to the current contract involves commercially sensitive information related to contract pricing. Disclosure of the information requested in respect of the current contract is of a commercial nature and would disadvantage both EST and Scottish Ministers in the event the contract is retendered, causing a substantial harm to the legitimate economic interest. EST would experience harm to their economic interests in that competitors would gain access to commercial valuable information. The Scottish Government would experience harm to their economic interests in losing protection of a commercial bargaining position in the context of future negotiations.

Publicly available information regarding this contract can be found on the Public Contracts Scotland website. To aid you in obtaining the available contract information please see below the required information for the website search facility:

Keyword – Loan
Buyer Name – Scottish Government
Notice Type – contract Result
Include archived contracts? – Tick this box

About FOI

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