Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan Scheme: EIR release

Information requested

The Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan Scheme [link] features a ‘rural uplift’ which is available to applicants in 'off-gas accessible rural' areas.

Please provide the list of postcodes which are considered to be ‘off-gas’ for this purpose, i.e. those where the applicant would be informed they are eligible for the uplift.

If the list being used covers all off-gas postcodes there is no need to filter for the purpose of this request - confirmation that the urban rural classification is assessed separately is sufficient.

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 enclose the requested information below.

The Home Energy Scotland (HES) Grant and Loan Scheme offers additional grant funding for domestic properties in rural and island areas. This support is intended to assist applicants with the higher costs associated with installing measures in these areas.

The rural uplift is available to domestic properties that fall within the following 8-fold urban rural classifications:

• Classification 7 (Remote Rural).
• Classification 8 (Very Remote Rural).
• Classification 6 (Accessible Rural), if the property is in an off-gas area.

Additionally, properties located on Scottish Islands are also eligible for the uplift, regardless of urban rural classification.

The urban rural classification of a property can be found by comparing the property’s postcode against the Postcode Index (small user file), which can be found on the National Records of Scotland website under the heading ‘Data Downloads’. This index contains information on each postcode in Scotland, including 8-fold urban rural classification.

Where a property has an urban rural classification of 6 (Accessible Rural), to determine if the property is off-gas and therefore eligible for the rural uplift, the property’s postcode is compared against the Off Gas Postcode Register, which can be found on the Xoserve website under the heading ‘Off Gas Postcode Register’. This register lists the postcodes in the UK where there is no record held by Xoserve of an active gas connection.

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.