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The Scottish Government aims to support the creation of Green Skills Academies and will be working and consulting with relevant stakeholders, including those from the business community, colleges, universities and local authorities, in due course to take forward the development of the skills hubs and academies for the energy and low-carbon industry.

The Scottish Government aims to support the creation of Green Skills Academies and will be working and consulting with relevant stakeholders, including those from the business community, colleges, universities and local authorities, in due course to take forward the development of the skills hubs and academies for the energy and low-carbon industry.

The National Housing Trust initiative (NHT) differs from the traditional grant funding approach in that the purchase of homes will be jointly funded by participating councils and developers, with the Scottish Government providing guarantees to councils to ensure they are able to repay any money they borrow to fund the scheme. As such, there is no Scottish Government money allocated to the NHT to build affordable homes in the same sense as monies would be allocated under grant-based schemes.

We aim to deliver 30,000 affordable homes – an average of 6,000 per year over the next five years. We plan to build 5,000 new council houses during this parliament, but have not set an overall target for council/housing association homes for social rent.

Homes built through the National Housing Trust initiative (NHT) will be available for rent below the levels of housing benefit limits which makes them accessible to households on lower incomes. The homes will form part of the overall programme of affordable housing supply receiving financial support from the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Futures Trust is seeking to procure almost 700 affordable homes through the first phase of the National Housing Trust initiative, with contracts already finalised for 296 of these units across three council areas. In view of the substantial interest from local authorities, housing associations, and private house builders in extending and expanding the NHT approach through improved and new versions of the NHT model, the Scottish Government is considering the options for procuring more new homes through further NHT phases in 2011-12 and beyond, taking account of the views of stakeholders, and will provide further information on its plans shortly.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-01736 on 11 August 2011. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-01735 on 11 August 2011. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The Scottish Government is leading by example through achieving levels of £5,000 per megawatt per annum community benefit on commercial developments recently leased on Forestry Commission (Scotland) (FCS) land. The recent leasing process by FCS also gives an opportunity for communities to engage and invest in up to 49 per cent ownership of projects.

We are further considering how to optimise community benefit and community engagement with renewables as we review the responses to the “Securing the Benefits of Scotland’s Next Energy Revolution” consultation.

The Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) now provides loans to farmers, land managers, rural businesses, cooperatives and communities for the pre-planning consent costs of developing proposals. The spending review later this year will give an opportunity to consider future funding for community renewables.