Minutes of Meeting on Wednesday 9th June 2025
Venue: St Andrew’s House, Waterloo Place, Edinburgh
Time: 10:30-17:30
Type: Panel Meeting
ATTENDEES:
Panel: Matthew Cole, Kirsten Jenkins, Alister Steele
Apologies: Margaret Corrigan and Fraser Stewart
Secretariat: Philippa Brosnan and Roanna Simpson
AGENDA ITEM 1: Introductory Remarks
Matt welcomed everyone to the meeting, noted Maggie and Fraser’s apologies and ran through the agenda.
AGENDA ITEM 2: Workplan and Annual Report
Philippa took the Panel through the latest version of the Workplan, seeking views. The Panel asked for some revisions subject to sign off. The proposed final version of the Annual Plan was also reviewed by the Panel and signed off.
The Panel asked that both plans are published on the Panel website by the end of June.
AGENDA ITEM 3: Research
Roanna gave an overview of the rural experience of fuel poverty research findings. The focus groups covered several rural areas with high rates of fuel poverty and had 81 participants in all. The findings covered rural specific fuel poverty drivers, the cost of living and energy crisis, metering, and support interventions. The Panel agreed that the report should be published on the website in mid-June.
Roanna talked the Panel through a proposal to recruit an intern to do some health-related research to pave the way for the Panel’s deep dive on health-related outcomes for those in fuel poverty later this year – aligning with activity set out in this year’s Workplan. The Panel agreed this would be a useful piece of work and that Roanna should take this forward.
AGENDA ITEM 4: Upcoming report by Dr S Stevelink on Rural and Remote Poverty
Dr Stevelink, a UKRI funded-research fellow, who met with the Panel in May, to outline the high-level findings of her research project on rural and remote poverty in Scotland, has asked the Panel to consider the key findings and implications. The Panel noted that it is an interesting and useful paper and asked the Secretariat to feedback its reflections to Dr Stevelink.
Agenda item 5: Meeting with the Scottish Government Fuel Poverty Team
Matt welcomed Matt Ensby, Deputy Director of Warmer Homes and Douglas Armstrong, Fuel Poverty Team Leader to the meeting.
In discussion, the following topics were covered:
The relationship and prioritisation of fuel poverty targets alongside child poverty ones. The Scottish Government’s Tackling Fuel Poverty in Scotland: periodic report 2021-2024, which the Panel will be formally responding to by the end of September this year. Points made by the Panel included the challenge of discerning progress on the fuel poverty targets given the lack of a monitoring and evaluation framework, the next (revised) strategy and how it might address this, the levers which the Scottish Government does/does not have which can impact on fuel poverty target delivery.
Agenda item 6: Periodic Report Response
The Panel discussed its approach to responding to the Scottish Government’s Periodic Report published on the 1 April 2025. The Panel’s response needs to be sent to the Scottish Government by 30 September. The Panel discussed:
- Engaging with stakeholders on their views.
- Points of clarification which they may want to ask the Scottish Government.
- The potential structure of the report.
AOB – Matt invited reflections and then closed the meeting.
Next meeting – 27th June, 2:00-5:00 pm – online