Cladding Remediation

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 12 May 2022.

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Photo of Shona Robison Shona Robison Scottish National Party

I want to provide members with an update on the work that the Scottish Government is carrying out to identify and remediate unsafe cladding and, specifically, our single building assessment pilot, which we introduced in 2021.

This has not been an easy process for anyone. The Grenfell tower tragedy shocked us all, and it highlighted that many people could be living in buildings that pose a clear risk to their safety. That risk was never commonly understood by developers, lenders, building insurance firms or even surveyors and fire engineers.

Overcoming that breakdown in shared knowledge and systems about what safety means has been central to our learning, and I will share how we plan to use that learning to help home owners. I understand how stressful and frustrating a time it has been for home owners, and I am grateful to them for their involvement with us. I also want to reassure people that I expect the vast majority of buildings to be found to be safe.

I know that, for many home owners, progress has not been quick enough, but we have to understand the extent of the problem in order to fix it. The purpose and approach of the single building assessment, which was a recommendation of our expert building and fire safety ministerial working group, is to carry out a comprehensive inspection of whole blocks of domestic residential buildings, looking at fire safety and suitability for mortgage lending. That is a free assessment, with no cost to property owners.

Single building assessments—or SBAs—identify what needs to be mitigated or remediated on a building-by-building basis, in line with the most current building standards. That includes the more stringent requirements that were laid last month and that, in effect, ban all combustible cladding on relevant buildings. Our initial approach for the SBA pilot involved giving grants to home owners, typically through an intermediary such as a property factor. Although that approach has worked, it came at a high cost in terms of time and demands, particularly on home owners. The process was slower than we would like, and it is complex. The spend on surveys last year as part of the pilot amounted to £241,000. We have assessed the pilot and have concluded that the method requires to be changed as we scale up to a national programme.

I specifically thank the residents in the 26 buildings who are participating in the pilot surveys and also the home owner associations, factors, and others who have helped to shape the process and our understanding of how best to deliver at scale. I am clear that the pilot has been necessary, but, as I have said, the timescales inherent in the initial method were proving too long and onerous for those who were not familiar with such a technical process.

I can therefore inform the Parliament that I have taken the decision to alter our method to allow us to scale up and expand the programme. Using powers and procurement tools that are available to the Scottish Government, we will now begin offering SBAs directly. That means that the Government will take on the role of procuring surveyors and fire engineers to carry out assessments of buildings. That takes away the burden on home owners or the need for factors to move beyond their traditional role, which is managing common parts. The approach will remove several months from the process of completing a lengthy and technical application, and it will simplify the commissioning of survey work. Importantly, it will allow many more buildings to be brought into the programme at the same time, which will allow us to scale up our programme.

As a result of that change, I can confirm that every block in the pilot that has not yet submitted a full application under the previous approach has been written to with the offer of a directly procured SBA. I also confirm that, from today, we will begin writing to more than 80 unique blocks that submitted an expression of interest last year, in order to invite them on to the programme through a new and simplified application process.

To achieve the increase in pace, I encourage qualified fire engineers and surveyors to be ready to meet the demands of the programme of work. We have already begun the process of placing tenders for single building assessments with public contracts Scotland and we ask people to register and be prepared to bid.

From 2023, we will invite all remaining privately owned high-rise buildings—about another 100 buildings—into the survey programme. We will contact them shortly to explain the timescales and process.

Our programme of surveys is important for today’s home owners and for tomorrow’s, too. As is set out in our programme for government, by the end of this parliamentary session, we will introduce a register of safe buildings. We are already working with the key institutions that will need to have access, such as insurers, mortgage lenders and the fire service, as well as home owners. That measure will help to overcome a key difference between our tenure system and that in the rest of the United Kingdom—the absence of a single building owner. Vitally, it will offer assurance, to those who need it, that a building is safe.

I now turn to the UK Government’s recent announcement on a developer fund. From the start, the Scottish Government has engaged in good faith with the UK Government on its approach to the building safety programme. With my Welsh counterpart, with whom I have worked closely on the issue, I have written a number of times to UK Government ministers. Only last week, I met Lord Greenhalgh to raise my concerns about the way that the UK Government has fallen short when it comes to basic commitments on issues such as collaboration and transparency, after saying from the outset that it wanted a four-nations approach.

Instead, we have had little information and sudden announcements, and those announcements have increasingly focused on fixing problems in England only. It remains the case that the UK Government’s approach of tackling key issues only in England benefits from powers that are available only at a UK level, such as corporation tax, which has been used to tax UK-wide residential property developers.

However, we continue to explore whether any elements of the UK developer fund might still be applicable on a four-nations level, such as extending the scope of any legal agreement that has been entered into between the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the big Scottish developers of Scotland’s buildings.

The terrible tragedy of Grenfell tower exposed the risk that many tall buildings might be clad in materials that make the consequences of fire much worse and the cost of remediation huge. I therefore move to the issue of funding. We received £97.1 million in consequentials in 2021-22, and the Government is committed to ensuring that every penny of that and any additional funding that is received for the programme will be invested in assessing buildings and making unsafe buildings safe.

However, further changes in UK Government policy mean that we cannot be 100 per cent sure about what further funding might be received in the future. The UK Government faces the same issues that we do with assessment and remediation, yet the scale of cladding issues in England is not matched by the funding that has been identified or committed by the UK Government. That creates an issue for Scotland, because we get the Barnett consequentials only when the UK Government actually spends the money. By short-changing England, the UK Government is therefore also short-changing the devolved Governments.

We have estimated that we might get associated funding of around £300 million as a share of already committed UK spending on cladding, as is set out in HM Treasury’s spending review, which was published last year. I reiterate that our intention is to spend any associated funding that we receive on assessment, safety and remediation so that we adequately ensure the safety of residents and support home owners over the lifetime of the programme.

Given the complexity and scale of the issue, those resources might not be enough, but that will not prevent us from doing what is right and necessary. We will make our resources go further by working collaboratively with housing developers, the finance industry and home owners in order to fix the issue properly and fully from the outset.

I now turn to our engagement with the house building sector. It has become clear that, even with the possible joint approach with the UK Government on the legal contract behind the pledges, practically, that would impact only on around 12 developers operating in Scotland. That is a fraction of the total, because most of them are small and medium sized. I am therefore pleased to inform Parliament today that Homes for Scotland, the house building members body, has agreed to work with the Scottish Government to develop a Scottish safer buildings accord with its members and the broader sector. Together, we will identify fair and workable solutions for all.

I see no reason why a developer would not commit to doing in Scotland exactly the same as it has agreed to do in England as part of the UK Government’s pledge. Developers must play their part in making unsafe buildings safe, wherever they are. I have met a number of developers in the past few days, and more meetings are to come as we reach out widely to build our accord with those who are affected by unsafe cladding. I am pleased to say that many major developers want to do what is right, and discussions have been co-operative and collaborative.

In the coming weeks, we will work together on the fine detail of the accord and will be involving home owners in that work. It is my clear expectation that, where developers that are linked to buildings with problematic cladding are identified, they will fund remediation. That will ensure that, when public funds need to be spent, we can use them to focus on buildings and works for which a developer cannot be identified or no parent developer exists.

The creation of our accord with the house building sector and home owners will form the basis of a way to address each building’s needs. However, I want to make it clear that, if required, I will make full use of the powers that are available to us to bring parties to the table—including, if necessary, legislation.

I hope that this update has been helpful to members and to those who are affected by the issue. I look forward to continuing to update Parliament as we make further progress with this important programme of work.