Chamber and committees

As Stephen said, that very much follows the procedure in the rest of the UK.

There are a number of things to say in response to that. On step change, earlier on, we set out what we are doing. If we go back to the previous year, we had to get in place the legislation because, without that, there were some things that we just did not have the ability to do. Following that, one key thing was building on the partnership with the developers, and it was really important to ensure that we were all in agreement about work that was to be carried out. The work was carried out to that level, and could be inspected and looked at by the tenants. For example, if they wanted an independent assessment of it, that was carried out. That was an important part.

We are just about there with the remediation contract. That is an incredibly important part, which is about tying developers in legally and setting out exactly what they are liable for and what the Scottish Government’s part in that is.

The other key thing, which I acknowledged at the start of the meeting, is communication. We need to communicate, even if there is not much happening—for example, we might set out what we are working on and that it might take three months. If there is an assessment process or a discussion going on, we need to ensure that people know that, because if there is a void people—quite rightly—will be worried about what is going on. The communications part needs to be picked up as well.

A lot of the building blocks, which have been put in place over the past number of months, will get us to a position that will enable us, when commencement starts at the turn of the year, to really move quickly. You are right—it needs that step change. I acknowledge that we need that, and I said that as part of my comments.

Communications is an incredibly important aspect. We must tell people what is going on. I have had a number of meetings with residents in different parts of Scotland, to try to explain that. We will always be open to doing that.

I hope that what we have laid out earlier today shows that we have made a step change on delivery. We are also looking at things to ensure that we extend the breadth of that. I have met residents. I totally acknowledge that it is an extremely worrying position for them. You have to understand that they are living with that every day. We need to move, and the measures that we have laid out will quicken the pace of delivery.

We are working with the UK and Welsh Governments on the bill because it obviously impacts on us all. We would get royal assent first and then move on to commencement. Mr Coffey touched on the key issue of getting the message out and letting tenants and landlords know about the bill.

I do not whether we have discussed the timescales that the UK and Welsh Governments are talking about, but we are trying to move as soon as possible.

Yes. That was seen as the basis of things, but there were other specific aspects that were agreed with the developers, who were feeding back into the process. It was all about listening to what they were saying and trying to amend the process in light of that. We had a number of meetings over that period of time, but that formed the real basis for taking forward the assessments.

I acknowledge what the UK Government has been doing in England and where it is at. Unlike England, we needed to put a statutory framework in place to allow remediation work to be undertaken, and the safeguards that I mentioned are important. The tenure system is different as there is a lack of a single freeholder for a property.

I acknowledge where England is and where we are. We need to quicken the pace. I acknowledged that during the debate. The reason why we introduced the legislation was to address that very point and to make sure that we have what we need in place legally. We needed a statutory framework, given the different tenure system in Scotland, and that has delayed things.

I acknowledge that we need to quicken the pace. I said that during the debate and I have said it today as well. However, as I have set out, we are learning from the pilot programme how we can quicken the pace going forward, and how we can broaden what we are doing. I am confident that, given what I have set out this morning, we will see the pace quickening quite considerably.

We have not set a date yet. I do not think that the UK Government has set a date for every type of building, either. The UK Government minister who is responsible for cladding wrote to me about what they are doing, and we are in the process of trying to have a discussion around that. I say again that we are working very closely with the UK Government on the Grenfell issue. Obviously, there are related issues.

On what we need to do, I talked about some of the work that we are doing on broadening. We will continue to monitor that as we go ahead, but it is not something that we are doing at this particular moment in time. One of the key things is that we are required to report to Parliament every year. As you know, I am also happy to come to the committee at any stage to discuss cladding. I have made that offer before and I make it again.

In addition to that, I have had numerous meetings with MSP colleagues who are representing their constituents. I have offered those meetings to anybody who thinks that they would be useful, and they have taken place with a number of colleagues and residents.

Thank you, convener. I am happy to come back to the committee to discuss cladding whenever it requests.

I am pleased to be able to update the committee today on our work on cladding remediation since the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act 2024 was passed in the summer. As we approach the act’s commencement, I would also like to set out how we intend to accelerate and broaden our action on cladding in the new year.

As we recognised at the time, the passing of the act in May and the publication of the single building assessment and specification in June were important milestones and laid essential foundations for our work. As the absence of such a statutory framework hampered progress on assessment and remediation in recent years, further work has, significantly, been carried out to allow commencement of the act, which will come into effect on Monday 6 January 2025. The regulations that will bring the act into effect are currently going through its parliamentary process.

As members know, the act’s centrepiece is the creation of the single building assessment, which is a statutory process by which the actions that are required to bring a building to a tolerable level of risk can be identified, and around which a range of powers and duties necessary for effective assessment and remediation has been built. The act also gives ministers the power to set standards for conducting such an assessment, and we are on track to publish on 6 January—the day of commencement—the full set of standards, building on the earlier specification.

I was also pleased to be able to share last week with the committee what we intend to be a final draft of the standards. I realise that for the owners and occupiers concerned this has been a deeply stressful time, but I am pleased to say that having the statutory framework in place will now facilitate a much-needed quickening of pace.

I can report to the committee that we have also been taking action in anticipation of the powers coming into effect. In particular, we have drawn from the properties in the original pilot to commission 13 priority single building assessments in circumstances where no developer has been identified and can lead and pay for the assessment and, if required, remediation. I know that the issue of orphan buildings was raised during the debate in the chamber, when the point was made that we had to ensure that such buildings did not fall behind those with identified owners, and I am glad to say that we are taking the issue forward at pace.

We expect the 13 assessments to be available to us in the new year, soon after the powers and duties of the act have come into effect. It will then be for the Scottish Government to consider the recommendations, communicate with the owners and residents affected, and set in train the process of remediation. We have already written to people in those buildings to confirm that the assessments have been commissioned.

In respect of the other entries in the pilot, an assurance process is continuing to ensure that they fall within the scope of the act and to find out whether a developer or other body is in place to take forward assessment and, if needed, remediation. Some of those cases might need to be taken forward by the Government, but in others, the outcome will be clearly communicated to the responsible body and to residents.

All of this means that 2025 will be the first year of substantial Scottish Government-led assessment and, where required, remediation. Of course, we would have wished this to have taken place earlier, but with learning from the pilot programme, the recognition of the particular issues of tenure that we face in Scotland and the development, passing and imminent commencement of the legislation, we are now in the position that we would want to be in, and substantial Government-led action can now proceed.

We have also made good progress with securing agreement on a new remediation contract with the large developers, which have already accepted the responsibility for assessment and remediation of the buildings that they developed. Discussions are at an advanced stage and we hope that, once agreed, the contract will unlock a further programme of assessment and remediation in 2025.

What next? As we approach the important milestone of commencement, it is essential that we ask ourselves that simple question. I can tell the committee today that on 6 January, the day of commencement, we will publish a renewed statement of our priorities and action on cladding, and I will now give the committee an indication of some of the themes in that statement.

First, we will look to increase the pace of action on cladding, and we intend to do so by introducing two new assessment and remediation schemes beyond the pilot scheme. One will centre on a new open call for buildings that are potentially affected by unsafe cladding, and it will enable owners and residents in buildings that are affected by cladding, but in respect of which no owner or developer has been able or willing to take forward assessment and remediation at their own hand, to bring the matter to the Government’s attention and to be considered for Government-led assessment and mediation.

A further complementary scheme will have its own schedule of buildings that appear to be at elevated risk from cladding. With that risk-based approach, we will work with local authorities and fire services to help to identify the buildings that should be prioritised, and I have already contacted local authorities on that basis. We will also consider where responsibilities for taking forward assessment and remediation should lie, including whether the Scottish Government has a part to play. With those complementary schemes, we aim to empower owners and residents to take steps towards assessment and remediation of their buildings and to support and accelerate action where the risks are highest.

I am also pleased to note that last week’s draft budget proposed substantial provision of £52.2 million in 2025-26 to support the acceleration of the action on cladding that we are now taking forward. However, as well as increasing the pace of action on cladding, we also want to increase the breadth of action on cladding in 2025. Government needs to be a very active and positive player in such action, but we also need to harness the skills, knowledge and capacity of others if we are to have the greatest effect. That is reflected in our intention to work with partners to identify the highest-risk properties, as I have already described.

More generally, though, we need to make action on cladding a collective national endeavour, where all parties are asked and enabled to play their part. That is particularly relevant in the area of social housing. If people are to be protected in the way that we want them to be, we need to work even more closely and co-operatively with local authorities and registered social landlords to make sure that the necessary actions are being taken, seeking assurance where appropriate, but also being prepared as a Government to play our part where needed.

For example, with properties that are partly owned by a registered social landlord but in which there is a mix of tenure, including private owners, the Government needs to be part of a solution and a way forward. Similarly, there might be properties that are wholly owned by a registered social landlord but it is not in a financial position to be able to take forward remediation. The Government needs to be prepared to consider funding issues on a case-by-case basis.

Our plan for 2025 will therefore include work to engage with local authorities, RSLs and other local partners to identify and prioritise buildings at risk from cladding, to seek assurance of action where that is appropriate and to provide help where it is needed. I have recently written to a range of local representatives to set the process in train, and as with all our work, I will keep the committee up to date with progress.

Finally, on communications, I would like to return to those who are the most important in these discussions: the people who live in the buildings affected by potentially unsafe cladding. I know that the issue of communications has been raised by the committee on a number of occasions, and I have already described how we will set up a route for people in that situation to raise their concerns with us through a new open call.

Beyond that, I commit to maintaining and expanding further the new approach to communication that we have taken forward in recent months, with a new monthly newsletter aimed at residents and updated material on the Government website, including frequently asked questions. There are also the duties on building-specific communications, which will apply when assessment and remediation is taken forward under the act. Stakeholders have told us that our communications have not been good enough; I have acknowledged that and we are taking action in response.

I hope that this has been a helpful update for the committee and a useful indication of our intended next steps. I look forward to discussing the issues with you.

On that point, it is important to note that part of the reason why we brought in the legislation was to allow us to move more quickly on the SBA process and to discuss issues around that. I acknowledge that the period of time to get us there is longer than I would have liked. When the bill came in, it gave us more clout to try to move things forward. Right from the start, I said to the developers that there would be very much a hand-in-hand relationship, as we needed to make sure that they were happy with what we were proposing and vice versa. More important is that that will give the people who live in the buildings confidence that the process is being carried out, is auditable and is at the level that it needs to be at. That is what took the time.

The bill gave us the ability to move things along more quickly. We now have a process in place that we, developers and tenants can see is auditable and is in a position for us to move forward with, and we can proceed at a pace that everybody is agreed on. However, I acknowledge that four years was far too long.

That is to do with a number of things. We have talked about the building blocks being put in place. One important part is to get in place the SBA process, because the buildings first need to be assessed before being remediated. That has taken slightly longer, but it is important that we get right the SBA process. If we do not get it right, that will stock up problems for the future.

At the moment, the spend is around £5 million, and it is estimated that it will be around £12 million. We, including Stephen Lea-Ross, have sat down and talked about the budget that is required. I am very confident about the pace of spend increasing next year, because we now have in place the building blocks. We have had discussions and we have partnerships and agreements with the developers, and we are not too far away from agreeing the remediation contract. All that will increase the pace of spend.

Have things taken a little longer than expected this year? Yes, they have, but it is important that we take the proper time for the SBA process, because it is quite literally the building block of everything else that we need to put in place.

I am confident, given what we have laid out previously and for this year, that the pace will quicken. I am quite happy to come back next year and to be held to account on the point. With a lot of the uncertainties that we had previously no longer there, the legislation in place and the agreements in place with developers, we can really quicken the pace.

Stephen, do you have anything you want to add on that particular point?