Chamber and committees

That is exactly why it is important to reassure clients that their payments will be backdated to the point of application.

I point members to the work that is being done through the client surveys, which has shown that people are satisfied that they are being supported through the application process, and that they are finding the system to be very different to that of the DWP. I hope that Ms Clark is not suggesting that we should learn from the DWP’s approach in which the client has responsibility for, and therefore the stress of, providing supporting information. If that is what she wants—a like-for-like system—we can have like-for-like comparisons, but I very much did say—

We are confident that we have systems in place to ensure that there is no gap in payment. I will give some examples of how that can happen. Of course, an individual can apply very close to the deadline of their 18th birthday, but the agency ensures that a number of letters are sent, including the details of how that young person can be supported. That happens in order to ensure that we provide support to people way before that cut-off point. If we are getting to the stage where someone is in any danger of reaching a deadline for their support, the agency’s operational systems will kick in to recognise that and ensure that decisions can be made before the deadline passes.

Therefore, it is not just that we spend a great deal of time trying to encourage and support people but that, if we feel that a hard stop is potentially coming that might impact on an individual, the systems can spot that, the client advisers can step in and work can be done to ensure that the process is sped up and treated with the urgency that it would absolutely require at that stage.

Thank you, and good morning. Thanks to the committee for the opportunity to give evidence today. I hope that it can build on the written evidence that I have already provided to give context for the issues that face the public sector.

Everyone with responsibility for building safety takes RAAC very seriously. We have been working at pace with local authorities and other public sector organisations in Scotland as they have conducted reviews of RAAC in their properties. That allows us to understand the extent of the issue and for mitigations or replacement work to be carried out when required.

Although the issue of RAAC has been on-going for some time, the UK Government’s Department for Education changed its approach to RAAC in schools on 31 August. It did not seek to engage with the Scottish Government before that change, nor did it, it appears, seek to engage with others in UK Government departments. We repeatedly requested that further information that supported DfE’s decision be made available, and the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills has written several times to the Secretary of State for Education about that.

As committee members heard from witnesses on the first panel this morning, the Standing Committee on Structural Safety sent out its alert on RAAC in 2019, and the Institution of Structural Engineers published guidance on RAAC in March 2022, with a revision in April 2023. The guidance was written from an evidence base of research and engineering assessment of failure. Once the Institution of Structural Engineers published authoritative guidance, appropriate advice could be given by engineers to building owners. Although action was taken during the period following 2019, particularly by the SFRS, the clarity that the guidance gives means that proper assessment of risk can be undertaken. Local authorities, the NHS and police all acted on RAAC during 2022.

Work was already under way to deal with RAAC in the school estate in Scotland prior to the UK Government’s announcement. As building owners, local authorities have a clear responsibility to manage their estate and ensure that buildings are safe for all users. As a result, I am reassured that COSLA has confirmed that safety is its central consideration and that there is robust guidance, which is followed by every local authority, to ensure that it is safe for young people, staff and the public to be in those settings.

Using that guidance, RAAC has been identified in 37 school buildings across 16 local authorities, including eight early learning and childcare settings that are within primary schools. We previously said that it was identified in 41 buildings, but the committee heard from Aberdeen City Council about four schools there.

Wherever RAAC has been found, mitigations have been put in place. The affected local authorities have also been communicating with parents and carers, and have published information on their websites. We are working with COSLA, SFT and local authorities to ensure that the entire school estate is fully assessed as quickly as is practicable.

Although the focus in local authorities was initially on schools, councils are continuing to investigate the extent of RAAC in their wider estate, as the committee heard earlier. A major study is under way on NHS buildings in Scotland, so that risk can be assessed and managed, and NHS Scotland Assure and its partners are assessing 254 NHS Scotland properties that have been identified as potentially containing RAAC. Site surveys have started, and necessary mitigation actions have been taken in parts of 14 buildings that have been confirmed as containing RAAC.

We are currently in the discovery stage for the housing sector. My officials remain engaged with COSLA, the Scottish Housing Regulator and housing and local authority organisations to understand the extent of RAAC in social housing. We anticipate that initial reporting on current activity and timescales will be received in October.

The First Minister has been clear that we will spend what we need to spend to ensure that our buildings are safe for those who use them. However, we need the UK Government to realise the seriousness of the situation and to provide devolved Governments and its own departments with funding. The Deputy First Minister wrote to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury of the United Kingdom about that in August, but only received an unsatisfactory response some weeks later. The UK Government cannot simply put its head in the sand. New capital money has to be made available, rather than the continual cuts to capital budgets that we have seen in recent years, and that we will continue to see.

The cross-Government working group on RAAC continues to meet, and it will do so until we are sure that any risk across the public sector is managed. I trust that the committee is reassured by the on-going actions the Government is taking along with our public sector and industry partners on RAAC and any risks that it might present.

Because of the sheer extent of the work that is being done across the public sector, it is not possible to do genuine modelling on the potential scale of the financial commitment. Therefore, perhaps it is not helpful to speculate until all the work has been done on that.

Although those figures were mentioned, other panel members said that it was difficult to put an overall figure on it, given where we are with the discovery work and the fact that it very much depends on the type of building that is involved and on what the issue is with the building. The committee heard some examples this morning about how that varies from example to example.

At this point, it is not possible to put a final figure on the work, but we recognise that it is of concern across the public sector. That is why we are working very closely with COSLA and other parts of the public sector so that we are alerted to the issues as they are found by building owners, who are responsible for the monitoring and upkeep of their buildings.

I stress that, as I mentioned in my original remarks, it was the Department for Education and not the UK Government as a whole that signalled a change. We have not received any evidence that would suggest that we should do anything differently from what we are doing and have been doing for some time, which is to look at the Institution of Structural Engineers guidance. We have not seen compelling evidence that justifies the Department for Education in England’s departure from that IStructE guidance. We have asked for all the information that is available to ensure that everyone is sharing that information and that we have full knowledge. However, as I think you heard this morning, IStructE has confirmed that its guidance remains good practice in the area and that it uses the risk-based approach to managing RAAC.

I again point to the fact that there is a very different management model for schools in England, where more than 3,000 bodies are responsible for the school estate. In Scotland, the 32 local authorities occupy that role, each of which has a professional estate management team. That is one of the many reasons why we do not feel that it is necessary or, indeed, would be wise to follow where the Department for Education has gone. The change relates to that one department in the UK Government; it is not UK Government-wide.

The responsibility for decisions about the decanting of services or the closing of buildings would lie with the local authority or the responsible building owner, and not with the Scottish Government. In the case of local authorities and schools, decisions would be taken on a school-by-school basis. Your previous panel went through some details of the discovery work and the more intrusive surveys that can go on within a building, which may lead to the building owner taking a decision either to put mitigation measures in place or to decant and close part or all of a building. That really is a matter for the building owner—quite rightly, as they have the information about the survey.

I can give examples from the school estate—there are others elsewhere—of where RAAC may affect an exceptionally small part of a building and full closure is therefore not required, or where the matter can be dealt with through mitigation measures and no part of the building needs to be closed. However, that will be an issue for the building owner.

That is certainly a very important aspect that the building owner would need to be cognisant of. Witnesses on your first panel gave some examples to do with schools, although not just about the school estate, and best value was mentioned. There can be an advantage to replacing a whole building rather than just the roof, because we can look to improve environmental standards. Best value is an important aspect of that, but I stress that the decision would be for the responsible building owner to make, having looked at how much the mitigation measures would cost and what the capital costs would be if they were to go through major building improvements rather than a completely new build. Such decisions will be for responsible building owners to make on a case-by-case basis.

All Governments should be working on the concept of best value. We have to work very closely with our local government colleagues. I give them as an example because, to date, most of the discussions have been about schools and local government analyses of whether building work or completely new buildings will represent best value.

To be frank, convener, I would settle, as a first step, for the UK Government recognising that there is a need for all the Governments across the UK to work on that—and that there is a requirement for additional capital funding for departments and the devolved Administrations—so that, once the discovery work is at a more substantive point, we can get into discussions about what that will actually look like.

One aspect of that was, I hope, answered by Stephen Garvin when we talked about the register. I or Stephen can perhaps help if Mr Briggs would like further information on that.

However, there is another aspect, which is about ensuring that things work closely together. Although the building standards system is devolved, construction products are a reserved matter. To have good building standards, we also need to have good construction products and a good system of reassurance around them. We are keen to work with others, including professional organisations, to see whether they have any concerns about how building standards and construction methods work together. We want to ensure that the devolved bits and the reserved bits work together as effectively as possible. If there is anything that we can do in a devolved setting, or if there are any concerns about aspects that are reserved, we want to work with the UK Government to design a solution that will deal with any concerns that professional organisations have about construction products or non-traditional methods.

We are working very carefully with COSLA. Ms Gilruth and I have met COSLA a number of times, particularly to discuss the school estate. We are widening those discussions at the ministerial level to the wider estate and, of course, officials have been having those discussions on the wider estate, too. We are keen to learn the lessons about what worked well in the publication on the school estate, and we are working with local authorities to see what could be done, not just for housing but for their other buildings as well. The knowledge is out there with that context, and the councils are working with the individuals who may be impacted.

That work will vary from council to council and from situation to situation. For example, in Clackmannanshire, there was a specific issue in a small number of flats, and that was dealt with by the council, which worked with the individuals involved. We are keen to learn from good practice about what has worked and what we need to improve on. Being able to reassure people is vital to the Scottish Government and, indeed, to everybody who is involved; we want to ensure that we are being as transparent as possible about the information that we have.