Local Government and Communities Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Official Report 733KB pdf

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Building Regulations and Fire Safety

Agenda item 3 is an evidence session on building regulations and fire safety in Scotland. I welcome Laura Hughes, who is general insurance manager at the Association of British Insurers; Craig Ross, who is associate director of the built environment at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors; Professor José Torero, who is a professor of civil engineering and head of department at University College London; and Dr Jim Glockling, who is the technical director at the Fire Protection Association.

Dr Glockling is giving evidence by videolink, so we need to be mindful of possible slight delays on the line during our discussion. Can you hear me all right, Dr Glockling?

I can indeed. The link seems to work very well.

Given the size of the panel and the time that is available, we will move straight to questions from members.

It is good to have the witnesses with us today. We have had a lot of incredibly helpful written submissions in advance of the session.

I will kick off with a basic question. Do current Scottish buildings standards requirements, particularly as they apply to new-build high-rise domestic buildings, offer residents sufficient protection from fire? If not, what changes would you like to be introduced? That question is open to any of the panel.

The Association of British Insurers represents the insurance industry, including property insurers, across the United Kingdom, and is really keen on ensuring that buildings are safe from fire. We have acknowledged in the past, and do so again today, that the Scottish Government has robust regulations, especially compared with those in England. Examples include mandatory installation of sprinklers in care homes and changes that the Scottish Government introduced following the Grenfell Tower fire, such as reducing to 11m the trigger building height relating to combustible cladding. Our perspective is that the Scottish Government has some very robust regulations.

Our main concern, however, is that the Scottish Government continues to allow the BS 8414 test, which in essence allows continued use of materials of limited combustibility on buildings over 11m, because those materials can pass the test. Back in 2017, following Grenfell, the ABI commissioned the FPA to do some research into the fundamentals of BS 8414. The research clearly demonstrates that the test is not currently appropriate for the real-world conditions in which cladding is put on buildings. I am sure that there will be more discussion of that, but the ABI considers that it is the main issue that needs to be dealt with in Scotland.

There are also various concerns or requirements around some of the changes in England as a result of Dame Judith Hackitt confirming the need for a “golden thread”. The work that the Scottish Government has done on the inventory of high-rise buildings is a really great step. We need more of that in the future.

11:00  

Thank you for the invitation to speak on behalf of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Personally speaking, I say that it is great to be back on home soil and to speak about this very important topic in our Parliament.

As you may know, the RICS covers 22 professional pathways to membership and has about 135,000 members, so it is a diverse organisation. It can therefore be difficult for one person to speak on behalf of everybody and from a position of consensus. We have submitted a written statement on zero valuation and cladding, which the committee should have received—I believe that it was submitted yesterday. I would like to take back to the RICS any questions on that document and any questions that I feel merit a more measured and encompassing response. I will ensure that the committee has a detailed response as soon as possible.

Through our combined expertise and primary objective of working in the public interest, we have been heavily involved in the post-Grenfell fire safety work in England, and we had representatives in the Cole and Stollard reviews in Scotland. We remain ready to assist the committee on this important safety issue.

I will move on to the question. As Laura Hughes said, combustible materials are currently permitted if the relevant person opts to use a BS 8414 test. Fires in properties start for a number of reasons: typically, there are about 40 fire-related deaths in Scotland each year that are attributable to occupational activities. It is therefore difficult to say that cladding and insulation systems can inhibit fires altogether. Indeed, there is no panacea that will solve the problem. Current building standards that are designed to address cladding and insulation issues will reduce risk from cladding and insulation, but passive and active fire protection measures are all part of reducing the risk of fire spreading once it has started.

The BS 8414 test is currently considered for cladding solutions. Although the test is useful, we feel that it could be improved to include more realistic scenarios. Another issue to consider is that there are limited testing facilities available for the test—perhaps only three in the UK. Furthermore, the estimated cost of carrying out the test is between £40,000 and £60,000 and there is a 12-month to 18-month waiting period, which obviously creates issues for the test.

We support the moves that have been made on Scottish buildings standards.

I will start by saying that I struggle with Sarah Boyack’s question, particularly in the light of the responses of my two esteemed colleagues. We have discussed the details of building regulations and talked about the details of testing regimes, but they are not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is that, when you have a set of building regulations and building technologies, for the system to work correctly, you must have competent professionals who are capable of using those tools appropriately. It is not the test or the regulation that is bad; it is use of the regulation or the test that is bad. In the hands of a competent professional, regulations can be supplemented—they can be understood and ambiguities can be dealt with. However, in the absence of competent professionals, none of that happens and mistakes are made.

There is no perfect test. BS 8414 can be used appropriately or inappropriately—it depends on the user more than on the test itself. The problem is that current building technologies, particularly when it comes to high-rise buildings, have evolved in a manner that means that they require a high level of competency, and Scotland does not really have a proper definition of competency when it comes to fire safety. In the absence of a proper definition of competency, it is impossible to establish how to do an appropriate assessment of a building, how to do an appropriate design and who is and is not doing things correctly.

I was going to come on to the verification procedures, but I see that Dr Glockling wants to come in.

I will detail some of the work that we have done on BS 8414 testing. I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to give evidence.

Since Grenfell, between the ABI, RISCAuthority and the FPA, insurers have contributed the best part of £0.5 million in order to understand better the standards that are used to authenticate the material that is used on buildings. Their reasons for doing so are perhaps slightly different from those of others. Insurers need clarity when they are determining what the estimated maximum loss might be in any given building. Fire is a unique peril in that it has the capability to exceed those limits very quickly if nasty surprises arise.

The work that we have done is very independent—we took a fresh-eyes look at the standards, with no remit. Insurers would love us to say that there is no problem, rather than that there might be a problem. We conducted many tests on the BS 8414 scale and looked at its capability to assure fire performance from an insurance perspective. We concluded that although it is a better test than many others out there, development is needed in order to meet that remit.

The research continued and we found a discontinuity in the building regulations, as they currently stand, between the fire-stopping requirement relating to the external envelope of the building and the toxic hazard that can be presented to occupants from fires in the cladding void. We feel that further work is required to ensure that there is appropriate separation of occupants from the toxic hazard that can be generated.

The key point is that BS 8414 is not a bad test, but it is not developed enough to ensure that real life can be replicated. It is possible that, following a failure, rather than different materials being selected, certain rearrangements of materials could be carried out to allow such a test to be passed. That suggests that design detailing is critical to performance. We need to ask ourselves—this echoes what other witnesses have said—whether those details are realistic and practical, and whether they represent what goes on the building.

To summarise, I say that the BS 8414 testing has been used as a test of materials rather than a test of system. It is usually commissioned by product manufacturers rather than by the end user or specifier. As such, important materials such as membranes are often omitted from tests. We know that things such as vapour membranes can spread fire more quickly than cavity barriers can respond, and we feel that that is important. Important features such as the presence of plastic ducts and vents are also omitted from the tests, which do not have to be fire stopped on the external envelope of the building. I will say more about that later.

In addition, the scale of the test is somewhat wrong, in that the fire is the same width as the façade specimen, so that can lead to the void being preferentially sealed against air flow in the void from the void, which would not be the case in a much larger building with a broader footprint.

Test installations can end up being overrobust, oversimplified and oversealed, and can therefore result in an overfavourable outcome. A lot of the problem is to do with realism. We test many systems in our laboratories. Currently, all our rigs are tied up looking at current buildings and assessing whether what is on them is okay. Just today, I was heartened to learn of a request being made—I do not know whether it was by the building owner or the local authority on whose behalf the test was being done—for the whole system to be removed and put back on properly so that it correctly mirrors the building. That is heading in the right direction.

I will finish off by mentioning a key feature that I think is missed in all the testing. The presence of plastic ducts and vents does not form part of a fire test. Those are not fire-stop devices, but they form a route for fire ingress and fire egress from a building. That is not considered. As a result, a key feature that we are seeing is many buildings are susceptible to fire ingress straight into the void, where there might be combustible structures or combustible insulation.

That sums up the research that we have done to date and our criticisms. I entirely agree that tests that were honestly used are at the root of many of the problems. However, at the end of the day there are also key issues with scale and how testing is conducted.

Thank you very much. That was helpful. It is interesting to hear a different take on the testing process. It will be worth reflecting on your evidence, although I will certainly have to read the transcript afterwards. I am sure that you were speaking perfectly articulately at your end, but I am afraid that I could not hear you completely. I am not sure whether that is just because of where I am sitting in the committee room.

I am sorry about that.

I make a commitment to read your evidence again afterwards.

I have a follow-up question that goes back to Professor Torero’s point, which he made at the start of the session, about the skills and knowledge of the people who are involved in the technical process. Are the verification procedures robust enough to ensure that fire safety requirements are being met in practice?

I am interested in the skills and knowledge of the people who are carrying out the tests and the different stages in the process, including the commissioning of works. Are the right fire safety requirements included in the commissioning in the first place? How are buildings constructed and what happens on completion? At what point is there actual testing, and do we have the skills that are required through each of those processes? That is about not just verification but whether the construction and oversight processes are happening in our buildings.

The design and build stage of modern construction systems is extremely complex. It contains some very simple components and other very complex ones. Some of them are easy to verify, but for others the process is extremely complicated because the components have already been encapsulated and enclosed in such a manner that it is difficult to see them.

In providing proper verification, certain tasks can be done at the end of the process by an individual with a basic level of competence—for example, verifying that self-closing mechanisms in doors work. All that the person has to do is look at them and verify that they work, which takes only a little bit of experience and common sense. When it comes to systems such as those involving cladding or sprinklers, the level of competence needs to be much higher. We have methods that enable us to verify sprinkler systems and see that they are working correctly. However, in the case of cladding, the exercise has to be done during the construction process because, once the system is completely enclosed and sealed, someone would have to break it apart to be able to understand whether it is working.

The question of where testing should come in the whole process is difficult. Dr Glockling made important points in that regard. For example, detailing is a significant aspect of the cladding process, but it is one that testing cannot reproduce. When we provide criticism of tests, we think of tests as systems that are there to reproduce reality, but that is not the case. In principle, tests are done to provide evidence or information to enable competent professionals to make decisions. Therefore, the tests do not have to reproduce reality; they simply have to reproduce conditions that provide adequate information to enable competent professionals to make decisions. When and how testing should be done should be part of a process that is driven by competent professionals.

I would like to expand on that. The problem is exacerbated when it comes to testing on site. A verifier will make site inspections but, ultimately, they are not responsible for the quality of workmanship there, which very much comes down to the responsible person.

Over time, some skills that used to exist on site—for example, those in the clerk of works role—have largely been phased out, for various reasons such as cost saving. We have seen evidence of quality issues on building sites, which we believe is partly due to that move away from such roles.

Yesterday, I had a meeting with building standards and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in which we discussed how that particular problem can be overcome. The certifier of compliance role was discussed in outline. The alternative to that is called the construction compliance notification plan, which is the process by which the applicant will inform the verifier of the complexity of the construction, and the potential key stages for the verifier to come and inspect. We would probably like to see that developed. The verifier role is strong in Scotland, and it is worth keeping it as it is and bolstering it through a detailed compliance plan.

11:15  

I echo the panel’s comments. Across the UK, we have seen issues with levels of competence and understanding of individual roles in the construction process. I agree with Craig Ross that the verifier role seems to be a strong role. There is still a need for clarification on roles and responsibilities and the ABI and the insurance industry are keen to see more detail on the construction process and materials used in a building. It is my understanding that the inventory that the Scottish Government has started is a step towards that. There is a need for that to be completed in an electronic format that is available to building owners within the construction process and to insurers, who have to understand what they are actually insuring. The inventory also needs to be available to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, so that it can understand what firefighters might have to tackle during a fire, as they might need to change their approach, depending on the construction of the building.

There is a role for standards and the evaluation of the data in reducing the burden on competency. In many other areas of protection, the concept of safety factors is introduced. Although material structural elements of a building will be required to support a certain number of tonnes, the actual element that goes into the building might have a safety factor of 2, so we can be assured that, even if something is wrong or people drill holes in it throughout its lifetime, it will probably still fulfil its function.

In the fire industry, when we test extinguishing agents of a certain type, they might pass the test at a certain quantity, but then we might ask for a 30 per cent uplift to provide a safety factor for when we encounter deviations from what might be expected in the test. When it comes to cladding testing, however, there is no concept of safety factor; the approach is just that, if a configuration passes, that is all well and good. We have to recreate realism there. We certainly see that in some of the buildings that we have investigated post-fire, where perhaps in light timber-framed structures, a 20cm hole has been left not fire-stopped. That can go on to breach all the building’s fire-resisting capabilities, so it ends up razed to the ground.

There is an inbuilt susceptibility in the assumption of perfection in the way that we put up buildings. Given the losses that we are seeing, the current view is that that is not possible or credible. Tests can be changed to introduce a requirement so that, although you might test a certain configuration, what goes on in the building needs to be that plus more to account for the imperfect environment that the world is.

My first two questions were about what the standards are and whether they are right, and then the verification process. My third question is about the role of our local authority building standards departments, which are crucial for accountability, transparency and ensuring that people abide by the standards. What are your views on the extent to which local authority departments have the expertise that they need?

As I listen to the four of you giving evidence, I am thinking that the skills and knowledge that people need to be able to put that into effect are required not only at the construction stage but at the regulatory stage. How confident are you that we have that in our 32 councils across Scotland?

In the collective pool of the 32 local authorities, we have the skills and expertise. A difficulty might arise in the case of a particular local authority that might not have expertise in a certain area, such as sports stadiums. In that case, it might have to draw on expertise that is available in other local authorities. Having the centralised building standards system in Scotland is a strength in that respect, because it enables local authorities to do that. That is unlike the situation that exists south of the border, where an approved inspector might not go to their competitors to draw on that expertise.

The expertise exists in-house, but it is spread across the country rather than being in each local authority.

Are there cases where the situation could be improved in order to build on where we are at the moment?

The existing system should be enhanced, rather than altered drastically. We should be bolstering the capabilities that exist. Of course, in a perfect world, there could be more funding for it—I am sure that local authorities would welcome that.

On that point, the Cole report made a specific recommendation about the need for the building standards team not only to check the proposed design but to check what was being built. In the past, we have seen that, sadly, those two things need not be the same. After Grenfell and after the work of the Scottish Government’s joint ministerial working group on building and fire safety and the Cole report, which emanated from that, is anything changing on the ground, as far as you are aware?

Not that I have seen. To be honest, I cannot comment on that personally. It is a question that I would like to take back to my membership, particularly the ones who work in Scotland.

It is an important question.

Mr Ross, you said that there is expertise across the country, but not within specific local authorities, and that that expertise can be shared across local authorities. Is there an easy way in which local authorities can get in touch with other councils that have experts in, to use your example, sports stadiums? Is there a register or something like that?

As far as I understand it, that is being developed.

So the process is under way.

I would like to ask a simple question about something that was touched on at the start. It is my understanding—I think that all of you have confirmed this—that, currently, Scottish regulations do not ban combustible materials on the façades of high-rise and high-risk buildings. If that is the case, do you think that they should be banned?

Yes—

Yes. Sorry, Laura—after you.

I think that we might all be about to agree on this. The issue comes back to the use of the BS 8414 test. If materials pass that test, they are permitted to be used on the outside of high-rise and high-risk buildings—currently, in Scotland, that means that they can be used on buildings over the height of 11m. The ABI would like to highlight the importance of using the specific trigger heights. That is a good measure, and we are supportive of the trigger height coming down to 11m, but currently the test still permits combustible materials to be used on buildings that are over that height.

The issue is not only about having a trigger height—we do not believe that the risk should be assessed on trigger height alone. For example, the Bolton student block that caught fire last week was just over 17m, which is just under the English level of 18m. The issue is about considering not only the height of a building but the amount of risk of fire and the complexity of the building. There must be a consideration of the combustible materials that buildings have on them and of the people who live and work in the buildings, especially if they are vulnerable people. That means that we should look specifically at schools, care homes, hospitals and other buildings whose occupants might struggle to evacuate as quickly as the occupants of other buildings.

You all agree that those combustible materials should be banned. Perhaps you do not all need to say yes.

Can I make a comment?

Yes. I was going to ask you about the test, but carry on.

Do we understand the implications of banning all combustible materials from the external components of buildings? Do we understand that, if we did so, buildings like the one that we are in now would not exist?

Will you expand on that, please?

If we look at this building from the outside, we see that it is full of combustible materials. Double glazing will have combustible materials between the layers. Many components would be eliminated if we eliminate combustible materials. It is impossible to say that the answer is that there should be no combustible materials. That is a simple solution, but it has become incompatible with multiple other functionalities of buildings that prevail all over the country. When we deal with such a complex problem, we have to be careful not to make such simplistic statements. It is not such a simple problem that we can say, “Ban all combustible materials,” because the implications are extraordinary. To prevent all sorts of fires, I would like to see no combustible materials in any buildings, but we all recognise that that is unrealistic. We are surrounded by combustible materials. We have to be more intelligent in the way that we look at the problem and not just make blanket statements that we will not be able to apply.

What do the other panel members think of that?

The RICS would like to see more harmonisation of regulations between the nations of the United Kingdom. In England, there is no option to submit the BS 8414 test, which therefore removes the possibility of using some combustible materials. However, non-combustible or limited combustibility—A2-S1,D0—materials are permitted. That is the way to go.

And we do not have that here.

Not yet.

The external envelope of the building needs special consideration because, uniquely, if it is combustible, it can communicate fire to all fire compartments of a building. That leads to the challenges that we have. The statistics that we have for death in fire in the UK are generally very good. Compared with statistics across the world, they are exemplary. We are good at preventing fires from spreading within a building. However, from countless fires, we have seen that the external envelope of the building can rapidly communicate fire to all occupancies. Therefore, it is not inappropriate to introduce what might seem like a draconian measure in order to sort out such a high consequence issue.

I concur with Laura Hughes that, when we consider all the issues that are on the table, and as the recent fire in Bolton indicated, the height trigger is only one of the considerations. We would prefer the combustibility ban to be based on occupancy and function of the building and on critical infrastructure and the saving of life, rather than just on the height of multistorey buildings.

Right. You have all mentioned the BS 8414 test. None of us members is an expert. In layman’s terms, will you explain what that test is and what the issues are with it?

The test is at a minimum scale of about 8m high and about 2m to 3m wide. A large wood crib is placed in the bottom and a completely pure façade is placed on an L-shaped frontage of the simulated building. It has no penetrations in it—no windows, vents or ducts. The idea is that the test simulates what happens once a fire has broken out of a window of a building and is lapping up the front of the building.

11:30  

The test looks at the features of how fire breaks into the cladding on the front and affects the cladding and insulation. Because of the nature of those systems, there must be a void. Voids can be a problem, because fire can travel up them. The major components would be cladding surface—often aluminium composite material—the insulation behind and the void in the middle. The void is protected from fire spread by the provision of horizontal and vertical cavity barriers. Those are complex devices. They have quite a job to fulfil, in that the void must allow free-flowing air during normal use of the building, when there is not a fire. They must close under the action of fire; therefore, we use intumescent products on the front of the barriers, so that they will seal the 25mm to 50mm gap of the void when subjected to fire.

In its purest form, that is a simple test. I would criticise it because of the scale of the testing. The fire is the same width as the test specimen, so we can totally seal that void. I can see room for improvement there. However, a lot of the criticism is about how the test and its results are used. It is perfect form and does not feature things such as vents, which can allow the early entry of fire into the all-important void area, and yet we see buildings going up with vents cut through the cladding system, so somebody has made an engineering judgment there. Aside from the work that we have done on whether that is okay, I am not aware of any testing that has been done.

Certain components often get missed out from the testing, such as the lighter membranes. Those are typically fabric coverings of insulation, which can rapidly spread fire. In our laboratory, we have shown that they can spread fire faster than the cavity barriers can respond. If those were included in the testing, the outcome might change. The laboratories that do the tests report accurately what has been done. When it comes to the previous conversation about competency, we need to ask ourselves whether people are doing the detail, reading those reports and saying, “Is that exactly what I have got on this building?” If it is not, then somebody, by accepting the system, is making an engineering judgment—and a brave one at that—to say that, based on that report, things are okay.

The FPA research that I mentioned highlighted five key areas, many of which Jim Glockling has mentioned. He has not touched so much on two areas. One is that the fuel load—the wooden crate that is set on fire at the beginning—is 100 per cent wood, which is not realistic given what happens with buildings today. Most buildings have at least 20 per cent plastic, which means that the fire tends to have higher and hotter flames. Some of the FPA research identified that that was the case when the test involved 20 per cent plastic.

Jim mentioned vents and ducts, the oxygen provision and the cavity barriers. The fifth element that the FPA looked at was the system detailing. The way that the cladding is attached to the test rig is more substantial than the way in which cladding is attached to buildings. It is done with a lot more fixtures and fittings and a lot more time is taken to attach it to the test rig than happens on an actual building.

Those are some of the differences between the test rig and the real-world scenario.

On that point, when cladding is put up, is there any testing? Does a building manager come out, have a look at it and make sure that it is put up efficiently?

It depends on the contractor and on who is inspecting the site works. There is no set system for inspecting cladding systems as they are installed.

With regard to the question about BS 8414, the test is a scenario test—it attempts to create a realistic scenario. You have heard numerous details that explain to an extent why it might be an inappropriate test. We all recognise that a scenario test has limitations. We are not building a building and burning it before we rebuild it again; we are creating a simplified scenario that is within reason, to try to reproduce the information that we need.

I can sit here and argue about the variables that affect, for example, the flame height and temperature and describe why the wood crib inside the test might not be representative of a modern environment. However, at the same time, I can ask myself whether, in order to get the information that I want, the test has to be representative. The question about the test is what information we need from the test and how the information is applied to the building site and the real construction. That is what requires an extremely competent professional. Because of the complexity of trying to reproduce a problem like fire, the limitation of all scenario tests is that they require an extremely competent individual to interpret the information. The limitation is not the details or problems of the test. A test cannot reproduce reality. There is a need for a proper interpretation of the test.

As Graham Simpson said, committee members are not experts in fire safety. I am sure that all the words that you are hearing are going in one ear and coming out of the other just as fast.

Not all of them.

They are technical details that are difficult to understand. They are part of a professional field that requires a proper definition of competency. It is not about the details of why the test is not realistic; it is about who interprets the test and how it is applied to the construction site.

My colleague Andy Wightman has to leave shortly, so I will let him in to ask his questions now, and we will come back to that aspect of the discussion later.

Thank you, convener.

I will focus on a practical problem that has arisen in the past 12 months or so; the panellists will be familiar with it. Following the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government advice note 14, there has been a knock-on effect on surveyors assessing the value of property, mortgage providers not being able to satisfy themselves that buildings are safe and owners not being able to do that either. Therefore, buildings are being valued at zero, which means that people cannot get mortgages. That is locking up the housing market. How can that be the case in Scotland for any building that was built after the Building (Forms) (Scotland) Regulations 2005?

Could you repeat the last part of your question?

Why should that be the case in Scotland for any building that was built after the 2005 regulations?

Have you seen the cladding and zero valuations paper that we submitted?

Yes.

That might answer some of the questions. Valuation is not my area of expertise. I might have to take that question back to RICS and get you the response that it requires.

Zero valuation is a mechanism that is used during the course of a mortgage valuation to prevent lending when further information is needed to make an assessment of value for lending purposes. If the property has a questionable cladding system that the valuer cannot correctly identify, a zero valuation might come into play. As we touched on, specialist advice will be required in determining whether remediation works are needed. Therefore, until further advice is received, a zero valuation will be reported. As we identified in our submission, the mechanism is slightly different in Scotland. I would like to take the question back to RICS and submit a further, detailed response to the committee.

Given that the problem exists—I am aware that a process is under way to resolve the matter; indeed, this week I will convene a meeting of valuers, surveyors and lawyers about it—I want to focus on a practical issue that owners face, which is one that I think that many of us have constituents who are struggling with at the moment. If I own a flat in a high-rise development in Edinburgh—there are a number of those down at the waterfront, for example—I own the building. In Scots law, I own the external wall; it is mine. How am I to know what that is made of? How can I, or a purchaser, provide evidence sufficient to satisfy a mortgage lender that the building is safe?

You can do so by carrying out an intrusive fire risk assessment.

Okay, but where in the process should that assessment come? Should I, as the seller of the property, not be in possession of all the requisite information in order to be able to pass it on to a buyer? Why would a buyer or a seller have to undertake a fire assessment when they simply want to buy or sell a house?

Unfortunately, if you look at it from the buyer’s perspective, no one wants to buy a house that is covered in material that is potentially flammable. Therefore, the only way to go about it—if you do not have the information yourself, as either the building manager or the property owner—is to conduct a fire risk assessment.

But should that not have been done at the time that the building was constructed? Should that information not be in the hands of the owners of the building, so that everybody who buys a flat in it in the future has 100 per cent knowledge of the material factors relating to the construction of the building?

In an ideal world, all the information, including information on building design, would be passed on to the contractor, and then passed on to the owner or the building operator. Unfortunately, that does not happen—at present, there is no system in place to manage that. That is one of the issues that has come up in the post-Grenfell investigations. It is referred to as the “golden thread” of information.

That is the situation that we have got. Consequently, the zero valuation and cladding issue is a sticking point.

We have worked with UK Finance and valuers to come up with a proposal. It has not been pushed out into the public realm yet, but we are close to doing that. We hope that that will ease the system in the meantime.

My understanding is that none of the information is available, never mind information about fire safety. If I buy a flat in Edinburgh, I would have no idea what works have been undertaken on it, when it was built, what materials have been used or what common repairs have been done. Virtually no information is available to a consumer who is purchasing a massive product on the market.

If we leave fire safety to one side, does the situation have wider implications for how we buy and sell property, to ensure that buyers and sellers are all fully informed about what they own, sell and buy?

I think that it does now. The fire safety issues have brought those matters to light. Sometimes, the only way to proceed is to have detailed information about a building. Of course, we would recommend that people get a full condition survey when buying or selling a property.

At the moment, the problem is that the things that you mention are not happening. Even people in new builds face those problems.

We would recommend going with the proposed system and, in relation to the properties in question, conducting a full intrusive risk assessment, where necessary.

I understand that work is under way to try to provide a certification process. That raises all sorts of separate questions. For example, if 200—or 100 or however many—people own flats in a property, who pays for certification? Will the cost fall on the people who randomly happen to be the ones who are selling their property today, as opposed to those who do not intend to sell for another five or 10 years?

I move on to the insurance aspect. Mortgage providers say that they are not satisfied about the fire safety of buildings. Whether a building is fire safe is not the issue; they are not satisfied, and they do not have any information, which affects the risk of their lending against that property. Are those same considerations coming into play in relation to domestic buildings insurance?

We are not aware that there are problems with the insurance market insuring buildings that may either require remediation or have ACM cladding on them at the moment. The insurance industry has not had a knee-jerk reaction to the Grenfell tower fire.

For various reasons, insurance companies often ensure a whole portfolio of buildings, so they will take high-risk properties with the low-risk properties. Insurers also have risk management teams, who might walk around any high-risk properties. They are not able to go into individual dwellings, but by walking around the property, they can understand a bit more about the building management and the fire safety measures that are installed, such as whether there are sprinklers. They can also look at the building’s cladding.

11:45  

Since Grenfell, insurers have taken a much bigger interest in fire safety and in understanding the fire risks of certain buildings, but an insurer will not physically take off a piece of cladding and test it. That is where the intrusive fire test comes in.

There are elements in respect of which insurers will assume the worst—for example, if they do not know what type of cladding a building has. However, insurers have reported that, when they have had conversations with building owners, the owners have been forthcoming in giving the information that is available, which is great; the fact that insurers are still insuring such buildings is also great.

As Jim Glockling mentioned, the term “estimated maximum loss” is an insurer’s assessment of the biggest pay-out that it is going to have to make, for instance to rebuild a building if it completely burns to the ground. Prior to Grenfell, insurers may have taken into account the compartmentalisation of a building and assumed that the building regulations would work effectively. Therefore, if there was fire in flat 3, the assessment would assume that the compartmentalisation would work and that the fire would be contained in flat 3. Now, insurers are thinking that compartmentalisation might not work, so when they assess the estimated maximum loss, they will look at and take into account the whole building.

However, we are not aware of an insurance problem whereby buildings with ACM cladding or high-pressure laminate or other cladding materials are not being insured. That is because insurers are going in, having conversations with building owners and requesting that they take other fire risk measures, such as 24-hour surveillance, to ensure that the fire risk is reduced and that the building can still be insured. We do not want a knee-jerk reaction, with insurers saying, “We are not insuring any of this.” That is not ideal for anybody.

It is not ideal, but regardless of whether one characterises it as a knee-jerk reaction, that is what is happening in the mortgage market. Virtually no mortgage provider is willing to provide any mortgage product for certain buildings, which is an issue for families who are about to emigrate to New Zealand, for example, and it completely blocks up the market.

I have a final question. The helpful RICS submission includes a draft of the EWS 1 external wall fire review form, which I understand is still under discussion and negotiation. Mr Ross, do you have an idea of when work on the form might be completed and when our constituents might be able to start at least contemplating buying or selling properties?

I cannot confirm that today, but I will let you know as soon as I can.

When I was a minister, I sat on the joint ministerial working group on building and fire safety and I recall that the key first task was to identify high-rise buildings in Scotland that might have cladding—I am sure that RICS was involved in that. Therefore, a lot of work has been done to identify the developers and the relevant local authorities, and, when in doubt, we can go back to the planning applications and building standards information. A lot of that work has been done Scotland-wide, for high-rise buildings at least. What information can usefully be taken from that audit for wider purposes? Mr Ross, do you have a comment on that?

It depends on the material. I have not seen that audit yet, but I understand from my meeting yesterday that it is due to be published in some form next year. We need to be wary of the detail that we publish—publishing the building’s name and information on its precise location and whether it is covered in combustible cladding could present a higher risk, so the information would need to be vetted. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in England has a similar risk audit, but it will not publish the details for that reason.

When you say that there could be a higher risk, do you mean in terms of saleability and marketability?

I mean in terms of arson attacks.

Arson!

The second point is that it depends what information has been collected. If the information is that a building has potentially combustible cladding on it, that covers only one issue—it covers only the cladding. The whole fire risk problem goes far deeper; compartmentalisation, fire doors and self-closers all need to be taken into account, and those are what would be considered in a fire risk assessment. The audit may have done the first part, which is to identify the buildings. The second part involves carrying out the fire risk assessments.

I have two comments to make and question to ask before I let Graham Simpson back in. It follows on from Professor Torero’s comments about skills being the important thing and the discussion about how the cladding that was involved in the testing is different from cladding in reality. Do cladders—if that is a word; I mean the people who do the cladding—have specific requirements or skills to do that job?

No.

No? What we have seen suggests that that is not ideal.

There is no requirement for the architects who design the systems or the engineers who implement them and the individuals who construct them to have certain skills. There is no formal skills requirement—there is not even a skills definition.

That is an important point.

With reference to the questions that have just been asked, the panel of witnesses should know that we invited UK Finance—which was known previously as the Council of Mortgage Lenders—and Local Authority Building Standards Scotland to attend today, which would have been important and useful, but neither could manage or was willing to attend.

Professor Torero, do you think that people should have a certain set of skills in order to put up cladding? Should there be a system in place?

Fire safety is an incredibly complex process and it requires a professional structure around it. As such, everybody involved in the process should have a certain set of well-defined skills that can be corroborated and demonstrated.

I will build on that point. This has an English focus, but competence in these matters is a cross-border issue. The competence steering group that was convened following Grenfell formed 13 working groups to look at that problem and at the level of competence that everyone, from designers to installers, should be required to have. A report has been produced and the consultation period is now over. I suggest that the committee looks at the report, because it addresses the issue of who should be competent when it comes to designing and installing things that carry a fire risk.

Was that steering group established down south?

Yes.

Is the report available?

It is; it is called “Raising the Bar”.

That is useful. It is certainly a concern that just anyone can put up cladding. That is a worry.

Going back to Annabelle Ewing’s question and the audit of the building stock, my understanding is that that work is not yet complete. Am I right?

I am not sure. As far as I know, RICS has not been involved in that. I believe that it is being undertaken by Local Authority Building Standards Scotland. It was mentioned to me yesterday; people call it the “high-rise inventory”. It is in the process of being put together and will be published next year.

You do not know whether it has been finished.

No.

Presumably it covers not just local authority stock but private stock.

That is right.

That will involve a lot of buildings.

I return to the business of testing, on which the committee has done some work. In our previous session on the issue, we heard—worryingly, I think—that some cladding systems could make their way on to buildings following desktop studies. Is that still the case? They do not have to tested in the lab or anything; it can just be done on a computer.

Assessments in lieu of tests, which are called desktop studies, have been banned in England. Professor Torero might like to comment on that.

But they are not banned in Scotland.

First, we need to define what is meant by “desktop study”. In principle, any decision on the use of cladding should be made after professional analysis of the evidence that the test has provided. The concept behind the desktop study is that it is an engineering analysis that allows information from the test to be extrapolated into an application. We can use a desktop study if the system that is being put in place is one that a professional has deemed sufficiently similar to a system for something that has been tested and for which evidence exists, in which case its application could be extended.

If it is done by a competent professional within a competent framework, the desktop study remains an appropriate concept. However, if it is misinterpreted or used without the evidence, or if the extrapolation is done in a manner that is not necessarily responsible or competent, of course that can create an enormous problem.

I stress that the concept of banning desktop studies is too simplistic. At the end of the process, we want to be able to use the evidence that we have intelligently and responsibly. Information should be verified appropriately, for which calculations, analysis and desktop work will be necessary. We must be very careful when we use such terminology, because a desktop study is a competent and professional engineering assessment.

The process of conducting desktop studies has been greatly improved with the introduction of BS 9414 on the extended application of data. Rather than just allowing anyone to take the result of one test and see whether it is an appropriate ground for making changes, BS 9414’s extended application methodology introduces a technique whereby we can infer performance between the limits of two tests. For example, if we undertake a BS 8414 test on insulation with a thickness of 100mm and then conduct another with 300mm-thick insulation, and they both pass, the BS 9414 methodology suggests that as long as the test is passed at both those extremities we can infer that using insulation of a thickness that is between the two might be appropriate. It does not allow us to infer that the use of insulation of thicknesses that are lower or higher than those within the test limits is appropriate. However, that must still be viewed as a great improvement, because at least we are bounding our areas of knowledge and ensuring that everything remains linked to a test.

I want to follow on from that. You have indicated that the desktop study still has potential. However, surely the standard, the guidelines and the competence of that process need to be looked at to ensure that it can still be used effectively. Organisations and individuals will have used desktop scenarios to decide what is appropriate in some circumstances. Do you agree with that use, or might it have implications if it has not been carried out effectively?

BS 9414 at least ensures that those who conduct desktop studies are confined to working between two known points of pass, rather than working from a single point on a graph and applying engineering judgment to say that, outside those limits, anything else is okay. That certainly is an improvement on what has happened historically. It is probably little known just how few BS 8414 tests were conducted prior to the Grenfell Tower fire. The majority of systems that are on buildings have been justified on the grounds of desktop study, which is what needs to be moved away from.

12:00  

I will go back to the idea that the concept of a desktop study is, actually, the correct process. Even when we consider BS 8414, if the committee reads my phase 1 Grenfell report, it will see that the only means for approval is basically taking evidence from the test that will then be used to make a decision. We need that process, and the desktop study, in itself, is appropriate.

The standard that Dr Glockling described is a mechanism through which we are trying to reduce the level of competence that is necessary by bounding what somebody can or cannot do. By forcing people to interpolate instead of extrapolate, we are reducing the level of competence that is necessary. However, even that standard has no definition of the competence of the user. Therefore, in principle, I can interpolate very wrongly. I still need to have an accompanying definition of competence.

Obviously, the simpler the process, the lower the consistent level of competence. However, when it comes to cladding, we are talking about an incredibly complex system by definition, so the level of competence needs to be defined appropriately.

It is far too easy for things to slip through. It is all very well to say that a desktop study is okay in theory, but if the expertise is not out there, surely things are getting through that should not be getting through. Dr Glockling is nodding.

Yes. From an insurance perspective, we strive for resilience. Generally, when we look for resilience, we look to lower complexity and the requirement for human intervention and interaction, and to increase simplicity and safety factors. All those things get taken care of when we consider the ban on combustible materials. We end up with a building that is less susceptible to deviation and change in use, and to deviation in terms of poor design, installation and construction. If UK builders can deliver computer-aided design level accuracy in the building that is put up, many of those problems disappear, because the building will be much less susceptible to deviation in use, design and construction. That is why we will favour the ban.

Unfortunately, that is not a correct statement. Although it is true that eliminating combustible materials will reduce the problems significantly, if we really think about the integrity of the fire safety strategy, it still leaves the door open to many other forms of failure,

The moment that you have a lightweight facade attached to a heavyweight construction, you will have massive relative deformation. If you rely on stay-put strategies, that means in effect that you cannot have breaching, but, even with no combustible materials, building envelopes are very susceptible to allowing fires to progress from one floor to another.

In a way, the problem is that, when we make a decision that is too simplistic, we create a false sense of safety, because we stop thinking. That results in a situation in which we feel very comfortable and confident that we are achieving an appropriate solution, but there is still inconsistency between the components of a strategy. I would rather see people thinking in a very serious and intelligent way, with very clear bounds of competence, than putting in place straight bans that effectively stop us from thinking. If you wanted to have brain surgery, you would go to a highly qualified neurosurgeon, because you know that it is an incredibly complex problem. As the committee can see from all these descriptions, fire safety is also an incredibly complex problem. Therefore, it requires an equal level of competence, and we cannot ignore that by putting in place all sorts of other measures to try to cover the fact that we do not have the skills that would enable us to design buildings of that level of complexity.

I totally agree. Right now, we are focusing on the ban on the cladding. However, we need to take a holistic view of a whole building’s system, and of the other fire measures that are in it as well.

I totally agree with Professor Torero’s view on the importance of confidence. I should clarify that, although the BS 8414 test and the desktop study—the assessment in lieu of the test—currently constitute the best test out there, the FPA found some fundamental flaws. That means that the level of competence that is required to interpret the information that the test provides has been increased; someone will need have an incredibly high level of competence in order to do that.

We are saying, therefore, that we should ban the test and the desktop study for the time being, as has happened in England. The British Standards Institute is now reviewing and assessing how it can make improvements to the test. Until those improvements have been considered and incorporated into the test to ensure that it is as good as it can be with regard to the real-world scenarios that we see—while recognising that it is just a test, and not a whole system—we should not, knowing what we currently know, construct buildings with combustible materials on the outside, given that we are unsure about how that may all work.

Are you suggesting, therefore, that if the test and the desktop study are banned for a specific period of time, no houses above a certain height should be built during that period?

We do not believe that buildings should currently be constructed with combustible materials on the outside. On the question of whether a ban would cover all buildings, I think that, to begin with, we need to look at buildings over 11m and high-risk and complex buildings. It would be great to say that we should not build any buildings with any combustible materials on them at all but, as Professor Torero pointed out, that is highly unrealistic. Let us start somewhere and, knowing what we do now about high-rise and high-risk buildings, let us ensure that we do not put combustible material on those buildings, especially when they may house vulnerable people.

With regard to what should happen now and in the future, we have rightly focused on new build. However, that leaves a huge question about fire safety in existing buildings, and all the things that people can do as owners, renters and building managers to make those buildings as fire safe as possible. I am thinking, for example, of safety doors, exit issues and the provision of advice, and how we look at the risks of creating fires in buildings. If we work in a professional building, all our electrical equipment is tested regularly, but none of us do that in our own houses. What can we do as owners and renters? Are there are opportunities to make people aware of the fire-safety worthiness of their house and what they can do to sustain or improve that—for example, at the point when they arrive home or leave the house?

One question that I did not get round to asking earlier concerns the installation of automatic fire suppression systems in more types of homes. Should that happen, or should we wait until 2021? There is a whole agenda with regard to existing homes. We have rightly focused on new build, but we need to think about what happens in the meantime and our own knowledge as citizens.

I would like to answer that one. You are right—we are talking about new builds, which will involve a very small percentage of buildings year on year. The elephant in the room, without a doubt, is the existing housing stock.

There are two ways to tackle that. The first, which we have spoken about, involves identifying where the risks are and undertaking a proper fire risk assessment. The second is about educating people on fire safety. As we moved through the post-Grenfell process in England, we realised that there was a bit of a gap in respect of consumer advice. We produced the document that I am holding up, which is entitled “A clear, impartial guide to Fire safety”. It is aimed at members of the public rather than at building professionals and surveyors, and it provides simple advice on fire safety.

We are focusing very much on cladding today but, as I mentioned earlier, the main issue starts with occupation, whether it involves somebody cooking, smoking or lighting a candle. Those basic points should definitely be addressed, and that is what we hope to do with this particular document. In our meeting with the SFRS yesterday, we looked at augmenting the advice and making it applicable to Scotland, too. The second point, therefore, is definitely the need to educate home owners on what they should be doing. That is a big step that we need to take.

I am all in favour of educating the public. The more educated the public is, the more the potential hazards will be reduced, particularly in the home, which is where we tend to see the majority of the problems.

The only thing that we have to be extremely careful about is the presumption of competence. Our building regulations and the way in which we design buildings assume that the user has no competence, and that must remain. It would be a terrible mistake to think about educating the consumer to try to supplement what we provide through building regulations and the design process, because we would completely change the paradigm by which we operate.

I want to follow on from Sarah Boyack’s comments. It has been fascinating to hear what you believe the industry, the trade and organisations should be dealing with. The Scottish Government has put in place some actions for the future. We talked about the on-going review and you discussed some aspects of the audit that will come out next year. The Scottish Government has already put in place legislation, which will take effect from February 2021, and new priorities have been set. Some of that is very positive, such as the idea of having a smoke detector installed in every kitchen and in a general living room, as well as in spaces such as landings or staircases. Ms Boyack talked about safety doors and so on, which also fall under that idea. Those ideas are positive, which gives hope that there will be safety and security in the future.

However, there is also the element that there will be no enforcement of such regulations for owner-occupiers. Some people are already saying, “What is the point of having all those specific regulations if there is no enforcement?” It is good to have aspirations and it is laudable that the Government is considering all that but, in reality, it will not solve the problem. Indeed, it might only create more problems in locations where the regulations are not enforced. Individuals will be put at risk, and safety and security will once again become a problem.

What are your views on how that is being addressed? Do you believe, like others, that it is pointless in some respects to have all that aspiration when it will not be fulfilled?

When you talk about putting in extra safety measures, you mean smoke detectors, sprinklers and all sorts of other elements. Clearly, by their nature, all those things have a positive effect. However, if they are not accompanied by an enforcement mechanism, they create a false sense of safety.

Furthermore, all those things are only components of an integral fire safety strategy. By themselves, they do not offer the safety that they seem to provide, and they should be part of an integral strategy. However, the strategy is determined by the level of competence of those who design, approve and enforce it. If you do not provide for investment in education and training and the establishment of a requirement for skills for all the people involved, you again create another false sense of safety.

We talked about all the new technologies, but the worst part of that is that the addition of any new technology for the purpose of protection increases the level of complexity of the infrastructure. The moment the level of complexity is increased, the functionalities and the interaction between the technologies become ever more complex. Once again, the skill level that is required goes up, so adding new technology can have a counterproductive effect. You have to be extremely careful that there is consistency in the approach and that it covers all the components, so that there is an integrated approach to safety.

I want to make a point about detection. If any changes are to be made to detectors, we request that they be classed as high-integrity detectors, so that they are at least believable. We believe that normal smoke detectors have had their day. They trigger on many events that are either not fire events or not events for which you would want to launch a fire engine.

12:15  

We have done a large study that has shown that, on a cost-neutral basis, high-integrity detectors, which look for more than one fingerprint of fire and are likely to reach 80 per cent honesty in reporting the need for a turnout from the fire service, are available now and there are no technological challenges involved. We have done a lot of work on this and have lobbied hard for it. To ensure that detectors are at least believable would appear to be a relatively simple change to make. It was reported from the Bolton fire this weekend that no one thought to leave their rooms because false alarms were a weekly event, so what purpose do the alarms serve?

I make one more point about owner-occupiers. They have some key responsibilities for ensuring the preservation of the fire safety management plan of the building. In England and Wales, where there is a light timber-frame construction and the fire compartmentation is only one layer of plasterboard thick, anyone putting up shelves, installing new sockets or countersinking their TV into that layer can have a drastic impact on the safety and wellbeing of others in that building. I sought clarification from the Department for Communities and Local Government, as it was then, as to whether the Party Wall etc Act 1996 would come into play, because ultimately anyone making such changes could be altering the structural integrity of the building for their neighbours. In Scotland, that is handled under common law, which I am not familiar with.

When I set different scenarios to ask whether someone would need to inform their neighbours if they were putting up shelves, inserting recessed lighting, installing new wall sockets or countersinking a telly into a party wall, the question was whether it was materially relevant. The response, slightly unhelpfully, was that, yes, it would be relevant if it turned out to have been required post-fire. The DCLG did also helpfully say that the neighbours who would need to be notified would be anyone sharing a party wall, be it horizontally or vertically.

There is a great lack of awareness about the responsibilities of owner-occupiers at the end of the day, and the products that they might need to preserve the fire boundary are not the sort of products that you buy off the shelf at B&Q; they need something very different. Owner-occupiers need an awareness of the structure that they inhabit and the extra onus that is placed on them, particularly where it is a building of combustible structure or insulation, so that they know what their duties are. I am not aware of any provision for that currently.

That is a perfect example of the presumption of competence. Are we designing systems that are so fragile and so lacking in robustness that they require the user to have a PhD in fire safety engineering? That is the problem. Where is the presumption of competence? Is it on the designer, the builder or the user? It is a perfect example of where the problem is too complex to pretend that it can be the responsibility of the user.

You have identified that the competency level that is required potentially exacerbates the problem, and what has been said has given more fuel to that process. You have indicated that we are creating a society that attempts to protect and that we might be giving a false sense of security, and you have talked about how things are interpreted by the Government and other agencies. You have made valid points about where we should be going and what we should be trying to achieve, but what do you think we should be trying to do in the short to medium term?

When we talk about the short term and the medium term, it is necessary to insist that the definition of competency cannot be postponed. If it is, we will create a worse problem to fix and, 10 years from now, we will have a much bigger problem. Therefore, we need to make that decision in the short term.

The problem is how we compensate through the period in which we build up that competency. Clearly, it is necessary to take a step back to design simpler and more robust systems. We could call that a ban, but I suggest an intelligent approach in which we bring in people who really understand the issue to inform carefully how we implement a step back, so that we have simpler and more robust systems, as opposed to imposing a blanket ban that could potentially lead to a false sense of safety.

I will pick up on a few points. Alexander Stewart mentioned the legislation on the installation of interlinked smoke alarms and a heat alarm in the kitchen. I absolutely support that, and I take on board Professor Torero’s point about human behaviour and competence and Dr Glockling’s point that that is not, in and of itself, a magic protection. However, it is an element of protection that it would be better to have than not to have. I think that it is also the case that those alarms currently require to be in rented properties. That speaks volumes about why such a regulation is currently in place.

The enforcement issue might be a bit of a red herring. I imagine that, when the legislation comes into force for domestic properties, the attitude of insurance companies may be similar to their previous attitude to window locks and the type of lock that someone has on their front door. I imagine that, once the legislation is in force for domestic dwelling houses, insurance companies will ask whether people have the required alarms. I would be surprised if that is not the case, because that is the type of question that the insurance industry tends to focus on when there is legislation or guidance in place. I also think that that will impact on the level of premium that the insurance company will quote.

A very important point was raised about the stay-put principle. It is important to say that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has a presumption of stay put, but that is not an immutable presumption—the decision is for the commander who is in charge of a particular fire, and the principle is not to be adhered to through thick and thin.

It is also important to stress that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service regularly acquaints itself with the layout of high-rise buildings in every part of Scotland. It did so before Grenfell and, immediately post Grenfell, it did a power of work in trying to speak to, or at least to communicate in writing with, every resident in buildings. It has continued that practice, which is important because it will then know the building layout, what the issues might be, and how fire engines can access the building. That work needs to be looked at in the round of activity that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service carries out in relation to the important issue of competency, which Professor Torero raised. We cannot simply ignore all that good work that the SFRS carries out.

For anybody who is watching this meeting and is a bit concerned about what they have heard, it is important to stress that the SFRS offers home fire safety visits to anybody, anywhere in Scotland.

I have made those points because it is important that we deal with the factual situation on the ground here in Scotland.

I will add a couple of brief comments.

I completely concur with Annabelle Ewing that, if there is one element of fire safety for which we have unequivocal evidence that it has had an enormous positive impact on saving people’s lives, it is smoke detectors. Nuisance alarms are a problem, and they have to be handled appropriately, but there are means to deal with that issue. It is clear that, of all the potential measures that we can put in place, smoke alarms have an unequivocal track record of saving lives. Therefore, I completely concur with that view.

The other issues can be dealt with. We have technologies and information that allow us to handle them in the most appropriate way.

People have done many things to try to improve the way in which the fire service deals with situations in which the stay-put principle does not work. The phase 1 report by Sir Martin Moore-Bick makes it painfully clear how difficult it is when a decision needs to be made to move away from the stay-put policy, and we have to be conscious of that. Maintaining compartmentalisation is a really important aspect of the fire safety strategy and, when that breaks down, we have to be conscious that the sequence of decision making is very complex.

I am happy to comment on the insurance element that has been mentioned.

On premiums going up.

Insurers will assume that the requirements under the legislation are being fulfilled. They will not ask each and every customer whether they have complied with all the legislation that is in place. If there is a legislative requirement for alarms, insurers will assume that they are in place. Insurers are not in the habit of asking questions about whether every alarm is in place and about the appropriate legislation. In the past, insurers have assumed that building regulations will be met, but that is more questionable now.

When insurers offer premiums, they are in the habit of taking into account the fire risk management systems and measures that are in place. Insurers offer cover that is based on what they call “risk-based pricing”. If there is a high risk of fire, a higher cost premium might be associated with that cover because of the estimated maximum loss, which we talked about previously. Insurers will take into account whatever measures an owner or others have put in place in a building. The installation of alarms, sprinklers—if they are appropriate—and other fire risk measures will be taken into account in a holistic approach to fire risk management.

I echo Dr Glockling’s point about high-integrity fire alarms. The use of such alarms seems to be a bit of a no-brainer, especially in student accommodation, where alarms go off every day because students do silly things. Making the change will reduce the number of false alarms, because the high-integrity fire alarms take account of heat and various other things as well as smoke. We can share with the committee an FPA report on that. The use of such alarms will mean that, when the alarm goes off, people in the building will realise that there is a fire and will do whatever is required of them—whether that is to stay put or to get out. It will also reduce the number of false alarms that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has to attend. We want to manage that situation, given that resources are so tight at the moment.

To us, using high-integrity fire alarms, which are available at the moment, is an obvious solution to reducing the number of false fire alarms, so that we are able to target all resources at the fires that actually occur.

You said that there is an assumption that the policy holder will comply with applicable legislation. I presume that, as a consequence, if the legislation was not complied with and integrated systems were not installed, that would be a breach of the policy and would vitiate the cover. Therein lies the enforcement.

Insurers are not enforcers of legislation, but they can encourage better practice. It is up to an individual insurer to decide how they would approach a case in which a fire occurred in a home where such measures were not in place. I imagine that, if the building did not fit with the requirements under the legislation, the insurer could choose to not pay the claim if they were not required to do so, but that would be a commercial decision for an individual insurer to make. Some might choose to pay out, and others might decide not to do so.

We have already touched on this issue, but would you like the Scottish Government to consider any additional fire safety-related interventions? If so, what are they, and why would they be particularly important?

I have highlighted the importance for the insurance industry not just of assessing on trigger height but of assessing high-risk properties and the vulnerability of people within them. Our clear ask is about the current BS 8414 not being appropriate. We call for it not to be used until it has been reviewed and reformed.

12:30  

Do you have anything particular to add that has not been mentioned so far, Dr Glockling?

There are a couple of things.

We have talked predominantly about fires spreading up the outside of buildings when the fire source has been within the building, but we are seeing an increasing susceptibility of buildings ending up on the floor as a result of external fire sources. Currently, fire ingress from the outside does not really play a part in building regulations. We feel that buildings are becoming a great deal more susceptible with the change in our construction methods. Often, that is due to very simple and easily controlled design features, such as plastic air bricks. A great number of fires have occurred where fire has come in directly, sometimes by accidental means, such as from discarded cigarettes in leaf litter that is up against a plastic air brick. That can take down a building. Members would be surprised by how many have come down through that route. Another accidental possibility arises when people post their cigarette ends into those devices from an alleyway. There have also been more mischievous examples, in which such features have been seen as a light blue touchpaper for bringing down buildings. They are generally a problem for buildings with a combustible structure and void—such as a light timber frame. Fire ingress is an emerging issue, of which we need to be cognisant, and we perhaps need to afford buildings greater protection.

The other thing would be to include the general theme, when considering regulations, that the world is imperfect. What gets drawn with the accuracy of computer-aided design—CAD—might not be what gets built. In fact, I would say that it is always not what is built. If we adopt that approach, how resilient does the building become? How susceptible is it to deviation? We do a lot of work for the military—protecting warships and critical infrastructure, for example—and core to everything that we do is accepting that the world is not perfect and that some of the systems that we put in place will fail. How do things still stack up? How many systems can fail? How much deviation can be tolerated before everything breaks down?

As I mentioned before, our building regulations do not have a concept of a safety factor or resilience. Now is the time, particularly given the sensitivity of some of the building methods that have been used, to take a long, hard look at that concept and perhaps to consider it as a separate item.

We have focused a lot on cladding, which is a very important issue, but there is definitely more to fire risk than cladding. Yesterday, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service hammered home the compartmentation issue that Professor Torero touched on. That is equally important for fire risk.

We would like the clerk of works role to be bolstered for new builds and that role to be reintroduced, however the Scottish Government can assist with that.

There is also the matter of harmonisation between regulations, whether across the UK or internationally. The International Fire Safety Standards Coalition is considering a baseline of fire safety. Fire does not respect borders. What can we learn from other countries? What good practices can we adopt? I would like to see more of that.

Finally, the education of the home owner and the consumer on basic fire safety will really help to stem the problem before it starts.

I will reiterate the point that I have been making from the beginning. There should be an introspection on how much the Scottish Government has invested in education and training in the area of fire safety. We should look ahead, with systematic, continuous investment to maintain a high level of professional education and training.

It is important to note that Scotland is the world leader in fire safety engineering and fire service training. Institutions including Glasgow Caledonian University and the University of Edinburgh are leading the world in that area. They are a resource that should be capitalised in a systematic way so as to maintain the level of competence in the country.

On that positive note, I thank the panel for attending today’s session. Thank you, Dr Glockling, for appearing by videolink. I hope that it was okay for you.

It worked very well.

The committee will now move into private session, as agreed earlier in the meeting.

12:35 Meeting continued in private until 12:55.