Chamber and committees

The Building Safety Act 2002 is bringing forward a new regime for high rise buildings in England following Dame Judith Hackitt’s review of the building regulation system there, which concluded that the system was broken.

The reviews of compliance and enforcement and fire safety standards in Scotland following the Edinburgh schools report and the Grenfell Tower fire did not reach the same conclusion, but did recommend that strengthening of the system should be undertaken. The Building Standards Futures Board is leading change to improve our system through work streams on Digital Transformation, Workforce Strategy, Certification Strategy, Compliance Plan, Verification Delivery Model, Technical Strategy and Verification Standard.On 22 April new regulations were laid in Parliament to improve the safety of cladding on new buildings in Scotland and to ensure that replacement cladding, beyond minor repair, meets the current standards.

Scottish Government is committed to using all tools at its disposal to encourage and enforce measures by developers and other key actors to ensure buildings are remediated, cost-effectively and at pace. This could include raising additional revenue where there is an anticipated shortfall – to ensure equity between homeowners in unsafely cladded buildings with linked developers, and those without. We will explore the necessity of additional revenue raising as part of the development of the Scottish Safer Buildings Accord – announced to the Scottish Parliament on 12 May 2022 - Update on cladding remediation programme: Cabinet Secretary's statement - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The terms and conditions of all GB - Railcards are set out by “National Rail” (part of the Rail Delivery Group). Neither Transport Scotland nor ScotRail regulate the rules for the use of national railcards.

I would encourage the member to contact The Rail Delivery Group to raise this matter.

All SBAs so far have used physical intrusive inspections and desktop reviews to determine outcomes.

The terms of reference for the Cladding Stakeholder Group state the members agreed to maintain confidentiality of discussions. Discussions at the group cover information associated with high priority buildings and this cannot be disclosed due to the privacy notice agreed with homeowners.

The framework for assessing applications for Green Freeport status is described in the joint bidding prospectus published on 25 March, which can be accessed at Green Freeports in Scotland: bidding prospectus - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) . Applicants’ commitments in relation to fair work practices will be considered under the lead objective: promote regeneration and high quality job creation. Only applications which achieve a high score on this objective will be shortlisted for ministerial consideration.

The Cladding Remediation Unit has 14 members of staff.

Mental health and psychosocial support is an integral part of care for people who suffer from cystic fibrosis and the Scottish Government continues to invest in the mental health workforce to increase its capacity and capability. NHS Scotland’s Mental Health Nursing, Psychology and Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) staffing numbers were at a record high on 31 March 2022. The number of psychology staff has doubled (105.9%) and the number of staff within CAMHS has almost doubled (95.6%).

Our overall investment includes £9 million in 2021-22 for psychological services to grow the applied psychology and psychological therapies workforce. Further funding will be provided for 2022-23 to support services to provide psychological care to all clinical areas of care detailed in the psychological services and therapies standard.

The Scottish Government has committed to develop a long term Mental Health Workforce Plan in the first half of this Parliament to ensure that, by 2026, 10% of frontline NHS budget is invested in mental health with 1% directed specifically for children and young people.

More broadly, the Scottish Government is committed to working to improve outcomes for people with rare conditions, including Cystic Fibrosis. We are developing an Scottish Action Plan for Rare Disease based on the four priorities of the UK Rare Disease Framework: faster diagnoses, increased awareness, better care co-ordination, and access to specialist treatments and care.

This information can be found in the amended Final Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment which was published on 15 December 2021. You can access this report here: A Deposit Return Scheme for Scotland: Final Business Regulatory Impact Assessment - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

We welcome Community Land Scotland’s supportive commentary on the strategic Community Wealth Building (CWB) approach to economic development into all aspects of ownership and governance of land in Scotland.

CWB has a role to play in ensuring our journey towards net-zero is fair for all and that we achieve a just transition to an economy focused equally on prosperity and wellbeing. This includes the use of Land and Property, one of five key pillars of the CWB model.

To advance Community Wealth Building in Scotland, we have committed to introducing legislation during this Parliamentary session. This will involve consideration of a wide range of views and proposals.

Changes to the response to automatic fire alarm signals are an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

SFRS will work closely with duty holders to prepare for the change of response which will be implemented in April 2023.