Meeting of the Parliament 30 October 2019
As deputy convener of the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee, I am pleased to close the debate. I thank members for their excellent speeches.
The value of the Mackintosh building cannot be overestimated. Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s importance to modern architecture and design is significant, and the stunning building was a remarkable fixture in the heart of Glasgow.
People were devastated by the 2014 fire; footage from the scene is heartbreaking. Then, at the point of the building’s resurrection and rebirth, to witness a second fire that was reported as being more devastating than the first was terrible. The shock of the two fires, and questions about how that could possibly happen, prompted the committee to undertake its inquiry in order to examine the overall management and custodianship of the Mackintosh building, and to consider what lessons can be learned and what we can do to better protect Scotland’s built heritage.
Although it was not the focus of the culture committee’s inquiry, we should not underestimate the human cost of the two fires. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service responded professionally and passionately to both fires, but we cannot overstate the risk that was involved in tackling those dangerous and complex incidents.
The loss of the O2 ABC venue is also a blow to the cultural life of Glasgow and, as Pauline McNeill’s members’ business debate earlier this year highlighted, the 2018 fire has been extremely disruptive for residents and businesses in the area. They have expressed to the committee their dissatisfaction with the GSA’s approach. The 2018 blaze caused substantial disruption to the Garnethill community: many local residents and businesses were displaced for a substantial time.
The committee convener, Joan McAlpine, and other members have today set out the committee’s concerns, which are significant enough for it to call for a public inquiry with judicial powers, following the conclusion of the SFRS investigation. Although the GSA has questioned the committee’s conclusions, the committee remains convinced that there is a need for further analysis of what happened and why, and that further scrutiny and expertise need to be applied to the sequence of events that led to the two catastrophic fires.
At times, the committee’s inquiry was challenging. Committee members received contradictory evidence, which we had to weigh up in order to identify the areas in which we believe there remain concerns about how the Mackintosh building was left vulnerable to fire. Measures can be implemented to reduce the risk of fire and to limit the effect of the damage that it causes if it does happen. The Glasgow School of Art sought to implement a range of measures, but as other members have highlighted, there had been delay in installing a water-mist suppression system prior to the 2014 fire, even though the risk of fire was evident.
Although the challenges of achieving compartmentation in an historic building are recognised, questions can be raised about the extent to which that happened during the construction phase before the 2018 fire, which appears to have spread very quickly through the site. The committee awaits the SFRS’s report, but what it learned during its inquiry suggests that more could have been done on the construction site.
As interesting as the committee’s report is, there is more to come following its publication. The committee received a lengthy response from the Glasgow School of Art, which, in an attempt to counter some of the concerns that were raised by the committee, also managed, in my view, to confirm some of its concerns. I will make a couple of points on those.
The 2014 fire was found to have been accidental. Following it, the GSA agreed to five key targets for fire protection for the Mackintosh building once it was returned to it as a functioning school. The targets included improved compartmentation and installation of fire stopping in ducts, a state-of-the-art fire-detection system, a water-mist suppression system and a smoke-extraction system.
Those targets were all sensible measures that should, it is arguable, have been applied in the building prior to the fire. However, I have a concern that they do not recognise the need for a culture change in the approach to health and safety and fire prevention in the building. The fire was classed as accidental, but there is no evidence that the GSA has reflected on the culture of the school, or on how to ensure safe or appropriate use of modern equipment or materials there. The culture of an organisation is as important as its processes and prevention measures.
The school’s focus on an individual student’s mistake indicates its lack of consideration of whether it was in any way responsible for the set of circumstances that enabled that mistake, which had significant consequences and risked fatalities. There have been reports of the tension between artistic expression and concerns about health and safety, and between the purpose of the art school and safeguarding of the building. It is not good enough for the GSA to dismiss such concerns.
The GSA has made it clear that the Mackintosh building was compliant with the relevant fire safety standards, which I do not doubt. It described the water-mist suppression system as an “enhancement”, although we know that it was not installed in 2014. The focus of fire safety standards is protection of life; I do not think that they claim to be able to protect grade A listed buildings. The question is whether enough emphasis and priority were given to protection of the building. The committee was not satisfied that that could be demonstrated.
The future of the Mackintosh building is still to be decided, but the GSA has so far been resolute in its intention to rebuild. We should all recognise the uniqueness of the building. It is owned by the Glasgow School of Art, but it belongs to the country. The impact of the two fires has again raised questions about the appropriateness of GSA’s having responsibility for it. Is it the best custodian, given its other responsibilities in running an internationally competitive art school? [Interruption.]