Meeting of the Parliament 14 May 2024
The Scottish Government’s stated ambition for the bill is to accelerate the progress of the cladding remediation programme. It is good to see that the committee’s work served to unearth a number of issues and helped to bottom them out. I want to highlight a few of those.
During committee evidence sessions, concerns were raised about the lack of specification of what a single building assessment would consist of. PAS 9980, which is a code of practice published by the British Standards Institution for the specific appraisal of the fire risk of external wall construction and cladding on existing blocks of flats, was brought to our attention. The committee heard from witnesses about its greater nuance and effectiveness in assessing properties and the importance of harmonising the SBA with it. Witnesses also highlighted the clarity that it provides. It was good to see the Scottish Government take that on board and, at stage 2, indicate that it intended to use PAS 9980. I trust that, with the legislation in place, that will provide the clarity that the Scottish Government and developers need to move at pace to resolve the cladding issue.
On the lack of qualified people, one area that remains of concern—it is not clear to me that legislation can fix this—is the lack of people who are qualified to carry out the SBAs and the remedial work. The committee was consistently presented with a picture of skills shortages in the key sectors that are essential to delivering the ambitions for the legislation. In the absence of a course in Scotland to train fire engineers to fill that void, it is not immediately clear how that obstacle to the acceleration of the remediation programme will be overcome. The slow progress in the number of qualified surveyors emerging from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors training course is also concerning, as are the challenges for existing fire engineers in obtaining professional indemnity insurance.
The idea of having a register setting out what buildings are made of, and not one that is necessarily restricted to the issues that the bill addresses, not only came up during work on the bill but came up again and again during the committee’s discussions on reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, damp and mould, and building safety and quality in general. It would be good to see the Scottish Government taking on board that issue and exploring it more deeply.
The challenge that we face in Scotland with regard to having sufficient people who are qualified to carry out the single building assessment and the remedial work will not be resolved by the bill. However, having the legislation will provide certainty for professionals of on-going work and signal the priority that Parliament is placing on the safety of buildings.
The bill is an urgently needed first step to finally get the remediation programme properly under way, and the Scottish Greens will support the bill at decision time. The introduction of a standardised single building assessment and a public cladding assurance register are critical measures that will provide clarity and reassurance. However, now there can be no more excuses and no more delays. It is time for that decisive action.
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