 GwELm ychydigи, i am gyfyrdd, mae gennym nhw i gweld y fawr 2018 ar Ichonり, i ffôr hon i dweud yn 2016 o'r Ffwyrdd Cymru a Llywodraeth Fhysgwerthempo. Mae gennym nhw i gydig 조iwn fel y mae'r cystaflennu, a ffôr hon i gweithio'r gweithwyr er mwynhau digitalrhyw warf ychydig yw gweithwyr yn y cyfrifio i'r ddau'r gwaith cymdeithasol. Ymgolwch pan ydw i'w ddweud yma, Siobhan MacMan y gall gweld yma ymwiel. The first item on the agenda is to take evidence from the Minister for Housing and Welfare on housing matters. I welcome Margaret Burgess, Minister for Housing and Welfare, Caroline Dicks, investment manager, investment policy planning and south programmes, and Marian Gibbs, team leader, housing support and homelessness at the Scottish Government. I invite the minister to make a short opening statement. I am pleased to have this opportunity to give a general housing update to the committee. I reflect on the Government's achievements over the past five years and then look ahead of it as we go forward. I think that I would want to start by saying that no doubt there have been very difficult times dominated by the 2008 financial crisis and all that flowed from it. Despite this, I believe that we have achieved much. We have exceeded our target to deliver 30,000 new affordable homes, including more than 20,000 for social rent, and that has been supported by over £1.7 billion of investment. That investment has supported around 8,000 construction and related jobs each year. We have ended the right to buy, which is distinctive to Scotland, which will keep up to 15,500 homes within the social sector over the next 10 years. 20,000 households have been supported into home ownership since 2007 through initiatives such as the Help to Buy and our shared equity schemes. Our private tenancy bill strikes a fairer balance between tenant and landlord. Since 2009, over £0.5 billion has been allocated to make Scotland's homes more energy efficient. Scotland now has some of the most progressive homelessness legislation in the world. We have seen falls and recorded homelessness and a focus on prevention, and housing options approaches dealing with the individual and the needs have developed across Scotland. I am sure that the committee wishes to know that the housing options guidance will be published on the Scottish Government's website following this meeting. I want to express thanks to COSLA, Elacio and the local authorities who gave up their time to develop the guidance. The guidance will help local authorities and others when developing their approaches to preventing homelessness. I am also proud of our achievements in mitigating the impacts of welfare reform, including mitigating the impact of the bedroom tax. Progress continues to be made on the joint housing delivery plan, and our achievements are due to the collaboration and co-operation of our many stakeholders and partners throughout the sector, and I thank them for it. However, we all want to do more and we need to do more, and our plans for the future are bold and ambitious. Back by at least £3 billion of investment, our next challenge will be delivering 50,000 homes target that will support 14,000 jobs a year, and that is our commitment, if re-elected. Our commitment to deliver 35,000 new social homes within that target more than meets the commission on housing and wellbeing's aspiration on supply. Over £160 million of new funding has been set aside in 2016-17 to support 5,000 households to buy their own home. An infrastructure fund of up to £50 million will be available in 2016-17 to speed up the delivery of house building. Friday of last week, I launched the rural housing fund, which will provide £25 million over the next three years to increase the supply of affordable housing in rural Scotland. However, as I said earlier, we cannot do this on our own. Collaboration enables us to deliver much more than we would achieve separately. For me, it has been a privilege to be involved with Scotland's housing sector, and I am now happy to answer your questions. You said in your opening statement that the Government had invested £1.7 billion in delivering 30,000 affordable homes. You gave a figure of how much the Government was spending to assist 5,000 people into home ownership. You mentioned a figure of 20,000 people who had been supported over the lifetime of the Parliament into home ownership through equity schemes and the help-to-buy scheme. Do you have a figure for how much the Government has invested in that? I do not have that with me, because we have that figure, Caroline. We can certainly provide that figure to the investment, and that includes our help-to-buy scheme, three-year help-to-buy scheme, so it is certainly over £500 million. The £50 million allocated to the infrastructure fund is that new money? That is money, and it is a new scheme. It is a mixture of grant and loan. I am keen to say this. It was announced this week. It is a new scheme from within the budget that we announced previously. It is within the announced budget of the four-year budget. So a new scheme but not new money? It is certainly new to that. It is not additional to the budget that we announced for the housing supply. It is not additional to the £690 million. No, it is not additional. Is it within the £690 million for housing? Would you foresee the impact of that fund? There will be considerable impact on that fund. That fund came out of the joint housing delivery plan, where one of the things that was clearly identified was infrastructure and getting land ready for large-scale housing development. That fund will certainly help in that. We are working with local authorities on how we can work together to identify the land and to speed up the delivery of housing. That was an ask from the joint delivery plan, and it is something that we have responded to. Is it fair to say that part of the Government's approach has been to trying to pioneer innovative approaches such as that in order to leverage in money in addition to what the Government can provide? Our innovative schemes have been very much about that. That is about leaving in extra funding, but we are also very aware that the industry and the sector has asked for things that they see as blocking the delivery of housing, and that £50 million should help with that, to block up any sites that are stymied because of infrastructure problems and issues and lack of finance for that. You mentioned the commission for housing and wellbeing's report. Can I ask you what one of the biggest challenges, presumably for Government, is to bring about the transfer of funding from housing subsidies to tenants through housing benefit to bricks and mortar so that there is more investment on meeting the need for a supply of housing? Do you have any views on how the Government can address that in the coming years? What we have done in relation to the housing and wellbeing report, which is a report that we very much welcome because it identified what the area of travel we were going in that housing is absolutely good quality housing, is fundamental to people's health and wellbeing, and that is why we have set it as such a priority. As part of that, we set a very ambitious target, which was more than the target that the health and wellbeing report said between, I think, we should increase to 9,000 affordable homes a year, and we have set a target of 50,000 over five years, which exceeds that target. To do that, we have to be aware that we have to make sure that that target can be delivered on, and to do that, you mentioned convener of the subsidy. We increased the subsidy level. Again, it came out of the joint delivery plan. The group should be reconvened, the working group, to look at the subsidy to ensure that it was sufficient to allow housing associations and local authorities to deliver social housing, which is what the subsidy does. It is about social housing. Other affordable housing methods are not—they do not get the same subsidy, although they get our support in other ways. The subsidy is very much about getting grant to RSLs and local authorities to build social housing. The housing benefit is not a subsidy that the Scottish Government does not have any control over? The housing benefit is reserved to the UK Government and it is entirely separate, which is why people pay their rent. I am not sure— I guess that the point that I am trying to get at, which is what the report made, was that a lot of as much money is spent on housing benefit as is currently spent on investment, but there is some way of transferring across from one to the other. You will be able to do far more in terms of housing supply. I think that we could do more if housing benefit was under the powers of the Scottish Parliament in how it is targeted and used, but there will always be people who will require assistance with their rent. I do not think that it would be right to say that we could take all the housing benefit money and put it into building houses because there is always people who have low incomes who will require assistance with their rent. That is right that that assistance is there for them. While we cannot control that, we have mitigated what we could in terms of the bedroom tax to ensure that people can remain in the home, rent and afford their rent. At the same time, we have increased the subsidy to build houses. The Scottish Government published its five-year joint delivery plan for Scotland in June of last year. Can you update the committee on the progress that has been made following the publication of that delivery plan? There is good progress being made in the plan. I think that the first thing that I would say is that all of the 34 actions that were identified in the plan are 16 of which were on the areas that I have been talking about there about the delivery and the subsidy in increasing the supply. Of the 34 actions, they are not all being led by the Scottish Government. It is very much that the plan has been co-produced with the sector. There is good progress being made. I have spoken already about what was identified and the subsidy that should be looked at again and the increase to ensure that we can deliver on what our commitments are. That has been done. The infrastructure loan fund as well came out of recommendations from the joint delivery and housing plan. The review of the planning system, which is currently on-going, all of that came from stakeholders through the joint housing and delivery plan. There are other strands that have been taken forward with SFHA, a strand that is collaborating with other housing associations to finance housing in a bigger scale. All those strands have been taken forward, and progress is being made. The overall group meets quarterly, if I am right in saying that, and the subgroups meet what they require. We have had an interim progress report in last November there. The final report, when it is produced, will come to ministers, COSLA and presumably to the successor committee. I am going to pass over to Mike. I have covered a lot of the territory that I want to cover, but if you will just indulge me, I will attempt to add a little bit of a wee bit and thinking my feet. I would like to say good morning, minister, first of all, but I was at the rural housing conference in Burnham last Friday when you launched the £25 million rural housing fund, and I know that you had to leave fairly quickly, but I was able to stay about. I would just like to say how warmly received that was right across the rural housing sector. I believe that the conveners touched on this. I think that it was a shelter report, the affordable housing need in Scotland report that suggested that they estimate a need of 12,000 houses per annum. I know that the Scottish Government is now giving a commitment that is effectively 10,000 houses per annum. Do you feel that the Scottish Government over the next Parliament could perhaps do more than 50,000 and meet that 12,000 target per annum that Shelter Scotland is talking about? I think that what we have said, we look very carefully at both reports, and they are both substantial pieces of work that very much have helped to inform how we go forward. We have said that the target that we have set is bold and credible, and we believe that it is very much achievable on the 50,000 homes that are backed by over £3 billion of investment. However, that is not the end of it. It is like our current target, the 30,000 that we have exceeded. We have talked about at least 50,000 homes over the lifetime of the next Parliament, but we are still working. Officials continually work to look at other ways to increase the supply. In addition to the 50,000 affordable homes, the help-to-buy scheme sits out of that, so it is not included in that 50,000. There are a number of other areas that we are looking at, such as the private rented sector and the mid-market rented homes. All those schemes are on-going as well and sit beyond what we are doing in terms of the 50,000 affordable homes that we have committed to. I would anticipate that. That is at least 50,000 of what we have said, but I have already illustrated how help-to-buy will increase on to that and other schemes that we are going to. I think that what we are doing is the right way to approach it. We have looked at how we can finance that. It comes in some way more than the health and well-being report, in perhaps short of what the Shelter affordable housing report was saying, but I think that the sector is behind us in our 50,000, what we are doing. It is a challenge, even with the finances that we are putting on the table, to get the delivery off the ground. We are confident that that can be done and that we can exceed that. You mentioned that the big challenge since the credit crunch has been finance funding for housing. Can you give us an indication of what progress has been made in developing innovative funding mechanisms? For instance, I know that the Government supported the Falkirk pension fund investment. Do you feel that that is a model that could be replicated on the other innovative funding areas that the Scottish Government is exploring? I will address the pension fund but I will also address the range of innovative measures that the Government currently has schemes up and running and the ones that we are looking at in the future. We are at the forefront of innovative financing and housing approaches. Part of that is because of the way that funding has come from the UK Government, the different types of funding that we get. It is not all grant funding, some of it is loan funding and we have to look at how we can best use that to deliver affordable homes. We have already delivered over 1,000 homes in the national housing trust and we anticipate that to be 2,000 as that scheme goes forward. Recently, the cabinet secretary announced the local affordable rented scheme, which is homes at mid-market rent. That is backed up with loan finance from the Scottish Government and we expect to attract the same amount again from the private sector. We have a charitable bond scheme, which is the first from any Government in the UK or any public sector body, which not only provides affordable homes but also releases money for the people and communities fund for regeneration projects within local communities and houses built for social rent as well because of some of the investment that has allowed that to happen. The pension fund supports and encourages pension funds to look at investing in affordable housing. We have given enabling support in the Falkirk pension fund scheme. None of those schemes can just happen overnight. They are very complex to put together. There is a lot of work and involvement in getting any scheme off the ground. The Falkirk scheme will hopefully be a model for other pension schemes to look at, but at the end of the day, we have all got to be clear that it is the trustees of pension schemes that have to determine. We want to make it attractive for pension schemes, but it is the trustees that determine how to invest the money of their pension schemes. That is right and it should not be Governments that dictate that, but we can show how attractive it can be to invest locally in affordable housing. I was very pleased when you announced a month ago or so that the benchmark subsidy rates that the Hague grant was increased by £12,000 to £14,000 in that kind of order. Can you explain a wee bit more about that increase? The total amount is around about £70,000 per house or thereabouts, but can you really explain why you felt that increase was necessary? The reason why the increase took place, again, is that it came out of the joint housing delivery plan listening to stakeholders saying that they were finding it. They did not know whether they could continue to build and develop houses on the current subsidy level, and that had to be looked at again. The subsidy group met and made a recommendation to me that the increase should be up to £14,000 per house. It ranges in different ways. It is £70,000 in urban areas for a three-person equivalent home and higher in rural areas. There is a higher benchmark for greener homes, which is built to a higher energy efficient green standard. The subsidy is less for mid-market rent properties and for local authorities, the subsidy is less. They still have the same increase, but the subsidy is less because they are not reliant in the private sector for their borrowing as RSLs are. That is why they came up with the figure that was not produced by the Government. The figure was the group that met to say that that is what we would require to continue to build houses. We are aware that we have set a target and that we do not build the houses. We need them to do it and to work with us. On that basis, we felt that it was right and proper and that their arguments were sound to increase the subsidy. That gives a very helpful clarification. Turning to the private rented sector, I know that it was recently announced that the private rented sector rental income guarantee scheme is intended to provide thousands of additional homes in the new build-to-rent sector. I noticed that homes for Scotland are talking about an aspiration of some of their members—big developers—to build to rent rather than building to sell. That seems to me to be a welcome development. However, how would you ensure that the rent charged by private sector providers is not unduly high, especially given that the Scottish Government is going to underwrite those schemes? That is at very early stages. Again, that came from homes for Scotland and the house building from the industry, saying that they felt that that was a way forward. We funded homes for Scotland to appoint the private rented sector champion, to go out into the sector, to talk to the market, to talk to the developers and to see what they felt would assist them to build in the sector if there is a need for that. This week, the market engagement has started to look at what the schemes will look like and what kind of rental income guarantee that the Scottish Government would be prepared to back up. It will obviously require to be a business plan that will indicate the amount of rental income that they anticipate taking into account. There are always voids and turnover. The Scottish Government will have to assess any risk to the Government. Built into that, we will be very clear that any increases in rent—the market sets the rent in the private sector, as we know—the more houses that we get in the sector will help in terms of the rent. What we will be doing in looking closely at when we are making any guarantee is that within the model that has produced the business model, any increases of rent will have to be agreed at the outset. In other words, it will be an index. I do not want to pre-empt what the scheme might come up with, because that is under discussion, but it will certainly be—for example, I could say, CPI plus one or whatever—but that would be agreed and any increases in rent during the time that the guarantee applied would not be a guarantee forever. There would be a length of time that the Scottish Government would be willing to guarantee. During that period, any increases in rent would have to be agreed at the outset to ensure that any risk that the Government takes is well thought out and planned. It will be independently assessed all the plans before we guarantee would be independently assessed as well. I have noted since the low point in 2008 that the number of new homes of all tenures has gradually increased since then, but that is subject to fluctuations. I know also that the planning system is under review, because there were complaints that some bigger house developments were held up on Julie. Is that the reason—I know that it is in the April to June quarter that the number of new starts is down compared to the same quarter in the previous year—is that the planning delays or is there some other reason for those new starts being down over that period? We are always going to get fluctuations in a quarter or in a period. That is the way it is. There is no significant reason for that particular fluctuation over that period. Our social housing stats are increased by 10 per cent in that year. For me, it is about looking at the overall picture. Since 2007, Scotland per head of population has done better in house building in all tenures than any other country in the UK. If we were comparing the house building in Scotland with the house building in England, we would have built 41,000 houses more per head. If you look at that, that is the town the size of Paisley. That is significant that we are building houses, so we are increasing our house building. We know that it is still not enough. We are not pretending that that is a great gift as a pat in the back. We are simply saying that that is the fact that, since 2007, we have built that many more houses per head of population. We are outperforming the rest of the UK in difficult times. I am assuming that perhaps I have made a slip of the tongue minister and saying that 40,000 more per head of population, if we were comparing ourselves with the UK in our house building, we have built 41,000 houses more than they have in England. That is a very interesting statistic. I wonder if you could write to the committee just with those comparisons with the other UK countries or with England. We can do that. Thank you very much. I just advise the minister that she should be very careful using that comparison with Paisley. George Adam will get very excited. He will want them all built there. I was going to go on to look at some of the figures within the budget. Within the overall budget heading of 690 million, there is a clear statement that a significant amount more will be spent on affordable housing during the budget. Can you clarify the amount that you expect to be spent on affordable housing during the 16-17 period? I think that the figure is for total and affordable housing in the 570 million. I get my thousands of millions mixed up in affordable housing out of the budget of 690 million, which I referred to earlier. 570 million of that is for affordable housing. How much has that element of the budget increased within the overall budget heading? I think that the significant increase in the overall budget heading is the increase in grant funding. As you are aware, we have talked about the financial transaction funding, which can only be used for loans in equity and cannot be used to build social housing, for example. In the grant funding, we have increased the grant funding from £256,500 in 2015-16 to £365,000 in 2016-17, so the increase is in the grant funding that is available to build social housing. On the overall budget figure and how that has broken down, would it be right to say that the help-to-buy scheme has been the main scheme that has been reduced in scale within the overall headings? The funding that is available for help-to-buy has been reduced because the financial transactional funding that we get from the UK Government for loan and equity share has been reduced as well. However, in the help-to-buy scheme, we have changed the criteria of the scheme so that with £195 million that will set aside over the next three years, we will still be able to help around the same number of people to buy a new build home. How many people do you expect to help with the scheme in that? Given the objectives of the scheme, do you believe that that is an adequate level of support in that area, or is there a greater need than the Government is able to satisfy? No, we are trying to assist the same number of people with less money coming from the UK. We have adapted the scheme to do that, but at the same time we are assisting other people on to the housing market through our open market share equity schemes, our new supply share equity schemes and we have other schemes to assist people on to the housing market. Given that we can fund that only from the financial transactional money and that housing gets around three quarters of all the financial transactional money that comes to the Scottish Government, I think that I am correct in saying that. We get about three quarters of that funding that is spent in housing, so I think that we are doing well with what money we are getting and the financial transaction money that we are putting into good use. Yes, I thought that you were coming in. I wanted to supplement you on that, so that was okay. Just in terms of the operation of the help-to-buy scheme minister, can you give an assurance that you will keep the operation of the scheme under review so that people who are seeking to help into home ownership are not disadvantaged? What I am thinking of specifically is where a house builder has taken longer to build homes than was previously envisaged, but whether there is a clock ticking in terms of the deposits that people have placed with the builder to ensure that they are not disadvantaged in any way. We constantly keep the scheme under review. It is reviewed absolutely regularly, and I might ask Caroline to say a bit more about it, but it is reviewed regularly. We will look at that, but this financial transaction money has to be used within the year that we get it. It does place some difficulties and we are aware of that and we are working with the industry. I do not know whether you want to say anything more on that, Caroline, about how it is reviewed and how often it is reviewed. We have a group that looks at how the scheme is operating and we monitor its progress. Organisations such as Homes for Scotland sit on that group, and people who are providing mortgages through the council of mortgage lenders. We review what is happening in practice and look at whether adjustments need to be made to make sure that the scheme is still a success. I am ensuring that people are disadvantaged through no fault of their own and that they are notwithstanding the perfectly reasonable point that the minister just made about the money having to be used within the financial year. There is a concern that has been expressed by some of my constituents that, if the builder is taking longer to build, people who have signed up to the scheme may lose their deposit. What are you doing to address that point? We have agents that manage the scheme on behalf of the Scottish Government around the country. They are the first point of contact for people who are purchasing through the scheme. If those issues are cropping up, we would speak to those agents to make sure that they can be looked at and addressed. If there are issues that individual people are having, they should get in touch with the agents who are managing the scheme and they will feed that back to us directly so that we can look at it. We have touched a couple of times already on the Rural Housing Fund that you have announced. Is it possible for the minister to give us some details about how that would work in practice? Again, the scheme that was built up came out of a previous Rural Housing Conference. It was talked about that the issues in rural areas, as we appreciate, are different from the issues in more urban areas. The scheme is more flexible. It is mainly a mixture of grant, but there is a bit of loan element in the scheme as well. It will also allow feasibility for up to £10,000—feasibility for a project to look at how it can put the project together and its development plans together. Where it differs from some of the other Scottish Government schemes is that it will be open to applications from community groups and trusts. As long as they are a legal entity, they have to be a legal entity, but it will not be open to individuals but it will be open to groups. It will be open to mainstream groups as well, such as housing associations, local authorities and rural areas, but it will be open to landowners, community trusts, small housing, trusts and co-operatives. It will be open to a range of groups that other schemes are not open to. That is about recognising the difference there. We are also looking—I know that some of the rural groups are looking at ways of a consortium, together as long as it is a legal entity, putting in an application to scheme building up their project. We are keen to see that, and if that can develop, it will be looked at. It is about flexibility. Are you able to say at this stage that, if someone puts together a group that, with the objective of building houses in the rural area, you would give them consideration and look at their structure to see if they were suitable? Is there any legal entity putting together proposals to increase the supply of housing in rural areas? That application will again be looked at. We can also put an application in to look at the feasibility of what they are proposing. That will be looked at as well. Have you added a position to speculate at the moment as to how many units can be achieved through the scheme? Do you estimate that the three-year scheme is around 500 affordable houses in rural Scotland? Over the scheme? I would like to move on to the area of homelessness and ask some questions in that area. In 2014, the housing regulator produced its report, Housing Options in Scotland, a thematic inquiry and recommended publication of enhanced guidance for local authorities. Are you able to give us some indication of when that might be published? I think that, in my opening remarks, I said that we are publishing that. That guidance will be published after today's meeting. It will be on the Scottish Government website after the committee today. In the interim period, people are protected with the current homelessness legislation, but in that two-year period, do you have any concerns that some people may have missed out on the protections that they deserve, given that the regulator said that it was necessary to enhance guidance from the Government? There was anecdotal evidence, and that is why the homeless prevention and strategy group were already looking at producing guidance prior to the regulator's report. In some ways, that is what delayed it because we went back and took account, waited for the regulator's recommendations to incorporate them into the guidance that was currently being prepared, and then had to feed that back to the regulator. It was a wide consultation about the guidance. I do not think that people have been disadvantaged. I think that what the guidance will do is absolutely clarify the link between homelessness and housing options and make that link very clear when homeless applications should go ahead. I think that the statistics that we are currently showing around 45 per cent approach housing options go on to make a homeless application, and we are seeing the percentage that stays where they are or housed in other ways. I think that our statistics are improving a lot in that, and I think that the guidance will help. It was more to do with the recording that there was a suggestion that people were not being perhaps offered the homeless route, but they might have had their housing needs dealt with through another way and had a satisfactory outcome without actually going down the homeless route. However, we accept the point that there has to be clarity in that, and that people should always, if homeless routes the option, be clear on how that decision has been arrived at. I think that the guidance will help considerably with that. That leads very well into my next question, minister, which is about the statistics themselves. Obviously, people may have had different routes to fulfil the housing requirements, but does it concern you at all that there has been a 21 per cent drop in housing options approaches to local authorities recently, as compared to a year ago? We are always looking and reviewing this and seeing if our recording is correct and if there has been any inconsistency in recording, if that is why we are seeing variations in the figure. The prevent one data that we are collecting is showing better information. It is very early days for this yet, but it is showing that, as I said, 45 per cent of those who present their housing options are going down the homeless route. I think that 39 per cent have a positive outcome and others are housed in a different way. Many people stay in the house because of the interventions of the housing options team that, in actual fact, their current accommodation, it could be a young person, it could be mediation or whatever, actually allows someone to stay in the home. That is the kind of statistics that we are able to gather now, and I think that we will get a much clearer picture. However, what I am clear about is that anybody who is homeless or presents as homeless should get all the services available and the support that goes along with it. I think that that is absolutely key to anything that we do in homelessness. In the area of temporary accommodation, the recent statistics show that the use of temporary accommodations in some local authorities has increased, such as in Glasgow City Council. What are your thoughts about those statistics? In temporary accommodation, it is always on the agenda, the homeless prevention and strategy group, how we look at it. I think that we all have to accept, and I think that Shelter made this point very eloquently at a meeting I was at recently, that temporary accommodation is part of the process, it is part of the homeless route, it is part of the route of getting people settled into permanent accommodation. For a number of reasons, it might be looking at what their support needs are, it might be about somebody, I mean you may have constituents, I frequently have constituents that come to my surgery and they want to stay in the temporary accommodation until their house is in a particular area, and with the best will in the world, the houses are not always available in that area, so they could keep someone in temporary accommodation longer than perhaps it may not look good in the record, but it suits that particular family. In that respect, I wrote to all local authorities about the use of temporary accommodation, in particular about the use of bed and breakfast accommodation for families. I was really encouraged by the responses that I was getting back from local authorities. Many of them telling us, and I know Glasgow City Council, are looking about how they have a plan to start to reduce the number of people in the length of time that people are on temporary accommodation and how local authorities are doing that across the country. Some of them said, come and see what we are doing, and I visited South Ayrshire Council, which showed how they had taken the homeless bed and breakfast accommodation from quite high levels of people in bed and breakfast accommodation to no families with children in bed and breakfast accommodation, and it is about having that will in working and putting together working with other agencies locally. There is a lot of good work going on out there, but of course we want to see less people in temporary accommodation. We also want to make sure that the temporary accommodation is of good standard. Most of it is of good standard, and local authority managed well, managed accommodation. We just need to be clear when we are talking about temporary accommodation about what is actually being talked about. It is very welcome to hear that interaction between yourself and the local authorities minister. Given that that dialogue is in place and you are writing to them about it, do you support Shelter's call for a guidance on minimum standards for households in temporary accommodation? That has been on-going for some considerable time with Shelter, and we have looked at it and looked at it very seriously and very closely. Clearly, some things should be absolutely obvious, and that is the standard of homes that you put families in in temporary accommodation. We changed, and I think that it was with the convener when he was in the back benches on the housing bill, to make sure that accommodation for pregnant women and children and families was a suitable standard, the wind and water type, which sometimes things are not always so obvious. In talking to local authorities and looking at the accommodation, we had a group looking up what would be ideal in temporary accommodation, particularly if it is because local authorities have to change furniture and change things. How often would they do that? What would it cost? All of that is on-going, but I think that there have been no great calls otherwise. What I have said and continue to say, and what the group and COSLA have said, is that if there is evidence out there that families have been put up in accommodation that is unsuitable, we want to know about it. The councils have said that they will tell us about it. If there is evidence across Scotland that temporary accommodation is of such a poor standard, we need to see that evidence first. I would like to turn to issues relating to older people and the social care agenda, health and social care agenda. One of the actions in the joint delivery plan is to work to improve communication between housing and the new national integration bodies at a strategic level. Can you tell us what progress has been made in this area? I think that there has been a considerable amount of progress made in this over the last two years. I would accept, at the outset, that, again, it is obvious that, in terms of getting a successful integration of health and social care, housing is not up there on the table and getting that right because they are going to be the ones providing the houses to make sure that people can stay in the community and houses that are suitable to their needs. Something that was quite obvious was not so clear cut in the integrated teams across the country. We have worked very hard and the Scottish Government has also funded the position in the joint integration team boards to liaise with the teams, to raise the profile of housing within the teams and to ensure that housing is considered both at a strategic level and in the localities at the planning level, strategically and locally. That has been worked on as we go. Every joint team board has to produce a housing contribution statement within that. That is absolutely a requirement that they do. We want the housing to play a full part in it, not just a lip service part. We are working closely with some teams across the country. It is working very well and others are taking a bit slower to get there, but officials are working very hard. If we are saying anywhere that we feel that it is not working the way it should, we need to know about that because we might need to have an intervention to work with that particular joint integration board to make sure that the integrated team recognises that housing is at a strategic level. The value of having housing at the table, because that is the priority, is to have housing at the table when you are talking about keeping people in the community in their house, which is kind of built to me. It is pretty obvious. Are there still challenges or are those challenges localised? Do you address them? They are very localised now. When it is good practice sharing that with others and getting that out there. I do not think that in any area there is nothing deliberate about keeping housing away from it. It is about just getting that joined up, working a bit better and working together. I think that it is now happening. Good. Another action in a joint delivery plan is to increase housing options for older people by diversifying tenures and creating realistic and attractive alternatives. Could you describe what that is likely to mean in practice, minister, and how will decisions on the affordable housing supply budget take this action into account? In a number of things, some will have the affordable housing supply budget. I will park back just now and talk about how that helps with older people. In terms of the housing options, I think that that came up very much again from the joint housing plan. That has been taking forward that sometimes it is not about a supply, it is not about even another house, it is about looking at what we are doing with housing and across the board, looking at the individual, their family, their circumstances and what realistic options are there for that person. Without that, it might well be that somebody wants to downsize but does not know how to go about it, or does not want to downsize to another place. It might not be about downsizing, it might just be about getting it right. For that person, they have got what they need to be where they are, whether it be adaptations or whatever is required. There are a number of initiatives that the SFHR is leading on. Somebody wants to use an equity share from moving because many older people have a home but find it difficult to sell it to move to get another home. It is about getting assistance to do that if they want to do it. If that is not something that they want to do, it is about supporting them and making sure that they know the options that they are there for them in their own home. I am very keen not to see as people being isolated in their own home. We need to make sure that all the other services that someone needs is there and around them. That is what we are talking about in options. It is options in tenure but it is also options on what else is available and is that person getting quality of life in the house that they are in? It is a whole package of services and support. In terms of the overall housing supply budget, the majority of the houses, I think that it would be fair to say, but 90 per cent of the houses built in the social sector are built to houses of varying needs standard that they can be, without too much work, adapted, made suitable for people's circumstances, change, either disability, age or whatever. Local authorities determine whether houses are built with wheelchair access, but that is funded out of the affordable housing supply budget as are houses for people with disabilities. Very often, some local authorities are building houses that are purpose built for a specific family, if that is required, because they have very complex care needs and some local authorities are building specifically for that particular family. On the subject of adaptations, a number of adaptations pilots are being conducted. How are they progressing? Indeed, the pilot helped to adapt scheme. A number of things. The pilot adapted to change, which came out of the group that looked at the adaptations and how adaptations operate in practice. Do you know that RSL is a funding that sits within the Scottish Government to fund £10 million for RSLs for adaptations, and they get that directly from the Scottish Government? Within local authorities, for their social rented sector, the funding comes out of their housing revenue account and for private, for owner occupiers, that would come through the scheme of assistance. The group recommended that we should be looking at that, should it be following tenure or should it be following the individual, the adaptations, and they are looking at that and looking at a number of areas where there are five groups. Due to report at the end of 2016, we will inform how we progress as we move on. They are looking at a range of things, some kind of innovative things, including telecare, better liaison with the integrated teams within local authorities to speed up adaptations. Is it easier to have the occupational therapist attached to the care and repair team? They are looking at a variety of innovations, and they will report back to us at the end of 2016, and then we will proceed as we go forward with adaptations. The help to adapt pilot is set up, and it is set up to an equity loan scheme for people who want to look at the future, if they want to stay where they are, whether it is assistance for them to adapt their house in a way—it is an equity release thing, I think, up to £30,000—in a way that they could maintain in that house. It is not to replace the crisis scheme of assistance when something is absolutely needed and essential. That is about people looking to the future. We have worked for some of the older groups to develop the scheme. It is very early days at the scheme, and we are already learning before anything is rolled out at a later stage. That was the intention behind the scheme. It was another option for people who were on their occupiers who wanted to stay in their own home and perhaps did not have the capital to do it, and that is why we launched that particular scheme. We will get reports on those. There will be reports coming to the committee on the scheme, how it has operated, any kind of drawbacks to that, or any lessons that we have learned, and how we can help to adapt the scheme, and how we can make changes to the scheme to make sure that it is fit for our intention. It meets the intention. Can you explain why the plan consultation on energy efficiency standards for the private sector has been delayed? The consultation was delayed mainly because of the uncertainty within what was happening within the UK in terms of announcements that they were making, the changes to the eco-obligation, the changes to the Green Deal, and we had to stop our Green Deal cashback scheme. For that reason, the uncertainty with some of the installers and some of the industry that we would actually want to be part of our consultation was felt that we needed to wait until there was a bit more certainty before we consulted on this, but we are determined to consult on it. We have clearly said that we will be consulting. Have you set a timescale for that? There hasn't been a timescale set. That has been looked at as part of the overall SEAP programme, if I am right in saying that. We have also got a number of strands on going just now in terms of energy efficiency, climate change and fuel poverty, and they will be looking at that. However, it will certainly be early within the next Parliament. That is effectively a potential change to housing standards that has fully devolved yourself. For example, a hypothetical example of triple glazing could be a function of a new policy that you could change your housing standards to in the future. I do not think that when we were looking at this specifically, it was about changing housing standards. The standards are now meeting the energy efficiency requirements of the new build properties. They are built to a fairly high energy efficiency level and sufficient to meet most standards that are built to be above or possibly above. I can certainly check that for you. The consultation was more about people who are home owners, who are existing properties and getting them up to a particular standard. To do that, we need to have some kind of incentive for the owners. We need to look at loan schemes and how we can help people to recognise the importance of energy efficiency for themselves and for climate change and the fabric of their building. However, not everybody is going to be able to fund that on their own, so it is about looking at how we can help to fund that. That is primarily what the consultation is about. New houses in terms of that particular consultation is not the main problem, it is the existing properties. It is about people who are sitting in their home at present saying that the standard needs to be raised. I understand that and agree with your comments. I am really flagging up. Clearly, there has been a problem in climate change targets for the last few years that Governments have not met. Obviously, housing is a major area for that. If, for example, you had higher standards for new build, for insulation and increased glazing, that would reduce carbon emissions and help to meet targets. Is that something that you would also look at? We are always looking at the energy efficiency of new build homes and any changes. I think that the current, in 2015, was the last change to the standards, which are pretty highly energy efficiency properties. However, we have been told from throughout the sector that the main problem is existing properties. The main problem is getting them up to standard because they are still there. That is a huge number of properties. I do not disagree with that. You can find two battles at the same time. You can set higher standards for new properties, as well as deal with existing homeowners. We have set higher standards. We have raised the bar last year and it was raised a few years before. We have given an incentive with an additional money in terms of our subsidy, if it is social housing, and we are encouraging through our home energy efficiency programmes and energy savings trust private landlords to increase their standards. You may have experienced that perfectly. A few years ago, there was a housing fair just outside of Inverness, which the Highland Housing Alliance set up. Several properties developed a really top-class standard, and the privilege has been given a two-round there with houses with very high levels of insulation, triple glazing and effectively no heating systems, because they were so highly efficient. That, to me, is a model for the future, which would set a great target for new housing standards and help to achieve our climate change targets, which is something that I am interested in in both fronts. I do not know if you have experienced that project, minister, but what is your view on that? I have seen other projects of a similar nature, where they have very high levels way above the standard of energy efficiency. However, we need to look at the balance here as well. If that was a new property for sale, that would impact on the price of the property if it is in terms of the social housing and our affordable housing impacts on how many houses we can deliver. I am not saying that we are against that whatsoever, but I am saying that we want to build as many houses as we can to as high energy efficiency standards as we can that will help to reduce the climate carbon emissions and to reduce people's fuel bills. As we go forward, technology will develop and projects will become cheaper on that basis to do as well. Of course, every year, standards improve. Just for completeness in that example that I gave, there was affordable housing available as well. It was not just the expensive end of new build. The Government has announced that any energy efficiency buildings would be a national infrastructure priority. That is fine and well, but where is the beef? What does that mean in practice and what has been achieved since June 2015? Some of it means what we have been talking about. It is all part of the same package. The Scotland's energy efficiency programme is a kind of move on from the HEAP's energy efficiency programmes that we currently operate, and it is to integrate non-domestic and domestic properties to make them energy efficient. Since June that we have had a meeting of all the stakeholders involved, all the experts across Scotland, of how to take that forward. The key thing about that is that, as we take it forward, we have pilots. I think that the cabinet secretary recently announced a pilot for this, which is out of the £103 million that we have set aside this year for energy efficiency. There is a pilot within local authorities to see how they can come with schemes that integrate both domestic energy efficiency and non-domestic energy efficiency across a particular area. It has to look carefully at how, when people can afford or businesses can afford to carry out their work, how can we help to get the finance to do that in affordable finance? At the same time, we are aware that there are some people, as we have with our current programmes, who cannot afford it, and we need to make sure that we can still support that level of it. It is at very early stages. The next meeting of the groups tomorrow is at very early stages. It is a huge magnitude. We have to look carefully at how, as we go forward, how we get this right. However, the commitment has been made and the start is the pilots this year. Is there beef? Is there budgets? Is there enhancement in planning? What practical outcomes are you expecting? It is not specifically housing, but it is looking at bringing housing and energy, the budgets that we spend on housing and some of the budgets from the energy portfolio, and that is work that is on-going within the Government. John Swinney said that it was very clear in this financial year that there was a budget for one year. However, that is in the plan as we go forward into further financial years on how we take Scotland's energy efficiency programme forward. That has been a clear commitment by the Government, and that commitment remains. It is a multi-year funding. We are talking 10, 15 years, so all of that is in progress about how, but we need to get the pilots going to see what will work and how we can get that. There is also a huge public work in its part of the consultation, as we talked about the consultation on the energy efficiency of homes and a public awareness part of that. It is also to encourage people to recognise that the benefits of energy efficiency are all part of the programme. It is huge. There are bits of it in place, but there are other bits to come along. We are talking specifically about fuel poverty, which, as you know, is a terrible person in Scotland. You will know that the Scottish House conditions survey of 2014 identified a third of Scottish households in fuel poverty, which is a terrible statistic. Obviously, the Government has got a new fuel poverty strategy. How is that progressing and what specific targets will you have to reduce that terrible statistic of a third of Scottish households? There are a couple of things that I would say in that. We all agree that fuel poverty is regrettable for anybody to see. We have spent over £500 million on fuel poverty and energy efficiency measures since 2009. 71 per cent of properties are now at a band C or above, but those are energy efficiency properties. They are still deemed to be in fuel poverty because of the way in which we look at fuel poverty and the way in which fuel poverty is defined. That is one of the things that the strategic group is there to set the strategy. We have an overall fuel poverty strategy group, which is a short-term working group that is going to be reporting back to the Scottish Government on a range, and it will also feed into the school. The Scottish Fuel Poverty Forum and the rural Scottish Fuel Poverty Rural Task Force are all elements of what will define the strategy as we go ahead. They are looking at a whole range of things. They are looking at the cost of fuel in rural areas. They are looking at why we have spent all that money and we have all those energy efficiency houses, and we are still saying that there is fuel poverty. Why is it that there is hard-to-heat houses and hard-to-treat houses? All those elements of fuel poverty are being looked at, and that is what will determine the strategies that we go forward. At the moment, our target was to eradicate fuel poverty as far as reasonably practical by November 2016, and that is the current target. Those groups, when they come together, will inform Government as we set the strategies as we go ahead. You touched on the rural fuel poverty task force. I would be interested to know when that report is, but just to flag up a Hanson Islands issue, I am particularly concerned, as I am sure Mike McKenzie, about the problems of fuel poverty in Hanson Islands, particularly in western Isles. There are some very obvious reasons for that. Obviously, the more acute weather patterns, the poorer insulation in homes, the relative income disparity, that is why there are structural funds there to try and support Hanson Islands. The other big issue that I have had a lot of personal experiences with the lack of access to mains gas, and you know how difficult it is to make a connection. If I give you one example, in a previous life, I was trying very hard to get the village of Ardysir connected to mains gas after a public meeting supporting mains gas, but the cost for the first customer is the whole infrastructural cost, which goes into millions, to try and get that project to go ahead. Although I tried very hard to get both Fort George and even this airport connected app as a sort of lost leader to do the next stage, that just was not possible. Some thoughts on connection to mains gas, because clearly that is a very efficient source of heating and would be a contribution towards reducing fuel poverty. What are your thoughts on that, minister? When my thoughts on that are absolute, I appreciate the issues that rural communities face. I have visited some of them to discuss some of those issues, as has Fergus Ewing, who has been very vociferous to the UK Government about the difficulties that rural areas are facing and some of the UK Government plans. I should have said when we were talking about SEEP that it will also look at how we can develop design schemes better suited to Scotland and rural communities with any of the new powers that come to this Parliament. All of those things, that is the very reason why we set up the rural fuel poverty task force, is to look at those specific issues. They are the ones that know the issues that are chaired independently by Daya Alexander, so he will report back on the issues that they see as very well, including issues such as off-mains gas and fuel price. The price of fuel is a huge issue as well, because it is more expensive, the kind of fuel that has to be used in rural areas, so that has been looked at. However, all of the range of other issues, the older properties, the condition of the properties, all of that has been looked at by the rural fuel poverty task force, and they will feed back into the strategy, and that will form part of the overall strategy for Scotland. Thank you, David. Do members have any further questions? Minister, are there any further points that you would like to make? No, I think that I have covered everything, convener. Okay, thank you. I thank the minister and her officials for the very comprehensive evidence this morning. May I acknowledge that this is likely to be your last appearance before this committee in this session of Parliament? It gives me an opportunity to place on the record, on behalf of all of my colleagues, our appreciation for your work as the Minister for Housing. I think that your achievements in this portfolio area have been significant. If I may pray the indulgence of members in just mentioning one or two of those, the achievement in building 30,000 affordable homes, two thirds of which are for social rent, taking groundbreaking legislation through the Parliament and on to the statute book, the significant reduction in the number of families being placed in temporary bed and breakfast accommodation, much of it of poor quality historically, all of that together with the designation of improving the energy efficiency of buildings as a national infrastructure priority, which could well be a game changer in the future. That is an impressive legacy for any housing minister, which will have a lasting positive impact on the lives of tenants and homeowners across the country. For that, we would like to place on record our appreciation and thanks, and we wish you every success for the future. We will now suspend briefly for a witness change over. Of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, agenda item 2 is fourth replacement crossing project team update. The second item is to take evidence from the fourth replacement crossing project team on progress and developments in relation to the new fourth replacement crossing. I welcome David Climey, project director and Lauren Shackman, project manager at the fourth replacement crossing team at Transport Scotland. I invite David Climey to make a short opening statement. Thank you, convener. It is five and a half months since our last appearance before the committee in mid-September of last year. During that period, we have encountered spells of both remarkably good and remarkably bad weather, as well as the unexpected closure of the fourth road bridge. The effects of those events have been well documented in the media, and notwithstanding those factors, the FRC project has continued to make highly visible progress, and the project budget has been further reduced to a new out-turn range of £1.325 to £1.35 billion. I am sure that the committee will recall that, at the time of the financial memorandum to the fourth crossing bill in November 2009, the expected cost range at that time was £1.73 to £2.34 billion, and at the time of award of the principal contract in April 2011, it had reduced to £1.45 to £1.6 billion. The site workforce has averaged 1,191 people during 2015, with a peak of 1,287 last November. On the project to date, more than 10,000 site inductions have been carried out as the works have progressed through their various phases and with the different skills required. The site team has risen to the challenges of the past few months, and through their efforts and the contractor FCBC's efficient management of equipment and resources, the principal contract for the Queensferry crossing and approach roads continues on target for opening to traffic by the end of 2016 this year. Focusing on progress on the principal contract, on the south side of the bridge, the old B800 bridge on the south Queensferry Cirtlister road has been demolished, with closures of the main A90 from Saturday evening through to early Monday morning over two weekends last October. This allowed progress to be made on the new southbound public transport link so that southbound traffic could be diverted onto it before Christmas, with northbound traffic being re-routed onto the old southbound carriageway at the same time. This creates working space for the construction of the northbound public transport link to the B800 and the final tie-ins of the new main line road alignment. On the Queensferry crossing, all three towers have been completed, with just the climbing jump forms remaining to be removed. The first deck unit was lifted into place at the north tower on the 7th of September, just before our last appearance, at the south tower on the 28th of September, and at the centre tower on the 16th of October. Since early September, we have lifted 43 deck units, made up of 14 units at both the north and centre towers and 15 units at the south tower. FCBC, the contractor, has used every available opportunity to lift deck units, and on three occasions, we have lifted two deck units in a single day. In the marine yard at Rassaith, all 110 steel deck units are now there, they have all been delivered, and 57 of them have had the concrete deck cast onto them and have been fitted out with internal walkways and the initial mechanical and electrical works. The final two piers, S1 and S2, which will support the deck fan on the south side of the south tower, will be ready just before the deck units reach them. On the viaduct, installation of the concrete deck on the south approach viaduct is progressing northwards from the south abutment, with the centre section of the first two spans completed and with the side cantilevers now in progress. On the north side, the preparations for the launch of the 222-metre-long north viaduct approach structure, weighing nearly 6,000 tonnes, were completed in January. That included the installation of more than 47 miles of strand for the king post and the pulling jacks. The launch commenced on 5 February, and it should be completed within the next two or three days. On the north side road works, the ferritol viaduct is structurally complete. Work on the bridges to carry the northbound M90 across the new ferritol junction has been completed and traffic has been running on the new alignment since November. Southbound traffic will be moved on to the same alignment later this week, and there will be road closures on the existing ferritol roundabout over the weekend of 12 and 13 March to allow demolition of the existing bridges. That will allow the construction of the new southbound carriageway and the second half of the new bridges for the ferritol geratory. Significant work has also been undertaken on Hope Street and Inverkeithing and King Malcolm Drive and Rossife. The closure of the fourth road bridge in December, while obviously disruptive to many of the land-based activities, provided an opportunity for FCBC to carry out some work on the roads both north and south of the bridge during the daytime, which would otherwise have been carried out at night, and that reduced potential disturbance to local residents. We held our annual update briefings at the end of January, with specific sessions for elected representatives, the media and wider stakeholders and six sessions for the general public. Those were well attended and a lot of positive feedback on the progress of the project was received. I think that it is important to remember in concluding that when the FRC project was first considered in early 2007, a 10-year timescale was considered extremely challenging for a project of the size and complexity. It is now just under 10 months to go to the end of 2016 and having overcome all the challenges of the project scoping and development, the parliamentary bill process, procurement of the four FRC contracts, successful delivery of the first three of those contracts and progress to date on the principal contract, that we are still focused absolutely on achieving the original target date for opening to traffic and to a significantly reduced budget. Thank you very much for that opening statement. Alex Johnson is going to kick off our questions today. Thank you very much, convener. We have had heard rumours about timescales and they have been denied by Transport Scotland. A third of the first thing that I would do is give you the opportunity to talk about the speculation on opening date and perhaps ask you when you might anticipate the grand opening actually taking place. Thank you for that. I think that in the times that I have been coming to the committee, it has been interesting that I think that on two occasions that I have been asked is the press speculation about finishing early true and I think that this is the third time that I have been asked is the press speculation about finishing late true, which is probably a pretty good assessment of where the project actually is. There will always be speculation clearly, but we are absolutely focused on the target date of having traffic on the bridge by the end of this year, no matter what happens, whether it be weather, whether it be unexpected events such as the Forth Road bridge closure, whether it be any other unexpected events. The complete focus is always on getting to the end of this year for traffic on the bridge. There will always be that speculation. We address that speculation when it comes along. We try to make sure that we present factual information so that people can base their assessment on the facts. It is also very clear that anyone who drives over the bridge on a regular basis can really see for themselves. The bridge is there, it is progressing, literally every day, progress is being made. I think that that is probably the best thing that I can say. It is look at the progress. Do not just listen to what I say, but look at the progress that is happening out there. In your opening remarks that you have experienced periods of good and bad weather, since you last appeared before the committee, has that had the effect of cancelling each other out, or is there any negative or positive effect overall? I think that overall you would have to say that the bad has probably outweithed the good over the period. If I can characterise it, I think that September or October is exceptionally good. We got off to a great start with debt lifting in that period. November and December were pretty horrible. Since we came back to work in 2016, it has been an interesting pattern of weather in that we have had two very good weeks followed by two very bad weeks followed by two very good weeks and two very bad weeks. I think that it was reported yesterday that it has been the wettest winter since records began in Scotland. Typically in Scotland, when you have wet weather at this time of year, it also means that it is windy. We have certainly experienced windy weather over that period and people will recall that the various storms have happened. However, having said that, the crucial point is that whenever we have had a lull in the weather, FCBC has made tremendous progress on the debt lifting because that is really the key activity at the moment. That is the key to success. It is making sure that whenever the opportunity arises to make progress and to lift debt units that those are taken. I think that it is particularly important that, on three occasions, they have lifted two debt units in a day and that is something that we did not expect to happen this early in the lifting. We are now able to lift debt units on a 24-hour basis. We have lifted some debt units at night and we have got into a very good routine and everybody would know exactly what they are doing. I think that every opportunity that we are getting is what we are taking. Have we made as much progress as we would have liked to have made over the winter? No, we have not, but it is still doable. You told us in a previous appearance that, at the point before it is connected to the other parts of the bridge, the centre tower will be the largest freestanding cantilever on the planet, is that what you said? Does that require to be scheduled at a period when you expect better weather or is it something that is not subject to weather risk? That particular item is not subject to weather risk. The temporary works were designed to allow for the worst weather conditions that could be experienced, so that particular element of the programme is not sensitive to the particular time of year. It was designed for the worst-case scenario as things are going to map out. It should be that we have reached that point probably at the best time of year. Those things, to a degree, do even out. The storms that we have had recently have been, while the cantilevers have been relatively small, so therefore it has been relatively easy to ride through them. We have not had any damage or any issues arising out of the storms that have taken place. Fundamentally, no, it does not make a difference to the time of year. Are you confident that there is sufficient contingency time in the project programme to allow the bridge to open on time, particularly if it is affected by poor weather conditions? I would always like to have more contingency. I have worked for contractors for 27 years before I came into this role and you always want to have more contingency. We have enough contingency. I am still confident that we can have traffic on the bridge by the end of December. I cannot control the weather. It would be nice to have the eyes of the world on the fourth bridge in December. Can you highlight any key events due to a current in the next six months that would be of interest to the committee? Certainly, yes. Again, perhaps I can work from south to north. You have a plan of the scheme that you may find helpful. Basically, I will run through the things that are going to happen, getting to the completion, because obviously people will want to know what they are seeing and what they should be seeing. On the south side of the project, working from the B800 bridge area, there is a retaining wall being constructed there that we call ESQ 11. That is on the site of the old B800 bridge and that is required to retain some existing strategic utilities that are in that area. The northbound public transport link from the A90 up to the B800 will be completed and the tie-in to the new main line road will also be completed in that area. On the south main line itself, the road surfacing is already in progress and that will be completed all the way round to the south Queensferry geratery and to the south abutment of the Queensferry crossing. Also, the overhead sign in ITS gantries will be installed in that area, so those will be highly visible. The deck concrete will be installed on the south approach of Iodat. We will continue to install that, working from south to north all the way out to pier S3. That will be followed by the mechanical and electrical fit-out of the bridge inside the boxes once the deck is installed. Obviously, that will not be visible to people. The tower jump forms will be removed and pier S1 and S2 will be completed and that will complete the final pier on the project. The temporary top section of the case on at pier S1 has to be removed in advance of the fan from the south tower building out to pier S1 and the deck unit being placed on top of that pier. A similar process will follow removing the temporary cofferdam at pier S2. Basically, the temporary structures in the forth will progressively start to be removed during the year. In deck concreting and fit-out of the remaining deck sections in the marine yard will be completed and lifting of deck sections will continue through to completion, with the last section to be lifted being the closure section at the south approach of Iodat, where that meets the south fan between pier S2 and S3. All the launching equipment will be removed from the north approach of Iodat and the deck concreting will continue in that area. The closure unit to the fan on the north side of the north tower will be the first one to be erected to link the bridge to the shore. That will have access to the mechanical and electrical equipment again inside the boxes to be installed progressively from the north abutment. Late spring time, we should have that first connection in place from the north abutment all the way out to the north tower. As the deck closures are lifted, that gives us access to installation of the deck waterproofing, the vehicle restraint systems, the wind shielding, which is obviously very important, and the final road surfacing and installation of the expansion joints at either end of the bridge. They have to accommodate about plus or minus a metre and a half of movement, so that some of the largest expansion joints ever installed on a bridge of this type, and they were the last things to go in on the bridge. On the road network to the north of the bridge, the new southbound carriageway will be constructed and the second half of the new bridges at Ferrie-Tolge aeratory will be built, and the final layout of the Ferrie-Tolge aeratory and the local road connections in that area will also be completed. There is a large amount of work to be done and 10 months to do it. Ambitious, but you feel that it can be achieved. Indeed. Obviously, I acknowledge all the great work that you and your staff have done in achieving this huge engineering challenge, and we certainly wish you well in the targets that you have got to do. Can I ask you one that may appear to be left field, but it is not my intention for it to be left field? Do you have a specific policy among contractors and your direct employees about whistleblowing? A policy of such, no. I would absolutely encourage any members of the workforce who have any concerns about any issue on the project. That is part of the reason that the client team is based on the project. We have collocated with the contractor on the project. I have an open door policy, absolutely. The workforce knows exactly where I am, where my team is. We have a very visible client team on the project who are out there in all parts of the project at all times. Anyone who has the slightest concern about any issue related to the project, I am always happy that they talk to us. I have to emphasise also that Michael Martin, the FCBC project director, has a very similar approach. In January, as part of our get back to work sessions, which we do every year, he personally went round every area of the project, talked to small groups of workers around the project to make sure that he got his message out that, if there is something that he should know about, he wants to know. We also have what we call an SOR system, a safety observation report system, which is an anonymous system where people can put forward either suggestions or good practice or bad practice that they see, and those are also analysed and followed up on as part of the normal process. I totally accept the intentions and views on that issue. My general point is that it is not a reference to what you are doing. Sometimes it is easy for the chief executive, MD, to have a very strong principle and philosophy about issues such as personal bullying. The reality is that those at the entry level do not have a clue about what the policy is and are very concerned and sometimes frightened about making it clear that there are some issues that they are concerned about. In reality, how do you communicate the fact that you have a strong, positive message in personal bullying to those who are at the front line in building the new bridge? I think that it goes back to the point that I made about something that we raise in all the site inductions that we do. We make it very clear that we have very open style. There are ways of contacting the various people on the project, so it is reinforced initially when people come into the project. As I have said, we have regular briefings where people go out. We also have what we call senior management safety tours, where we go around the site and talk to the workforce directly. It is not a case of us just getting feedback on numbers and statistics. We go out into various areas of the project, talk to the workforce there to hear about what concerns they have in terms of what is going on, how we are doing things and other things that we can do better. Very often, the people who are doing the work are the best people to tell you how it should be done. We are keen to get that feedback and to have that interaction with the workforce. That is very useful and very open. You will obviously be well aware of the press reports from November from a first of all, or that tons of concrete were thrown in, I used to term loosely, into the fourth, and that there was a video recording of that. Clearly, that is very serious, if that is true. First of all, what is your assessment, whether you have led to that? I have not seen the video, but it is reported in the press. What was your assessment of that allegation? An allegation like that is made, if we take it very seriously. What was disappointing about it as far as we were concerned was that the allegation was of an event that happened in November, but it was not actually publicised until between Christmas and New Year. That was the first time that we were made aware of it. It becomes much more difficult to investigate something when it is alleged to have happened about two months previously. If someone had a genuine concern at the time, if they had told us at the time, it would have been much easier to investigate that. However, having said that, an incident clearly did happen. Something was discharged into the fourth that should not have been, and it was investigated in great detail. We worked with Marine Scotland and SNH, who are part of our environmental liaison group, to make sure that we did investigate it subtly. The conclusions that we came to were that, yes, there had been a discharge into the fourth because there had been a mechanical breakdown of some equipment, but the quantities involved were far, far less, in fact, minuscule in comparison to the allegations that were made in the press. I think that 345 tonnes were talked about in the press. That is the amount of concrete that is carried in two of our main concrete barges with six mixers on each, and that would have taken about a day and a half to discharge into the fourth, which clearly would have been spotted. What appears to have happened is that, when you complete the concrete pour, obviously there still remains some residue of concrete in the line, and what should happen is that there is an item called an air cuff that seals the line when it is disconnected. This air cuff appears to have failed and therefore some of the residue that was in the line leaks out into the fourth. To put it in context, it was about 0.4 of a cubic metre, which is less than one tonne of concrete and not the 350 tonnes that was claimed in the press. We take those things very seriously. We have followed up on it, we have made sure that we have given two box talks to the teams involved, but, on any occasion like this, time is of the essence. If something happens, report it immediately and we are far more able to do something about it on the spot. Suggestion from your analysis is that this was laziness on behalf of a contractor who wanted to get rid of some spare concrete. It was a mechanical failure. Equipment failure? We have plenty of places to dispose of concrete if we need to dispose of concrete. Do you have any formal note from any member of the public contractor or employee that there is about specific circumstances around this? None whatsoever. Have you seen access to the video? I have seen the video that was made available to us by the press who reported it, so I did see the video. Clearly something was discharged, but what is shown in the video lasts about a minute. It is certainly in line with what we believe we found in terms of the findings, the small discharge, rather than continual pumping for many hours. Out of curiosity, is it possible that you could forward the video to the clerks of the committee? I am sure that we could do that. Have you changed your monitoring of contractor's compliance with environmental requirements? We have not changed our monitoring at all. As I say, we have regular inspections of those sort of things. We have inspectors out on the project at all times. Those are some of the key areas that we focus on, obviously, when we are placing concrete out there. We have placed over 170,000 cubic metres of concrete on the project to date, and we seem to have had just one incident. We have been very tight in what we do report in terms of environmental incidents. We have produced an NCR, a non-conformance report. If something like that does happen, that covers things even like dropping a few drops of hydraulic oil into the water if a cable should be broken. It is monitored extremely closely. You mentioned environmental groups with SNH and Marine Scotland. What was the conclusion from SNH and Marine Scotland on the ton of concrete that went into the force? What was their conclusion? They agreed with us that a quantity that small would not have any significant impact on the environment of the force itself. One ton of concrete in that volume of water would desegregate very quickly, so there would be no impact on the force itself. They were also satisfied that we had taken all the necessary precautions to make sure that such an event could not happen again. They agreed with the findings of our report. Certainly, there was no evidence that there was anything like those vast quantities that were being talked about. I take your point that a ton is not a lot in the great scheme of things, but I mean that, if that was done legally by a contractor, potentially there would be offence grounds here, isn't there, presumably under the Scottish Government, Scotland-based environmental regulations? Absolutely, yes. We are to be seen that this has been a deliberate act or something like that. That is a different set of conditions altogether. In the event where there is an equipment breakdown and something happens, people obviously do their best at the time, but those sort of things cannot happen. If there was any suggestion that it was a deliberate act or something like that, yes, it would be a whole different set of investigations. I think that you have been very clear on that. Thank you, convener. Thanks, convener. Mediaeur reports have also told us that strike action by some staff working for subcontractors took place in December and February this last month. What impact has this had on project progress? I think that there were two separate incidents that happened, which I will cover, because they are very different in terms of what they were. The first one in December was an issue with some of the directly hired workforce by FCBC, the contractor. When they received their pay slips for December, the holiday pay was not what they expected. That is partly because of the regulations for calculating holiday pay changed during 2015. Previously, holiday pay was very straightforward. It was just based on a 50th of your annual salary, which was the holiday pay for a week, so it was very easily calculated and basically everyone got the same. The new regulations that came into force now say that it has to take into account things like overtime, bonuses, shift allowances and things like that in calculating holiday pay. Obviously, on a project like the Fourth of Placement Crossing, we have many different shift patterns. People work very differently. The calculation is based on a 12-week average period. Therefore, if people have taken holidays over a 12-week period, it has to move back in time. Fundamentally, every individual has a different calculation, so no two individuals, if they are working shifts and with bonus systems and so on, will be paid the same. That was not very well understood and perhaps not very well communicated. What was agreed was that a complete breakdown would be provided for each individual to show how the holiday pay had been calculated and if there were any discrepancies that those would be resolved. Also, as a goodwill payment, with it being just before Christmas, FCBC paid out an advance to all their workforce to make sure that they did not have a shortfall that they expected something that they did not get over the Christmas period. They are still working to resolve that, but I believe that it will be resolved amicably. If there is still a discrepancy anywhere, FCBC has offered to pay for an independent assessor if anyone has a specific concern. However, that was one afternoon just before Christmas, in the mariniar particularly. It did not have any significant impact on progress. The second incident in February was to do with a nationwide issue with a mobile crane supplier. We have nine of their cranes on the project. It does not affect the tower cranes at the towers, nor does it affect the deck lifting gantries. The nine cranes that we used were replaced on the site for the period when industrial action was going to take place. There was minimal effect on the project from that action also. In general terms, have those disputes been atypic on the project as a whole? Are you expecting any more as we get nearer the completion date? I think that there are always risks towards the end of a project when people have been employed on the project for a significant period of time. If there is other work to go to, they will be able to move on to those other jobs. Depending on how the situation is as we move through this year and whether there is other work for the labour to go to, that will feed into whether it is a smooth process or not. However, I would say that we have worked well over 10 million manhours on the project. We have a tremendous workforce on the site. We have worked through some difficult conditions over the past six months or so. The dedication to the project and its pride in the project are very clear. If we go out and talk to it, it is its bridge, it is its project and there is a tremendous commitment to achieving what we need to achieve on it. I am confident that we should not have issues like that. I would like to place in record my appreciation for what a fantastic job that the whole team and everybody involved have done. My previous business life gives me a deep appreciation of what an outstanding job has been carried out so far. I am sure that it will continue. I know that you touched on this in your opening statement, but just for clarification, you mentioned the closure of the fourth road bridge. The unfortunate closure has had some benefits in allowing some work to be done that might have required additional road closures or whatever in future months. For clarity, could you just identify what those works were, please? Certainly, yes. The fact that the A90 itself was closed immediately north and south of the bridge obviously did present us with an opportunity. Instead of having 70,000 vehicles a day passing over there, we had nothing at all. What we were able to do was install the temporary crossovers between the carriageways that we need to use for traffic management. We were able to install some of the foundations for the ITS gantries, which are going to be installed. We were also able to remove our redundant gantry over the existing A90 on the north side of the bridge. Each item itself is a fairly small item, but it meant that we were able to do it in daytime during normal working hours. That is a more effective way of doing it than with lane closures at night and having to work in a fairly tight environment. It was a much safer way of doing it for one thing and it was also a more efficient way of doing it. Obviously, we also had the added benefit of not working at night with potential impact on local residents, which is also key. We tried to make as much of a silver lining as we could out of the disruptive effect of the four-road bridge closure. Great determining steps would affect the progress of the overall job? Would they help at all or would they not really be significant in that respect? I think that they were not particularly significant in that respect. They were certainly nice to have and it just made the work easier to do, but I do not think that in themselves they made a significant impact. Were Transport Scotland and FCBC staff able to assist the fourth road bridge team in dealing with the engineering challenges that they faced? They did an outstanding job as well. I think that we are getting a bit of a name for excellence in bridgeworks in Scotland. Was there some assistance that you were able to provide? Yes, there was. In two different aspects. The first one was within the employees delivery team. We have Jacob's and Arup support us and some members of the Arup organisation were involved in the checking of the design of the fix that has been put in place of the fourth road bridge. Two of our engineers were working over with the fairhurst team and the FRB team, developing a temporary fix and the permanent solution, which was obviously challenging work in a very challenging timescale, and they did very well on that. Perhaps on a more practical side, FCBC itself has a lot of marine equipment in the fourth and in order to put the fix in place, the FRB needed to have equipment transferred out to the base of the north tower. FCBC was able to utilise their marine logistics to move equipment and scaffolding, lighting and so on. A large cherry picker was also moved out there, so that meant not having to waste time bringing extra equipment in. We had the equipment that could be used. The other thing that was done was that we were installing a lot of structural monitoring on to the new crossing and we were able to use some of the technicians for that to move across to supplement the existing team on the fourth road bridge for installing the structural monitoring equipment that was required to make sure that the fixes were working and to identify exactly where the loads were going. We were also able to do that. Overall, it was a good collaboration between the two teams to try to make things happen as quickly as possible. That sounds a pretty good story. I always, and I very much hope that the weather is kind to us all and most of all yourselves over the coming months, I used to console myself when it was frustrated about whether the weather accountant ultimately has to balance his books. I think that possibly he is due for an audit shortly, so hopefully we will get some more favourable weather. Thank you very much indeed. Can I ask about community engagement? Clearly you have a clear commitment and strategy for engaging with the communities who are most affected by the development of the fourth replacement crossing. Can you just provide us with an update on any new issues of concern that have been raised by local residents or businesses during the last six months? Sure. In general terms, the engagement with communities remains at a very good level. We get good feedback and good co-operation with all the local community groups and also the local authorities as well. We have continued with our community forums on a regular basis and have just had a meeting with the North and South community forums only in the last couple of weeks. The number of issues remains very low in terms of the items raised at those particular meetings. Although we have some complaints along the same lines as has been discussed at the committee previously, we are continuing to deal with those on an on-going basis and try to eliminate those as quickly as possible. I am talking in terms of mud on footpaths and on the road, that kind of thing. A lot of it at this time of the year is difficult with dealing with those sorts of things, although a lot of that is attributable to the gritting of the roads from a winter maintenance point of view. In summary, the community engagement continues to go from strength to strength, to the contact and education centre that we have. We have had a huge amount of engagement with the public. David mentioned earlier the update briefings that we had at the beginning of the year. We are keeping the contact and education centre open now every Saturday, right the way through to the end of the project and supplementing that with update briefings at the end of each month on a Friday and on the Saturdays. We had the 10,000th pupil visit that the contact and education centre back in October, and Keith Brown came along to celebrate that event. I think that we are well over 12,000 people, children now, young people visiting the project. Overall, we have over 42,000 people involved in some activity in relation to the project, whether that is educational or presentation, a visit to the site, that kind of thing. Do you foresee a need to continue perhaps not with the same level of community engagement, but with on-going community engagement, once the bridge is fully operational? I think that what will happen post completion of the Queensbury crossing is certainly a need to keep going in terms of involving the local communities in the three bridges themselves. To that end, there is the fourth bridges forum. A separate group has been set up to see how the three bridges can be taken forward in both an educational and tourist viewpoint. There are a few strands of work that is being undertaken by that group to see how those aspects can be taken forward. One of the key things being the fact that the fourth rail bridge is now part of the world heritage status. There needs to be a management plan around that activity. Who knows what will happen to the other two bridges in terms of world heritage status going forward? I think that the other thing that I might mention is that it is certainly our intention that through 2017 we will continue the same programme that we have been running through up until now, particularly in terms of engagement with schools and so on, because at that time we will be able to tell them the whole story right through to completion. I think that it is particularly important that we do celebrate that and make sure that people know about the whole thing from start to finish. In terms of public transport more generally, the A8A89 corridor study, which was carried out to identify potential improvements in public transport access on the corridor and through Newbridge junction, has recently reported emerging findings. Are you able to outline for the committee those findings and explain how they may be taken forward? Yes, they were discussed at the most recent public transport working group meeting, which the last meeting was on 25 January, and quite a lengthy presentation by the consultants who had undertaken that study. They came up with a series of potential options and very outlying crude estimates at this stage as to how much those interventions might cost. They were centred around trying to prioritise bus access both east and westbound through that corridor, all the way from well to the west of Newbridge, right the way through to the Mabry junction in the east. It is suffice to say that we had the presentation, and there is quite a lot of consideration that needs to be taken forward by the relevant authorities, Transport Scotland, City of Edinburgh and West Lothian in conjunction with the bus operators to make the best use of that study and to come up with a preferred option perhaps going forward, bearing in mind that I think that some of the options were fairly costly. What are the timelines in terms of the next stage of the process? In terms of the timeline, the idea would be to come back to the next meeting of the working group in six months' time in the early autumn and try to make some headway on coming to a conclusion on that study. Good morning. I have a timely question on modern apprenticeship week for you. Can you give us an update on the number of professional trainees and the apprentices currently employed as part of the fourth road crossing project? Currently, we have 18 people undertaking professional training on the project, and to date, 71 people have undertaken or completed professional training. That gives us a current cumulative annual average, which is the one that we track, of 34 compared to the minimum contractual requirement of 21. We will also look at work experience and bring people on to the project for work experience. There were recently five students gaining experience with us over last summer, and our annual average on that is 25 compared to a target requirement of 10. In terms of apprenticeships, we currently have 12 on-going modern apprenticeships working on the project. Eight of them are from Fife, Lothian or Edinburgh, and four of whom are from elsewhere in central Scotland, Glasgow and Airdrie. They are enrolled either at Edinburgh, Carnegie or Perth college, and they are training in things. Five of them are civil engineering technicians, four are electricians, one is a welder and fabricator, and two are business administrators. We also have two who have completed their apprenticeships on the project, and they have now moved into permanent roles with FCBC. Thank you for the update. We recently had the cabinet secretary in front of us to discuss the new procurement guidelines, and we are very welcome to do that. There were some protections regarding blacklisting. In March 2013, there was a commitment to keep a watching brief on the issue, and I wonder if you can report on whether there have been any issues regarding blacklisting in the past 12 months or so? There have been no issues of blacklisting on the project, no. I regularly discuss the matter with Michael Martin, my equivalent in FCBC. The most recent discussion on that was a couple of days ago, and he continued to reassure me that there has been no blacklisting and there will be no blacklisting on the project. Thank you. Thank you. Do members have any further questions? Is there anything further that you would like to place on the record this morning? I do not think so. I think that you have given us a very good opportunity, convener. Thank you very much. Can I thank you both for attending today's meeting of the committee? Can I also acknowledge that this may well be the last appearance of the project team before this committee in this parliamentary session, and thank you for your forbearance in fulfilling your commitment to keep the committee informed of the progress of the significant engineering project for Scotland. I am sure that I speak for the whole committee when I say that we have been highly impressed by the professionalism and expertise of everyone involved in the construction of the new crossing and related infrastructure. We have found the regular updates from the project team to be particularly helpful, and I hope that this relationship continues with our successor committee. So once again, thank you very much. I now move this meeting into private session.