 Llei advisein i gael a siwt pwy o'ch cyffredin y 13th rydyn ni ar y 33 roi ofi tynnu a'r Cyfrif高 Passigol mae'r Cyfrif, oherwydd, mae'n dim ydw i'r cymwyntiau i ddweud yn fwyntaniaethau i gydagolion yr fodennu fel ddweud i gael a'i meddwl i'r cyfrif yn ateb i'r cyfrif i ddweud. Yr unrhyw dda i'r ystyff yma rydyn ni wedi'u gweithio ar y cyfrif yn cyffredin ni arall. Rydyn ni'n gweithio ar y cyfrif yn cyrddестai. yngyl iawn gyda gynnwysau lliwethaf o'r ciflazzau o peramol yn dod yn gweithio a'r cyflazzau rymdudol yn gyhoeddfaol i hynny o'r pethau ar yr awm. Nid yw'r ciflazzau rymd swyddfaeddol gan eich beth, gael unrhyw hion o'r byd rydym yn y cyflazzau ei ddweud, o fe ddweud eu gwneud—rhyw rymd yn gyflazzau ei ddweud ar y cyflazzau ei ddweud. Efallai o'r pethau yw ynglyn â'r rymd yn cymhiliadau a'i defnydd. Do switcherion o'r Shelter Scotland, online by Ae Fadiri, who is the Senior Social Justice Policy Officer at Citizen Advice Scotland. Emma Saunders, who is the national organiser at Living Rent, and Shona Gorman, who is the chair of the Central Scotland Regional Network of Tenants and Residents. I welcome witnesses to the meeting. I am going to start with questions. I am interested to understand the scale of the problem. In our briefing papers, we got the information that the latest Scottish Housing Condition Survey published in 2019 is estimated that relatively few of Scotland's homes suffered from dampness and condensation. 91 per cent of all homes in all tenures, social private rented and owner occupied, were free from damp and condensation. Around 54,000 were estimated to have rising and are penetrating damp homes and around 192,000 homes are estimated to have condensation. Of course, any home with damp or mould is one home too many, so I'd be interested to hear and maybe I'll start Debbie with you in the room and then we'll go to folks online. I'm just to say, actually I forgot to say that in terms of coming in, if you're online, you can put an R in the chat and we'll bring you in. You don't have to answer every single question and Debbie, if you get the attention of the clerks, they'll bring you in too. I'd be interested to hear all your thoughts on the scale of the problem of dampness and mould in rented housing. For example, is it more prevalent in particular housing types or geographical areas? Yes, thank you first of all so much for inviting us in for what is an incredibly important issue which, as you know, Shelter Scotland provides housing advice, so we see tenants regularly who have issues around damp and mould. I think if you've had a chance to have a look at the briefing, the photos are just a small sample of what we see on a day-to-day basis coming through from tenants who are struggling with their housing. I would say one of the issues in terms of trying to work at the scale is the lack of accurate data around those who are struggling with significant damp and mould. Additional analysis was done for a parliamentary question, which showed that 90,000 households in social housing had said they had damp and mould issues. That was additional analysis done on the Scottish Housing Survey stats. It's hard to show, but I would say it's significant and where it is prevalent is incredibly serious. I think that from a couple of the examples that we showed, it's not about having a bit of mould in the bathroom, it's about having your ceilings falling down, it's about having most of your homes not fit for purpose because the damp penetrates the bedding, it penetrates the mattresses, it's people buying new clothes because they've had to throw their old clothes out and they're mouldy within the week. I think what's really important to recognise is this is not about how tenants are living. Quite often tenants come to us and say they're being blamed for the situation. It's not the case. We all need to boil our pasta, have a shower, dry our clothes inside so that's the nature of living in Scotland unfortunately and a lot of people don't have anywhere to dry clothes outside anyway. So for the people who are struggling with this, it's never-ending and in terms of trying to address that, for us there's some structural issues that are really important to address. There aren't enough social homes which are of a high enough quality for people. We need to have those homes delivered within this Parliament and we have said 38,500 are required to be delivered because otherwise we'll continue to see the housing emergency which is affecting record numbers of children are now in temporary accommodation over 9,000 as well as all the children who are in damp and unsuitable accommodation. So for us the wider structural issues are really important to address as part of how we solve the issues for so many families whose children are severely affected. In terms of some of the examples that we have families who now have children on seven different sets of medication to address eczema and asthma and that's a direct cause of the damper mould and this is incredibly significant and serious for those children obviously and added to that they are now in antibiotics because the eczema has had been infected because they can't deal with it adequately in the home. There is nowhere else for them to go that's why they're having to stay in these homes. What we want to see is where possible for those homes to be brought up to standard and on top of that for the delivery of the social homes to be prioritised. Thanks very much for that. Emma, you've indicated that you wanted to come in and if you've got any information on types of houses or geographical areas to add that would be interesting too. Yes good morning committee and thank you again for inviting us. I think there is yeah our experience is very similar to that of shelter a lot of our members come with these issues and I think the impact is insane both in terms of health but also in terms of mental health and sort of social links it's it means that they're not asking their older relatives to come and do childcare because they don't want to expose them to the impacts of mold and damp it means that they're not inviting their friends kids to the house because they don't want to sort of show the state of the house it also means that sometimes it has an impact on their job they can't go to their jobs in different clothes if they work from home is just incredibly hard so there is just like much broader impacts about living in yeah from living in mold and damp and I think in terms of tenure sadly like it's across tenure and I think what's hard is that yeah it's a bit different like in social and council housing what we'll see is that the response from social and council landlords is getting a bit better but there'll be a lot of blame on tenants and a lot of sort of cosmetic remedial work so a lick of paint a bit of rubbing it etc rather than addressing the structural issues and we appreciate that this might be also because there's not enough funding to address the structural issues but tenants can't be made to pay the cost and the insane cost and the health of social or council landlords not being able to properly retrofit and properly refurbish properties in the private sector we see a lot of issues as well and I think what's hard there is that our members will often be evicted after they raise issues so they'll raise issues two three months then become really unhappy for landlords not doing anything and then a landlord will just evict them on the ground that they want to move back in or their family wants to move back in etc and so there's sort of a double double hurt there and then in terms of sort of property types that's really really difficult to say and I think part of that is the issue of data that we're lacking and I think what we see is a lot of sort of post 1940s block especially when there's sort of council housing or social housing and then tenements and that's quite hard because what we see as well is sort of leaks that happen and then it damages the whole building and then it's very hard to coordinate between different landlords with the factor etc so that ties in a bit maybe in some of the the work around tenements and how to sort of do works repairs in retrofits around tenements yeah I'll stop there but I have a few more thoughts around regulations that could help thank you very much and Ava you wanted to come in yes thank you that is a really good question and I would reflect what my colleagues have said we have a lot of shared experiences there and I would be quite confident in saying that the official data is probably an underestimation of the prevalence of the problem across Scotland just to speak to our own data within the citizens advice network we're unable to state conclusively how many cases of damp and mould the network has given advice on and as we don't collect advice code data to this level it falls under repairs and maintenance or environmental issues but both of these are quite large proportions of overall housing advice so it's something that we're not able to state conclusively but we were able to look at our social policy feedback system which is where our advisors can report cases of particular concern interest or emerging issues and so we did a search of damp and mould cases of these between January 2020 and March 2023 and this came back with around 100 cases regarding damp and mould in terms of locations these cases these 100 cases show that the problem is across Scotland the length and breadth of Scotland and so it's definitely not limited to any one area I definitely agree with what Emma said about bloc and and flattered properties that if there's a problem in one property it's likely to sort of leak into other properties but yes really difficult to get to the root of the problem in terms of gaging the the scope and scale a bit but what our data can tell us is about the experiences of clients around damp and mould the impact it has on them and I'll speak about that in a bit more depth later. Thanks very much for that. Shona, did you want to come in on this? Yes, thank you very much, yes, thank you for the opportunity to come today. From my point of view I can't really contribute in the way of figures as such but this is a very much increasing problem and I think it's been greatly contributed to through this particular winter with the sort of fuel poverty and cost of living crisis when people have been unable to properly heat their homes. I think that that has added greatly to the number of cases. I know certainly the number of cases is definitely rising. I think to the fact that tenants now feel they will maybe actually get some kind of proper response and not just blame for their lifestyle choices having caused this or contributed to it is really good to know but at the same time I think we face I think we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg in many respects. Our country's climate doesn't help. Houses that are badly insulated or poorly insulated may be single-blazing ill-fitting windows. There are so many contributing factors to this and I really do think that this is what as a country we need to address. I'm not blaming a tenant for putting washing over a radiator. That's not the answer and I suspect that tenants and landlords or the tenants know it's not the answer and I suspect landlords. I've always known that it really wasn't all of the answer certainly. Thanks very much for that. Debbie, I want to come back to you. Shona and Ava said that they don't really have statistics at that level. They'll be interested to hear if you've got a sense of how common complaints are about damp and mould in housing. I can definitely speak to our housing advice and where we see damp and mould issues and it's across Scotland. We've got four teams who work in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow and all get sort of cases coming through in terms of damp and mould but I would probably say that's the tip of the iceberg. That's people who know to come to us and who we have capacity to work with. I do think that one of the issues is there is a lack of robust data provided which really does show the level of damp and mould within Scotland. We know from the experiences of our clients it is significant and there is a lot out there and it's from a range of properties but by and large what's happening is we've got some of the older properties which aren't properly ventilated like Shona was saying. They don't have double glazing, they don't have adequate ventilation and I know having read through the good report Putting Safety First, which was by CIH, SFHA, Scottish Housing Regulatory and Alachio, is they have to put a lot of interventions in place to make these homes livable. It's not that people can thrive in them but they're livable they can reduce the levels of damp and condensation by putting in dehumidifiers by improving the ventilation but that's by and large only provided for a small percentage of people. It's expensive so what we're talking about is not only do we have to deliver the new quality social rented homes to reduce housing need. Additional funding is required and targeted to those properties which do need those interventions. Like everyone else has said it's not just a case of putting a bit of bleach here and there it's about people living in conditions which none of us would want to live and I certainly wouldn't want my children having to go into hospital and having to go back to the doctor time and time again because they cannot cope with the level of damp and mould in their homes and we see that people are desperate but there is nowhere else for them to go so they're having to put up with it so there's two things that need to happen in our view and I would say it's we don't have the accurate stats because they're not available but from what we see from what is available it's significant and needs to be addressed. Just in terms of getting the accurate data what would we need to do? Is there something that we could bring forward in the Parliament that would make that requirement? I think what would probably need to be looked at is the household condition survey looking at how we can extract the information out of that because additional analysis can be done on the stats that are already collected but do we need to be collecting in a bit more detail and recommending that actually that's a requirement so we better understand what's happening in Scotland? Thanks very much for that. I'm going to move on to questions from Willie Coffey. Thanks very much, convener and good morning to everyone. I wanted to develop this theme a little more perhaps with you to begin with, to be about blaming the tenants for their lifestyle. I was a local councillor since 1992 in Cymaric and Loudon in any station and I had literally hundreds and hundreds of cases over many years of condensation, dampness and mould and by and large the explanation offered was the tenants lifestyle and when you compared that with other tenants lifestyles that were absolutely similar who weren't living in houses with condensation, dampness and mould you began to question that assessment. Why do you think we're still at that point? I mean we know that the Ombudsman in England is warning social landlords to avoid this blaming thing, blaming their tenants. Do you think there's still a case in Scotland to answer here and to stop this attitude about blaming the tenants for the way they live their lives in their own homes? Absolutely. I mean I know what's been done. I mentioned that report putting safety first which has gone out to all social landlords for example which is around saying exactly that this is not the tenants fault. This is very much around having substandard housing, it's around tenants who are in fuel poverty, they cannot afford to heat their homes to a level to compensate for having poor housing and I think what's required is a real culture shift and it's around looking at actually how is this housing emergency that we are in because of decades of underinvestment impacting on the lives of so many people and recognising that actually the structural solutions delivering the social homes but there's also the practice ones around actually holding to account social housing providers and private landlords to ensure they are doing everything they can to make sure that those homes are fit for purpose because if we don't address this what happens in terms of the wider social justice issues is we're never going to address child poverty, we're never going to improve health and education outcomes to the levels that we want to achieve in Scotland because if we have a set of housing stock that's so poor and not enough new social homes it's easier to blame the tenants because actually it's quite complicated to bring up to standard those homes that are poor quality and it's quite expensive so additional support and funding and accountability I would say are the three things that need to be prioritised and reinforced in the housing sector. Okay thank you for that debut is anyone else Yes so Emma? Yes so I think sadly we still hear a lot of tenants being blamed they're being blamed for not knowing how to cook potatoes, boil potatoes, not knowing how to shower or showering too much and that can also sort of come in with racist undertones or sexist undertones it really also exacerbates sort of other existing structural inequalities I think there's also a lot of stress from tenants being gaslighted oh it's your fault oh you don't know better etc so that also then creates this loop of sort of undermining your confidence in your own self and of being a good home provider and I think so yeah that continues to be the experience and I think it is a case um across social council and private housing and I said in I think what we're seeing and and needing more is the ability for tenants to be able to hold their landlords accountable for lack of response and so I think that's our greatest frustration as well is like if this was a workplace you would be able to get compensation for the impacts on your health for the impacts on your belongings and because it's your home you can't so maybe in council housing or in social housing you might be able to get sort of a bit of compensation for lost goods but nothing for the impacts on health and we've seen like the insane impacts on health they can have so that's one of the key things we believe is important to hold landlords accountable is that they should be able to provide compensation for like for their failures and tenants should be able to have very clear timeframes of how long this um yeah how long this issue is going to be handled for if it's a critical issue what's going to happen and if it doesn't happen in that time frame how much can they claim back and how much can they claim back for having been forced to live in substandard conditions so yes it's about investment but it's also about greater powers for tenants to be able to hold their landlords account okay thank you yes so unfortunately this is also the experience of many of the clients whose cases we looked at in preparation for the session but they're being blamed for their lifestyle for not ventilating for not eating properly but as has been mentioned by other colleagues on the panel this often links back to the problem of fuel poverty of high energy costs that people can't afford to heat their home adequately or lose heat through proper ventilation through no fault of their own which is why we were pleased to see additional funding being added to the fuel insecurity fund which will hopefully go some way in addressing this but also we have seen some development in this area our advisors are telling us in some local areas that better guidance has come out recently early in the Paisley and Aberdeen area among local councils in terms of how to diagnose the problem and the process that should be followed for each type of damp and mould and I think that is also the crux of the problem too it's often very difficult and often expensive to diagnose the cause of the damp and then to treat or damp and mould and then to get it treated properly and that's why we see so many not that it's excusable but that's why we see there's so many clients experiencing delays of months and often years and getting it sorted and resolved but as I say there has been development in this area there's local guidance that has gone out so we would like to see this replicated and spread it nationally so that approaches apply consistently that all landlords private and social know what to do but also more resources needed in this area we have examples of clients being told that there wasn't enough funding because these are social tenants or wasn't enough funding to resolve the problem they would have to wait until the next funding cycle to see if that could be resolved so definitely more funding is needed to address the problem as well. Shona, would you like to come in? Yes I would thank you sorry I can't get my chat function button to work properly yes I would I think it's really really it's awful that it's the tragedy down in England down south in England that's actually brought this to the attention of all landlords and all councils and it's really tragic that we've had to have this happen before it has come to the surface and hopefully now can be properly addressed as my colleagues have already said I mean that the tenant blaming thing I know personally and I know of other colleagues it's gone on for years because it was in a sense the easy way out and that's not to suggest that landlords were being completely irresponsible but I think the scale of the problem house building house design poor insulation all of this came into it and it's been like that for years and years and years decades so it's going to cost a huge amount of money and indeed some of the properties I'm quite sure really can't be brought up to the sort of standard we would expect in 2023 but people need homes where where are these people going to live are they going to continue to live in substandard properties it's a really huge huge task that the country the government and all housing providers face and it's really going to take a huge national effort to actually make any impact in this situation and yes it's great to see people making moves taking it more seriously but it's going to be years and years and loads and loads of cost to get this into a manageable way I really do believe that and in the meantime how our tenant's going to be coping that is a real worry because the fuel crisis is fuel poverty is here with us and it's not going anywhere soon and people can't afford to have heating on and they're perhaps keeping up windows that are drafty which is only going to exacerbate the problem so tenants and landlords need to talk about this together they need to both understand I think what the issues are for both sides and also what solutions there are but actually talk about it don't just hand your tenant a leaflet saying this is what you've been doing wrong this is how to fix it you need to find out are there any more benefits a tenant could perhaps be getting to make their life a little easier so it's not just throwing information at people and assuming they'll pick it up you have to sit down in partnership and discuss it with them thank you thanks very much shona for that shona thank you very much for that I wonder if I could just turn to the legislative framework here that surrounds all this and before I ask you about tenants rights and their awareness of their rights could could ask for your view on whether you agree that condensation dampness in mould are contained within the tolerable standard definition of a house and therefore enshrined in the housing quality standard as of all it's my belief that they are not and that that may be partly responsible for this problem perpetuating so maybe turn to you Debbie firstly is there an issue with the legislation there and are these issues about condensation in mould contained within the definition of tolerable standard of a house I think from our perspective we have the Scottish housing quality standard which within that it broadly encompasses damp and mould but it's not specific I would say so maybe there is something around that that that could be looked at in more detail I mean there have to be a tolerable standard be free from serious disrepair be energy efficient for example have modern facilities and services be healthy safe and secure so within all of those we should be able to capture the fact that actually damp and mould is contributing quite a few of those but maybe there's some more specifics that could be in the guidance for example around actually how do we hold to account landlords on both social side and private rented sector to say actually this has been breached now and measures have to be put in place to to rectify what's going on I would say from our point of view in terms of having a framework there and how tenants then go about using that framework in order to have their rights upheld quite difficult as has been already mentioned the private rented sector people are reluctant to really kick up a fuss in some instances because they know that potentially the landlord could could ask them to leave the property we also know that from the tenants who come to us having that framework in place is good but it's only as good as how you can use it effectively so we advise tenants for example you go to your landlord first that's the most important thing and you very quickly have to to notify them of any issues coming up in terms of damp and disrepair if that doesn't work one of the other remedies is go to the environmental health and try and get some support from them if that doesn't help them you can go to the court but when you have family struggling in very poor housing struggling with you know just trying to make ends meet the cost of living crisis has made all that worse trying to do all that on your own is incredibly difficult and time consuming and you have to have quite a lot of knowledge and confidence to be able to do it so I would say probably things could be strengthened and made more clear in the legislation but coupled with that we absolutely need to make sure that the system works for the tenants who if they come to us we have housing advisers who know all this and can support them but but we support a very small percentage of the tenants out there who need need that level of support. Thanks Debbie, you've got the others coming in. Yeah, if I wanted to come in. Thank you yes I can't echo Debbie's comments enough I agree that clarification would be helpful in terms of the terminology and definition however I think the biggest problem for us and particularly in regards to private tenants is timescales and timescales being unclear as to when things should be resolved. Again I said before that some of our clients have waited years for issues to be resolved within their homes and another big issue is that most of our clients just want to move on and some do they'll be waiting for local housing lists or we'll find another private let and that just leaves the problem unresolved and passes it on and just prolongs the issue but going back to my point getting a sort of a clear timescale that issues should be resolved within would be really helpful and make it clearer for tenants what they should expect in this process but absolutely echo that the process as it stands can be confusing time consuming and difficult to do without help from organisations such as ourselves or Shelper Scotland. Yes so I think the tolerable standards does mention rising or penetrating damp but it doesn't really mention specifically mould or it sort of yeah it doesn't really understand the impact as well of mould and I think the if I'm correct a repairing standard does not mention it so that could be slight amendments to to both of these standards but in I think as a vision what we think across all housing so public council and private they should just be standardised processes and standardised time frames so tenants should know that if they raise a mould or damp issues it takes three days or 24 hours for their landlord to respond and the landlord needs to respond by having an evaluation that outlines like the seriousness of the problem if it's structural if it's not and then having a clear timescale to address that and then again I'll reiterate the point but if they don't follow that timescale there needs to be clear penalties because otherwise especially for private landlords there's just no incentive to follow the timescale like and and that's why I think we see some of the problems being the most long-standing in private housing because landlords just don't have an incentive to to do anything so I think it's both about yeah the standards and making them clear and also ensuring that tenants can enforce it in terms of knowing our rights I think everyone knows that it's not normal to live in a house that makes you physically ill but the problem is that it's incredibly hard to get your landlord to move on that because they don't have an incentive to thanks very much thank you back to you okay we're now going to move on to questions from Annie Wells thank you can be now good morning good morning panel Emma just touched on it just briefly there about the repairing standard as well so I would like to ask a question specifically related to private rented housing what are the views about how effective the repairing standard is as a way of ensuring quality rented homes and also how effective is the tribunal process as a dispute resolution over disputes about the repairing standard and if I come to Ifa first on that one please you sure thank you for that question in terms of how effective the repairing standard is we think it's a good start it could be built upon as I was saying it could be clearer in terms of expectations around timescales and who exactly should be doing what and within what timescales in terms of the first tier tribunal we believe it's underutilised we in our experiences many clients don't want to do it as I talked about before it's time consuming it's confusing the forms provided are quite confusing as well to do and complete without help so there's an accessibility issue there in encouraging people to use the processes that are open to them and again people find it difficult to to do these things without help from ourselves and similar organisations and so this could definitely be improved upon could be could be better utilised definitely I think you're on Emma. Oh sorry I didn't hear that I think there was an issue with my connection and so yeah I think as said around the repairing standards is just not specific enough like the wind and water tight what what does that really mean and that something must be tolerable what what does that really mean that there should be a reasonable timeframe to do repairs if reasonable means two years that's just not okay so a lot of things need to be tidied up and clarified so that tenants really know what they can expect from their landlords and I think we would echo Ifa's comment around the tribunal it is hard to access just because which form there is a hundred and six through on the website or a few more maybe and you're like which one works and then it's about sort of how even if you go to tribunal then the tribunal can issue an order for the landlord to do the repairs and then if the landlord doesn't do it you can then get a rent relief order but so it's like three process to really start hitting the landlord where it hurts which is the money and so it just means that tenants can wait for a very long time to have repairs done and then still be living in substandard accommodation and still be paying full rent for it and I think that's that's just really not okay so yeah that's where we would really want the tribunal to be more effective or sort of tenants to be able to sort of yeah have a rent compensation straight up as soon as repairs aren't done there should be an automatic sort of rent relief order rather than tenants having to apply for it and potentially wait very long for it thanks thanks Emma I'm just showing I'm just gonna see you haven't indicated but I just want to see if you wanted to come in on Annie's question well obviously the tenants that I represent are in the social housing sector I'm not the private housing sector I'm really sorry I'm just not getting this chat function to work at all I did want to come in previously to say that I'm talking about the time scales I completely agree with that they need to be there need to be time scales that tenants are made aware of and they need to be met I wonder actually if the housing regulators the SHR could come in to this I'm wondering you know of indicators in the housing charter if there might be perhaps new indicators that that would take account of this and would actually you know be something landlord would have to complete in an annual basis you know the number of dam cases they had and the timescales timescales were being met and how many were not being met in those timescales thank you thanks very much you know yes we're gonna be hearing from the housing regulator in two weeks time so that's a good point we can put to them Debbie did you want to come in on this mostly just to reiterate what was said actually it's around equity of access to the tribunal in particular for private tenants to ensure that they are it was set up to enable that but actually there's still quite a few issues which is around difficulties of understanding it having awareness etc and also the accountability side obviously is crucial because actually you can have all the legislation in the world but actually if if landlords are not held accountable for providing the homes which are of a good good standard then actually tenants are not gonna gonna go through that sort of process to make to make things better thank you and thank you can be no thanks any now we're going to go to questions from miles briggs nice to my question good morning thank you for for joining us the Scottish housing regulator and other organisations recently published a briefing on how social housing sector can respond to problems of dampness and mould and we've touched on this just now i just wondered if there is anything else that might be useful for landlords or tenants to help improve how they respond to complaints and specifically the tenants charter which we recently approved as a committee and what else could be included in that shona you touched upon new indicators but just wondering if any if there's anything else people want to to raise on that Debbie will bring you in definitely the tenants charter but i think shona will probably come in and give a bit more detail on that but it's um for me i think the key one of the key things is we need to support the landlords to be able to make these changes and make sure that we have quality homes and that that includes having the the funding available for building the social homes and also upgrading current homes without one impacting on the other because we need both and it's that targeted approach that's required i think what we're looking at is we can have charters and we can have legislation but actually if things aren't happening action isn't isn't brought forward in terms of enabling them to do what is required i don't think any landlord wants to put their tenants in awful properties there is no choice at the minute so it's having that support and the funding available and delivered and targeted where it's needed i think that is really crucial thanks Emma wanted to come in Emma yes hello i think um it would be good to have follow-up surveys to make sure that six months after the issue is not coming back again and to make sure that it's really well addressed um i we agree with um what Debbie just said about funding and that should be both sort of around specific if it's specific funding part around retrofits but also sort of a bit of innovative or cross-tenure funding because in some instances the difficulty is that there'll be different landlords there'll be a social landlord there'll be private landlords there'll be council landlords and then it's really really difficult to renovate the whole block when it's a whole block issue and then lastly i know that wasn't totally part of the question but just making sure that ventilation is part of the building standards and that especially for retrofits when they do happen there's an awareness of potential issues around ventilation because we've also seen new builds that have really good insulation then be poorly insulated poorly ventilated apologies and then there's still condensation in this mould that develops thanks for that and shona would you like to come in on this one yes i would like to come in on this one yes um it this is such a huge problem it's certainly we can't just sort of say to landlords right you've got to deal with this and then walk away um landlords are going to need to be really supported in this particularly in terms of funding because i really do believe it's a huge problem country wide um and it's getting something done about this quickly that is going to be the real challenge um i mean most landlords that i'm aware of are putting strategies into place to deal with this the problems of damp and walled in our timely fashion but will it be timely enough um and also and will it just address the symptoms and not the actual underlying cause of it this is something that really will be challenging both in terms of money and time um i think also we have to think about landlords are undertaking stock surface a lot a lot of them just now in terms of the fabric first approach to carbon zero um a lot of these stock surface i'm sure will highlight the issues and the problems about around insulation and ventilation but again can landlords do these quickly enough to really be effective um i'm not sure and i think i was thinking that this was with the shr might come into play in terms of what if it was part of the annual return on the chapter then they really the landlords really would have to specify how many cases of damp and walled they were dealing with and what their sort of timescales were dealing with them where and whether they were meeting these timescales or not um will that be enough i don't know because it's a huge challenge thank you thanks thanks thank you thanks miles and we're now going to move on to questions from marie magnare thank you convener good morning panel um there's got one question how is the cost of living impacting on the problems of dampness and mold in homes and is there any kind of further suggestions of support that might help tenants through the cost of living crises and energy costs and how is the ending of the uk government support with fuel costs going to impact and i'll direct my question first to ifar yes so um there is definitely a link between the cost of living crisis and um this issue of damp and mould as i've said before a lot of our recent clients who've had damp and mold have specifically referred to their problems affording high energy costs although we have seen clients especially clients with children in these situations just use um eating despite the really high cost and the fact that it's putting them into into debt and to try and stave off the problem and keep their family well um so there's definitely a strong impact um of the cost of living crisis and people are really feeling um the pinch around this um any in terms of any further support um it would be great to see further funding for funds like the fuel insecurity fund although that's just for for housing associations so um wider support would be really welcome as well and definitely in the form of fuel vouchers and such um in terms of the impact of the rescinding of uk support without a doubt that's going to have a huge impact so um we're keen that more ideas are developed to keep supporting households because the cost of living crisis um it is definitely not over. Thank you. Anyone else wants to come on? Debbie? Debbie? Yeah I think um really good question and I think in the context of a growing housing emergency where even more people are now homeless and struggling and having to live in temporary accommodation as well as unsuitable accommodation it is significant because that housing emergency has already been exacerbated by the pandemic and the impact that's had had now the cost of living crisis and I think we're looking at evidence which shows that this year we're going to have half of all households and social rented sector in extreme fuel poverty so we're looking at our winter coming up which is going to be really really difficult for them I mean some people some of those people will be in accommodation which which won't have the damp and mould issues but actually when you look at the scale of the issue we are looking at significant problems for people who are struggling with this cost of living crisis because not only have obviously the heating bills gone up which which impacts on the mould and damp but you know the food bills have gone up everything else has gone up so people are really struggling um and we know it's really difficult for them and I think that you know equally private tenants are struggling as well we know there's there's you know high poverty levels within the private rented sector there's a lot of people living in that sector who would by choice if it was available be living in social housing which by and large is more affordable but they're not they're having to live in the private rented sector because there aren't the social homes in the right places for them so yes it's you know it's difficult enough now it's going to get harder and more support will be required to enable people to live a life where they're not thriving but actually hopefully not having the impacts so much on their health and wellbeing Shona, your mother in the head do you want to come in as well on that? Who is that Shona? Shona? Oh sorry my apologies I'm sorry yes I do it's having a huge effect on people at the moment the cost of living crisis and it's physical things as my colleagues have said you know about not being able to afford the heating, struggling to put food on the table and it's the amount of stress that that must put on someone's mental health having to cope with that you know worrying about feeding their children worrying if their children are becoming ill because the house isn't warm enough I mean it's absolutely horrendous I think again landlords again have to be able to offer as much support as they possibly can and having you know an advice a welfare advice and money debt team within the landlord so that these services can be offered to tenants and so that the tenants can receive the absolute maximum of benefits that they're able to claim I think that's hugely important too apart from anything else if you can do that for your tenant then hopefully you'll be able to continue to pay their rent above all particularly I think you're making their life a bit more tolerable if you're showing them understanding of their issues and their problems thank you thank you Emma wanted to come in as well yeah I think I'll just echo that the cost of living crisis is still really really yeah an everyday reality for all of our members and I think it will get worse this coming winter because um yeah yeah the issue is just not going away and I think for us what that also calls for is just understanding that housing costs is a total it's rent and fuel bills and council tax and so when we talk about housing affordability it's really looking at all of it together and I think in terms of what has been done I think the emergency rent freeze has I think had an impact instead of tempering the worst successes and I think we would be concerned as well of a premature end of a rent freeze when energy bills are going to continue to rise and then they could just be this perfect storm of rising rents rising bills and just tenants with no money at all left for food thank you to convener thanks back to yourself thanks Marie and now I'm going to bring in Ivan McKee thanks convener and just remind the committee of my declaration of interest with regard to private rented property thanks very much for coming along this morning the two areas I was wanting to focus on were around about the potential for a new common housing standard and get your perspective on that and also any thoughts you have on the design of new homes and retrofitting of existing homes I think but we've touched on on some aspects of that and how those designs have got the potential to to help with the mitigation of dampness and the and more problems and ensuring they're minimised so I don't know Debbie if you want to maybe start with your thoughts on either of those aspects yes can give some sort of general comment to it definitely a new common housing standard would be welcome and I know there's been ongoing work looking at that and it's something that would be of interest but again it's the accountability it's the enforcement it's the implementation that's crucial in terms of making it work and yes design of new homes and retrofitting you know what we always say is we need the quality social housing homes in order to reduce housing need that's absolutely vital and that includes the the standards that will allow people to to live in it without high fuel builds you know it's all the normal things that have been talked about for a long time but what it requires is is the funding and we know obviously social housing providers and builders are struggling with the additional costs at the minute the cost of living has not only affected tenants it's affected how we deliver those new social homes so it's about ensuring that actually the the funding is available to deliver those quality social homes where they're required and I think that's really important because some of the housing stock can be retrofitted and brought back up to to spec to to deliver those homes which allow people to thrive and to deliver a good life but I suspect some of the stock obviously is actually probably gone past that point where it's actually incredibly expensive to retrofit and bring up to to to that level and we need to obviously councils make these choices every day but it's about ensuring that this there isn't a pause we're starting to see starts of new social homes going down and we're looking at actually things have slowed down because of the impact of the cost of living crisis as well so all of those sort of more the wider structural issues are really important specifics that you think you'd want to see in a new common housing standard I think at the moment I probably don't have anything specific but it might be that at a later date when we've looked to more detail as we could come back to you okay thanks very much Emma do you want to come in on either of those points yes we would be in favour of a common housing standards and I think some local authorities some housing associations have more specific guidance for instance around mold and damp where they're say within 48 hours someone will get in touch they say then that person will do a survey they will classify the issue in three types of issues if it's sort of superficial more in depth or structural and then they'll have a timeline for each issue so I think that's the much better practice and could really really benefit private sector tenants where there's nothing of the like I think as said it would be really about sort of the implementation of that standard and its enforcement and the ability for tenants to feel able to enforce it in terms of new homes and retrofits we really feel like yes it should be the best practice designs especially for a sort of social housing and local authority housing that we really want to see as like the best housing in Scotland but with an awareness around ventilation we'd be interested to see if there could be any like pilot scheme to have public sector vehicles to deliver some of that retrofit or sort of council-led vehicles to deliver some of that repairs as well so that there's also that in-house local authority knowledge around how to do best practice retrofits how to do best practice retrofits and then a bit of awareness around again sort of what to do with mixed tenure blocks because that remains one of the harder areas where potentially there'll be home owners who do not have a lot of money who will face very high bills through retrofits and who might need to then sell their home or just get into massive amount of debt etc so just understanding how best to address these complex situations around mixed tenure blocks. Okay so in terms of the common housing standard it says much or probably more if I'm hearing you correctly about timelines and process and implementation as it is about new technical requirements as such. I think it's a bit hard without seeing it but I think for instance technical requirements around ventilation might be important to have and sort of technical requirements around humidity levels into a house as well so that tenants can do their own sort of tests and be like hey my house doesn't meet that might be useful. Okay it's good thanks very much. Ifa? I just wanted to come in quickly on the common housing standard point in principle yes we would agree with that it shouldn't matter what tenure you live in you should expect the same standard of housing to live in or at least minimum standards again yes needs to be backed up by funding our concern would be though and that's been mentioned before around enforcement there are substandard properties already in the market and particularly in the private rented sector and mostly in the private rented sector that aren't being enforced against we don't think that councils with first tier tribunal have the resources to enforce properly or remove these properties from the market and so they'll just keep getting used they'll keep getting away with sort of renting out poor standards so that the crux of this is really around resourcing proper enforcement to make sure that these substandard properties don't continue to be to be rented out okay thank you and shona yes thank you on the common housing standard yes I think it sounds ideal but again I would just agree with what's been said before I'm not sure who would monitor it who would enforce it and I'm not sure where the money would come from to do this so I think that's really really an awkward one retrofit is is a huge issue going forward again I think a lot of tenants feel that there has not really been enough research done into what would work and what doesn't work I know there has been some in in some areas but in many ways it's kind of a feeling that you're being experimented on that we're the ones who are going to have to face you know changes in our homes and we're talking major changes if your heating systems removed and a new one put in and is there really enough evidence to suggest that this new heating system will be a better and be at an economical price I'm not sure there is a no certainly for the tenants I represent it's a huge worry that we seem to be facing this first and we we do wonder about it I think a lot more work needs to go on and to identifying exactly what the sort of systems that will work should be and also when it comes to homeowners and mixed tenure it's going to be really difficult to get a solution say in a tenement block where there's a mixture of tenure okay is there a concern there then that a builder retrofit standard that improves insulation might actually make ventilation worse is that part of the concern well that's part of the concern I think the cost to I mean it's kind of in the first instance it seemed to have been sold that this will make it much less expensive for you to heat your home and be comfortable but will it because service seem to suggest that that might not actually be the case and as you say will there be good insulation and good ventilation will there be heating systems that tenants know how to work because I'm certainly aware of houses that were built with a brand new heating system the sort of a gold standard a few years ago but the system tenants couldn't make the heating system work effectively for them therefore it was very costly and was not viewed well okay thanks very much thank you thanks Ivan and thanks everybody that's the end of our questions really appreciate the evidence that you've given today I think it's been really important for us to hear that I'm now going to suspend briefly to allow for a change of our witnesses we're now joined by our second panel and in the room we've got Caroline Lochhead who's the director of external affairs at the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and online by John Blackwood who's the chief executive of Scottish Housing Association of Landlords John Kerr who's the co-chair of the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers Alacho and Timothy Douglas who's the head of policy and campaigns at Property Mark and thank you for joining us this morning I'm going to ask the same questions that I asked the previous panel around the scale of the problem and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the scale of the problem of dampness and mould in housing for example is it more prevalent in particular housing types geographical areas and maybe I'll start with Caroline because you're in the room thank you and thanks for the invitation to be here today I think from our point of view so obviously housing associations which as you know are charities they're not for profit bodies they worked really hard to try and avoid these kind of issues and we know that the statistics we have says that 99% of social homes met the tolerable standard which you've been talking about this morning in 2019 so the statistics would suggest that in social homes that generally the standard of accommodation is good now that's not to say that where there are problems that they are not very serious and should not be taken seriously clearly they should and the the briefing that we produced that's been referenced already this morning putting safety first along with some of our partners was very clear that where damp and mould does arise it's a serious issue it is really difficult to live with excuse me and it has to be taken very seriously you asked about geography and I think what we what we would understand is that there's probably more of an issue in remote and rural areas where for example there was some research actually that came out from changeworks last week that talked about you have a greater proportion of older and less energy efficient properties particularly different types of construction which can be harder to retrofit it can be very expensive to retrofit you also tend to have houses that are larger and more isolated more exposed to wet and windy weather and isolated properties also obviously have the issue of more heat loss because they're not benefiting from neighbouring properties so I think we would say in terms of geography there's a particular issue in remote and rural areas thanks very much okay can I bring in john thank you very much for inviting us first of all to speak this morning with regards to geographical area I couldn't say we can pinpoint any particular problem in any part of Scotland I think our experience is pretty mixed throughout the whole of Scotland but I would like to add that we've seen a significant increase in calls from our landlord members about this really problem so in all the years that we've been providing a helpline service to our members I have to say we've had more calls about dampness and mould this winter than in any previous winter so there's been a significant increase and that's largely of course with landlords coming to us saying I'm concerned about this and don't know how to react we've never had a problem with previous tenants living in our properties experiencing this have we couldn't let the property for many years why is it an issue now and and these are the issues that we've been talking to our members about there's certainly been a significant increase this year thanks and John Kerr thank you and on behalf of the actual delighted to be here to talk to the sick committee this morning and a very important issue in terms of the sick question sick convener I maybe echo that some of the comments made by Tic Carline in terms of the social rented sector probably in terms of geographic issues it's probably not a concern and a Tic Carline's point in terms of the rural and more remote area I think in terms of homes where the issue is prevalent and it's maybe one of the the symptoms in such terms such prevention it's like we are regulations relatively sort of poor the there can be sort of that can be a cause in such terms a highlight in this dampened mold issue there so it's going forward but don't think there's any sort of particular house type or like a home location that's more prevalent and in such terms of the issue the issue has been written to the floor I mean it's not obviously the committee understands the new issue it's been with us for for many years but it has become more sort of prevalent in certain ways at recent times obviously it's a tragic case then in such a rochedale sort of put a high on this public agenda sort of going forward and I think it was good and listened to some of the those given evidence today just to highlight and then it was good to the the reference to the the publication the briefing note put in safety first was highlighted as well because I think that the issue warranted a response from landlords that's going forward based on the increased awareness an increased issue and a similar that like we just discussed earlier in terms of the cost of living sort of crisis and tenants being unable to keep their properties proportionately going forward but that's probably where I was at a stand at the moment thank you thanks very much and Timothy thank you very much good morning committee thank you very much for the invitation to give evidence today I think we would proper mark agree with the other contributors I mean the full extent you know of how many homes are affected by dampen mold is unclear I think you know the form is data sets but that being said from conversations we've had with proper mark members across Scotland we don't have you know extended evidence suggests the issue is you know drastic hugely problematic across the target red sector however you know proper mark recognises you know seriousness of the issue and the first signs of dampen mold should be tackled quickly and I think there's probably four areas that agents letting agents have reported back towards you know dampen mold can come from the fabric of the building it can be as a result of how property is being lived in poor ventilation in in certain rooms and throughout the property and poor insulation that the property has as a whole so I think as other contributors has said you know we don't have evidence of specific property or geographical areas but there are some of the or I suppose combination of factors so the problem is spread across these areas I don't think there's a simple answer it's a combination of those four factors Okay, thanks very much. My next question is directed specifically to Caroline and John. The housing of Ombusman's follow-up report on dampness in English social housing noted that one clear area that landlords in England needed to improve is the knowledge of their stock. I'd be interested to hear how social landlords currently monitor dampness problems in properties in Scotland and are you content that social landlords know their stock well enough to take proactive action to deal with potential dampness problems? I'll start with John and come to you. Thanks, chair. I think you're right in the Ombusman report and then also the briefing that was published by Alacio, SFHA, SIA Scotland and the SHR did recognise that issue and have had a good approach to asset management in terms of dealing with that issue and one of the conclusions and recommendations for social landlords to take on board. If they're not already concerned with some social landlords, we're already in such a top of this with undertake proactive assessments of stock condition and then very much taken that informed approach, a risk-based approach to prioritise, focus on properties that may have been susceptible to damp and mould issues in the past. One of the issues that I highlighted earlier on today was about that on-going record keeping, which is something that social landlords can improve on. More on more, I think, to be a positive role model landlord in terms of that issue, but on all asset management issues, we should all be taking a proactive customer-focused approach to wider asset management and wider asset management including the damp and mould problems that were kept at a minimum. I'm aware of many local authorities and other local authorities and registered social landlords investing in their stock and looking at taking a proactive view and introducing environmental monitors so that you're more of a proactive approach to tackling that damp and mould very much at an early stage so that you can record what's happening in the home in terms of humidity levels, et cetera. I think that breaking it down is effective asset management and the ambition that is sitting down in England is bang on and it's reflected in the briefing that was produced here. Obviously, that's going to be further informed. A further briefing will go out to give assurance to Government bodies of registered social landlords and housing committees and local authorities that are leadership as well. I think that the sense that I get from our members as I go around the country visiting them is that they have a good knowledge of their stock, a good working knowledge of the condition that it's in. Certainly, we know how many housing association properties meet things like the Scottish housing quality standard. We have some figures and we know that our members have to report on things like, for example, their emergency repairs time, their non-emergency repairs time, so there are some figures there. However, we did take the opportunity in the briefing that we produced with Elaccio and with our other partners to re-emphasise the importance of that doing proactive assessments of stock conditions, so not always waiting until somebody reports a problem, actually proactively managing your stock. One of the things that we particularly emphasised was the importance of having a void assessment, so that is when someone moves on from a property, it becomes void, it becomes empty. Taking that opportunity to really go in and have a look and have a checklist that would include things like checking fans, checking ventilation systems, because those are things, of course, that can contribute to it to dampen mold. Voids are quite an important part of doing this because it means you can get easy access to the property. Doing a proactive stock assessment survey of all of your stock requires tenants to give you access to their home, which quite reasonably they might not always want to do, so void seemed like quite a particularly important thing to emphasise. Thanks very much for that. We're now going to move on to questions from Willie Coffey. Thanks very much. Again, convener, and I wonder if I could lead on the same issues that I was asking the previous panel and perhaps to start with yourself, John Kerr. It's really about this issue about what extent the tenants are responsible in terms of their lifestyle for the conditions that they live in, in their homes, and we're talking specifically, of course, about condensation, dampness and mold. You'll be aware that the Ombudsman in England issued a warning to social landlords to avoid blaming tenants for that condition. Do you recognise that that is still an issue in Scotland that, in many cases, we say to our tenants that it's their lifestyle that's causing condensation, dampness and mold in their homes? Thanks very much for that question. It's a good question, and I would be extremely disappointed across the social rented sector if there was still a culture of blaming tenants. That's not to say that it doesn't exist, but in terms of a latchhole's position, and in terms of the position that's put in the beefing note that was published back in February, I would say that blaming tenants is not appropriate, but it's also ineffective in terms of dealing with the problem. One of the clear things in being a good effective landlord, to be a private landlord or a social landlord, is to encourage tenants to report issues within their homes so that they can have that proactive response to get in and solve the issue as soon as possible. I think that a blame culture would work against that going forward. If you were an effective landlord, I would go against you going forward. It would lead to astigmatisation and so on, and it would lead to tenants being reluctant to come forward, and maybe going back to the convener's earlier question, it's an effective asset managing that wouldn't be good for the landlord going forward. I'm not daft enough to say that it doesn't exist, but I think that that's our culture and it's a professionalism of the sector that we'll be driving out, and certainly it's a publication of the situation document and the amount of that, so hopefully that answers your question. I agree with what John John has said. The briefing that we put out earlier in the year was very clear that tenants should be listened to and supported. Issues should be tackled and that our members need to tackle both problems with the property and with the actual experience of living in the property, so we're very clear that if a problem is being reported you have to find the root cause of the problem and tackle it, and I think that that is what our members are very keen to do. It's undeniable that the experience of living in a property, just the day-to-day, all of us as we go about our business in our homes, it does have an effect on the property, but you should be able to live in your property, you should be able to carry out reasonable activities within your property, so I think there's no question that we do need to focus on tackling the actual issue and where it's appropriate, supporting tenants to understand how they might be able to minimise the effect of how they live, but that's very different from blaming people and it's about finding the root cause, tackling the root cause and taking action wherever it's necessary. Thank you for that, Caroline. John Blackwood. Yeah, just to reiterate really in that voice really from the private rented sector, I don't think there's anything aimed for by the landlord effectively blaming the tenant here for an essentially a problem here, which is in everyone's interest effects, so I think that every landlord and tenant would be keen to find a solution to this problem and I think that's what we should be working towards rather than entering into some kind of blame game. Something that was quite interesting from your earlier session was a witness was saying, often it's very difficult to diagnose what the problem is with regards to this condensation or is it dampness, is it rising damp etc. I think that we really need to knuckle down on the root causes of the problem and find solutions as to how we can best empower landlords to take appropriate action and make sure that tenants are well informed as to what can happen and what will happen to eradicate and sort that problem. Thank you for that, John. Before I just ask you about your views about tenants' rights in the legislative framework and so on, I wonder if I could come back to John Kerr and ask this specific question. Do you agree, John, that condensation, dampness and mould are not defined within the tolerable rights standard for a house and so it's therefore entirely possible for a councillor, an association or anyone to allocate a house to a family that suffers from condensation, dampness and mould and for that to be entirely appropriate in this day and age? I think that it's not appropriate for a property that doesn't meet a certain standard to be allocated in terms of a responsible social landlord. I think that the first part of your question, in terms of the different standards, could be tighter, including damp and mould, because there's the definition and the same kind of supply. However, for any appropriate social landlord, for that matter, private land would be very inappropriate and it wouldn't be good practice at all to be allocated a property that suffers from condensation and dampness. Caroline made a good point earlier on one of those questions in terms of tackling issues at the void stage. A whole void assessment would be looking at that dampness and mould issue as well. That would be the appropriate time. If it was discovered that there was an issue with that home at that particular time, the responsible landlord would ensure that that was rectified prior to allocating that property. However, I get your point in terms of the legislation that could allow for that, but the professionals in terms of the social framework and the revenue sector wouldn't allow that to happen and there's good checks and balances put in place that are further strengthened by the briefing note that was published by the various partners earlier this year. Caroline, do you have a view on that, whether it's possible in this day and age that houses can be allocated in these conditions? I quite agree with John that it wouldn't be appropriate for them to be allocated in that condition. Your question is about does the tolerable standard cover it. My reading of it is the tolerable standard covers rising damp, penetrating damp and it makes reference to insulation. I think that your point is should it make reference to mould and damp specifically. I would need to talk to our members about what view we would take on that. Would there be issues with it? How practical is that? I couldn't give you an answer. I would need to have that conversation. Thanks for that, Caroline. Is there any other panel members wanting to assist with their view on that? No. Okay, just broadly in terms of tenants' rights, do we think that tenants fully understand their rights and so on and how to exercise those rights and do you think that landlords by and large work with their tenants to enable them to exercise those rights fully? Caroline, my view start with you. Sure. On the question of tenants awareness, we don't represent tenants. I think that it would be wrong of me to try and give you some sort of view on that. I think that in terms of how our members work with their tenants, they do work closely with their tenants, they communicate closely with their tenants to try and make them aware in a number of different formats, so whether it's written, whether it's through face-to-face meetings, whether it's through things like social media, our members do try and work quite hard to make sure that tenants know what they should expect, what their rights are, how the whole system works. I mean, I'm sure, having said that we don't represent tenants, I'm sure there can always be greater awareness of what rights are. I think everyone would support that and particularly I think around the right to repair, which I think was mentioned earlier, I think that's quite an important right. I certainly don't hear people talk about it as much as we might like, so that's about where a repair costs up to £350. There are already set timescales for which those repairs should be carried out, so it's seven working days if it's a broken extractor fan, that kind of thing. So there are probably specific things around that could be talked about more, but certainly our members work very hard to make sure that they are communicating with their tenants in a way that makes sense for the tenant to help them understand what they should be expecting. I think that Carlyam has covered most about one of the sticky things in terms of the document that I referred to a few times was about the responsibility on the good effect of social landlord to encourage tenants to report issues. I think that that's about working effectively with the tenants that are going forward as well, making sure that they are aware of their responsibilities as we do in terms of their on-going engagement as well. I think that a key part of that is to ensure that there's effective staff training, so there's a professionalism within the sector that's going forward, that staff are aware of the obligations that they've got, but in terms of tenant participation that's going forward. So I think that there is a lot of good effective work out there, but I think that in terms of the sectorist that, in case of not resting their laurels, keep one set of building on that and that particular link making sure that tenants are aware of their responsibilities in such terms are important, but there's no blockages to that, but we encourage them in all the interactions we have with tenants going forward. Thank you. Thanks John. I'll just invite any other witnesses to offer a view on tenants' rights and how we can exercise, such tenants to exercise those rights. John Blackwood, do you want to come in on that? Yeah, I think perhaps the private renter sector is slightly different, of course, where you've put many changes in the last few years with regards to the introduction of a new tenancy regime, which is very much focused on giving more rights to tenants and, importantly, more information to tenants. The Scottish Government has a lot of information which is available through their website to tenants about their rights and access to justice as well. We've come quite far in the PRS specifically with regard to support to tenants, which is freely available to them, but, again, not representing tenants, I'm not the best person to talk about what sort of information they benefit from and they would like to see. Thanks John. Anyone else in the panel want to come in on that? Timothy, do you want to come in on that? Thank you. I think perhaps just to go back a step and I think just to reiterate what was said in the opening session well and I think to build on what I said in my opening in comments. I think in terms of trying to put policy and legislate in this area, I think it's important to recognise that there's a combination of factors. Therefore, it's not just a one-size-fits-all answer. In the first answer alert us of those four areas. It could be the fabric of the building, it could be the way the property is lived in, the ventilation or poor insulation. Therefore, if you take that a step forward, in a multi-occupied building, the ground floor, for instance, that could be the damper, of course, as eroded or not even there, if the damper and the moulds come through the skirting boards. Therefore, that would fall within the landlord's responsibility. Also, if the landlord was looking perhaps to sell, didn't want to engage with the process, then that would appear on the home report as a way of not being able to sell that property. If it's a first and second floor property that could be due to lack of ventilation or the tent behaviour, or external harling, a gable end, wind and rain that's coming in. If it's on the top floor, that could be an issue with the roof. Therefore, you're looking at the roof insurance. Again, if you're in a house, if it's coming from the ground up, that could determine the fabric, whereas if it's coming from a room or a bathroom, perhaps, with a lack of ventilation, that's again structure but also behaviour. Therefore, it needs to be taken into consideration that there isn't just simply a one-size-fits-all answer to this, and it was alluded to in the first session that all parties need to work together. There's an issue around the types of housing, the lived-in experience, but from a letting agent point of view, if it is the fabric of the building, when they're winning that instruction, landlord, and there were problems with damp and mould identified, then they wouldn't touch it or where they would put pressure on the landlord in order to get that resolved before taking on that instruction. That is very clear in the letting agent code of practice, which links back to the repair and standard. Therefore, there are areas that need to be in the mind of policymakers and looking at some of the existing checks and balances, certainly from the letting agent point of view that exists even before the property is on the market. The evidence that we received from Shelter contained photos of clients' homes showing real dampness problems that still hadn't been fully resolved by the landlords. In what I would like to know is how common do you think is for tenants to have to live with such severe examples of damp and mould for so long? Do you have any examples of good practices to how landlords tunicate and respond to complaints about dampness? I think that, obviously, it's in the landlord's interests to fix these problems, and we would encourage every landlord to do so. Our experience so far is providing a helpline service to our members as landlords who are approaching us. In every single case, they have been coming to us saying, I don't know what to do here, I don't know what the problem is, where do I go to get information, etc. Over the years, we have built up guidance notes for landlords to let them understand what is condensation, what is dampness, because that's complex in itself. The next stage is what information you give to your tenant, how you communicate with your tenant, how you visit the property and inspect the property, how you are going to follow up on that problem to make sure that you do, hopefully, find out what the cause of the problem is but, more importantly, resolve the issue. That is what we have been working closely with our members on, especially in the last winter, but, as you can imagine, every winter this is an issue. So, where we are now is, of course, I think that we do need to be thinking very much with regards to what can we do to prevent this becoming a bigger problem next year. People are very conscious of the bills. One thing, the big feedback that we were getting from our tenants was that they weren't switching on their heating at all and, of course, that was causing a problem. The reason why is because they were terrified about the bills that they might incur as a result of turning on their heating. We hope that the next winter won't be as bad, but it could be, so we need to find solutions to those underlying problems and encourage landlords to engage with their tenants to find solutions. I think that building on what I said in the last point, the role of the letting agent ultimately would start with winning the instruction. There, the fabric of the building would be working with the landlord in order to ensure that it is ready to be marketed. Before taking instructions, as I said, it is outlined in the letting agent order practice. If an agent is taking on a property to let out, they are going to do, in pre-inspection of that property, an inventory at the check-in, that will feed into the checkout report at the end of tenancy. At the start of the tenancy, there will be given information pack, tenants and, on the whole, agents fully managing property will be doing checks in month three, month nine, ensuring twice a year, according to all the details. Again, that is set out in the letting agent order practice. Where we have had conversations with letting agents is that if the tenant flags an issue relating to Dampen mould, the letting agent would investigate that. As John has alluded to, it would obtain a professional quote. If it is severe, Dampen mould is certainly not trained level, but it would take photos, get a detailed report from that professional quote, collect the evidence and that professional quote would ultimately outline some of the start to outline the reasons as to why there is Dampen mould in the property. That would be sent to both parties. As I said too early, if the landlord wanted to sell and did not want to deal with the issue, it would appear in the home report that would be picked up as a means to get an extra enforcement to get that property up to standards. That is certainly from conversations with our agents. They understand the seriousness of it. They will be doing pre- and in-tenancy checks and reacting to the issue as soon as possible and obtaining professional quotes to resolve the matter. I am referring back to the publication document. There are a couple of good practical examples in that. East and Berkshire Council referred to the Kailin-Lacal housing association. We had a session back in the beginning of February prior to the launch of that publication, and that brought in a couple of other housing providers. Perth and Canos Council were there as well in terms of this and good practice. In terms of LACCO and SFHA, we are collating the various and good practice out there. I think that the publication was more about the consistency of dealing with the issue. I think that it is quite clear that a good landlord should be responding promptly, should be assessing each issue and should be treating the problem. One thing that resonated to me this morning from the discussion—I cannot remember who spoke about it—was that follow-up issue. You can treat it immediately, but you have to follow-up in three or six months to make sure that you have dealt with the root cause and that the problem has not resurfaced. That is quite a gate to ensuring that success in dealing with Wendamford-Moll, so thank you. The question is about how common that kind of situation is. Obviously, I do not know what the source of those photos are. I cannot really comment on those. We certainly do know, as I said earlier, that 99 per cent of social homes met the tolerable standard. We know that 9 out of 10 tenants report being satisfied with the homes and services that their RSL provides. We also know that 93 per cent of RSLs are compliant with the energy efficiency and social housing standards. The statistics would suggest that this is not common, but that does not help you if you are actually living with those conditions. I absolutely recognise that. I think that is why it is important that, where something like that does happen, it is addressed quickly, that the other part of your question was about examples of good practice. Certainly, within SFHA, we have a programme called technology enabling care in housing programme, which we host on behalf of the Scottish Government. There is some good practice coming out of that about using technology to monitor what is happening in a home and find the root cause. There are both housing associations and councils involved in that. It uses indoor and environmental sensors. There is a report coming out of that later this year on what we can learn from that. That is about trying to find early warnings so that things do not get to the point where you are looking at pictures like you have shared with you. I think that it is really important to say that technology can be very helpful, and more and more of our members are using that kind of technology. It is only part of the picture. Clearly, there has to be communication with the tenant to explain what we are doing and what you should expect. That is really important, but we are seeing some good practice coming out. I am going to move to questions from Miles Briggs. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. I wanted to ask a couple of questions with regard to monitoring complaints. I wondered how social landlords monitor complaints around dampness specifically. Are there any improvements needed to take this forward, including actions around recording and some of the issues that you have heard in the first panel? I might bring you in first, Caroline, then I will go online. What we already have is an annual report on the social housing charter. That gives us quite a lot of statistics on things such as non-emergency repairs. We know that 88 per cent of non-emergency repairs are completed right first time. We know the average amount of days to complete a non-emergency repair was 8.9 working days. We know that there was 22 per cent more repairs carried out in 2021-22 than in the previous year, although Covid will play a part in that. We have quite a lot of detail. Certainly, our members, beyond what they are required to do in the charter, will all have individual approaches to how they monitor, record and follow-up on complaints. Certainly, some of our members have recently been looking at their systems, particularly about damp and mould, because not everybody does have a system where you can pull out damp and mould specifically. It might be covered with overall problems, overall repairs, and some of our members have been looking at that to see whether they need to have something more specific. At the moment, that is what you would have. All of our members have very clear complaints processes. If you are not satisfied, you can then go to the ombudsman. There is quite a clear route. Does anyone want to come in online as well? I guess that it would be John Kerr. John Kerr, thank you. I think that Caroline is going forward there. I think that all local authorities and our members, compared with the social landlords, have effective complaints processes here. In terms of the briefing, though, one of the things that did come from that is the conclusion of recommendations. I suppose that strengthening that area in terms of record keeping, and that is one that I would add in. My own morning, local authority Westminster Council has taken that forward and shown me that we have monitored and maintained records on damp and mould sick complaints going forward. Thank you for that. I know that we have touched upon the briefing note that yourself and the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations developed. Is there any follow-up work planned that that has touched upon? We heard earlier around follow-up surveys being something being raised. Is that something that you are looking at maybe taking forward as well? Bring it back in, John, if you want on that. Yes, thanks. There is a follow-up work in terms of a further document going to be published that is more for government bodies and for, say, for instance, house committees, local authorities and management committees for registered social landlords. Just to build up that level assurance that the housing provider is doing all that they can. I spoke earlier about the data garden and the good practice information that I am capturing at the moment, in terms of going forward. That forms a publication that comes out as well. What we want to do is to capture all the good practice out there and build up that consistency in terms of service delivery across particularly the social netting sector in terms of that issue. As well as what John referred to, there will shortly be guidance coming out specifically on this issue for governing body members to make sure that they know what questions they should be asking and what answers they should expect to hear. That follows quite a successful event that we ran for governing body members of housing associations. The other thing to note is that at SFHE we will shortly be reviewing our self-assurance toolkit and that will include questions again for governing body members, so people who are on the boards of housing associations about tenant and resident safety. There is some on-going work there. Thank you for that. For the Association of Landlords, I want to ask two different sectors. If there are any specific comments that you had with regard to the repairing standards and how that can be enforced and any learning, I suppose, on what has been developed as well, within the social rented sector. If I can bring you in, John, and Tim, if you have anything you want to add. Yes, I think that the first comment would be really about access to appropriate information and advice. We struggle with that with our members to be able to make them aware as to what the underlying issues are when it comes to condensation and darkness. I think that there is some more documentation about that, guidance tools. We often refer to members to not learn at your council, for instance. We have a very useful video there, which helps to explain what are the issues around darkness and condensation. More information targeted information, which really gives all parties—and I am talking about information tenants as well as landlords—would be really useful. In your first session, you were hearing concerns about access to justice through the First Theatre Tribunal and resources associated with that. Equally we hear that from our landlord members saying that it takes too long to get to the tribunal and the process is lengthy. With regard to legislation, there has been talk about whether we need more robust legislation. To remember in the private rented sector, the repairing standard is also available to us as well as the toiletable standard, and the toiletable standard will be updated next year. I think that perhaps rather than changing statute, there might be a role for statutory guidance here to be able to set out steps that landlords and tenants could take to work together to resolve those issues. We are very keen to work with the Government in achieving that. I think that I would agree with what John Scott said about targeted information and where appropriate case studies. If you look at the existing statutory guidance on the repairing standard that was issued on 1 March from the Scottish Government, it is opening statements to reiterate what I said at the start. The opening paragraphs say that private landlords should be aware that dampness has historically been a significant housing problem in Scotland. Each property will be different. Private landlords must exercise judgment in assessing the essential fabric elements that are adequate to ensure that the property is wind and watertight. It then goes into a few pages of quite a lot of information in tackling the causes. John Scott alluded to that information has got to be read, but perhaps some of that information needs to be dissected, made more relevant to different property types, as we were alluding to, linking in with case studies and more targeted information to tackle the issue straight away before it develops. All we hear back from agencies is that the tolerable standard is in play. The statutory guidance on the repairing standard is linked to the letting agent registration requirements. Fundamentally, from an agent's point of view, they are endearing to that because without that registration they cannot operate. I have a question for John Kerr. Not as the council's role as a social landlord, but more related to the council's strategic responsibility in ensuring that all homes in a local authority area meet the tolerable standard and their ability to report breaches of that standard to tribunals. John, how proactive councils are in assessing stock across all tenures and what they do to support private tenants, because we heard in the previous session about private tenants who sometimes live in houses with damper or mould and do not have the time or the energy to pursue that, and are potentially concerned about their tenancy if they do so. What are councils doing proactively in relation to all the stock in the local authority areas? That is a good question. Obviously, you are right to point out that councils' local authorities to perform the role of strategic housing authority in a local authority area. One of the things that we have discussed in relation to the wider electoral membership is that in terms of being proactive, there is a resource issue going forward. Every local authority would have a private sector housing team. There is a degree of consistency in terms of the question that is more about the proactive in terms of ensuring the standards within the private sector and the housing sector going forward. In terms of local authorities, and if you do a quick review of local housing strategies, there is an ambition to be more proactive and to be better in terms of raising housing standards for the few issues that we have in terms of housing and disrepair in the private sector. I think that local authorities are having issues in relation to the resource issue in private housing teams. Obviously, they are funded by the general fund that is going forward. I think that there are acute pressures on local authorities and the resource of those teams going forward. There is a challenge for local authorities, and it is a challenge to deliver the ambitions of local housing strategies across Scotland. I wonder whether you can come to John Blackwood or Tim, just to ask if you or your members have any experience with local authority interventions on that front, whether there are any examples of local authorities getting in touch with members to talk about standards and what that process looks like and how it is handled on both sides. I think that we would like to see more of that engagement on the part of local authorities engaging with landlord productively, which could be as a result of a tenant reporting a problem or, indeed, a landlord going to local authority themselves and saying, I have got this issue, I do not know where to turn, can you help me here? Many landlords are saying that local authorities are not responsive to them. Of course, as part of the registration process, they should be declaring what they are aware of with regard to their responsibilities as a private landlord when it comes to their appearing standards and, generally, what their obligations are as a landlord. I would be keen to see more engagement in the part of local authorities to support landlords making sure that they are fully aware of what they need to know and, more importantly, how they are engaging with their tenants and resolving issues that are reported by the tenant. I do not think that there is enough of that, and I would like to see more of that. Of course, we can do that with our own members and the people coming to our helpliner, of course, posing those questions to us. We are supporting them where we can, but, of course, many people out there are not members of our organisation and relying on local authorities being their sole source of information and support. Thanks, John. I do not know if Tim wants to comment. Yes. Thank you, Mark. I do not have any specific examples, but we are all acutely aware of the capacity of local authorities and the various budget constraints. Fundamentally, what we hear back from our members is its inspections. Inspections lead to enforcement, so where policy makers can perhaps incentivise local authorities to inspect inspections-lead tables in Scotland of ranking local authorities and number of inspections. That is what they want to see. I think that the other bit that John alluded to is professional bodies. We are doing a lot of content and communication with members. We have a network of regional executives who are all letting agents across Scotland and ambassadors for Protymark. In other parts of the UK, we engage with local authorities through various landlord and private sector forums. Where local authorities have capacity to do that, we would certainly welcome the opportunity to engage locally with them through best practice, disseminating information and also helping them with their inspection and enforcement regime. Thank you. Thank you, convener. Thanks, Mark. We are now going to move to questions from Marie McNair. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. I am going to ask the same question from the first panel, and I will direct my question to John Kerr, if that is okay. How is the cost of living crisis impacting on problems of dampness and mold in homes? Is there any kind of further suggestions of support that might help tenants through the cost of living crisis and energy costs? And how is the ending of the UK Government support with fuel costs going to impact? Thanks, John. Thanks for creating another good question. It goes without question. There is a distinct correlation in terms of the cost of living crisis. It has already been mentioned this morning in the final as well, with the ability for tenants, social or private tenants, to heat their homes and ventilate them appropriately. The impacts of the diminishing supports that are there to people who are experiencing fuel poverty, for them, are just out of poverty. They are quite acute. I am aware of my own local authority and a large number of other local authorities as well, who have developed their own tenant hardships funds as well as housing associations. We can make direct financial support to our tenants to ensure that they are aware of all the heat their homes is not sustainable, because that money is coming from the tenants' rents. We will also get a wider duty to keep our rents affordable. There is a wider issue in terms of a Government intervention to ensure that people do not have that dilemma being unable to impact and be able to heat their homes. Speaking to our tenants, the cost of living crisis and some of the media messaging out there—maybe I have a discussion here—is that there is a fear there because of the fuel bills. I do not know the rarities well, but there is a fear of turning their heating on and of further delving them into a financial hardship. That is a real concern that we have. Local authorities and housing associations will have either directly appoint their own welfare rights and energy advisers to discuss that, but again, the cost of living is a huge impact on the problem that is on-going. If the cost of living crisis is deepens or if there is a prolonged period, the fear is that that is only going to get worse without a solid and longevity in terms of a wider direct financial assistance to social tenants who are invariably the poorest people in society. I think that it clearly has had a huge impact. We have been hearing from our members more and more about tenants being too frightened to put their heating on, which is a completely unacceptable way for anyone to be having to live. We know that there are particular issues in the social sector. The last Scottish House condition survey showed that social tenants were more likely to say that the reason their home was hard to heat was because they could not afford to heat it. There are specific issues there, and we heard a reference in the earlier panel to a statistic that came out in the Scottish Government's report on the cost of living act, that about half of social tenants will be living in extreme fuel poverty by the end of this year, which is just massively worrying. One of the things we have seen that has been positive has been the Scottish Government's fuel and security fund. We have now been able to distribute several rounds of funding from that on behalf of the Scottish Government to our members, which means that they have been able to help about 55,000 households with things like insulation measures and clearing their fuel bills, providing cash to get them out of debt and be able to pay for their fuel. We have welcomed that. The level of need is massive. The last round that we had, we had about £2 million worth of funding. Within 36 hours, we had bids totaling £6 million, which shows the incredible level of need. To be fair to the Scottish Government, I should say that they provided further funding so that we could meet that. We are expecting another announcement just this week about more funding. We have to say that that has been a positive response. We certainly think that perhaps that ought to be moved on to a slightly more permanent footing now. Rather than just quite unpredictable rounds of funding, can we see a multi-year approach to that so that our members know what is available and they can plan a bit better? You asked about the UK Government as well. We have certainly been adding our voice to the calls for a social tariff, which would mean that people who were more vulnerable—I think that that would include a lot of social tenants—would have more guarantees about the level of energy bills that they would be facing. We have also seen for our members that there are particular issues, and now is probably not the place for a really deep dive into it. For those of our members who provide things such as healthcare, services, supported accommodation and sheltered accommodation, their ability to do what they normally do, which is buy energy in bulk and then their tenants have a heat and rent package, the costs of that have been really, really spiralling. They have been working quite hard to prevent and protect their tenants from the effects of that, but that can only go so far. I think that there are a number of issues around that area. Thank you. I will now move on to questions from Ivan McKee. Thank you, convener. It was just to go back through the same two questions that I asked to the first panel, namely with regard to the new common housing standard help to address issues in relation to dampness in mould. I noted, I think, that it was John Black would have made the point about maybe what would be the most accurate guidance rather than standards. I am interested to see thoughts on that from the panel, and then also around the design of new homes and retrofitting of existing homes and what potential scope there is for that work to help address some of the issues that we have been talking about this morning. I do not know, Caroline. Do you want to start on either of those, thanks? Yes, happy to. Thank you. I think that on the issue of the new housing standard, I mean obviously we have not seen it yet. We do not know what is going to be in it. As I understand it, the focus of it will be on it being a multi-tenure standard, so making clear that it does not matter what kind of a red talk contract you have, you should still have the same expectations. My understanding is that that will largely be about bringing other properties up to the standards that are already expected of social landlords. As far as I know, I do not think that it will have a massive impact on our members. I might be wrong on that when we see it, and obviously we will take a good look at it when we do see it. On the point about new build and retrofit, I mean that the standards that our members are having to build to for new homes are extremely high. I know that several committee members have been out to see some of those developments, and I would be delighted to organise for others to go out and see that the quality that our members are building to, which I think is obviously very, very welcome, and they are glad to do that. There are cost implications, of course, of having to build to such high standards, and we are in a very difficult environment with the cost of construction spiralling. Further regulations are added that members have to meet all adds costs, which make us a bit worried about the target for building new social homes. In the earlier session, there were quite a lot of references to the fact that one of the big issues that is driving a lot of that is the lack of social housing. We would agree that we need to prioritise the building of new social housing if we want to be driving up standards and creating a better environment for tenants to live in. There are a few issues about that, particularly in terms of being able to access the funding to carry out retrofit. We know that the net zero heat fund, which has been a really good fund, our members are glad to be able to access it, but we are seeing quite a lack of speed in applications going through and our members are reporting that they are being asked for a lot of information. It is holding things up in terms of them being able to get on and retrofit properties. We know that there is £200 million available from that funding up to 2026. As far as we know, only £17 million of that has been spent, so we do wonder, can we look again at the requirements of that? Can we make it easier to access, could we reduce the requirement for match funding? There are also some specific issues about in retrofit. You now need to have installers who can meet the past 2035 requirements. They are a retrofit specification that is required in order to access certain types of funding, and there are not that many installers who are qualified to meet that standard. There are issues about the funding, about being able to access the right people to actually do the retrofit, and then there are some of the issues that were mentioned in the earlier session. For example, our members might not own a whole block. They have got to get into very complicated negotiations with owners, landlords, and that can be a real hold-up in terms of being able to bring properties up to the standard that our members really want them to be meeting. Thanks very much. John Blackwood? I guess that concurring with much of what has been said there, we have long since supported the introduction of a common housing standard and repairing standard. Obviously, it will be the detail of that, how is that going to work out in practice? In particular, when it comes to dealing with problem areas that could involve next ownership, for instance, how can we ensure that homeowners take responsible steps to maintain the fabric of that tenement, for instance? The common housing standard would need to take all of that into consideration as well. In principle, we support that. We believe that all tenants should have access to the same degree of repairs, regardless of who their private or social landlord happens to be. When it comes to retrofitting, that has been an issue in our sector. Obviously, again, we have got issues with access to funding. Many landlords find themselves unable to access funding to be able to do these important upgrades to their properties. Even if they get the work carried out, they are now saying to us that we have problems with their properties with regards to dampness and mould that we never had before. That is partly because of the quality of the insulation and the fitters who have been carrying out the works. You do not know how good, bad or indifferent those trades people are until you actually incur problems. We are having members for the first time coming to us saying that we are encountering problems with their properties as a direct result of putting insulation into our properties, for instance. We need to look at that. Hopefully, in time, that quality will improve as well. A common housing standard is, in principle, a good idea. Of course, it is all down to the detail on how we manage mixed ownership blocks when it comes to implementing that common standard. That was an interesting point about finding problems with regards to dampness that we have not had before. John Kerr, do you have any comments on either of those questions? I think that the points that I would have made have already been addressed. I would reiterate the point in terms of the wider funding that Caroline made. I think that that requires to be a greater clarity of funding in terms of the streams that Caroline alluded to, the fact that landlords are committed to meeting the wider ambitions of housing since in 2014, including the Foddwell Hout Homes target. Obviously, we have seen construction inflation go north, which somebody has never anticipated before. Allied to that, we have got a wider retrofit agenda and making sure that, rightly, bringing our homes to be as energy efficient as possible for both to come with a price tag. Social landlords have got the responsibility to ensure that the rents remain affordable. I think that greater clarity in our funding streams is going forward so that we can realise the ambition of housing to 2040 as well. We have come in the housing standard that everybody said could only be a good thing. Everybody welcomed the publication of housing to 2040. Everybody was right behind it in terms of the ambitions. Quite rightly, in terms of a uniformity of standards, my only concern is that it does not dilute anything. It continues to raise standards for the betterment of the tenants and their health and wellbeing going forward. I think that it can only be a good thing. Obviously, we have not seen it yet. We will see it later on this year into next year. Certainly, it is from a lateral that we will be keen to be a part of participating in that and a part of participating in that to make it go forward. It achieves the wider ambition. Thanks, John. Felly, Timothy, do you have any comments on those questions? Yes, thank you, Ivan. I agree with the other panellists that it is hard on a reason not to support greater standards for homes across Scotland, but we are awaiting the consultation in further detail. Based on what was in the 2040 strategy and what has been said about new standards and multi-tenure linking it to energy efficiency and heating, I think that it even had digital connectivity in there. That is quite wide-ranging. We have just had a discussion around local authority capacity in force. Ultimately, any new housing standard needs to take into consideration the strain on local authorities to deliver the current duties and where standards are extended. On energy efficiency, there is a huge concern from letting agents Scotland and across the UK in relation to the targets. We are waiting for the consultation from the Scottish Government on its proposals, and that needs to come as soon as possible. That is because then the sector knows the timescales and the targets that we are working to, but also the financial implications of landlords and agents. We are doing a lot of work at the moment to speak to agents who are engaged with their landlords about what portfolios might look like in five, 10 or 15 years. Have all the quick wins been done at the property? What are they doing now to make the property as energy efficiency as possible and plan ahead? Fundamentally, I think that it goes back to a common theme that I have said today. There is a concern, from a property market, that a one-size-fits-all approach to energy efficiency having one target for the diverse range of property across Scotland is a concern and is simply not going to be workable and will potentially result in some prior rented properties not being able to meet it and losing them from the stock. Surely, the emphasis must be from policy makers. How do we make each property as energy efficient as possible? How do we make each property less damp and mole-proof as possible? That has to be the target. Whether we categorise that through types of property across Scotland, a one-size-fits-all approach to energy efficiency is going to have a knock-on effect and potentially lose certain properties from the private sector in Scotland. Ultimately, there are no grants available to private landlords at the moment. There are only loans of up to £15,000, so that is another thing to look at. On the new homes element, from our members' point of view, there is certainly a role for local authorities through planning. Are we ensuring that there are enough vents in the properties that are being built? If we have had feedback from agents that a lot more properties would benefit from an extractor fan, for example, in a bathroom, and also to ensure the improvement work of energy efficiency or loft installation, it is not blocking vents, but that is taken into consideration. I appreciate that there are quite specific examples, but there are issues that we have raised by members. Finally, on new homes, there is the new homes on the cement, which Proxymark lobbied for, which is UK-wide, and registered developers assigned up to that. That is also a mechanism to hopefully start to resolve disputes and level the playing field, because ultimately sales agents have redressed as well. Unlike letting agents in Scotland, sales agents are regulated by the State Agency Act 1979. That is UK-wide, but there is no ultimate mandatory regulation or qualification or minimum entry requirements to be a sales agent, or a new build or sell houses on a new build site as well. That concludes our questions for today. We will be hearing from the Chartered Institute of Housing, the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman and the Scottish Housing Regulator, and the Minister for Housing on the same issue at our meeting on 16 May, when we will have a chance to explore the issues raised today with them. I will now move on to the next item. The next item on our agenda for today is consideration of two negative instruments. Town and country planning, place efficiency assessment Scotland regulations 2023, SSI 2023, 97, and Town and country planning development planning Scotland regulations 2023, SSI 2023, 101. There are no requirements for the committee to make any recommendations on negative instruments. Does the committee agree that we do not wish to make any recommendations in relation to those instruments? As we previously agreed to take item 4 in private, I now close the public part of the meeting.