 Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 21st meeting of the local government and communities committee in 2017. I remind everyone present to turn off mobile phones, and as meeting papers are provided in a digital format, tablets may be used by members during the meeting. We don't quite yet have a full turnout, but no apologies have been received and we'll move on to agenda item 1. The committee will take evidence on scrutiny of building regulations and fire safety in Scotland. I welcome David Stewart, policy lead Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, Kenny MacKenzie, Royal Institution of Charters of Heirs in Scotland and Denise Christie, regional treasurer of Fire Brigades Union Scotland. I thank you all for coming along and for the evidence that we've received. Before we move on to some brief opening statements, I'd just like to make a very brief comment on behalf of all the committee members here this morning. The committee will take evidence on scrutiny of building regulations and fire safety in Scotland. Members will recall that we began our inquiry into building regulations in February, but following the tragic events at Grenfell Tower in London, we extended our inquiry to include fire safety. I want to extend the committee's thoughts and sympathies to all those affected by the Grenfell Tower fire, and I thought that it was appropriate just to set the context by which we're taking this evidence. We may have had in front of us any way because we were doing the inquiry into building standards, but it's a timis that we bring that forward to look at fire safety in particular, so thank you for coming along this morning. That said, I believe that there are some opening statements. We'd be grateful to have them. I don't know who's going to open up on behalf of the witnesses. I'm happy to go first. Thank you very much for the opportunity to give evidence. As you said, I represent the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, and I wanted to briefly say a little bit about the members in the sector we represent before going on to talk about fire safety. Associations provide about 11 to 12 per cent of Scotland's housing. They provide housing for affordable rent below the market level, and they tend to do that for people on low incomes or who are perhaps vulnerable in some ways. They're all not for profit, and the vast majority are registered charities. They have a long history of tenants having a significant role. Most, if not all, will have tenants on their boards, their management boards, often in the majority. To then go on and say a little bit about fire safety, first of all, on building standards, I know that the ministerial working group, having asked all councils and housing associations for information on cladding, on multi-storey buildings, have been able to confirm that none of them have combustible material of the type that was found in Grenfell, and that's thought to have contributed to the terrible tragedy. I suppose from that point of view that I would suggest that that aspect of building standards is doing its job, you might think. I then want to say a little bit about what our members have told us about their working relationship with the fire service and what they routinely do to help tenants and maintain fire safety. Following the tragedy, we surveyed members and we've had a number of members' meetings to discuss the issue. We found that routinely the fire service will have quarterly visits to housing associations, multi-stories. They will identify any issues or concerns and these will then be followed up between the housing association and the fire service. The fire service also make themselves available and are very happy to provide home visits to housing association tenants. Many of our members make it a policy to make tenants aware of this. In fact, one whom I met yesterday have it as a condition of their tenancy sign-up that they ask that the tenant has a visit and receives advice on the first couple of months of their tenancy. Beyond that, associations have told us that their staff themselves will provide, have daily checks where they have work rounds and check for blockages, obstructions and look at the dry risers. Another issue that I wanted to highlight, and I'll try and be brief, is the importance of communication with tenants. While obviously this inquiries about building standards, members have been telling us that they feel that communication with tenants in the human aspect is at least as important as building standards. They have provided fire safety leaflets to tenants. They regularly provide updates and advice on fire safety through newsletters and electronically. As I said, they promote the opportunity to have visits by the fire service. One final issue that I wanted to raise is that you will be aware that there is a Scottish Government consultation on fire safety standards in buildings. We very much welcome this and we are keen to participate. It is very important that lessons are learned and that anything that can be done to improve standards is. One issue that has come up in this area from our members is that at the moment there is no requirement for fire alarms in the owner occupied buildings. Many multi stories of course will have owner occupiers through the right to buy and something that can be a particular concern is that people might buy a former social home and replace the fire door with a door that is not actually fire rated. Members believe that this is quite a concern and we would like to see that considered as part of the inquiry and also part of the Scottish Government consultation. Good morning. I am here representing the RICS this morning and I think that I have been here before. Just to clarify, I do not actually am not employed by the RICS. I am employed by City Council, my member and a past professional group chair. My first thing I want to say is a sincere apology because the RICS did not manage to get a formal response in time. That comes from our head office. I am sorry about that. There was sickness and holidays and a bit of miscommunication. A sincere apology. We can forward something as soon as possible if you still wish that. We will still consider those part of the case. Thank you very much. In the other fuller comments, Mr McHenry. No, that is fine. That was just a apology. My name is Denise Christie. I am the Scottish Regional Official for the Fire Brigades Union who represent fire fighters and operational fire control members throughout Scotland. Can I just start off by saying, convener, that the Fire Brigades Union has watched the developments recently with a mixture of horror, anger and pride. The appalling tragedy at Grenfell Tower is already the worst UK fire disaster of recent times and the fuel death toll is still not yet known. It is appalling to think that a fire on the scale and this loss of life can take place in the richest borough in the capital city of one of the richest nations in the world and a key task for the FBU now is to identify how this was able to happen. FBU members will have shared the feelings and sorrow and horror of the loss of life on such a scale. Our condolences go to the families of those killed and our thoughts are with those who survived. The union stands in solidarity with the tenants and the residents of Grenfell Tower and we will work with them to uncover why this horrible, terrible tragedy occurred and what could have happened done to prevent it. The FBU has already started to pull together the key facts and issues surrounding this incident. In all such cases, the FBU will make a thorough investigation as to what happened and why. The most obvious question is how an incident on such a scale can even take place in 2017 in the capital city of one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Our investigation will address all factors that will have impacted on this incident. This includes the issues of the building itself, including any alterations made to it, far safe to issues and the operational planning and response. The work may well shape the fire and rescue service and profession for the years to come in Scotland. The FBU's priority has always been fire fighter and public safety, and we will continue that campaign in order to mitigate any future disasters such as that of the Grenfell Tower. We really appreciate the opportunity to come and speak today and give evidence. I thank all witnesses for their opening remarks. Let me start off by looking at some of the FBU evidence that was submitted, which was very detailed and very helpful. I think that I would best describe it as both reassuring and challenging at the same time. I will ask about some of the challenges that are raised by the evidence, but I should put on record the reassuring bit in the first place, I suppose, just to give some balance to that. The FBU evidence believes that the greater clarity provided by the Scottish building standards has meant that no such confusion exists in terms of the combustibility of cladding that is used in Scotland, where it should be constructed from non-combustible materials, and that is crystal clear. However, the terminology in England is of limited combustibility, and that leads to what we saw in Grenfell. I am very pleased to see that the FBU believes that the chances of a similar fire occurring in Scotland are minimised. I wanted to put that on the record, because I thought that that was important, as we were going to ask some of the more challenging questions in relation to your evidence. The FBU draws a clear distinction between a light-touch audit of fire safety in tower blocks versus an intrusive inspection, and makes some suggestions around how the lessons that are now being learned in London in relation to doing the intrusive inspection regimes there are exposing deficiencies that were previously unknown, and that the light-touch audit just did not cut it at all from reading the FBU's evidence. You suggest that something similar might be appropriate in Scotland. Could you say a little bit more about that? Yes, sure. When the Grenfell tower tragedy happened, London Fire Brigade looked at the fire safety inspecting officers and asked them to do an intrusive inspection of properties. If you remember, some buildings and some high-rise buildings in London were evacuated, and it was not because the cladden was an issue, but it was because fire safety precautions were an issue, whether it was fire doors or fire safety alarms, and that was due to an intrusive inspection. The key point is that the Scottish Government, the ministerial Government review, is looking at the cladden, but we would ask them to expand that review to have some intrusive inspections within properties in Scotland that could potentially highlight other fire safety issues. If they are highlighted, we would be made aware of them, and action could be taken to try and mitigate that, but that is all, if there were issues in there. The intrusive inspections may come out positive and they may come out saying, you know, the standards are great and everything is fine, but the light touch audit, we have had far saved inspection officers going in there trying to do their job, but with a minimum amount of time to do that intrusive inspection. That is helpful. Mr Stewart, on a moment, I will bring you in, because I am sure that you want to say something about the role of housing associations in any work that you do with the fire service, but Ms Christie, can you ask me to maybe just tease out a little bit more about what intrusive inspections might mean? Apologies for going off in a slight tangent here, but for example, care homes in Scotland are not talking about fire safety and employment levels of care. Care homes in Scotland are inspected in two ways. There is a risk-based assessment of the measure of scrutiny that is needed of each care home, but there is also the occasional spot check without warning where the care inspector can turn up, they can say, show all your paperwork, they can talk to staff, they can talk to residents, they can talk to families and they dig down deep without any warning at all. They just arrive on the doorstep of the care home, as it should be, because that drives up standards across the board not knowing when that inspection is going to take place. When the FBU talks about intrusive inspections, I do not know if you are talking about a one-off piece of work or if you are referring to, perhaps, an on-going programme of fire safety in Scotland. Every landlord who has a tower block as part of their stock should know that there is an opportunity that the fire service will turn up and do this intrusive inspection, which could help to drive up standards across the sector. I am sorry to push on this a little bit more. Could you flesh out what you mean by intrusive inspections? Would it be a one-off exercise? Would it be a rolling programme? Would it be embedded into best practice going forward for the long term? It would be similar to what happened in London Fabricade, and that was a one-off inspection. We appreciate that it is going to be timely, costly, and it is going to take a lot of hours of work and hours to do those inspections. However, if we have that one-off intrusive inspections with a variety of buildings across Scotland, that is when we can have a clear picture of if there are any real issues within those intrusive inspections. If there are, we can look at what the issues are and look at recommendations to sort those issues. It would not be an on-going intrusive inspections continually. We appreciate that it is going to be quite timely and costly to continue to do that, but it would be a one-off inspection. That is helpful, Mr Stewart. I know, for example, in my constituency, NG homes are establishing a tenant and resident-led fire safety panel, because they have got a lot of high rises within their stock, and they see that as an opportunity. They would say that they are already very close to their tenants and residents, but it is an opportunity not to be complacent and go further. How can we be confident that across all social housing stock in Scotland there is a systematic approach by housing associations to ensure that they are working closely with the fire service and that they have got their fire safety spot on? Would the SFH have anything to fear from a one-off intrusive inspection exercise? No, I do not think so. I think that that would be something that would seem helpful and welcome just to provide reassurance to tenants, which I think is key, but also to provide reassurance to the wider public. Something I did not mention in my introductory remarks that I should have is that housing associations generally, and I am sure that local authorities too, commission fire risk assessments on a fairly regular basis. That is outside the experts being commissioned to come in and look at properties and highlight any issues that the need rectified, although it is consultants or companies rather than the fire service, but I think the fire service providing a similar function and also the fact that that could happen without announcement would be a welcome way of providing reassurance about safety standards. That is helpful. One final question, and I know that my deputy Mayor Elaine Smith wants to come in and follow some of this up. Again, the FBU evidence talks about falling between two stools in terms of assessing for fire safety in relation to new-build properties, where sometimes they are partially occupied and it is not clear whether the builders and the whole verification scheme around the construction process is dealing with fire safety or the fire services coming in and looking at it, because there is no set point in time by which it is agreed that at date exit this part of the build process, the fire service will come in and interrogate the fire safety of new-build properties. Is there a grey area there? Can you say a little bit more about that? I think that when you are looking at new-builds, you will find that sometimes during a new-build programme you will have residents moving in before the new-build is completed, so that provides some difficulties for the fire service to go in there and do that initial intrusive inspection of the fire safety. It is very difficult for them to see along the building period what fire safety measures have been put in place, so what we recommend that would be quite helpful during that period if the building contractors could either invite the fire service in during each stage of that process, or if they could even take some pictures behind wall, behind ceilings, so that the fabricate will find very difficult to reach. Thank you for answering that. I specifically raised that question because our inquiry is not exclusive to fire safety in tower blocks. We are looking at wider issues about the building process, building warrants and verification schemes. I wanted to give a nod to that and the evidence that the FBU submitted. Elaine Smith. I intend, with the convener's indulgence, to come back later to some questions for Mr Stewart and Mr Mackenzie, time permitting, but could I specifically ask some questions about the FBU submission? Denise, on the fourth page of your submission, under the section on inspections and inspectors, you talk about the changes to the fire and rescue service over recent years and a number of change factors having an impact. You also go on to talk about Scotland losing 24 per cent of its uniformed fire safety inspecting officers since 2013-14 and also losing non-uniformed inspecting officer posts. If you could possibly expand a bit more on that evidence, what kind of changes are we talking about and what has been the impact of losing those fire safety posts? We recently asked the FBU for an FY to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service on the number of fire safety inspecting officers that it has. The report came back that there has been a reduction of 24 per cent since the introduction of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in 2013. That is exactly the same trend as what is happening right across the board in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. We have seen a reduction of over 700 front-line fire fighter posts. Those fire fighters move from being a fire fighter in the fire service to crew managers to watch managers and then going into specific posts within the organisation and fire safety enforcement officers is one of them. We see that as a direct impact of those job losses within the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. To be blatantly honest, that is due to the £58 million reduction that we have had in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. We have had year-on-year cuts to our organisation that we are finding very difficult to cope. We were promised that the reorganisation from the eight former brigades into one Scottish Fire and Rescue Service would not impact on the front line, but it absolutely is impact on the front line. Now we are seeing cuts happening to our fire safety inspection officers right across the country. We are hearing from our members that they are finding it very difficult to complete fire safety inspections in the amount of time that they have to do it and, with a thorough investigation, those inspections deserve. It is really disappointing and it is really a concern to hear. In your evidence, you are going to say that one way to improve the standard of fire risk assessment is to create more fire safety inspection officers posts. Do you obviously feel that that is a matter of some urgency? Absolutely, especially on the back of Grenfell Tower fire. It is not just about—the fire service is not just about responding to incidents, it is about protection and preventing incidents as well. Whenever there is a fire, we will have fire safety inspection officers and fire investigation officers going to find out what the cause of that fire is. We are now seeing further recommendations from the fire service to reduce our fire investigation officers, as well as our fire safety inspecting officers. That is not detailed in the report here, but there is a trend there. There is a reduction in front line fire fighters, a reduction in fire investigation officers and a reduction in fire safety enforcement officers. That is really worrying for the Fire Brigades Union. You raised concerns about the poor quality of fire risk assessments and how those risk assessments have that. When we are talking about involvement of the tenants and residents and you have touched on some of that this morning, Mr Newton, what you said initially, how do they engage and how do they buy into this whole process so that they have the confidence in the properties that they are living in that I have had those risk assessments done on them? As I say, in some of the information that you have, you indicate that there is a poor quality there and what needs to be done to ensure that they feel safer. If there is an assessment being carried out and that assessment is not of a high enough standard of quality, then that automatically gives some anxiety. I do not think that it might have been Denise that had some concerns about quality and the depth of the fire risk assessment. As I said, associations commission outside agencies to carry out these assessments and I would hope that they are of sufficient quality and then associations act on them. As far as tenant engagement goes, associations provide information and there have been a lot of examples of newsletters being provided, letters being sent out to all tenants, partly providing reassurance but also providing advice. A mixture of saying what the housing association and the fire service are doing to ensure safety but also providing some advice to tenants on what they can do to ensure the building is safe. I would be happy to share some examples of that with the committee if that would be helpful. Another thing that is key on tenant engagement and maybe related to what the convener said about NgHomes is just having engagement and that is partly about making tenants aware that the fire service are available to come and do home visits and make assessments but also think the idea of having a panel for a two-way communication is a very good idea. One of the shocking things about Grenfell that is not so much related to the physical issues that might have caused the fire is the fact that tenants had raised issues on a number of occasions and over a period of time and you would really not want to think or believe that that would happen in Scotland but it is something we mustn't be complacent about so it is something to look at going forward. I think that you highlight the importance of the fire safety visit that can be provided by the fire service that gives that assurance about the exits and having a plan, your smoke detectors, whatever that may well be, is there to try and support all of that and to give them that assurance that should something happen they are going to be protected but I think if there is a communication breakdown and we can't take for granted that there's not a communication breakdown in some of the organisations in Scotland we hope that's not the case but I think that would be useful to try and see if that is the case and that individuals have not had concerns expressed or taken forward because we learned from the disaster that that was one of the main criteria that if it had been addressed earlier in the day then some things could have been changed. Thank you, convener. Thank you, panel, for coming along. I just want to ask a couple of questions about ministerial working group and the role of the RISCS but before I do so I want to pick up some line of questioning from the convener. In the FFU evidence, you state correctly that the current building standards in relation to fire are that thermal insulation materials situated or exposed within an external wall cavity or in a cavity formed by external wall cladding should be constructed of non-combustible materials but then you go on to highlight whether in fact the aluminium-facing cladding panels that were used in Grenfell Tower and any combustible material within the two sheets of metal that make up the cladding would actually be prohibited by that definition. I mean, this appears to be me to be more than a semantic point in the sense that that gap between the two metal sheets is not an external wall cavity as such. Is there actually a problem here? It's a question for all the panel, perhaps Kenny, to look at. I mean, this cladding material, I would say, sneaked onto the market, I'm not aware of it. In fact, there was a building to the west of Edinburgh, a student recently completed student block of flats, which had specified a material by the manufacturer of the company who made this product to be just a single sheet material and somehow, without anybody knowing or anybody being informed, they replaced it with this insulated material. I think on the pretext that this was a better material for insulation and might been a more robust material but I've never heard of anybody being aware of this material and until this fire, I couldn't believe when I saw this fire that it happened because it just doesn't happen. Cladding is solid, it's whatever and it doesn't burn and this external, which is not really, it's just a rain screen cladding, it's not, it's there to just keep the rain out really, that's all, keep the water off, part of the whole construction for insulation and structure but it was a new material to me, I'd never came across it and I don't think many people had, we were all asking each other about it and hadn't been aware of it and certainly when we looked into the building and the student flats in the west of Edinburgh where it had been used just in small infill, similar I think to the new Princess Elizabeth, the hospital in Glasgow anyway, similar situation, it had been used there, nobody's seen it at risk, it was in isolation but they have replaced it quite rightly but I wasn't aware of this material before and this fire in London, I wasn't aware of it and we checked back our records and as far as we know what was approved on the plans was a solid three mil thick metal panel similar to all the other panels used on the building and they had used this different panel, it was a coloured panel, they've now replaced it, the student flats companies replaced it which is great but I wasn't aware of this material before and wasn't aware of what it was and now having looked into it, no it has been on the market for a few years and it's hopefully been withdrawn but it's not a common material at all and I think that's why when we've been working with the building standards division of your government looking and as of other authorities looking at all the high rise in Scotland as a building control authority in Edinburgh and we've been digging out all our old plans and it's not really specified anywhere it has sneaked in a couple of times but in consultation with the fire brigade we didn't feel it where it was actually using these small panels it was ever going to be a risk but quite rightly they did remove it and replace it but there's other issues as well if you don't mind me continuing and I think it's it's further to what Denise has said and one of the other materials it's used behind the right rain screen cladding is a polyurethane phenolic material plastic foam whatever you want to call it and those are described as non-combustible a low combustibility and a lot of products which have been used in recent years in Scotland deemed to be non-combustible have recently been retested and the manufacturers are now finding they're coming in from a class O non-combustibility class to a class one which is a slightly different surface spread of flame classification I don't want to get too technical but it's it still will have limited combustibility but it doesn't quite meet this non-combustibility standard which is going to open up a huge can of worms if it is deemed there is a risk now in saying that you have within your your construction of your wall to get out into this virtually no another's fire resistance to get to that material but it does throw up a few questions that you've got accredited test no fire testing centres which are accredited by the government and they're approved and they've been testing materials and given them a classification and now they're retesting them now it might be a different test centre they've been retested and we're finding out they've been given a lower classification which is throwing up some issues at the moment and a lot of what is built it's in materials passing things it's specialist companies manufacturers go to specialist testing centres and they get these materials tested and then they put that in the manufacturers literature is no combustible low combustibility and then non combustible and that classification is determined by a bs m476 fire test that should be carried out in a lab on a reg to rigorous standards but it's with a there's edge issues and there's different issues and it's now been retested and there's been a lower classification i think we're going to find more of this happening sorry i've gone on a little bit very help given that the written evidence is from Denise Christie it would just be helpful to you say more about that i know you were calling for an explicit change to the definition of what a non combustible material is so we welcome that that's the situation in scotland but you're working greater clarity on a more explicit statement of what that actually means yeah if i can refer you to the fbu submission if we would talk about fire research and this is a really important point fundamental research into the fire performance of modern buildings materials that's been slashed and from what we're actually seeing now is that many materials coming on to the market have not been studied and the demands for better and better thermal installation of buildings is driving innovation in the construction industry but unfortunately most of the best installation materials are also are also easily ignited so one of the recommendations from our submission is to make sure that research into combustible materials and new modern building materials that are coming on to the market funding is being made available for that so we can research that before we have another catastrophe like like green film that's very helpful. Mr Stewart, before I bring Mr Whiteman back in Mr Stewart, did you want to add anything to any of that? Just really I obviously don't have the same level of technical knowledge as my two colleagues were aware that no social housing has material regarded as combustible from what the ministerial working group has done but maybe just to add that you'll all be aware that energy efficiency is a really big issue and housing associations have invested a lot in energy efficiency partly for carbon targets but mainly for the comfort of their tenants so I suppose it's important I would say in any review or consideration of fire safety that it doesn't work against or conflict with energy efficiency standards and that both are seen as important things for tenant comfort and safety. I just I apologize Mr Whiteman but I did notice from SFHE submission that you factfully said that none of your members who got back to you reported any of this cladding was used in any of their stock but you did actually see those who got back to you which suggests that not every member got back to you because you want me to say a little bit more about that? Yeah that was maybe not well phrased. We ran an initial and very quick survey of members to ask about insulation used in buildings but also work that they did with fire service and what they did to communicate with tenants and like most surveys not every member responded. However, I understand that through the ministerial working group and the work of the building standards authority that every housing association has responded to the government and confirmed that they don't have any cladding of that type on high rise buildings. That's exactly what I wanted to double check because that was our understanding but it was Dubai to the way that that was worded. Mr Whiteman my apologies, I want to follow up on something. Yes, just to fill up my original question then, would you agree therefore that the current building standard as written would in fact allow the kind of cladding that was used in Grenfell to be used in Scotland given that it doesn't, the combustible materials not within a wall cavity? Do we need to tighten that up, as the Fire Brigade Union suggests? Yes, sorry. It's a definition isn't it? It's a limited combustible within England and the non-combustible within Scotland and like I previously said research needs to be done into those materials and that could potentially be done through this further intrusive far safety inspection audits where the intrusive part of that is actually potentially testing if the materials or if the cladding is combustible or is not. That's what previously stated by my colleague here he spoke about that some of these materials were previously rendered as non-combustible but further examination potentially could make them partly combustible. So I would argue that investment into far safety inspecting officers to go out and do those intrusive inspections along with the experts within the building construction areas and along with the experts that are able to test those materials and then we would have a true record of the real estate of affairs that's actually out there. I think the regulations are robust and there is maybe scope for more improvement but I think it does go back to the test inspection regime of the manufacturer and what they're doing and how and making it clear how these panels and insulation materials can be used that is already happening and I think there's also from we've found already from the designers putting in new applications and new proposals are moving away or trying to move away from these insulated panels that are made from the foam let us say different types of foam to more genuine solid non-combustible materials like rock wools and things like that but that does have an effect on insulation values it's a effect on wall thicknesses and then we move into other issues we don't want to go back into wall ties and school walls falling down and things like that but there is all the unfortunately building regulations do have to all come together and quite often when one change comes in one standard it does have a negative effect on another standard that has to be correctly looked at and detailed and moved forward but I think at the moment in terms of the non-combustibility it's clear it's just what is classified as non-combustible and how that's been tested now I mean I brought some documents here you get global assessments you get independent things saying no they're tested to the bba approved all proper certified classified bodies for testing and that's what all materials should be checked to but somewhere along the line mistakes have been made I think or maybe errors not mistakes I'd bad word to say but they've maybe not been aware of the the edge problem I think it seems to have been the fine London seems to be something to do with the fact that the edges it was the fire was exposed at the edges rather than we test fire sort of on a plane and maybe tape up edges now we're leaving it exposed so that the edges are exposed and I think because of that it's not quite met the full non-combustibility but it still meets the the lower standard which is still a very good standard and these types of materials are in a an insulated box anyway that isn't a fire insulated box anyway and Scotland should be protected because the regulations have is at a higher standard but I just want to clarify this again Ms Christie what you're saying is that while the regulations appear to have at a higher standard and by and large the practice means that those constructing and who are landlords in in these properties are meeting that higher standard some of the new products coming onto the market leads to a kind of vagueness where they could perhaps get round that so you would look for more explicit clarity than what we actually mean by non combustible materials yes that's absolutely correct and just echo what Kenny said that during that process there is a potential risk of some errors being made and the consequence of those errors could potentially be a catastrophic fire if the inspection hasn't been made out appropriately thank you thank you very much mr Simpson also apologies mr Weimer for completing it i haven't even got around to my substantive question here um it would be useful mr mackenzie perhaps if you could write to the committee with whatever and so you have about the use of materials that was previously classified zero and i was going to one this this is just coming in very recently i appreciate that if you could tell us on you know that's what we were as i say useful because i don't work directly with rss i had submitted some comments news were to be collated and sent to you and it was all done very last minute and unfortunately somebody was off and it didn't happen i apologize for that but we can follow up with all the information we've got so on the um i wanted to ask you about the remit and work program of the government's ministerial working group um i mean are you all content with the the remit and the membership and the work program of the group and what engagement have you had and has that been satisfactory to date sorry yep the fabric is union through the sdc general secretary graham smith um requested that we have a seat within that ministerial working group um but we were refused a seat um and the reasons being that it was because it was a internal ministerial working group but we believe that the scottish fire and rescue service um also sit within that seat which is absolutely appropriate to do but certainly we would um we would also prefer to have a seat round about that table and in relation to the ministerial working group part of the submission does explain that we would like to see the remit of that group widen more in relation to to the cladden um as in our submission we've spoke about the five tower blocks in camden in london where they had an intrusive inspection we're evacuated not because of the cladden but because of a further far safety issues so we we would like to see that ministerial group widening the terms of reference not just in relation to cladden um the way um the sfj's been involved in the ministerial working group is not through directly attending meetings as denise says it's an internal government working group but we have had a lot of engagement with the house the sustainable housing division of the scottish government and have had meetings uh along with uh cosla and uh elacho the the local authority chief housing officers group and had discussions in an input that way um one issue which i highlighted in my opening remarks that i think we would like to see considered as while there's been look at cladding and also there's the consultation on fire alarms and providing common standards and possibly enhanced standards um something that the associations have highlighted to us as a concern is where fire doors can be removed by owner occupiers or private landlords that mainly owner occupiers and the concern that this could actually compromise fire safety um and to put that in context a few members have told us that they've had fairly serious fires in multi-stories but actually the the design of the building and the fire doors have done their job because they've they've been contained to that that one one building until fire burns out or it's extinguished by the fire service so so i suppose that's the one issue we we would like to highlight because associations or councils can do all the right things and follow up on what the fire service or an independent auditor recommends but at the moment they can't do anything to to have a private owner actually take action on their property I've not personally had any direct involvement and I'm not even sure if the RISS are part of it but certainly through the local authority building standards and the RISS we would we would comment my only comment is I think a lot of things we're discussing being a building standard sphere aren't directly related to building regulations we're talking about tower blocks here and when we start talking about tower blocks we tend to talk about the older buildings the 60s 70s 80s buildings even if they had a brand new fire door 40 50 years ago it wouldn't be working now behind off its hinges so obviously it relies on people like your your your members upgrading and continually improving if an application comes into a local authority building standards department to upgrade a tower block what's that work will be exempt because it's deemed to be repairing maintenance and it's not really covered by the standards the standards only apply to new buildings they only apply to a converted building you're not converting a tower block when you do maintenance on it obviously it shouldn't fail to a greater degree so nothing it's done should make it worse and obviously any local authority would make suggestions how to make improvements but I think a lot of what we're speaking about here is covered either by the fire scotland act because that's risk assessment building control takes it to completion fire scotland act takes after that I think local authority building standards departments are verifiers so it's really the owners responsibility to what gets done and what happens and they say the work's done and satisfied local authorities try and verify that and there is continual assessment during the construction and hopefully things aren't covered over before they're inspected and certainly since post grenville every builder out there wants to get you out and wants to talk to you and lays with you and make sure they're doing the right thing and doing extra overs to what they had to do so there's been a huge awareness and that's a huge improvement in that but I would say also that there's HMO legislation there's landlords legislation out there which is very strict on the private let side and I think a lot of what happens there could be transferred on to the public let side because private let people I know we we work with these people because wants come in for upgrading things they're putting in retrospective sprinklers retrospective fireland detection systems upgrading fire doors getting packed tests done every so often getting things done and so there's a lot more onerous things put on either one that has to be registered as a house on multiple occasion or a person who's a landlord of a smaller property has to comply with lots of ongoing standards and works that I don't have to my house and probably you don't have to as a landlord a private public landlord as such you may well do but it's not in legislation could I maybe just briefly follow up on that specific to that point because I know you're right it's our deputy community has a very specific point of clarification based on mr mckenzie's latest comments there yeah mr mckenzie I did ask actually previously about changes being made such as recladding and whether or not those would be covered that would require a building weren't the cladding would but lots of the internal stuff wouldn't right so if you were to read sorry but just be absolutely clear if you were to reclad you would need you would need a building warning because that can send me about what you were saying but so much of what I think Denise has quite rightly said has become issues when they go in and look at things in terms of fire doors either not being a fire door or not fit for purpose holes in the floor of where a service has been put through ventilation systems for smoke extraction not working not being maintained pressurisation systems that are used to keep smoke out of certain areas buildings not balance not working that there's lots of other active alarm systems not work active and passive systems sorry no the cladding does come on the cladding would because we thought with absolute assurances no the cladding would but there's lots and lots of other things that don't that are very important and mr stewart you wanted to add just really to follow up on the point about different standards at the moment I suppose it'd be fair to describe the private rented sector is having to meet slightly higher fire safety standards than social landlords and that really I think came about because they were seen as potentially more of a risk or having potentially some buildings that weren't so well kept or landlords that might not always be so responsible a minority minority obviously the the Scottish Government consultation which came out then the last week explores this and looks at having more common safety standards and fire safety standards for all 10 years and I think that's something that we would broadly welcome and going back to my point about maltes or other flat buildings often having mixed tenure really if you want to improve fire safety I think you need to have standards that apply to all 10 years and Kenny's right as far as owner occupation you know that there isn't really any standard other than in new builds I think we welcome the the review and the possible harmonisation that's all very helpful I know there's other members itching to get in there's not had the opportunity and mr whiteman may or may not be finished his lines I'll leave it there to thank you for that grim Simpson to clarify quickly three areas that we've already covered and then I'll come on to my substantive point Denise you mentioned intrusive inspections I just want to be clear in my own head what you mean by that is that going in and actually taking materials from buildings testing it is it going into individual flats and checking what's going on there I don't think it's the job of the far service to go in and take materials and actually test it that'll be the expert within the building construction area and building prevention area the audits will be firefighters going into buildings and looking at their far safety procedures and precautions the intrusive element of that will take a little bit more time a little bit more detailed look and looking into them the the safety of the building the fire doors the smoke detectors the heat detectors if there's any issues in relation to eras within the actual building that's been directly impacted due to modern building reconstruction or modern building identification that's that's been put in place during that process so the intrusive part of that will be actually going into the buildings and having a detailed look within the the far safety procedures the fire precautions the fire detections to make sure in relation to the actual testing of the materials that's nothing that the fire service will do that will be left up to the experts okay so that leads me on to the next point testing of materials and you talk about cuts in research who funds the research and where is it done where is it carried out I think the research comes from from government's government funding into that and of course during the times of austerity we're seen cuts right across the board to the public service and with an organisation within governmental departments so the research would be coming from that to test those those flammable potentially flammable materials that that's newly coming on to the market I think most of these most of the people who do the research now like building research establishment at one time would have been a a government funded company or a partially funded through doing research for government departments let us say might even be none for profit but I think a lot of these companies now have gone out and privatised themselves or set up their own private wing and been there fully accredited respected throughout the world testing to British standards and testing to certain standards a lot of the fire test standards are very old and they've not been seen to be anything wrong with them they are quite old standards and and so these companies are reputable sorry mr mckenzie can I just stop you that the evidence from the fpu was that research into fire performance has been slashed south of the border that's correct so why why is that that that must be a money thing so where's the money coming from where's it going to if it's government funded is it the UK government do we have research here in scotland i'm settled not aware of any i'm settled not aware of any research within scotland but maybe my colleagues within the building industry and construction industry and housing industry may may may be able to alleviate on that it sounds that we need more yeah it's absolutely it's okay that that's the point i have an evidence session to identify where we need more information and more clarity that that's okay most of the testing of materials is such is driven by the manufacturer that manufacturer wants to sell a cladding material to get that on the market it's got to pass water tests for rain screen cladding no that that's not what we're talking about today but that will be one main criteria it's got to be able to be fixed in such a way it doesn't get sucked off or blown off by the wind so there's a structural aspect of it and then there is also a fire aspect of it the fire aspect of cladding up to this fire and that type of cladding appearing on the market was negligible because it's either been stone metal solid metal which doesn't burn terracotta type things so it hasn't been a plastic these rain screen cladding is mostly stone a lot of it's stone but so that hasn't been an issue but it has to be tested by an independent testing company who you can choose to go to you don't have you can go to whichever one you want and you get your test certificate from that and that will last for a period of time that is funded by that company paying that company money that's that's how the that works they may do independent tests now for the government may have asked them to test certain materials or retest things but they'll be putting a fee in putting a bill in for that these testing companies are independent they're not funded by anybody they make the money out of testing materials it's a business right it's obviously an area we'll we'll have to look at a bit further so can ask sorry again Denise to go back to your evidence where you say that fire safety inspecting officers have been cut by 24% do you think this means that things are being risk missed a risk's being missed due to these cuts well what i have to say is that you know my members of fire safety inspecting officers are absolutely doing the best job that they can with the resources that they've got certainly feedback from our members that they are finding it more and more difficult to have the time to complete the tests that needs to be completed and inspections that needs to be complete that that required to be completed and the time and allocation of time now i've not seen the figures of the the recent audits in relation to fire safety inspections i've not got them handy but there are figures out there that will tell you how many audits have been done how many hours it's took to cover those audits now if we're looking for an increase in audits with a decrease in hours that then shows you that less time is getting taken to do more audits and i would attribute that to less fire safety inspecting officers having the time to complete the audits the audits still need to be completed but the question i would ask and i've not got these figures to hand but certainly there will be figures out there and questions need to be asked is how long is it taken now in this current climate to do those fire safety inspection audits to previously three four five years ago and if there's a difference there we need to be asking why and if that's a direct result of the cuts to fire safety inspection auditors then again question needs to be asked to be asked why in relation to that okay thank you can i go on to ask about sprinklers because we haven't really touched on that yet to any great degree my understanding is that all modern tower blocks now have to have sprinkler systems fitted but that doesn't apply retrospectively to older tower blocks so you could have older tower blocks that don't have sprinkler systems that don't have modern fire suppressant systems not just sprinklers should we should we actually be insisting that there should be a full audit of all tower blocks and making sure that they all have these systems in them not just the modern ones anyone can answer it would be a good step forward i don't know if that could come in through built in legislation it perhaps could it's difficult because as i said the way that the regulations are worded you would have to then bring in legislation that you could apply certain standards in retrospect there are powers through the act that you could enforce it but that it's powers very very very very rarely used they've been used after a couple of football stadium disasters where we've gone to football stadiums and discussed things and enforced things to be done but it would be the way forward certainly because under the current building regulations end above 18 meters require sprinklers sometimes developers they'll then keep things just under 18 meters so they don't have to go to that expense so you could bring that in in all flatted developments and retrospectively in all buildings that get altered above 18 meters it would be certainly a positive thing to do i'm sure because certainly where sprinklers are used in any part the regulations they're used for life safety they're used for property safety in schools but in other buildings but mainly for life safety that we are very much in favour of our sprinkler separation system sorry they're not just sprinklers which is not as close to sprinklers yeah Denise Christie yeah thanks in 2009 the fbu moved a resolution at STEC congress calling on the Scottish Government to install sprinkler systems within all the housing stock and recently the general secretary of the STEC wrote to the minister for community safety highlighting the STEC's position in relation to sprinklers and that resolution was written at a period where there was a high increase in fire deaths within Scotland and the fbu priority like i said before has always been community safety and firefighter safety recent stats show that there has been a decline in fire death within Scotland but the recent stats shown a slight increase again so whether that's a blip within within the level of fire deaths i can't really comment on that but i think we need to be aware that there is a slight increase within fire deaths in Scotland and the recent stats show that you're more likely to die in our dwelling house fire in Scotland than anybody else in the UK and if we reflect on the Welsh legislation Wales have got legislation that requires sprinklers fitted sprinklers to be fitted and we certainly have had no reports of any fire deaths where a house or a property or a building has been fitted with sprinkler systems and i believe it potentially could cost between one and two thousand pounds to fit any sprinkler systems and put in properties the Welsh legislation isn't all new dwellings it's not retrofitting is it just for clarity i'm not sure yes right so it's new build it's not retrofitting so sorry sorry so davis jill i must admit that actually a discussion on whether sprinklers should be retrofitted they're not in multis probably hasn't been one of the main issues that's come up amongst our members probably a lot of the focus has been on cladding on internal fire doors and on work with the fire service and also how best to to communicate with tenants um it's something that maybe you know ought to be considered and looking at building standards but also through the current consultation that that's open um the final thing i would say on it going back to what i've been saying earlier around fire doors and around alarms is i think any measures that that are required following as learning lessons from Grenfell i think have to be applied to all all dwellings and all all tenures at least for multi stories otherwise you know you're not they're not going to be as effective as as they might be that's fine thanks jenny go rathen thank you um just to follow up actually on the convener's point earlier on um he highlighted that obviously not all of your members so this is to davis sure um had responded to the survey that you'd sent out to them and i just want to take you back in time and ask you how that evidence was gathered did sfha staff go out and carry out the surveys himself or was it dependent on members feeding back to you in terms of the survey how did it it was really sent out very quickly maybe a day or two after the the Grenfell tragedy and it was sent as an email from our chief executive asking for members to to respond okay so it wasn't physical inspections carried out by you centrally then in terms of your members no no no it was asking members to provide information and then many of them carried out yeah and you say now that all members though have responded to the government in terms of their investigations and has that process been similar do you know if they were again asked to respond to an email i believe they were asked to respond to a letter actually so it was a but it was a method of communication rather than understand the government actually going out and so again no physical inspections took place in i believe that's the case but i think that's something you would maybe want to clarify with ministerial working group later on your submission you say that housing associations also made tenants aware that the fire service offered free advisory home visits can i ask why those aren't compulsory is that because of legislation i don't know if this is perhaps for you denise i could say something briefly on yeah i believe they're not compulsory and the idea is that they should tend to focus on people who might be seen as more vulnerable one thing that's come up in discussions with one member is that they actually require it as a condition of tenancy and in a way try try to make it compulsory so whether that's something resources permitting that might be followed up on or seen as good practice across landlords that might be something to to consider okay yeah i think i think it's important to recognise actually the the great deal of work the scotch fire and rescue service have done on the back of grenfell in relation to going out into communities especially those residents living in high flats giving them far safe to advice they've updated their website in relation to fires within tower blocks and far safe advice and giving out leaflets so there's a great deal of work certainly that i'm aware of that the scotch fire and rescue service are doing and i know the priority is to try and reach those hard to reach individuals and work across other organisations within social work within health work to try and get access to difficult residents that potentially need that that life safe and far safe advice so i'd like to put on record the recognition of the the work that the service have done on the back of grenfell and my members certainly are doing to give that that far safe advice just as a kind of a final question i suppose my point is not to take away from any of that fantastic work obviously denise but because these visits aren't compulsory people don't have to go through them and i suppose there is a concern then that you know the most vulnerable people will miss out because those aren't the people that are going to be volunteering to have these advisory visits happen if they're hard to reach um can i just ask what specific action then the sfha takes centrally to go out in terms of fire inspection is there specific action you would take on the ground to support you know these advisory visits or is it again a letter or an email or it's not something we would really do in our role as we are really a membership and representative body we we don't own houses we represent members in tenants interests so so we don't we don't have that that role at all okay thank you okay can i just check something then do your members identify those most at risk who are tenants and work more closely with them to get them to engage with the scottish fire and rescue service is that done as a matter of course or is it just each housing association has a different approach it's difficult for me to give a direct answer to that without having you know spoken to all our surveyed all but what i would say is that of associations we've spoken to and i had a meeting yesterday with a number who have quite a few multi stories that does come across as common practice that they're aware of people who who they would see as vulnerable and they very much encourage them to to engage with the fire service it also just briefly to add to what Denise said them i've been very impressed when members have come back to us with just them what positive working relationship they have with the the fire service and how much work the fire service do to either engage with them as organisations or with their tenants as individuals okay yes Denise Christiak. The fire service work with partnership organisations and those partnership organisations will then inform the fire service of particular clients or residents who potentially could be high risk and the fire service will go out and make every effort to target those individuals and gain access to their properties to give that far safety advice so there is partnership work in there that collaborative work okay thank you mr Gibson i don't know if you want to follow up on any of the points raised i know Elaine Smith has got some additional points so Elaine Smith. Thanks very much convener at one additional point to Denise you said in your evidence that the fbu is concerned we should not have to wait for another multi fatality fire before we address other known risks with the same vigor are those known risks like the lack of fire doors etc or do you want to expand a wee bit on those known risks? I would argue that the known risks won't be known until we get those intrusive fire safety inspections concluded. We never realised the impact of the cladding in relation to Grenfell tower until after the tragedy and then there's further intrusive investigations and ministerial working groups and evidence sessions taking place like this one rightly so i think in order to find out what those unknown or unknown issues are we need to make sure that we're going out there and doing those thorough intrusive fire safety audits and inspect inspections and also have the resources to do those and carry out those inspections as well. Thanks my worry was convener that maybe there was risks that we knew about right now that we weren't dealing with an act to know and could i specifically ask David Stewart a question when your members are building new housing developments whatever do they regularly use their own clerk of works this is something we've been taking evidence on or do they rely on the private contractor to get to for the quality assurance of those houses? This is something i can't give a 100 answer without serving members but i've had quite a lot of discussions with members following issues that have come up for example around schools, buildings and those that i have spoken to feel that sort of issue would be unlikely to happen to them because they do employ clerk of works they have a lot of site inspections and site meetings and certainly when i worked for a housing association developing houses we did employ a clerk of works on site so it's not something to be complacent about but i believe it's something that's still common practice. Just to say that my experience is that when we were at the last discussion that the private sector nowadays because they have to build a certain amount of affordable housing when they build so many of their own units that invariably there is a clerk of works representing the house association who are taking on those affordable housing that's been supplied so generally i would say they do have clerk of works but the private house builders don't. Finally from me convener could i ask all of the panel members something that again takes us back to our original inquiry which is the verification of building standards is something that we have been looking into and we've taken evidence from bodies who believe that it's better in council control we've also taken evidence from others who believe that it's better provided by a private body such as the nhbc for example and i just wonder if the panel would wish to make any comment on that as part of our inquiry into the building standards regulations where do you think verification ought to lie do you have an opinion no one's catch no one wants to answer that question and i'm totally biased position of being a verifier who works for a local authority but i'll be honest i'm not 100% sure that it couldn't be opened up and a lot of my colleagues i'll be looking at me saying why you're saying that but as a member of the RICS i have lots of fellow members of the RICS who work in england the whales and close friends people have worked with over the years who now work in private sector sorry working the pub working the private sector sorry who used to work in the public sector and they are not any different they're the same person and they've taken the same values the same if you're a member of the RICS you remember that chapter institute you've got strong strict conditions of membership there that you've got to follow and i think if you're a professionally qualified person it wouldn't matter if you're in the private the public sector it works well in the private sector in scotland but sorry could i just clarify it works well in the private sector in scotland sorry in the public sector but it did work well in the private sector when there was this was a private sector approved building so i would just add caution in relation to you know far safety and far safety inspections in relation to buildings going into the private sector certainly within the far service our members are firefighters are professional that are knowledgeable and that are experienced at work within the fire industry from going into fires to eventually going into specific areas in relation to far safety and fire enforcement certainly know there's there's talks about potential privatisation for for some of these areas down in england and the fabric is union would definitely like to see those kept in house within the public public bodies i can't really give a firm position one way or the other other than to say i think from our member's point of view the the big issue would be not so much she's doing the inspections but there's the resources and the the people to actually carry out the sufficient number and the right quality of inspection thanks mop up one or two very very brief questions so we're spoken a bit today about fire doors and properties sometimes they were social rented maybe they were bought over they've been adapted and what have you and that puts properties particularly with with communal stairwells other properties it compromises their fire safety not just the fire safety of that individual household so it's a suggestion then that it should be an offence to move a fire door from someone's private dwelling and if so there should be inspection of that there should be enforcement and there should be penalty what i'm trying to actually tease out is we can say these things but actually making it happen in practice could be much more challenging so what's your thoughts on fire doors is clearly buildings goes through the building work process it's verified fire service are delighted with the level of fire safety there 15 years later there's 10 properties fire doors been pulled out happens quite a lot in tournaments where there's fire doors for internal kitchens and things like that for example no one's ever going to look at that property again unless unless what how do we do something meaningful rather than just just malaise the fact that there's not a what we can do about it Denise Christie what should we do i think we need to invest in more preventative work rather than looking at the problem after it's happened if we had more fire safety inspection officers with authority to to go in and do those inspections and give that advice then potentially we wouldn't see the issues coming from behind that we're having fire doors that are being changed into modern doors that are not 30 minute doors or 60 minute door equivalent so for me it's about in the fire brigade union it's about the preventative work we do before the issue occurs so it's awareness raising and having people make positive choices for their properties rather than any form of legislation is that the view of the other panel members definitely i think certainly no grenville's if it serves one purpose you know it's very very sad event but it does serve one purpose it has height and everybody's awareness and i think people might be more aware now wedge and fire doors opened or or whatever the fire doors with young children they're a nightmare they are a nightmare i've got grandchildren and keep saying to my own children don't no don't wedge your doors opened in but it is an awareness thing but i think i think it's it's very difficult to police that situation and in terms of the building legislation the building regulations and the building act our enforcement one of the best things that any government could do would be to give the building control of building standards verification process some enforcement teeth we have no enforcement teeth at all and that would that's across the board that's across the board that's the most positive thing that could be done in the building regulations because we have no enforcement teeth at all and too many people know that and flaunt it and that's why you get people occupying buildings without permission because that's against the law and it's not without the building standards people writing to them and telling them we can withhold certification but unless they maybe want to sell a property or get money on it that doesn't work and that's where really the enforcement is very very poor for building standards and its enforcement would be a really good thing to do and because times almost upon us rather than expanding that further and talk about enforcement perhaps because we're looking at other other matters as part of this inquiry and not just fire safety and high-rise and we're obvious mr stewart i'm going to take you in next but wait a bit time is almost upon us in fact time is upon us but i'd like the opportunity to give each of the witnesses any closing remarks that they might wish to make before we move on from this session and i know you had a final comment to make anyway mr stewart so when we start with yourself and the others could come in after i can maybe cover what i was going to say an answer to that question is part of the final remark um our view i think would be that um a way to address this issue of fire safety um internal doors fire alarms would be to have a common housing quality standard it's something that the scottish government did some preparatory or investigative work on and um i think it would um it would have a number of benefits beyond just um fire safety um a lot of our members a lot of people in the private sector of real issues with tenements falling into disrepair and not being able to effect repairs or improvements to common parts um having a common housing quality standard for all all tenures would help with that and finally it would help um where the the government sets energy efficiency standards and social landlords or even private owners who might want to improve their property can't do that because they can't get other other owners to to agree so that that would be our proposal okay thank you mr mckenzie yeah i think there's so much we've covered and it's been thank you for giving us the opportunity here i think my view is that the current building standards and a new building grenfell wouldn't happen i even i don't even think it would happen if um the the same cladding was on the building i think unfortunately um and i think it's came as much from scottish government but there's there's been a a sort of stay put policy within buildings and that normally works and there's pictures that are on the bsd website of little units burnt out in the flat across from at the doors hardly blistered and the rest of building's fine but when you get this issue with grenfell with this cladding which hopefully will be banned and we won't have that ever again you have something different but i think the current standards are robust enough where you've got sprinklers perhaps alarm detection systems internal fire doors secondary fire doors smoke ventilation smoke control in lobbies and stairs it should not have happened people should have been able to walk away from that building and got out of that building i don't know the whole story but i think once we get the whole report certainly the cladding is the one i hope now that that shouldn't have happened and i don't think will happen we've we've done the no checks and things and shouldn't happen hopefully anywhere in scotland with it because it'll be rectified it'll be discovered now and be changed but i think the building regulations are fairly robust and i think more investment needs to be given across the board and whatever way we go because it's okay setting up policies and setting up documents and setting up things but unless you've got people to enforce these things you won't be able to take it forward and there's a huge lack of investment in local authority building standards the fees have gone up but the still money can get siphoned off by the chief executives and i think as well it's not it's not an attractive business to come into local government if i've got a colleague here who's representing a union as much as anything if i can represent a local government union and be very political for a minute is that people like myself who have been working at the top of a pay grade for about 10 years have noticed virtually no rise in their salary over 10 years you're not going to encourage people to come into that profession you're going to encourage people to leave and go into the private sector so to get even if we had the policies in place to recruit staff is very very difficult and that's what you know we are finding the Edmund city council i think across the the board more people are going out the door than coming in well i won't compare your salary with that of local authority chief executives that's one for another day but you make your point well and talking about resources that might lead on quite nice to some of the comments that Denise Christie may have yes sure a couple of points convener the ministerial working group focuses on the clad in the fbu would like to see that extended as a result of those intrusive inspections that happened in campden so i would like them to consider to open up the ministerial working group and also reconsider a seat on that working group for the fabricage union and the second point i'd really like to highlight i think i've highlighted it enough here but i'm going to you know go on again it's in relation to the far safety inspecting officers that 24% reduction within those inspecting officers that can only be increased due to funding year on year cuts year on year budget cuts to the far and rescue service is impacting on the front line we've got we've got a budget coming up i'd like to see support round about this committee certainly and i'm happy to to speak at other further evidence sessions in relation to specific cuts in the far service and finally i'd just like to thank the committee and the members for the opportunity to speak here today thank you and i just say one more brief thing the building yes mr mckinn sorry the building standards authorities have a fantastic relationship with scotish fire we work very very closely with them we work particularly in complex buildings and difficult structures and they're involved at the early stage in the design of these buildings the fire precautions they put in their professional expertise as we do as well and and work with the developers and the designers these buildings and also at the small end an enforcement of people using basements and shops that they shouldn't be using and we work very very closely with them and we know we we appreciate their expertise as they do also appreciate our expertise as well okay can i thank all three witnesses for for their time and considered evidence here today i'm sure the scotish government will wish to be led by the evidence through the ministerial working group and also informed by the evidence this committee receives so we will we will watch how that develops as a committee as well and i think it's fair to say the committee is not having a one-off look at this matter we intend keeping a a watching brief on this as it unfolds because this might run over a number of years not just a number of months and i think we'll be in it for the long haul to make sure that additional level of scrutiny is provided from this parliament so thank you to all of our witnesses for coming along this morning and we'll suspend briefly before we move to the next agenda item thank you we we now move to agenda item two supporting legislation and the committee will consider negative instrument two two five is listed on the agenda the instrument is laid under the negative procedure which means that its provisions will come in to force unless the parliament votes on a motion to annul that instrument the delegated powers and law reform dplr committee considered this instrument at its meeting on the 5th of september 2017 and determined that it did not need to draw the attention of the parliament on any grounds within its remit conform members at no motions to annul have been laid can i ask members if they have any comments on the instruments before us there appearing to be no comments on the instrument can invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to this instrument and are we agreed on that okay thank members for that and we'll now move to agenda item three which will be in private consideration of evidence when we move into private session