 welcome to the 16th meeting in 2023 of the local government housing and planning committee. The first item on agenda today is to decide whether to take items 3 and 4 in private. Are members agreed? We're all agreed. We're checking online, yes. Okay. We are now turned to agenda item 2, which is to take evidence on building safety, particularly focusing on the progress made over the last year in relation to progress y Gweinwch Gweinwch Cyffredinol i'r gweld y cyfgledd gyllid yn cynnig, y dweud o gwych yn bwysig i gael y bwysig y bwysig, gan y sydd hynny'n i'n meddwl gweinwch gyflennidol, yn meddwl gyda'r EWS1, ac y Gweinwch Cyffredinol i'r gweld yn cyrraed o'r gweld. Mae'n gweinwch gyda'r fferwyr cyfanol ym Chris Ashhurst, sy'r gweinwch gyffredinadau cyfaf hwyllwch gyllid Cymru, Fionac Cal, director of policy at homes for Scotland. I will begin with questions. Chris, I will start with a question for you and then I will come to other committee members. I would be interested to hear if you are aware if homeowners and buyers are still experiencing problems in moving or obtaining mortgages due to the zero valuation of homes caused by concerns over fire safety. What impact is this having on the people affected? Thank you for that question, really good question. The answer in one word is yes. The extended answer is I can think of several buildings where for example an EWS1 form might be granted at the level that would allow mortgage, but because there is an SBA in the background and there are different criteria there, the same surveyor looking at the same building would pass an EWS1 but could not give a low risk assessment on an SBA, thus putting him in a dilemma as a professional, can I sign this off giving a statement effectively to lenders? Yes, this is okay for lending but actually I know that down the road there is this in the background so that is causing issues and so yes that is just a really difficult area you might want to explore but how it affects owners. When we started this process and it was launched in March two years back now, one of the things that we all said on the then ministerial working group and what the minister said and indeed I believe the cabinet secretary said we must give people hope and when the SBA was launched people who had already been sitting there for a while really worried, some are worried because they can't sell their properties, some are worried because they are living in what they think might be dangerous homes and so that was seen as hey look there is hope here and the difficulty has been and I think there is a proverb that says hope deferred makes the heart grow sick and we are now two years down the road, some of those people are living in buildings where there is an active SBA underway which does it give them any comfort well because they don't know the result and it's taking a long time so those people are really concerned I mean some of the messages I get from people I think I'm seen as an advocate for the Scottish Government so I have had words directed at me that I don't think and I was an insolvency practitioner I don't think I've ever heard before so you know people are really angry about that then there are the people who of course most of the properties are not yet actually in an active SBA situation and they don't know so they are also very concerned and some of the people are actually in a building whether it is an SBA underway they don't know because of the communication difficulties they're not getting information does that help that's very helpful and concerning to hear that there's kind of like what I would say a lot of worry and wondering in the in the system and in the processes at the moment do you have any thoughts about you're talking about the EWS1 it's possible to offer the mortgage at that point but then there's a SBA in the background do you have any thoughts about a direction forward for that the game slightly changed with the issue before Christmas of the new guidance so I think it was on December the it was the Friday before Christmas or Friday before Christmas week which wasn't exactly publicised hugely but there were changes in that that heightened the threshold the tests for safety so that has caused impact because you can only have and everyone agreed at the beginning is either a low risk or high risk without gradation but the reality is that yes there is high risk and low risk but even as they've discovered in undertaking the SBAs some are high high high risk in fact to the point of actually when they've discovered the things that are in there have actually had to use the gold silver bronze thing involving government the city councils and so on to actually move that to a place where people actually can carry on living there so yet that of course that is high risk but you also have buildings which would be defined as high risk which really there are there are shades of this and somehow I I would hope and council and want to see some sort of realisation of that and some sort of way of addressing that so that I mean I was an advocate of the yes high risk low risk because it's clarity but it's also caused buildings where actually people are living with risk which people have lived with for decades or more than decades which are were normally acceptable so that needs to be thought through and developed further okay so a bit more nuance in that absolutely absolutely right okay great thanks very much I'm not going to bring in willy coffee it sounds very simplistic to just have it originally as low risk high risk doesn't it and then you've described the difficults here could you just share with us what are some of the difficulties in just deciding whether a building is lower high and where's that middle ground as you see it well first of all I have to say as I've already confessed I was an insolwyr to practice this practitioner I'm not a builder nor a surveyor but if you have buildings with highly flammable and some of the buildings did have highly flammable materials in and the compartmentalisation of stairs and flats was woeful I mean the and it just awful so high risk okay so I know of a building where it would get an EWS1 it'd be fine behind what looks like a concrete facade there are EPS insulation in concrete capsules as it were and the surveyor I've spoken with said yes technically that is flammable and so under the guideline that came out before Christmas that's a no no it's got to be it's got to be remediated he said when he first saw it it would be really difficult for it to catch fire because it's already behind something it's also encapsulated if it did catch fire actually it wouldn't flame there would be smoke and he said there'd be a hell of a mess but the chances of that happening are minimal however that would is still now high risk so if you had to remediate that so in a building where there's 10 12 stories many of those have balconies but many of them have Juliet balconies you don't actually go out on them be the you sit in your dining room you open the door and you look out there and you've got a Juliet balcony if you're on the eighth floor 10th floor whatever and that you've got to have that exterior remediated which means taking the render off to take the render off you'd have to take the you would probably have to take the Juliet balcony so you are now potentially sitting in a flat on the eighth floor without windows with no balcony now you know those are kind of two ends of a scale and there's everything in between so those are the sort of issues that need to be addressed and and tempers I think thank you for that helps us to understand where that grey area may lie in the middle between low and high and I think I know what you're going to say to us but when do you think that the EWS one is a system improved at all in the last year you were talking about a few changes there but what would you say in reflection has it improved any or it was still where we were I knew the one of the guys who and he's given evidence here who drafted the EWS one for unfortunately didn't know when he drafted it and he and of course it was drafted against an English legislation background and in that setting I said to him look this just really isn't going to work here because of the difference in the tenure system all sorts of other issues and he said yeah kind of we kind of knew that but you know we were really dealing with England has it really changed I I don't see evidence of it on the ground let's put it that way and there's still a real there's a lack of people who are qualified to do it I mean it's so few so very few yeah thank you thank you but that probably leads me to ask you this next question about the difficulties in getting flat owners to agree remedial action in Scotland could you just tell us just talk a little bit about the difficulties that you know of and what the possible solution to that might be there are at least two schools of thought on this and I've discussed it with some of the guys on the team who I think you'll be seeing later so there was an argument advanced that every building that had to have remediation work carried out would need a hundred percent agreement from you know that first of all in any situation there's never going to happen just never get that and some are dead you know and you've got execs as you say some things like that we have someone in our building we're dealing with another issue at the minute and the guy currently is in China and apparently not quite sure how much so let's just say the internet access in China is difficult at the minute so communicating actually getting agreement for anything is kind of yeah 100% agreement oh he's in China sorry can't agree we don't do anything that is not a root that can be followed I don't I believe that where there are buildings which have um deeds of condition in place they will often give quorum quorums for many meetings and the majority is required my belief and it is shared and it was supported by some of the guys in the Scottish government and I ended up putting out a color if you like a press release about it is that where that is in existence that takes precedence so in those circumstances I don't actually think you need to have 100% in the building that I live in and I I actually think and I'm told by factors across Scotland that we are more successful than most to get 50% to attend a general meeting is why you know that most people say it's 25 30% at best and even on critical critical matters where you think you know you should be taking this more seriously people people simply don't read what is sent to them they just don't and so that 100% threshold is not achievable so there has to be some way of dealing with that has there been any examples of remediation having been done with a quorum or a some kind of a grid okay I'm only aware of one building in Scotland where the remediation is any since advanced and I believe they got it was a fairly relatively small development in in a city and I believe they did get the owners on the side I don't think there are that many of them we've got 100% I don't I wasn't I wasn't there but I think that there have been some difficulties since but but in other places it's been very difficult indeed you people oppose actually oppose it because it's going to cost them a lot of money well of course there's there's the rub is it or isn't it so people are still unsure about that I mean I'm sure Fiona will be talking a little bit about that later and so will the minister and so on later but we've tried to give comfort to people and the Scottish Government tried to give comfort to people that the burden of this will fall not on the owners as I think I said I remember at the very first meeting I came to two years plus back the only innocent people in in this whole scenario are the owners okay and they are the ones who should not be having to foot the bill and I know the Scottish Government are committed to seeking to make others pay basically I know other colleagues have come in and knows issues Christo thank you very much for the moment thank you thank you very much I'm just going to bring in Marie McNair who's got questions for Chris but then we'll come to you Fiona and if there's anything you want to come back in on at that point that's welcome so Marie would you like to come in good morning panel thank you container um our owners within affected buildings still finding it difficult or expensive to obtain insurance and have actions by the insurance industry had any impact on the premiums been paid by owners and tenants yes um so um there are buildings which have no insurance they cannot get it where the normal risk would be 100 million that I'm aware of a building where um tried again to get insurance and it's actually not a particularly high-risk building um and would get an EWS1 certificate but uh the insurers will not countenance it and um the there are new factors coming on the scene and they've been well known reputable you would know the name good factors and they've tried to get insurance they have insured across scotland their normal insurers don't want to do it they don't want to start a new policy on a building where there's that sort of potential and if and they were surprised and eventually they were just going to try and get some sort of insurance you know and in the end they went through the Lloyd's market and they got a quote for 100 million um which was the figure risk um and that quote was around about 900 000 a year and the factors said as factors and we we just don't think we could recommend that you know but it's an owner's you know I suppose at the end of those the owner's choice but you know that that isn't doable and actually you then put a factor in a difficult position whoever the factor is because he's then signing up on something and potentially he too could have a risk you know if there's unpaid premiums all that sort of stuff and that could cause that company that factor in business to question actually is this a viable thing that we can legitimately do so yeah I mean it's a big question but um I was just reading it just a few minutes ago uh my good friend Alistair Ross who dropped me in it so thoroughly last time um at the last meeting he uh reported to the committee a couple of weeks ago not this committed to the what do we call it the working no it's not working group we changed the name don't we that's the one stakeholder group um so there is an abi scheme that is in process of being launched uh I can give you if you don't have it already the website details it's pretty scant on detail he gave us more detail at the meeting but they are trying to launch a scheme where essentially there would be a single um if you like nominated lead insurer and they're trying to work it out both in England and in Scotland where it's to do with the layers of risk because one of the things that was identified by the fca when they were um following up on one of one of mr go's initiatives to check the um insurance situation what was identified there was a big issue to do with commission but there's also a big issue to do with the the way risk is spread and so they are seeking to address that they made an announcement and they I just spoke with Alice there last night as their Ross and there's something on the website their website this morning that they're on track to try and launch something this summer which could affect and and be a benefit to the the ones that are high at risk highest risk and insuring dealing with catastrophic loss and so on so maybe that will help that's does that answer your question yes it does thank you for that chris um just moving on to my next question the scottish government single buildings assessment programme is announced in march 2021 how well has it its delivery progressed and do you think anything could help anything else could help in its regard um i know when we launched it at the beginning i remember on the day we launched it we said it's like um we were thrilled to launch it but it was like getting in a car and traveling from Edinburgh to Penzant's we're in the car we started the engine and we're moving we're not sure which route we're going to take or how long it's going to take and we were we were aware of that at the beginning because the moving from conception to reality and putting it into practice is is the and that has has proved enormously difficult it was a pilot scheme it is a pilot scheme and some of the things that have been discovered in the pilot scheme probably could not have been envisaged at the beginning and the resources available people resources available to achieve this both within government and beyond government have been very limited and the process i think as i said at the beginning hope deferred makes the heart grow sick so people are some people are very very very angry at the how slow it is i i understand that our own group high rise Scotland we we said we are not a protest group we're not a you know tie them to the railings type organisation i understand people feeling that and and have sympathy with it our position is that we're here to try and work with it to bring our insight if that's the right word or that sounds a bit pretentious but our on-the-ground experience to temper the technical decisions and others that are being made had that happened at the time the ews one was being drawn up i think the ews one would have looked different to be perfectly honest so it's very important that that is in the frame so people are extremely angry i got a pretty abusive message the other day from someone absolutely tearing into the Scottish government and actually saying look if it's broken just stop start again is there's no shame in admitting that you got it wrong you was not just me but all you got it wrong start again what of course people who are keyboard warriors who just read snippets in their headlines don't understand is the huge process that's going on underneath and the detail so you know it the things that have been discovered are of such import that they need other experts to look at it it's just and it is slow but i am what i am pleased about is that at least the other day i think that the government issued the single building assessment spending information so actually showed it was work being done and one of the huge criticisms which is why one of the reasons why people are angry is that they don't know what's going on and i've had conversations with people in government saying look even if you don't know where we're at at least say something and the group that we've been on has been pushing since november 2021 for regular some sort of regular information and i understand the argument that says well we want to wait until we've got something to say my rebuttal if you like to that was this is a bit like being in the second world war you don't want to announce anything until you've got to be a day but in the in the meantime the four or five years and there are people in the trenches and their families are at home they don't know what's going on we have the people in the trenches and we don't know what's going on in a sense i'm slightly privileged but the people generally don't know across the nation and in individual developments don't know so one owner respected guy is trying to find out what's happening in his development where there's an sba and he's had to resort to asking freedom of information request to get information that's just an untenable position thanks chris that feedback is helpful and it's really important that we know what the feeling is out there i'll hand it back to the convener thank you malian thanks mary um so now i'm going to come over to Fiona got questions for you and as i said if you want to pick up on anything that was also covered previously so so the cabinet secretary for social justice housing and local government wrote to the committee in march 2023 stating that the agreement on on the safer building accord could not be reached as there was a quote unwillingness from developers to accept the need to work to legal scottish building standards and i'd be interested to know if that's correct and if so how was the dispute overcome okay thanks and first of all can i just start by saying and i agree wholeheartedly with almost everything that chris has just said and we have remained as frustrated as residents have with issues around the the programme the implementation the pilot nature the communications this issue about great grading of you know high to low and everything in between so in answer to your question there are all the reasons why back in march there was no ability to reach an agreement at that stage the cabinet secretary i'm sorry the housing minister then updated parliament just on thursday passed there in that written statement to advise that that agreement has been has been reached with a number of what are being referred to as the way of one developers so scottish government in february asked to concentrate on those 10 home builders who had committed and had already signed the equivalent pledge in england and therefore their priority was to focus on those 10 in scotland initially and so from from february discussions have been happening with with those 10 way of one developers and as the housing minister advised then the back end of last week that there's no a majority of those are now in a position to agree the accord and those that have not yet it's simply because they are still working through very many of these technical queries that that chris has outlined and there's no objection to the principal commitment to remediation of life critical fire safety that's that's accepted but there's very real very genuine practical questions that only become apparent as you're trying to work your way through this i think we need to remember that this is this is something completely new we're trying to fix buildings that are up to 30 years old so it's not just a question of a of a lego you take one bit off and put a new bit on it just doesn't work like that and a lot of questions that are that are coming up and that are needing to be answered are rising kind of almost on the hoof because until you start the investigation then the other things become apparent and then the position from the from the home builders that whilst you know they accept the principal offer you need to understand a bit more about this so the sb the sba the sand guidance Scottish advice no guidance that chris mentioned that was published just before christmas and that introduced a whole raft of different questions and approaches that hadn't been thought off of until then and as each sba is under way it's unveiling another set of questions so in answer to your question that that's where the principal is there and still trying to work out as as chris has said the implications of that thanks very much that's very helpful i'm going to bring in mark griffin thanks campaigner good morning the previous cabinet secretary had said that they expected the accord to be agreed and delivered i think was in time for september last year and i don't know if you know if you're able to set out why you think it's taken so much longer than the government predicted to get that agreement in place was was that simply too ambitious to set out that deadline of last september from government yeah i think as as i've said this is a this is a completely new programme and it's a completely new approach you know never has the whole scale remediation of buildings up to 30 years of age ever had to take place so so a lot of the questions that had been emerging we didn't know the questions at the outset almost so the questions have kind of appeared as we've gone along so trying to get answers to those questions to give the home builders the comfort to sign up has has been what's what's taken that that length of time and i think the the the relatively slow start at the sba pilot programme had and getting those rolled out and getting the the skills of the the technical teams to carry those out you know that that has all impacted then on actually understanding what exactly is it we're expected to sign up to what what is what does an sba look like that is a question that we have asked repeatedly what is an sba you want us to sign up to immediate buildings based on the findings of a government procured sba okay what is an sba can you can you show us a template of what you're asking for can you show us a completed one so we know what we're signing up to and that information has has been difficult to to get hold of in the course of the last few weeks we've had a lot more clarification around those points which is why the housing minister was able to advise that now in principle the majority of those way of one developers have now had sufficient comfort around those principles but there's still some technical questions i should also say that that there's a long way to go now to getting that legal long form contract over the line which requires a lot of these questions that we've been asking to be very specifically answered and laid down in black and white in a legally binding format before we can progress the other concern that remains is and as chris has pointed out the frustration that many of his representatives have with regards to the sba programme the delays in running it again the home builders will be responsible for remediating but they can't get on with the remediation until they know what needs to be remediated and that all stems from the sba programme so if the sba programme isn't sufficiently resourced at pace to deliver then home homeowners will be waiting for it before they know what's going on the home builders are waiting for it before they can deal with the remediation so what we have suggested is it could be an option that the home builders themselves can procure the sba rather than it having to be government that might help to speak to speed things up in England home builders are able to procure the fire risk assessment that's required for the remediation programme is that something that could be an option in Scotland just to help keep things moving okay that's helpful thanks you've touched on the the outstanding technical issues a couple of times you'll know the minister is coming in in the session after this what are those technical issues that are outstanding that you know we can put to the minister and ask on record for when we're likely to have that resolved I think particular clarification around the as Chris mentioned the sort of the sort of braiding system in in England again the system that so the home builders that have been asked first of all as I said are those who've already committed and are underway in England so that's why I'm using England as an experience because they're trying to juggle both systems so in England the the PAS in England allows for kind of a high medium and low risk approach so they can understand that there may be some issues that are sitting in that medium risk and that can be kind of looked at separately you know though there may be an element of some of those risks that may be tolerable in Scotland that doesn't exist it's high or low so they're trying to understand well if you had a building that's done excuse me I'm not I'm not a technical I'm not construction technical expert but you know if you have a building that's done a b c and d but you can't do a do you have to demolish the building you know and that's the kind of questions that that we're getting to now if you've complied with all of these other bits but there's one bit that you practically can't do the building was never designed to do that 30 years ago what does that mean issues around other building standards so for example if it's something to do with thermal insulation or acoustics that might be required to bring a building up to current building standards and if you're applying for a building warrant for their remediation and you have to comply with current building standards what if your building can meet the the fire safety requirements but it can't meet thermal insulation or can't meet acoustics do you not proceed with that you know so it's those kind of real technical practicalities policy is fine but the practical implication of it is really where we're focused on at the minute so it's those kind of real technical questions that we're trying to get trying to get answers to okay thank that's helpful final question community was just around remediation work that potentially small or medium sized builders would have to to carry out what kind of support packages whether that be loan or grant or other things do you think the Government would need to put in place to support those small and medium sized businesses who otherwise might be pushed out of business a major concern to us that the focus has been on the on those first that first wave of the UK wide companies but we know that the the home building market in Scotland traditionally does have significantly more SMEs than in the rest of the UK and again in England there has been a threshold introduced so home builders with turnover of less than 10 million and are not included within within the scheme because they understand the potential and financial impact on those companies the last thing that that we want is is companies to be put out of business because then then the risk for having to remediate those buildings will ultimately fall onto the public purse if they become further orphan buildings as the term that's used so I think it's in everyone's interest to make sure that that while it's dealing with the very real remediation that's required and that the homeowner's quite rightly quite rightly require doesn't at the same time put SMEs out of business so we have discussed previously with Scottish Government some options around whether it's grant or loan support that might be available to help SMEs is there a threshold under which SMEs are excluded from this but we've yet to have resolution to those questions so again that's one of the very real issues that that we require resolution to before we'll be able to to fully move on to the next stage of the long form contract again Welsh Government has offered some some loan packages to to impacted home builders so we would like to look at something around grant loans some kind of financial support okay that's great thank you thanks mark and i'm not going to bring in Annie Wells who's also joining us online thank you convener and good morning my first questions for Fiona for those people who are already living in buildings that some of those developers have signed up to the accord when can they expect work to start on their buildings well the ideal answer would be as soon as possible once the home builder has made that commitment and they want to be getting on with it and but as i've just as i've mentioned previously the whole thing hinges on the initial SBA being carried out nobody gets any comfort nobody can progress until the SBA is completed so we would like certainly like assurances from Scottish Government that you know if those home builders um so those home builders who have committed to it that that those buildings then begin to have the SBAs accelerated but we we remain concerned about the resources available within government to be able to deliver the scale and pace that that is required as far as i understand that of the 25 and then 27 initial pilot buildings i don't think and you can correct me if i'm wrong i don't think there are any fully completed SBAs on that pilot programme yet no i might be wrong but certainly that was my understanding there's none fully completed and that's only of the first 25 27 in the pilot and if we estimate that that there are hundreds potentially thousands of buildings impacted you know we are very concerned about the resources because until until that happens then we won't get the remediation that's required thanks thanks very thanks very much for that and i've just got one final question it's a general question to probably both of you um i think you've already spoken about what's happening elsewhere in the UK but how does the progress of the cladding remediation work in Scotland compare to to the rest of the UK and can any other lessons be learned for Scotland so when when the cabinet secretary sorry the former cabinet secretary in may 2022 last year announced that that the the Scottish single building accord was going to be developed she said at that time that she was disappointed that there wasn't a four nations approach to it and i would have to say we would we would echo that disappointment um i think the the um i think there's certainly been a a focus in england and potentially it's because of the the introduction of the building safety act um that that began to to force things through that a little bit quicker and but i think overall um the perspective of those members are building north and south of the border is that at the moment things have been progressing quicker um in england and those who've already committed um in england and who had signed the pledge in the long form contract have said we'll do we'll do exactly that in scotland we can just roll it out tomorrow and keep doing exactly the same thing they've all got teams and that are already delivering it so they said so we can we'll just roll that out but because there's been a different approach in scotland it's not being able to be rolled out as as smoothly so it has required a bit more further investigation and getting a new scheme set up and asking different questions and a different approach and a different um measurement of a different assessment scheme um so all of those issues means that we've had to design something different instead of being being able to to roll out we fully recognise that the you know scotland has different standards different regimes you know that that's understood the home builders build north and south of the border they get that but for something as complex as remediation of existing buildings um it may have been more straightforward to to be able to where possible roll out the similar similar scheme i see chris nodding beside me here don't know if you're in the same the same mindset yeah i mean i think it was very unfortunate that there wasn't a four nation approach and the way in which i think the scotland government learned that there wasn't going to be a four nation approach was unfortunate says an Englishman speaking um but um that's that's happened the difficulties of and one of the things that's often put to me is well why can't we simply take what is in england and translate that into Scottish law now you will hear i'm sure more about this later but basically the sort of agreement that has been reached in england against the legislative background of English law simply cannot be transposed you can't um take that English law and just put it into Scottish law because there are just there are differences in the statutes the difference in and i know i hope i'm not speaking out of turn that the the team have worked very hard to try and see if they is there some way in which we could accomplish that and basically having taken obviously advice from within Scottish Parliament laws basically the answer is well no we can't we can't cut and paste that that just it can't work so it's a it's a pilot scheme to discover what is in the in the buildings it was also a pilot scheme for the legislators and the government officials to try and work up with the dickings we can do to try and actually make it work and i'm pretty convinced that they are working their socks off trying to find a way to do it but it isn't it basically it is not easy and um you know there's a building near us with someone wrote to me the other day and they said well why can't you just do it yeah just do it well you can't um so yeah i think in england some things have moved more quickly i think actually when the sba was announced a lot of the people in kind of corresponding groups in england were actually quite envious of the sba because there was actually something that they could look at and see now i think that's actually going to give real safety security and hope to people who of course in scotland there are owners whereas in england they're leaseholders big difference and of course in england basically they are dealing with freeholders or companies who own the freehold of the property whereas as we've touched on earlier you've got hundreds so in my development we've got 200 200 whatever it is 78 flats and some of those are jointly owned you have to get them all to agree it's a different kettle of fish so yeah it has been slower i think resource is the most enormous problem and i don't want to be a james comforter i'm i'm basically an optimist and a hopeful person but i really don't think that people in within parliament and outside of parliament has grasped the magnitude of the task and the magnitude of expense so what has been spent so far on doing a single building assessment of the building just fades in almost into its insignificance when you look at the actual cost of implementing remediation work it is huge and the people resource too that they just are not the people there despite ricks efforts to try and get people to sign up to this scheme to get more people qualified to do it i believe some have actually done that course but there doesn't seem to be a great crowd of those who have accomplished that course willing wanting to undertake the work so that is huge massive thanks very much for that and convener can i just put on record that my son actually is working on properties where remediation work for claring at the moment just to put that on record convener thanks very much annie for that and funer you wanted to come in I just want to say a fully echo Chris's points there about the scale and the resource of it i don't think anybody has any understanding of the sheer scale of this not just the remediation but the resource behind to get the programme up and running it really is substantial do you want to say a bit more about that unpack that a little bit for us so that we can understand it yeah these buildings um you know it's not just a it's not just a desktop survey that needs to be carried out on them um you know it's a full scale and you know intrusive survey in many points and this requires very specialist skills to do that and there's just not the the resources available to to do it um and then once those once you then start the investigation phase of it um there's so many interconnected parts of it that you think you're just remediating the external cladding and then it turns out that you can't do that until you've done that bit and you can't do that until you've done that bit so that the sheer interconnectedness of all of it i think it's really important to say as well that the number of um of what have been referred to as orphan buildings so those buildings that don't have a known linked developer um so that you know that the the the cost of that will be sitting with with the public purse and i think that's potentially very very significant and the the current Scottish Government approach that has simply high or low risk will result in more issues in more buildings getting put into the higher risk category and requiring more resource to deal with it when in fact some of them could be a tolerable risk and allow resources to be more easily and and clearly focused on those that do have life critical risks and that's where the priority should be so i think that the high and low will automatically you know people are become risk averse so if you can only choose high or low risk and you're carrying out that assessment you're more than likely going to verge on the high so more things are going that direction that will have an impact on availability of resources today with the real problems great that that's helpful thanks so much for that detail. Miles you wanted to come in on something else? Yeah there was a couple of questions i had and um i think it's quite a depressing picture which has been painted about where we are at in scotland at this moment in time and i think you know that's for government to really get a grip of this situation so i wanted to know um why do you think or are you concerned that other buildings have not been included in scotland which have been included in england hotels um for example office buildings hospital schools obviously not buildings people are sleeping in um but just wondering why we're taking that different approach in scotland for buildings which clearly the public would think would be captured in this i think neither of us are the people to answer why i but i couldn't make an observation i think at the beginning and i think still is the case and i may be wrong on this that when the scheme was envisaged no one knowing how long this was all going to take the thought was that all buildings which had people living in them or whatever would eventually um end up with uh some sort of assessment so that any building you could know this is safe to live in it's safe to stand the hotel it's safe to be in the hospital it's safe to be in the care home safe to be whatever and i think that was the original plan and of course originally when it was announced that and that's the the intention still is that there will be a central record of all buildings uh which will be maintained which will show this building is safe or this building isn't that gives comfort to the people in it also gives comfort to insurers it gives comfort to bankers to all sorts of people and so on and that is the was the original intention i i haven't heard that that original goal has been abandoned but understandably in question mark is concentrating on the people places where most people live and also particularly trying to address of course the lending sale of building thing does that help you know i think it does and i think the my question i suppose is whether or not they've not been included because the task in terms of homes seems to be so huge and we're talking about 105 pilot projects not the potential 5000 across scotland to which might need serving obviously these are the high risk buildings we're talking about but in your assessment how long do you think this is going to now take you know i'm an edinburgh msp glasgo msps we represent parts of the country where predominantly these buildings are and those people who are now trapped in these buildings in mortgages which they can't sell insurance problems you've outlaid as well how long do you think with the what is an in principle agreement in principle i'd like to know from the minister what we're talking about with that but how long do you think this will be till this can be resolved when i was first asked this question but not here by an owner two and a half years ago i said oh i think it takes six months okay stupid me and then as you get into it i said no i think it's going to take at least two years well we're now two years on and we're not really anywhere near the end in fact we're we're not we're hardly over the starting line if you look at the association of british insurance press release on their insurance scheme they are talking that this is to cover buildings where there is risk whilst there still is risk and they're talking about a five to 10 year programme now i don't know how they reached that decision but it's the first time i actually seen that written down somewhere um i think that might be optimistic we're talking we're talking decades before we i would hope the thing is it depends on the criteria he said doesn't it if you remove people have lived with risk across the world for years some of those risks are unacceptable some of those risks should never have been there because builders others architects and whatever failed there is no two ways to say that they failed if you look in the case i think reported in the english press last week there was a bit wary about what's reported in the press but of the building where they actually did have an external assessment as the building was being constructed and it's now found to be you know unsuitable to live in and that you know that's just things like that are wholly unacceptable and have to be addressed of course they do and we can't have risks to life but there are risks so in our building i guess maybe in your building we strangely have gas i enjoy my dinner which my wife cooks which is brilliant and it's on a gas stove so we have gas pipes coming into the building that go up umpteen stories they come in through the car park people have lived with that sort of risk in the cities and elsewhere for 100 years yes there have been accidents but actually people on the whole have taken that as an acceptable risk and we all have to make assessments and so that needs to be moderated to try and get this into a proper perspective if that happens then maybe things will move forward more quickly please don't take it i'm saying we shouldn't be safe and that we should lower our standards that's not what i'm really saying i'm saying that in this process we need to bring a reasonable assessment to what the risks are i mean i think that the word that we've been using consistently is pragmatism and there needs to be a pragmatic approach on all of this in terms of the timescale for delivering it all i can say is that the homebuilders have already started um survey work or indeed remediation not just in england but in scotland so that is happening already um those um developers who've now indicated to government that that they have that they're in agreement they want to get on with this now they have made that decision they will have set aside um in their accounts and you know in their balance sheets they know they have this remediation to do they want to get on and do it so there will be no delay from them and getting on with it once we can get the sba's done we know what needs to be done and we can then get the schemes designed and implemented obviously you know everyone's facing the same issues about availability of construction skills and labour force and workforce and all of those bigger issues impacting the labour force generally will undoubtedly impact on the programme but there is no unwillingness on the part of the homebuilders now to start getting getting on and and doing it just finally convener in terms of the orphan buildings um do you have a assessment of how many we're talking about and and then what cost might be associated with that i'm afraid i i i i don't um again to know what seems to want to talk about but i think it's a significant yeah we have no idea of the overall all scale um of the buildings that might be impacted again like yourself we've asked for that data but we've not would not seen that yeah i concur with that i think i should have said earlier too that we're talking about trying to move the thing on and i applaud the the guys who've been working on this and they've been working their socks off i mean i've got to know something quite well in government uh which is brilliant my comment would be and i have said this within the the group and i say it again to everyone else and it's been echoed broadly across our group that of course putting together the scheme in the first place just ideas putting it down a paper was great but actually that gathered speed and it was driven very largely by um the housing minister in in office at that time and he had monthly meetings which he chaired and boy did he chair them and if you didn't do something whoever you were you kind of knew that you hadn't done it and we were all accountable whether we're a civil servants whether we were you know and it was being politically driven by someone who actually Kevin Stewart had a passion to actually make a difference and you know i got to know him a little and i really esteem him what has happened as we've moved into the delivery mode is that of course the involvement of civil servants and and officers has become more front line but my perception i know that this view is shared by others is that actually we have missed and and this is no um when we had a cabinet secretary whose role was huge to come to a meeting every month and kick us up the backside and actually be aware of what was happening it's just too much of an ask it's just impractical i'm hoping and i'm due to be having a meeting i believe with the new housing minister very soon i would like to and i've said this publicly i would really like to see that political drive instilled in into the process because i think it made a huge difference that is not putting down the work that has been done but it brought a different dynamic to it and it was a dynamic you know we're aiming to do this okay well we missed it but what what happened where are we gonna it was a real we're working to this goal let's press on so i would plead and i will be saying that to him when i see him and i've said it to other MSPs i would really want to see a regular in fact i would like to see i think whether you could in the chair or the host i'm not trying to put down the current chair or host but yeah it just needs that political drive i think that would actually speed things up which was the yeah we can talk about the risk and so on and so forth yes that would help but if we had that impetus that input that would make a huge difference i believe thanks great yeah thank you very much and of course we're going to be on the next panel we're going to be talking to the housing minister and i think we as a committee are glad that we have a housing minister to address that part of our remit so i agree it hopefully that that will you'll see something more in terms of that momentum that you're talking about there chris but i just want to thank you very much both of you for coming in this morning and sharing your perspectives and the work that you've been doing it's been really helpful for us in this work thank you and i now suspend the meeting to allow for a change over witnesses we're joined on panel two by paul mclellan the minister for housing and mr mclellan is joined by government officials steven garvin who's a deputy director for building standards and rachel sundland who's the deputy director at the cladding remediation unit good morning and welcome i'd like to start by asking if you could provide an update on the single building assessment programme thanks community is it okay if i just make an opening statement just yes that's fine good morning and good morning and thank you for the opportunity to speak today on the important topic of building safety it's good to be back here just on my last appearance was just two weeks ago so it's always good to be back to to the committee the absolute priority of this Government is the safety of residents and owners the greenfield tower tragedy provided absolute clarity on why building safety is so important as the committee will be aware immediately after the greenfield tower fire we established a ministerial working group on building and fire safety since then substantial progress has been made with changes to fire safety standards guidance and further measures being taken including legislation on smoke alarms to address safety in buildings the ministerial working group continues to meet and will address actions on building safety matters working with key partner organisations such as the Scottish fire and rescue service safety is the reason why we have established a cladding remediation programme i am determined to ensure that we identify, assess and immediate buildings with potentially unsafe cladding there are currently 105 buildings on the cladding remediation programme each of those buildings will go through a comprehensive technical assessment through a single building assessment a single building assessment is a complex expert assessment as we already heard this morning it is crucial we take the time to get that assessment right since it's the basis of all for the work on the building if experts identify an urgent issue that we that during that assessment we will take immediate action to safeguard residents however i appreciate that for many homeowners this process has taken too long last year we changed their approach to the programme moving from a grant model to a direct procurement model this has led to a real increase in pace of delivery finally i want to update the committee on the safer the Scottish safer buildings accord this process has taken longer than we had hoped and has been complicated by the nature of the scottish tenure system however i am pleased that we have made positive progress on the accord as this morning i've heard from Fiona i can confirm that number of developers have sent or in the process for sending in developer commitment letters and in the accord this is an important step we will now move to discussing a long term legally binding agreement i can also confirm you're looking urgently at legislative options to ensure that we remove barriers to support the delivery of the programme to keep residents safe and to hold developers to account we continue to work hard to mediate cladding issues for homeowners and residents ensure we deliver a commitment to safeguard residents and homeowners thank you again for inviting me along this morning and i look forward to answering your questions thanks very much for that and yeah so be interested to hear an update on the single building assessment programme at the moment i think we've discussed it previously in the committee there's a hundred and five buildings on the list at the moment that the anonymised list by region was identified and was published on the 30th of january just this year 27 single building assessments have been formally commissioned and obviously there's a significant amount of work going on at the moment 14 single building assessments at a substantial reporting stage remediation is underway in one building and mitigation work in a second building very much for that but i'd be interested to also hear an outline in broad terms of what's meant by the imprincipal agreement on the safer building accord that you reached with the developers yeah i mean i've been posting out this thing this is week nine i think within the first week or so i'd met from sir scotland and obviously this was a this was an issue of a real importance for myself so we've had discussions i think it was mentioned this morning that the previous capsack had been in discussions previously and i think there are a few key principles i think that are important to get across and again working very close to the homes of scotland i think we've agreed on that i think one is obviously developer responsibility i think that's you know and i think that's that's been progressed information sharing and obviously things that picked up this morning from committee obviously chris had mentioned about communication so certainly that's something i'd like to take away and obviously speak to both developers and officials around about that to make sure that we maximise communication to members and very relevant what chris had said on on that one and obviously the commitment to assess and immediate irrelevant buildings and of course that's looking at the cladding that we talked about this morning with other fire safety defects on the buildings and we talked about this morning how closely we're working with the Scottish fire and rescue service who are key partners in that so i think again what was mentioned this morning was we initially focused on the largest developers members for homes for scotland in that reference so i think you know the one key thing i think to put across it that's a very similar approach to UK and Welsh governments and so you know obviously we are in constant dialogue with the UK and Welsh governments on the matter it's a UK wide problem but we followed the approach that UK and Welsh governments have taken on this also so it has been significant progress in the last number of weeks great thanks very much for that and i'm very glad i've got a note here around chris's comment about regular communication with people even if we don't have anything new to tell them so i'm really glad that you you picked up on that one i'm now going to bring in willy copy with questions thanks very much convener good morning minister i wonder if you could just tell us a wee bit about potential costs paul what about owners and tenants of properties that will be ultimately be covered by the the accord who's going to pay for the remediation yeah again a bit mentioned this morning i mean of course the first bit work is the single building assessment and that's fully funded by by scotland government so there will be no cost to residents and tenants in that reference i think i mentioned in the previous answer and about the accord was obviously it's the developer taking responsibility for the remediation of that work so i think you know that they've been quite clear and that's why it was important to reach to reach that accord and so they shouldn't have to pay anything in terms of that the one other issue that would be worth mentioning as well is obviously we've been dealing with buildings who we know the owners are but there's also orphan buildings now that there is a public cost a public cost not to the residents but a public cost to that one as well which i think is important to mention and but obviously we whom we know that you own the building or you know that you know there is no cost to the to the residents at all in that respect even with that we heard christian earlier that we need agreement in a block of flats for example from everybody to proceed with earth and is that why in large the case even if there's no cost to the i'll maybe bring steven in on that i know steven has been discussing that and i know in it yeah i heard the difficulties around about that this morning you know people being away one person in china and so on so i'll maybe bring steven in on that in that reference yeah so they certainly been an issue in terms of getting the agreement to go ahead in a number of cases i think the legislation that we have it might allow for a majority in some cases to go ahead but will depend as well on the deeds that the title deeds for the property so bringing people together i think is is has also been one of the the main challenges that we've had around progressing in the pace of the some of the some of the buildings yeah another question paul for me i think what's important i know we'll touch on this later on it is looking at legislation in terms of that and i know that that'll be something that the committee want to ask but i think part of the legislation would be looking at is to make sure that we know we go over over that problem in terms of that so but we'll touch i know we'll touch problem on i referenced it in my opening speech there in terms of that but i think part of the reason we're looking at legislation is for this particular reason because the quicker we can get to to immediate buildings the better for everybody so that's an issue that's been identified and obviously it would be part of any legislation if that's where we moved to thanks very much for that you probably heard some discussion as well paul about why it took over a year to get an unprinciple agreement with some developers could you describe from the Scottish Government's point of view why did it take a year to get to an agreement point i think there's a general principle i think the tenure system in Scotland is different to that it is in England and Wales so i think that's in them you know it's more complex in that regard and i think you heard homes for scotland talking about as well that there were lots of technical discussions going on around about that you know and it was it was hard and i think the progressives said we've made in the last number of weeks in terms of getting to the to the agreement i think it's there was a lot of technical questions and in the end it needed to be that needed to be answered i think the more we get into the buildings and see where and i think if you want to mention that this morning the more you start to get into buildings the more you start to see issues that you weren't aware of and these issues then require a technical a technical response so a lot of these discussions i think have moved towards that i think there's been that there's always been that that position that everybody wanted to get to the to the agreement but i think it's been the technical discussions that have been on going over that number of months as i said the more we get into buildings the more you're finding out around about technical questions that need answered and i said it was hard and clear this morning that you know Fiona said that all the developers are moving towards that and there's a few technical outstanding technical issues obviously officials are working on just now and officials meet with homes of scotland and developers on a regular basis to discuss these thanks very much for that and in terms of potentially unsafe homes that have been built by developers that are actually signed up to the agreement have we got any statistics or any data that would tell the committee what we're looking at in terms of numbers there i think part of the commitment that we've now reached that developers have committed to is to share information with Scottish government about the buildings that they have developed which they consider to be in scope that's not information that we've had previously that would be something which will be very important clearly we know some of the buildings because they are part of the pilot programme but we're also aware that there are more buildings that are currently in the pilot programme so we'll have that information very soon that will be one of the things we would expect to see very quickly once developers have signed the developer letter and have we got an idea about the total number of potential unsafe homes that we're actually talking about scotland if you have that at a later stage i'm sure the committee would welcome that that too so we can get a sense of the scale and the size of this problem yeah i mean i think i think one of the things that was mentioned obviously you know it was published there's high rise domestic buildings it was published a number in 2021 with 780 and that's not to say that that's the number of buildings that are at risk but i think that was published in 2021 that there's a number of figures obviously did 105 buildings in the pilot phase of programme were identified but that's not to say i think we're expecting the vast vast majority of these to be safe but that was the number of buildings that were identified in 2021 so obviously we're going through the buildings which we think are a higher risk and so on but you know 780 was the figure in terms of the initial estimate back in 2021 thanks very much for that minister thank you back to you convener thanks very much really i just wanted to come back to your talking about the need to look at legislation is that can you say a bit more about that is that legislation around tenureship or there's probably looking at a number of things in terms and i suppose more we get in that i suppose one is how we meditate in the buildings i think two is how do we mitigate fire safety risks and ensuring that we have that legislation to make sure that we can take quicker action and then we're undertaken at the moment and obviously you know we have reached agreement with the developers but it's tying that into legislation as well as we as we progress as we progress forward but is there something that we need to be looking at around the tenureship so i'm hearing you know that we've got a problem around a different tenure system i'll bring i'll bring steven in a way like we've got to sort this out but also future looking have we got a tenure system that i'll bring steven in that one because obviously the tenure system we have in scotland has been established for for quite a while in specific clarity numbering steven in that one i think is about making it easier to carry out assessments and also where that assessment determines that there is a risk to progress with remediation but clearly we're in a position where we need to develop that and to make it as easy as as possible to go ahead with a with the assessment so yeah that's i suppose one of the main considerations about any legislation okay that's probably just through the experience and having the buildings that we've had to remediate in the first while so it's all about trying to quicken the pace to make sure we have the necessary powers to do that okay great thanks very much and i'm going to bring in mark griffin who's joining us online thanks good morning minister the government and developers when it's come to getting an agreement on the accord i've both talked about outstanding technical questions i wonder if you're able to outline from the government side what those outstanding technical questions are in your mind if you're able to summon eyes those and maybe set out how quickly you think that those technical issues will be resolved to get that full legal agreement signed and delivered i think there's a i'll bring steven in because he's a technical expert and i think one of the discussions we've had particularly in terms from scotland the scottish building standards are slightly different obviously from a uk and wealth building standards so i think one of the key things that we've tried to deal with the homes of scotland is obviously most or some of the organisations we're dealing with are uk based so obviously in terms of the way they've worked at the programme in england and in wales they've got slightly different technical standards to ourselves and so it's really looking around about that the technical question so it's you know where's been the slight difference between uk and scotland so there are some that that's broadly where that that kind of sits so there's been more and i think if you want to touch on it this morning it's really on points of clarification and i'll bring steven in in that as a technical expert but i think that's a general principle why it's taken a little bit longer and i know it this morning you asked mr griffin why it's taken so long but i think that was part of the discussions was about getting these technical questions outlined but i'll ask steven to bring in the specific technical points that we're looking at so i think the the discussions have been on large of which standards have been applicable when cladden remediation is has been under is to be undertaken so i think there's it's clear that we if it's determined that cladden needs to be replaced on a safety basis that the fire safety standards are current fire safety standards are met and indeed the structural performance of the cladden system that's put on meets current standards as well i think there's been some concern about the clearly for buildings about 30 years old the thermal performance standards our energy performance would be quite different so is it is it feasible to to meet current standards with an older building and i think there is some leeway there so you know it's about what what you can reasonably achieve in a a suitable manner that allows you to safely remediate the building and i think our discussions have included about perhaps preparing some guidance for local authority verifiers so that we have consistency between different local authorities who may be dealing with a building warrant for for cladden replacement remediation okay thanks thanks for that mitt my second question was a similar question that i put to toms for cullund as well and that was around responsibilities for small and medium-sized developers and the government have said that you know you're open to negotiations on the responsibilities just wanted to ask what that meant in practice and whether you are considering the 10 million pounds turnover threshold as they do in england or the loan system that they've introduced in wales because obviously the last thing we want to see is those developers going out of business and the potential for more orphan buildings so i don't know what reflections you have on that minister i think you're right mr griffin i think the first key principle obviously was was was establishing that agreement with one developers and i think you know where most of the buildings are owned by or built by and i think that that was a key principle i think and probably coming back to my background my background was 20 years in corporate banking and i dealt a lot with SME builders and developers in terms of that so i think it takes a more nuanced approach because i think the last thing we need is obviously to put SME builders out of out of business so i think that needs that more nuanced approach i think i think in terms of the 10 million pound figure and obviously he mentioned about the loan scheme which i'm aware in in wales we're closely looking at that and again you know we're in constant dialogue officials are in constant dialogue with the UK and Welsh government officials on a regular basis just a few weeks ago i had an interministerial meeting with UK, Welsh and non-nilish colleagues talking about specifically about cladding and i've got a follow-up meeting with the UK government on this issue and Welsh government colleagues as well so we are looking at the the two things that you mentioned there but we do need a more nuanced approach in terms of where they are because we need to try and support they've obviously got their responsibility but we need to make sure that they don't go out of business because of this so it needs that more nuanced approach so that will be the general principle we will go into that but we are looking at the two schemes that you mentioned and in a constant dialogue with officials and said in the UK and Welsh governments about that at the moment. Okay, thank you. Thanks. Thanks Mark. I just wanted to come back to the kind of technical questions i think it was interesting to hear from Chris in the previous panel and Fiona about the the risk that at the moment we've got the system where the grading system is high or low and there's nothing in between but that there are some buildings where possibly the risk is lower and the way we need to assess it might be different. I wonder if you're considering that taking that on board. I'll bring Rachel or Stephen in on that one at the moment I think in terms of obviously the higher it is trying to identify obviously where there's an immediate issues but I'll bring Rachel in on that point at the moment. Yeah I'll maybe say a little bit and then I'll pass over to Stephen as the technical expert. I think the key thing is that a single building assessment will assess the risk to the building and also identify the measures that will need to be taken in order to bring that risk down to a manageable level so it's probably less about the red amber kind of rating it's more about what are the actions that need to be taken in order to bring this down to a kind of manageable kind of level. I think what I'll also say just before I pass over to Stephen is we have a process whereby if during that risk assessment that single building assessment there is an immediate risk identified we do have a process in place where actually we can just kind of pause things and go straight in and take immediate mitigating actions and we are doing that in a couple of buildings where we've we've paused things we've put in things like waking watches or we're actually doing some we've got kind of contractors on site and actually doing some work which will allow us to kind of just reduce the risk the immediate risk to manage that into the longer term assessment process. Stephen, I don't know if you want to. I think you've covered it in the main, Rachel, but the I suppose it's about being being clear so single building assessment is a thorough process. There should be a report that clearly sets out what the issues are and what mitigation or remediation actions need to be taken. We did discuss with stakeholders the approach around sort of high-risk, low-risk, red, green, amber etc over the period. I think some stakeholders, particularly those who are decision makers around things like mortgage lending, preferred the high-risk, low-risk scenario because they didn't feel, certainly at that point, that they could cope with the amber scenario. They didn't know where to then put buildings so that was one of the driving factors now. Clearly things move on and if there's an evidence base that builds up that allows us to incorporate a medium risk, more nuanced view, then that's entirely fine. We're happy to discuss that with UK Finance, High-Rice Scotland, Action Group etc in Thomson Scotland. We have done that. I think that the important thing is about whether it's high, medium or low, wherever it sits. It's about understanding for that particular building what action, if any, needs to be taken. That's helpful to understand that you're aware of the potential for the need for more nuance. Before I bring in Annie Wells, if it's okay if I stay with you, Stephen, you talked about the fact that we're having to remediate buildings that were built at a time. Today, we've got different standards. I just also wondered, I've got a note here around is there an opportunity without slowing things down because I wouldn't want to slow things down, is there an opportunity to also look at retrofitting buildings while we're remediating so that we actually are not having to go back to them in the future to actually make them net zero or that kind of thing? Certainly for energy efficiency purposes, I think it would make perfect sense to consider that at the same time and to look at it. We have had discussions with colleagues within other parts of the Scottish Government around how that could work, but certainly it would be common sense to do as much as you can. I'm glad to hear that in your awareness and in your discussions. I'm not going to bring in Annie Wells, who's also joining us online. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister and your colleagues. My question is how long do you anticipate it taking to agree the remediation contracts with the developers that have already signed up to the accord? And when might residents expect to see work start to their buildings? I think that that can be—I don't think that there's a one-size-fits-all answer on that one, obviously. I think that it really depends on each building. I think that we've heard about the process, the inspection process, if you like, and I think that part of the reasoning for bringing forward some of the legislation is to try and quicken the pace on what we need to do in terms of the buildings. It is—there isn't a one-size-fits-all. I said one of the key things about reaching agreement with Homes of Scotland this morning and looking at legislation was to try and quicken the pace. I think the key message for me would be—we hope to increase the pace of buildings being remediated in that reference, but it is kind of hard in terms of trying to say for one building or one or another, because they're all different in terms of what's required, but I think the key thing for me is to try and ensure that we quicken the pace in terms of that, and I think that that's something that, obviously, working manufacturers are looking to do that and push that on quite a bit. More on that, but it's very difficult to tie down one building to another depending on what remediation is required. Okay, thanks for that minister. The second question is, you've already spoken about a legislation and the Scottish Government did say that it would explore legislation options to safeguard residents and homeowners. I just wonder whether you could outline what those options are and what, if anything, would trigger their introduction and use. Coming back to the question that was asked previously, I think that in the buildings that we've been remediating already, there have been issues that we don't have powers to move things on. If there's fire safety risks, do we have the necessary powers, for example, around that? There are things around that. We mentioned legislatively holding developers to account. We've reached agreement, but if we identify more buildings and there's developers aren't part of that agreement, then we need to move that on. I think that's the key part of it. The important message is, obviously, that safety is the most important. We need to have that ability to move in buildings and do things as quickly as we possibly can. Legislation would be brought in to look at how quickly we can move things on in terms of where the barriers are at the moment. The key thing for me is that we would be looking to legislate as soon as we possibly could, if that was the case, and if that's how we proceed and that's still being looked at. If that's something that we do decide to do, obviously that's something that we would need to work very closely with the committee on in terms of that, because we would be looking probably on an expedited process in terms of that, because I think that safety is the most important part of that, but that's something, obviously, that we've worked very closely with the committee on and discussed very closely with the committee on that regard. Thanks for that minister. Thank you, convener. Thanks minister for your awareness on working closely with us. That was very much appreciated. I'm not going to bring in Marie McNair, who is also joining us online. Thank you, convener, and good morning minister and your officials. I'm aware that the Scottish Government have looked at other parts of the UK and how they've taken forward their cladding mediation issues. Are there any issues to be considered from the approach that have been adopted elsewhere, minister? I'll bring in Stephen and Rachel in a second. I think that there have been a few things. My officials are meeting that on an almost weekly basis at the moment, so in terms of technical discussions I'll bring Rachel and Stephen in terms of that. Mr Griffin mentioned around about the Welsh Government scheme, the loan scheme that's been that, so we're looking at that as well. Obviously we talked about, before maybe coming back to the legislative point, was about the responsible actor scheme that UK Government's got at the moment as well, and we're looking at the potential applicability of that in Scotland. So I think that these are two key things. I mentioned around about an interministerial group that met, I think it was in 10 to May a couple of weeks ago, and I'm seeking a separate meeting both with UK Governments and Welsh Governments to talk around about exactly what they do in more detail, because I think that an interministerial group was really quite a short meeting, but it was useful. For me, I need longer discussions about looking at what they do and learn, because it's a UK issue, and it's something that we need to look at very closely in terms of how closely we can work with UK and Welsh Governments in that matter. I'll bring in Rachel and Stephen in terms of discussions that they've been having, but from a political point of view, it's working closely with them and looking at the two schemes that I mentioned before about how applicable that can be. It needs a UK-based requirement or a settlement or discussions to be further advanced politically in that reference. I'll bring in Rachel and Stephen. Yes, I would just second what the minister said. We meet at official level with UK Government, Welsh Government and now Northern Ireland colleagues to discuss what we are doing. There are obviously differences in terms of the tenure scheme in Scotland, which means that some of the steps that are being taken in England and Wales are not directly applicable. In many cases, we're dealing with the same developers, so there are the same kinds of issues that are arising. We meet very regularly. We talk about the different challenges that we are facing, some of the different policy solutions that are being developed, how those are working and whether or not there are lessons that we can take from them that we will be able to apply in Scotland. Similarly, we're able to tell colleagues in England, Wales and Northern Ireland about our own experience and they are able to think about seeing whether or not there are things that they can take from steps that we've taken, which are relevant to the work that they're doing. The only thing to add, really, is that things are different in each country in England. The Building Safety Act, although some of that applies UK-wide, has brought in a new regime for high-risk buildings in England. The HSE is Building Safety Regulator, which is for those buildings, so that's something that we keep a close eye on. There's a new building advisory committee for England being set up under the Building Safety Regulator, and we have an observer status on that committee. We're seeing and engaged with colleagues there around the development of that new regime. Again, it's about, is there something of value that we can apply here? Thanks for that response. On to my last question. Does the Scottish Government take any action to assist residents of potential unsafe homes to access affordable building insurance? I think that that can be touched. When we talk about mortgages and building insurance, that responsibility, the ability of the UK Government. I certainly know that that's something that's being discussed on an on-going basis with officials, and I'll let them update you on discussing that sort of going on there. One of the main things for trying to meet with both UK, specifically UK Government, is on that matter, because it's UK finance that take that forward. We need to be making sure that we progress as soon as possible. I know that Chris mentioned that this morning, particularly in the buildings, insurance and mortgages. That's something that I'm really keen to take further with the UK Government on that, to try and make sure that we quicken the pace on that, and what do we need to do in Scotland to make sure that they're aware of that. I think that that's a really important issue for residents and homeowners in terms of that. That's one of the key things that I'll be discussing with the UK Government in that matter. In terms of specific work that we're doing here just now, I'll bring in Rachel again in terms of what discussions we've had in terms of that. Our hands to a certain extent are tied in that matter, but we have obviously raised that with the UK Government. I'm keen to quicken the pace on that to make sure that we get to some resolution on that as quick as possible, to give the tenants and residents a little bit more peace of mind, as well as other things that we need to work on. We talked about communication this morning for that, so I think that that's important. I'll bring in Rachel in terms of the discussions that we've had before, but politically I want to quicken the pace and try to give that peace of mind. Yeah, just to add that UK Finance are very closely linked into the programme, so they sit on our stakeholder group and this is an issue which we regularly discuss with them and which is also regularly discussed at the stakeholder group. We've also kind of met them separately. In principle, it is just about kind of how quickly we can move in terms of securing a solution that reflects what is happening in Scotland as opposed to the solution in relation to UK Government and UK Finance, but it is something that we're in active discussions about and we're keen to progress as quickly as we can. We recognise that it is insurance and mortgages and access to those are key concerns for homeowners and residents I'll bring Stephen in to be second. I think one of the main reasons again for trying to make the UK Government and Welsh Government on a regular basis is that the whole claddon remediation programme in the UK is evolving and will continue to evolve over a period of months and years, so I think it's important that we're tied in as much as we possibly can be in terms of what they're doing and how closely we can work together. Obviously we have our own priorities and what we need to do in terms of where we are, but working closely with them as it evolves as a remediation programme across the UK evolves is really important, but I'll bring Stephen in in terms of other discussions that we've had in that reference. I think that in terms of the insurance issue, it's about getting buildings assessed and if they need to be remediated and done that as efficiently and swiftly as possible. That should put the building back into a place where affordable insurance becomes a reality again. I think that we possibly heard earlier about some moves from ABI, et cetera, to perhaps help homeowners in the shorter term whilst that works under way and I think that someone would certainly want to be engaged in and encouraged to progress. I appreciate that response. I'll hand back to convener now. Thanks, Marie. I'm not going to bring in Ivan McKee. A couple of years ago, I was going to question you on Minister First on the area of skills and any kind of thinking or assessment you've done on what the requirements might be. I suppose it applies to the skills to do the assessments and then also the skills to carry out the remedial work as and when. I think that that was something that was identified and picked up on this morning in terms of, for example, fire safety inspectors. Again, I'll bring Stephen in on the technical that there is that and that is an issue and I think that it's been an issue down south as well and in Wales in terms of that as there are qualified fire assessment professionals. The broader situation in terms of remediation, I think that that's less of a problem in terms of the work that's actually required but again some of that work would be specific cladding work so that that's again is an issue and we're looking at that and again that'd be one of the issues I'll be taking up with UK Government officials because this problem, as I said, is right across the UK so we need to make sure that we're training up more fire safety inspectors and so that again will be something we'll pick up with UK Government but in terms of the numbers and how we're looking at that but you know we identified that pretty early on but I'll bring Stephen in in terms of where we are in numbers. So there are a lack I suppose of fire engineers which are to incorporate status that are available or are engaged with this and you know to fill that void takes quite a while because it's something that you need to qualification the experience to be able to carry out this sort of work so there is a longer term issue there I think in terms of having that skill and it's going to be a requirement in a long term so we need to ensure that there are courses available for people to go on, degree courses etc as well. I think though there is a wider skills issue in construction and look at the building standards verifiers we set up with local authority building standards Scotland nearly three years ago now a workforce strategy so that we could develop competence assessment approaches we can work with them around the filling gaps there with perhaps training we've introduced a modern apprenticeship route into building standards we've had our first cohort started in the past year with 17 apprentices we'd like that to become a firm long term part of bringing people into building standards but there's other routes to come into that graduates and others with more experience in construction professionals so there is a range of professionals and trades that we need we need in place to deliver successful assessment and remediation. Right, so as we're clear on that so what I'm sorry to say is that we've not actually done any number crunching so we could go through the process of getting the accord signed up we could then go through the process of putting out the procurement for the assessments but then you'll find that you'll just this thing will slow right down because there isn't the capacity to deal with that have you actually crunched the numbers to figure out what that actually looks like and how long this is going to take as a consequence? I'll bring Rachel on that one I think that general principles Mr McKee in terms of you know where to start the process and I think one year's and I says every building's different it tends to come in the key skills that need to come through are generally the same every building's slightly different so I think you know one key lessons for us is to you know what's the process who do we need to involve what do we need to involve where are the skills required in that so that you know that that would be in a process we would be undertaking but it's very much at an early stage in terms of this now we need to ensure in terms of what we are doing at Scottish Government level but resourcing that properly and we are there's been you know a big increase in numbers in that regard but we also need to look at in terms of what's required within the sectors and that's kind of getting picked up when we're starting to get into remediation programme and again talking to UK and Welsh Government officials as a lessons we can learn from them or are they evolving that piece of work as well because I think again it's a UK wide training programme but I'll bring in Rachel on just to give a little bit more detail. Yeah I think the one point that I was going to add was the fact that in March we've moved to a kind of dynamic purchasing kind of model and that is allowing us to kind of draw on a slightly wider market in terms of kind of the numbers of firms who are able to kind of register an interest so it's it's not just the kind of the Scottish kind of market although obviously Scottish firms have a kind of key role to play but we've also got or where there's been engagement with some UK based firms about coming into that we've got a kind of an Irish firm in terms of coming into that so there are there are different kind of firms in terms of the actual assessment process we so that that's really important it's not just about it's an issue about the numbers it's also an issue about the quality as well we need to be really confident that the people who are undertaking this really important task have the skills and the capacity and the knowledge in order to be able to identify all of the issues and provide the solutions so we are continuing to engage about what that looks like we're continuing to see whether or not we can bring new companies into the market through the dynamic purchasing system so that we can kind of draw on a greater number in terms of the capacity there to increase the the throughput once we get to the remediation phase that's obviously as Stephen said that's a different type of market and it's less of that specialist via safety engineer but we're working really extensively with kind of key companies across Scotland I suppose that I've asked you the question how many people are there in Scotland or across the UK who are qualified to do this work can you answer that question I don't know I couldn't give you the exact numbers of how many are qualified across Scotland across the UK a lot of these firms are UK wide or larger in terms of the number of staff so it's it's not just it tends to be that we contract with a firm but that firm we will then often be having multiple numbers of individuals who are working on a single contract you'll hear that you won't know how long this is going to take I think as we there are a number of things that we need to do in terms of the phasing of this one is going back to the to the very start because actually until we start looking at the buildings it's understanding the depth and the complexity of the issues in the buildings that are need to be done so there's still some scoping work that does need to be done and I think that's the same in UK government and Welsh government as well okay other question was on and again I mean we can come back to committee just on the number you asked about the fire safety and so on I think that there is again that comes back to some of the discussions that I want to have with UK and Welsh government officials is what are they doing in terms of that because I think the the the issue is and I think Rachel can you touch now there are UK based and Welsh and Northern Irish based companies and Irish based companies that do this as well so it's trying to look at the capacity yes in Scotland but yes across the UK and what do we need to do in that foreign nation approach to make sure that we've all got capacity because we'll all be looking to do the same things roughly the same time so it's it's a discussion that we'll be having with UK and Welsh government officials and Northern Irish officials in terms of that about what do we need to do to look at that issue as a whole so that's part of discussions and again happy to report back in any discussions we have at that stage that question was on cost so talked about orphan buildings and the cost of those coming back to the public pass at some point has there been any estimation or assessment or is there a process to work out any numbers on what that might look like as we go forward? Yeah I mean I think there was a figure out of £400 million that was kind of set aside and obviously UK government set their estimate, there's consequentials and whatever come through so that would be the figure the more we get into the process the more that cost is going to be but again this is why it's important to reach the agreement with the developers that's around about who's responsible for what now there's obviously resource costs there's obviously costs that we do in terms of the initial assessment but beyond that then obviously that's you know that that's one of the main reasons for getting agreement and moving that forward is so important because obviously that that principle of developing meets the cost is an important part of it but again that this will be an evolving process as we move on through it. Good thanks, thanks Amina. When you were talking about the skills piece there and the time it's going to take to train people, how long will it be? Is it something like as Steven you talked about training and getting even to a degree level is that a one year training that people will have done or go? So there are fire engineering courses which would be typically four years, people who have already prior experience may advance further into course straight away. So there is a bit of time involved there to get a degree level qualification and then postgraduate kind of charter status etc. From what you've been saying it certainly seems like there's quite a lot of technical knowledge there that needs to be well understood. I'm now going to bring in Miles. Thank you Amina. Good morning Minister, good morning to your officials as well. I think it was concerning in the first panel to hear I thought that we've seen a lack of political leadership in recent years around this and I do hope Minister you can try to change that and make sure that this is progressed because I know as an Edinburgh MSP and I know individual constituents who have had to use FOI to try to get any information on this so I hope your commitment around communication can really move forward at pace because I think there's a lot of people across Scotland who feel they've kind of just been left and I would understandably waiting for this to develop but I'm not having any update so I think that's important to put that on record. I want to go back to a couple of points Ivan McKee raised with orphan properties. What's the current number of those currently identified from the buildings? I'll bring Rachel in on that in a wee second. Just coming back to the point you mentioned at the start Mr Briggs I think that's important and I heard Chris this morning talking about in the first communication even if it's just here's where we are rather than what's happening kind of stuff and I think that's certainly something I'll take away and discuss with officials. In terms of that political leadership I think one of the first meetings I had as a minister was around about the cladding programme and what we do to make it forward and again one of the first meetings I had within the first week I think was with Homes of Scotland and this was an issue we discussed and you know I'm glad within a reasonably quick period of time we've now reached the stage where we've reached to and we continue to move on and we'll move on to obviously the SMEs as I talked before we've talked about the need for legislation to try and quicken the pace so I think probably in the first two months tried to show that leadership in terms of moving on the agreement, moving on legislation that would require to do that and I think that that something I'm certainly keen to discuss. I'm meeting with Chris in the near future, continue to meet Homes of Scotland on a regular basis and keep on top of that programme and already mentioned in terms of having meetings with the UK and Welsh Government on the issue to take that forward so I think I'm showing that political leadership and keen to make sure that it's not just in the first two or three months this is an on-going process and will evolve as I said in Scotland and then in the UK but it's something that I'm really keen to make sure that we get to try and give that as much peace of mind we can and make sure that the buildings are as safe as possible that's the key the key thing. Coming back to the specific point I'll bring in Rachel in the number of Orsland buildings. Yeah so I would say that our understanding of that is still evolving a little bit because in terms of for all of the buildings that are currently in the pilot programme and you know each of them obviously had a link developer at some time some of those developers are still obviously active and some of them there is maybe a little bit of work to identify whether or not they are genuinely often buildings or not with all of them there's a bit of work just to go through particularly if they've been built a number of years ago to establish exactly who the developer was the information that we get from the developers following the developer commitment in terms of them confirming their buildings and their buildings in scope that should allow us to kind of gain a clearer sense I think going back to the discussion about doing this in waves as well so we've got the homes for Scotland developers identifying their buildings then going on and identifying the larger developers who built buildings that are in the programme or potentially within scope and then talking to the small and medium then I think it's the developers where they do not seem to be in existence anymore and I think there's a bit of work to be done as to how genuinely often some of the orphan buildings are so at the moment it's a bit of an approximation about what we're looking at in terms of certainly maybe about you know half probably more of the buildings that we're currently looking at or probably initially in that kind of orphan category whether or not they remain in that category as we continue to look at them I think we would in the interests of getting value for public money we'll obviously be looking as closely as we can to identify link developers no that's helpful I think it's understanding in terms of liability to to make sure and you know companies merging things like that and I take that into account so you of the 105 currently half you don't necessarily have a link builder too is that correct when it's at I think probably for the majority of them we've identified who we think are the developer it is identifying whether or not that developer is still an active developer and is someone who we could who could potentially make a contribution okay thank you for that and I think it's also something the committee would like to be kept more update with because I think there's been a lot of secrecy around this now I think that's understanding the situation home owners are in but you know having more public accountable information I think it's really really important and the large number of that that's something we can come back to and agree and know what the best way we would committee updated on that there's obviously a large number of buildings omitted in Scotland which are being included in in England anyway specifically around hotels and hospitals I have concerns around I just wondered what the thinking was not including those unlike is in the case in England and whether or not that would be under review and general principles almost the key focus at the moment is looking at the residents buildings I think in terms of hotels and hospitals that there have been discussions which I know Steven's been having which I'll bring him in at the second at the moment the key focus I said is the moment is looking at buildings residents in terms of hotels and hospitals is probably within to a certain extent it's it's within their responsibility and but there are been discussions about how we can take that forward and work with them but I'll bring Steven in in that reference thank you so in terms of hotels or hospitals et cetera there is a duty holder there who we would expect to take responsibility for the safety of their building if there's a cladding issue and indeed we've had a number of discussions with relevant parties around about that I think though we in terms of the changes that have been made to building standards there are still some some differences between Scotland, England and Wales around about this but I think our standards apply from buildings at 11 meters heights and you know it's probably in excess of the situation elsewhere in the UK okay thanks for that in terms of the government's in principle agreement in its state single building assessments will help us understand the scope and scale of cladding issues across Scotland I'm not sure we will if we don't include these buildings and you know I think most people would imagine any buildings people are sleeping in would be part of a review process and I understand in terms of hospitals these public buildings will have 24 hour waking watches if you like in terms of their their management but hotels I think are a special case so I just wondered where government were and obviously you're talking about discussions with colleagues across the rest of the UK they're taking this work forward I think it would be concerning if Scotland didn't include hotels going forward and we are then an outlier of not having that work done and so I just wondered where there was a potential to review that to make sure we're not in a very different position compared to the rest of the UK I'll come back and I think that there's something obviously we'll discuss with UK and miss governments about what their approach is I think there are discussions for example that we've had with the Wheatley group in terms of the buildings that they're developing to ensure that they're meeting the standards and you know I suppose within the buildings that they've built you know what where are where are they and I think that there's individual discussions going on in terms of that so I mean again coming back to the discussions with UK and Welsh government officials it'll be discussing with them about what their approach is how they undertook it how they engage because I think it's that level of engagement obviously we've talked about engaging with homes for Scotland and what their responsibility is and what the Scottish government's responsibility is I think in terms of UK government and Welsh government colleagues it's looking in about you know where did they you know where does the responsibility lie with government or or with the developers themselves so I think that that's something I'll be raising with with the UK and Welsh government colleagues in terms of it but there are discussions can the individual discussions going on with major stakeholders are in about that at the moment I think as Stephen said there is there is that duty of care I think within the sector itself to kind of pick up on that and obviously encourage them to come forward if there's any discussions about how we can work together with them on that but there are discussions as I said underway with individual stakeholders but it's something I would raise with UK and Welsh government officials. Thank you it's maybe someone again you can keep us updated on as I think this is an area we've got a concern over just finally convener I know the building safety act in England's been raised a couple of times and you've committed to potentially legislation being brought forward is there anything in that which you think could be brought in as emergency legislation to actually move this forward I'd asked the question previously about how long this could take to be resolved to have that peace of mind in Scotland I don't think anyone wants to commit to that but it's looking if we're talking about 105 buildings and then a potential 5000 number this could be decades before we can genuinely say I'll bring Stephen on the building safety act I think one of the key things mentioned about legislation if that's how we decide to proceed it would be something we'd look to be making in autumn and that's something that we need to come back and speak to the committee around a bit and I mentioned about an expedited process but it would be something we've identified issues that need to be brought forward and we need to get more clarity and more powers on to be able to deal with that so it would be something we'd be looking to do probably after after recess and push that forward on an expedited process because we recognise importance to have the many powers as we need in terms of that to move things forward and I mentioned about the real importance about quickening pace so you know that I think that that kind of shows an urgency I think from ourselves in terms of what we need to do but again we're keeping the committee aware of that if that's where we decide to go and if an expedited process is required that's something obviously we would come back to committee as soon as we possibly could but on the building safety act I'll bring Stephen in and if there's anything else you want to add yeah just can briefly add the new regime for high-risk buildings has a number of different aspects to it both before enduring and after construction the building standards building control element off it mirrors the system in Scotland at the moment so in England they've moved to a preemptive scheme scheme whereas we've had that in place for all buildings for for many years now they do have a an in-use phase which is part of the the new regime um whether there's duty on duties on duty holders however that plays more easily I think into the tenure system in England perhaps with the freehold leasehold kind of arrangement than it does here so I think for us it's about doing yeah I think there are maybe practical things that we can we can look at there what's what's been done how it's been done but it's how does that how do things work best within our system a tenure etc yeah and just just on that point we heard in the last session with regards to you know the Scottish Government being responsible for the procurement and reporting around SPAs is that something you would look at potentially reviewing with developers who are known to look at them doing that work and I think there's been concerns in previous meetings highlighted to us that we're asking people developers to take someone else's workings and then provide a solution to that is is there not an opportunity then within the agreement to try to change that to make it easier and there have been discussions underway on that so ring Rachel on who's been undertaking the discussions so I think the key thing is that um these are the assessments are assessments by independent expert via safety engineers um in principle we have said in our discussions that um if developers were minded to commission those that would be something that we could look at but what we need to do is through that process it needs to be a confidence that it's an assessment that everyone can rely on and to be confident about so um it's not our assessment it's not a developer's assessment it's the the independent via safety assessment but then provides a basis which provides not just that the developer can kind of take forward action on it but also that the residents can be confident that it's accurately captured all of the issues of concern absolutely just on that just to add to that I mean obviously we've we've heard we've reached agreement in principle you know there'll be on-going dialogue obviously by the officials of myself from home for Scotland and that'll be part of the evolving I suppose how this has evolved how does it work in practice so these discussions will be on-going on a regular basis I think the greatest concern is around just professional capacity and who's going to have that and where it is and maximising that at pace is I think that's a potential solution yeah and I think within you know within the department we've recognised that Mr Briggs but in terms of you know in terms of resources in terms of moving on to the broader resources required you know this will be sitting down with homes of Scotland the convener's wagging her pen sorry and UK and Welsh officials sorry convener don't want to get in the wrong side of you so I'll shut up now all right I think it was at me what was it? You wouldn't go on the wrong side it was my colleague here Miles but I was just using the fact that there's another convener in the parliament who uses his pen to get the members to wind up maybe I need to start using that code as well next time yeah I mean I actually just we have gone over time but I did want to I think one of the things that does concern me is that we've got this issue of orphan buildings and not so much about the past of orphan buildings but thinking into the future have we got something or are we going to put something in place where we don't get I mean I know if a company goes out of business then you'll get an orphan building but is there something we can there are measures we can put in place to make sure that if a building needs to be you know reassessed for something and I think last year when we were talking about this I think it was Chris I was bringing forward the idea of the MOT and that kind of thing is there something that we can you know developer builds a building we're linking it back always and you know checking up on them and that kind of thing and making sure that we don't end up with orphan buildings I think one of the key things I think Rachel touched on that before before was around about trying to squeeze as much information as possible to make sure it's not an orphan building you know and it's pushing that as far as we can to find out who the who the owner is and are they responsible for it and I think as Mr Biggs mentioned it could be through Emerger it could be you know through the other companies being bought over so where does responsibility lie I think in terms of looking at the budget we've got I mean there would be an element of expecting some orphan buildings that would become part of that now that obviously we're looking to reach it we have reached an agreement in the homes of Scotland about the buildings that they're responsible for the ones that we aren't there has to be an element of then looking at how we how do we maximise the budget around about that but of course the key principle is trying to make sure that we find donors when they're out there but acknowledging there may be buildings where we don't have owners but again that was part of the process and looking at the budget it was required at the start of that but that's an unknown going and it can be difficult at times because until you get into the building and actually find out what the remediation actually is that can become difficult but there is that element built into the budgets we're looking at. My question was more about also future proofing like going into future we're going to build more buildings are we going to end up in situation of the future where we haven't got buildings tied to developers and is there something we could actually do that joins that up more? In terms of registration or something like that? Again I'll put Stephen in that I don't know what we're doing at the moment but in terms yeah I can see. I think there isn't a current situation where that happens as soon as the buildings are built and sold to individuals then it's over to those groups of owners. I think it's how you continue to assure safety of the building as you go along and to ensure that whoever's responsible for that actually carries out those duties. I think the tenure system that we have in Scotland doesn't I suppose allow us to carry a responsibility from the original developer forward you know indefinitely. Okay well maybe something to explore into the future. Well thank you very much for coming in this morning and giving your perspectives on the issue and as we agreed at the start of the meeting to take the next items on the agenda in private that was the last public item for today and I'll close the public part of the meeting.