 Felly, gydag i ddim yn yma, y 19 yma y ddweud o'r Cysylltys Gwysgwmwyntau yma yw 2017? Can I please remind everyone present to turn on mobile phones and other devices on to silent for the duration of the meeting? We've been considering a draft report for the last hour, and so we start the public part of the session with item 2. We've a number of pieces of subordinate legislation to consider today, and we begin with the registration of independent schools, the individual, the draft instrument subject to the affirmative procedure. Later in the meeting we will consider the requirements for teachers Scotland amendment regulations 2017, which cover similar ground, and there may be some discussion on that instrument during this item. I welcome to the meeting Shirley-Anne Somerville, Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science, Shirley-Annes Anderson, policy officer and Claire Cullen solicitor from the Scottish Government. I understand minister that you would like That's for you, convener, and thank you for the opportunity this morning to address the committee in connection with the proposed introduction of a requirement that all teachers in independent schools must be registered with the General Teaching Council for Scotland. You will also be aware that it's our intention, as tourists said, to introduce legislation requiring that all teachers in granted schools are GTCS registered by way of an amendment to the requirements for teachers Scotland regulations 2005, which you will be considering as a negative SSI under item 4. A priority for the Scottish Government is to improve the life chances and education of all children in Scotland. High quality teaching and strong leadership are key features of a successful education system. By introducing a requirement for all teachers working in independent schools and granted schools to be GTCS registered, this will bring them into line with local authority schools and is a means of improving the standard of teaching across the whole of the education sector. It will offer assurance to parents that, irrespective of where their children are educated, the standards and quality of teaching staff is regulated by the GTCS. The crime will provide schools with assurances of the standard and the quality of the teachers they are employing. It will also benefit teachers through professional update, the aim of which is to support, maintain and enhance continued professionalism through professional learning. Section 98A5 of part 5 of the Education Scotland Act 1980 sets out the circumstances in which Scottish ministers shall not be satisfied in their consideration of an application to register an independent school. This includes that any teacher or proposed teacher is not a proper person if they are, by virtue of part 5, disqualified from being a teacher, is disqualified from working with children or a prescribed person. Section 98A6 of the 1980 act provides for the Scottish ministers to make regulations prescribing what a proper person should be. There is currently no requirement for teachers in independent schools to be GTCS registered, although that has been encouraged by both the GTCS and the Scottish Council of Independent Schools as an alternative to introducing regulations under section 98A6 of the 1980 act. Section 98A6 was inserted into the 1980 act by the Schools Education Ministerial Powers in the Independent Schools Scotland Act 2004, with the policy intention of introducing compulsory GTCS registration for all teachers in independent schools, and that provision was commenced on 31 December 2005. The provision within the 1988 act did not include a power to allow transitional arrangements when making regulations under section 98A6, and therefore an amendment was brought forward through section 26 of the Education Scotland Act 2016. That provision was commenced on 1 January 2017. In essence, that provided the mechanism with which we could ensure that existing non-GTCS registered teachers working in independent schools would remain in post. It was clear from early discussions with stakeholders that there were concerns about non-register teachers working in independent schools and how the proposals would affect them. We have listened to those views and extended the proposed transition period in the regulations from our initial two-year period to three years, and I believe that that is sufficient given that progress has been undertaken by GTCS in identifying alternative routes to registration, including the introduction of provisional and conditional registration. Individuals who achieve provisional or conditional registration would meet the proposed criteria within the draft regulations to be registered. Although I am aware that there are some reservations about some existing teachers achieving registration, we will continue to support the sector and the GTCS in moving forward. The committee will wish to note that transitional arrangements are not required for existing teachers in granted schools, as the normal practice for those schools has been to only employ GTCS registered teachers. The draft regulations in front of you today have therefore been drafted to define a prescribed person as any person who is not a registered teacher. A registered teacher means a teacher whose particulars are recorded in the register maintained by the General Teaching Council for Scotland. I indicate that, from 1 October 2017, any teacher employed by an independent school must not be a prescribed person. Provide a transitional period of three years until 1 October 2020 for registration to be achieved by current teachers working in schools at the point that the regulations come into force, and set out arrangements for consideration of an application to register an independent school that has been submitted to Scottish ministers before 1 October 2017, but the decision has not been determined. A period of six months until 1 April 2018 has been provided for an application to be considered, and if the registration is granted any teacher or proposed teacher on the application form who is not GTCS registered will be given three years from the date of registration of the school to meet the GTCS standard. I therefore move the draft regulations that are approved by the Education and Skills Committee this morning ahead of formal parliamentary approval. The agenda item is intended for questions of clarification. The minister and officials can answer questions under this item, and I will begin by asking the first question. The transitional period of three years for individuals employed in independent schools before 1 October this year is there. What is the rationale for the length of the transitional period and is this enough time for individuals from across the independent sector to meet the requirements? I know that you made some of those comments in your opening statement. We did listen during the consultation process to some of the concerns within the sector about the time for that transitional period, which is why it has moved from two to three years. That will allow due time to allow every teacher to be able to receive the support from their school to become registered. That shows that we have listened to the concerns within the sector and made the sufficient changes within the regulations. Does anybody have any questions, Liz? I declare my interest in GTCS as a member, but I say on the record that this is a very welcome move because it has considerable importance in improving the professionalism right across the board. Can you confirm that it has no effect whatsoever by the impending changes to the GTCS? No, it does not. The governance review will continue, but this process is in many ways separate to that. The policy proposal and the policy purpose that we have behind that will absolutely continue with the new arrangements in place. Any successor body would have— Absolutely. My second question relates more to the potential costs for retraining. I particularly refer to special independent schools who are looking after some of our most vulnerable children and therefore have additional costs of that support. Is the expectation from the Scottish Government that those costs will fall on that independent school? I do appreciate that there are some concerns around the financial impact on some schools. The first thing to bear in mind is that this has been an issue that they have been aware of for some time, so I would have expected them to have plans in place and to be aware that this is something that has been in train, but it is something that individual schools will have to look at. The GTCS and the work that it is on-going has been very supportive to the sector in ensuring whether it is regards to the timelines or the different types of registration to attempt to work with the sector. They will continue to do that, but it is for the schools to move forward with those provisions and for the teachers involved. What would be the process? If there was a school—and I do particularly focus attention on those special schools, very small schools that are independent and they sometimes find it very difficult to get staff—if a school was in difficulty within that three-year period, what would you expect that school to do in terms of making an appeal? There are on-going dialogues with the GTCS, which have been very supportive. We would expect that to continue. There is a working group that is there to ensure that all that dialogue continues. That does not stop just because the regulations have come to Parliament today, so they will be working with the sector to ensure that all steps are taken to ensure that there are no difficulties for individual teachers. Obviously, when it comes down to registration, those decisions are quite rightly for the independent GTCS and not ministers, but they are there to work collaboratively with the sector to support them through working groups so that individual issues, as they come to the fore, are worked through and done so in a way that we would expect no school to be in any difficulty by the end of the transitional arrangements. My last point is that I raised the issue because of a small special school in my own area. As you know, the Scottish Government's intention is that level 9 is a requirement for all those who are supporting youngsters in those special schools. There is a considerable cost on that, not just for new teachers coming in, but for retraining existing staff. I would ask the Scottish Government to be aware of that, because I think that the cost for some of those small special schools is very considerable. I would certainly take that on board and would expect both Scottish Government officials and, as I said, the GTCS will continue to work with the sector. I know that there are very specific issues, which some schools on an individual basis have concerns over. That is why I would stress to Liz Smith that that work is on-going, that those discussions are still being had through working groups in a supportive manner to ensure that those individual aspects that need to be picked up can be done so, can be recognised. We have seen the GTCS work with the sector to provide a number of categories for registration, which deal with many of those individual concerns. However, there are still individual concerns out there, and that is why the work will continue with the sector to support them through that. I just reference the correspondence that I have had with Mark McDonald, the minister, over the issue in relation to a submission that was given to me by this school. Thank you very much. Does anybody else have any other comments? In that case, I thank you, minister, and thank you, Liz, for the questions. That concludes the evidence session on the registration of independent schools. It prescribes Persons Scotland regulations 2017. We now move on to item 3, which is the formal debate on motion S5M-6113, in the name of the minister. I remind everyone that officials are not permitted to contribute to the formal debate, and I ask the minister to move the motion. Does anybody have any contributions to make? In that case, I will now put the question to the committee that motion S5M-6113 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The committee must report to Parliament on this instrument. Our members' content for me is convener to sign off a report. I then thank the minister and her officials for their attendance, and I will now suspend for a moment before we move on to the next item of business. The next item of business is consideration of three negative instruments that are listed on the agenda. Do members have any comments on any of these instruments? In that case, we move on to item 5, which is the second evidence session of the committee's inquiry into school infrastructure. The inquiry is focusing on the lessons to be learned from the incident of Oxgang's primary school in January 2016. Last week, we heard from Professor Cole, representatives from the construction industry and head teachers. This week, we are hearing from local authorities, and I welcome to the meeting Peter Wharton, head of property and facilities management city of Edinburgh Council, Allen White, head of property and facilities management at Aberdeenshire Council, Danny Lowe, director of housing and technical resources at South Lanarkshire Council, and Dave Aitken, chair local authority building standards Scotland. As I mentioned last week, it is important to note that there is an on-going fatal accident inquiry relating to the accident at Liberton High School in 2014, when, very sadly, a pupil died following the collapse of a wall within the school. Will therefore avoid discussion on the specifics of that accident to ensure that this committee does not impinge on the work of the FAI by exploring matters that might be subjudice. Before I bring in colleagues, I will kick off with a question from a local authority point of view. How was it that schools have been built with serious defects in the brickwork and what lessons have been learnt? Would anybody particularly like to kick off? Yes, do I? Thanks, convener. I suggest that, in terms of the evidence that has come through, of the back of Professor Cole's report, it would seem to be that there has been a lack of quality assurance across a number of sites, which has led to that. Almost a lack of supervision of certain trades with insights has led to errors, which have then been covered up, and I have only came to light a number of years later. That is a fundamental issue going back into it, but clearly there are a number of other issues that are related to that, which, along the lines of proper skills availability of resources, have been attributed to those individuals. I think that Professor Cole probably covers most of them in his report, but that is a key issue that I would say from a local authority's perspective. Does anybody else have any other comments besides that? I would like to come back with another question. I think that, from a member's perspective and in particular the PPP1, it was clear that the fundamental issue was that there was a lack of responsibility in relation to quality assurance on behalf of the client. I think that it is a lot more complicated than that. I think that there is a cocktail of issues that we have to address, but fundamentally 17 schools were built with defects. We, as the authority where that happened, have thought and debated long and hard as to how that came about. We have analysed how it was procured, the PPP1, and the relationships between the SPV and the council as a client at that time. However, the fundamental issue that is coming through is about quality assurance and ensuring that what you actually procure is what is being built on-site. I think that it is a generalisation to state that schools have all the effects on what is being done, because there are large programmes of schools with no evidence of significant defects. Certainly, it is of concern what has been established and what has been found from the PPP era of schools being constructed. Fundamentally, there seems to be a flaw between some of the detailing that was being designed at the time and how that information was then communicated to the contractor and how that work was actually undertaken on-site. I think that that is where we have got to learn the lessons from. You said that there was a lack of communication and we all say that there is a lack of quality assurance, but surely any builder knows that when they are building that wall that those ties had to be in place, for example, which seemed to be the theme that was running through all Professor Cole's evidence last week. It seems to me from here that what the local authorities did was to say, right, okay, this is your responsibility, you got on with it and we won't take any responsibility until such times as you had to. Surely, as a local authority, was your prime responsibility to make sure that the children were going to be safe? Thank you. I absolutely agree with that in terms of the contractual responsibility that has been taken through the PPP arrangements. The transfer of risk generally goes with the contractor in terms of delivering the product that has been set out in the specification. Certainly from a South Lancer Council perspective, what we decided was to still take a hands-on approach to checking quality assurance throughout the PPP contract as well. Within that contract, there is a role for an independent certifier who is engaged by the various parties to the contract and who is there to check and certify so that there should be a scope or documentation that has to do with what they are expected to carry out as part of that independent certification process. In South Lancer, what we did was to overlaid the PPP contract with our own in-house team. That in-house team also included a senior architect and a full-time clerk of works, who were there to monitor quality assurance in the delivery of the PPP programme. They carried out their own assessments on behalf of the council so that we could satisfy ourselves. Based on the size and scope of our PPP project, we recognised the importance of getting the buildings to be built in the way in which we wanted to because they were going to be learning environments for the next 30 years and need to be fit for purpose in terms of building and being a good creative learning environment for teaching and for kids to learn. From that, we felt that it was really important that we had a quality assurance process in place, which we did. We put that over and above that. It was just a clarification that we were trying to make here that not all authorities tackled this in the same way. Some took a slightly different approach. I suppose that the question that leads from your answer is that South Lancer was doing that. Why was not everybody doing that? I think that it might be useful if I explain the difference between the council's PPP-1 and PPP-2 contracts, because we found no issues with PPP-2. What was the difference between the two? The fundamental difference was that Astana just explained that in-house resource, technical team, architects, project managers, etc., we are not involved in PPP-1. Except that they were in South Lancer's case? Yes, exactly. In PPP-2, Edinburgh, they were. They were placing what was happening on the ground and indeed in the project team. I do not mean to interrupt you here, but I am at a loss as to why we are not involved in PPP-1. Clearly, there was a best practice there, where there was a overlay of scrutiny in South Lancer, and I suspect that one or two other councils, but not in all councils. I go back to this whole responsibility and its local authorities responsibility to make sure that those goals are safe, and there seems to have been a huge application of that responsibility in certain local authorities. Mr White, you wanted to come in. Yes. I think that we look at the timing of those constructions. Again, probably South Lancer, I may be wrong how the benefit, they came in later on to the PPP programme. In terms of Aberdeenshire, what we have done, certainly with our more recent similar-type developments, we have full inspection and shadow teams, and that was in place before the evidence of Edinburgh. I can remember having that debate with my own team, and having to be convinced that this is why we have a Clack of Arts inspection when we have a competent contractor and competent design teams. They should be assured, qualified and told that we do not need this. They convinced me that we still need it, and we went following that basis. The evidence was that we had no defects at the school in question at Etafford. At that year at the time, and I was at Aberdeenshire, I went to Aberdeenshire and came back, I was in the periphery of that PPP process, and it was a whole new concept. The property teams, in particular, we were light-touch around about it, and that was a concept that we would have been sold in the model of risk transfer to a provider, and they would undertake that work. Our involvement was overseen in some of the design aspects, generally aesthetics and some of the room data sheets. Primarily, we led my education legal services because a lot of the thinking was more that it was a financial services delivery, as opposed to a construction delivery, and it was almost a construction professionalism without a favour at that time in terms of the council's input. In hindsight, that is generally important to be remiss, but at that time, it did not seem inconceivable that that was the right approach. I am going to let some of my colleagues in, and I accept what you say because I remember that period and all the first round about the PPI contracts and stuff like that, but it comes back to the fact that the safety of schools is a local authority responsibility. I would have thought that local authority would have made sure, particularly as it was a brand new type of project, that they were comfortable with the way it was getting done in the early stages, but at this stage I will bring in Liz and then Daniel. Yes, thank you, convener. Can I just take you back to the evidence that Jim Thewlis provided us with last week when he said that, and I feel quite scared about what has been happening, headteachers take over school buildings on the basis that they trust that they are fit for purpose, and he highlights in Professor Cole's report the missing link between the contractor and the client, and he said that for client, we need headteacher. Can I ask the local authority representatives what has to be done to improve that link between local authorities and the headteachers? From everyone's point of view, for some time, the headteacher is part of the project board. So, on the side of the minute, we have a new Boroughmore High School. The headteacher is part of the decision-making process about the construction of that school that was the same with Portobello and James Gillespie. So, there is a lot more involvement of the headteachers in the decisions around the actual construction of the actual project. I think that, obviously, from a headteacher's perspective, they may be comfortable sitting on these panels, but I don't think that they're comfortable at all in the sense that they're obviously not trained in building requirements and to be able to have knowledge about what is a good and a bad design. That was a point put very forcibly by one of the other witnesses last week that there is a gap in some of the knowledge, even within the building contractors, that we're not necessarily getting the quality that we should. That's a different issue in one respect, but I feel that the headteachers have got a very powerful point in that they are almost in a position of responsibility, yet they cannot be expected, surely, to have all the necessary knowledge to be able to know what is a good and a bad design. That's the question that I think Jim Thullis was asking, and I think that we need to address that. I'm very interested in what local authorities feel they can do to give headteachers some security in all of this. From a South Larger perspective, again, schools weren't individually involved in influencing the contractual arrangements. At the end of the day, that's why the council has got property sections and people to set up contracts. There are designers to take that forward. What we did engage with every school that was constructed throughout the programme was with the headteachers. What makes a good learning environment? What's the best use of space within the school area? How should classrooms be laid out, not particularly about the size of classrooms and bricks and blocks and what a roof should look like when picking it back up and the actual design of the property and the structural implications of that? What would make it a good teaching environment? How should the classes be laid out? What would the flow of the school be or what should it be in order to make it a good learning environment for now and for future needs? Having a look at the teachers involved in the colour schemes that were picked, how the school was going to look good and bright and vibrant, they were involved in the interior design at the end, they were involved in setting the logos and how that would look in the school, but taking a step back from that again, once they were involved in that process, we had a conduit in South Lashire through a school's modernisation team, and that team is the conduit between the actual designers and the property constructors and the managers and the actual headteachers themselves. When we got a design ready for a school based on our initial discussions with the modernisation team of the headteachers, that design was then presented to the headteacher for comment. We took it to the headteacher, commented on and amended it if appropriate. It would then come back, it would then go to the parent teachers association for the school, who would then get a chance to view that, get a chance to look at the design of the school, the layout of how it was going to look and feel, and thereafter what we arranged was a roadshow within the school itself for the wider community to come along, have a view, have a look at the proposals, and then at the end of the day when the project progressed and when it was constructed, there were no surprises in terms of what was getting built and it was there. In terms of coming back to it, we weren't looking for the headteacher to design structural defects, structural requirements of the school or what the materials should do, but instead it was more about layouts and flow and generally making a good teacher environment. Mr Lo, I accept all that, and it's very important that the headteacher and staff and parents are involved in making suggestions about that, but Mr Thule is his point about the responsibility. He made that very powerful assertion that every parent wants to know that when they send their child off to school each day that it's safe. His concern just now on behalf of headteachers is that the structure of the ability to make a contract and oversee that contract properly is not sufficiently robust, and therefore the headteacher is left in a bit of limbo as to be able to say who is finally responsible for the safety of this building. That's the point that Mr Thule is rightly making. My point, which follows on from what the convener was saying, is that it is somebody's responsibility to ensure that there is safety in the school. I'd be very interested to know how you think that we can improve this so that all local authorities can give a categorical assurance that the right processes are in place to ensure and guarantee that safety. I think that we used to try to cover that briefly. In terms of our two arrangements, we've got the secondary skills that were built under a PPP arrangement, including the PPP provider has got a requirement to keep the schools to the desired standard. It's important, though, that the council retain an overview of that to make sure that that standard has been adhered to, because, effectively, we are delivering a service from those properties. Secondly, in terms of the primary school estate in South Larchire, which is council-owned and built, we actively monitor repairs, maintenance, we do cyclical inspections, and we monitor the condition of that property and association with the schools. That comes back in its property section to make sure that that school is maintained to the correct standard. First of all, as I did last week, I would like to highlight the fact that, obviously, this is an issue that has significantly impacted my constituency in Edinburgh Southern. Oxgangs is just outside, but a number of schools were impacted in my constituency. I think that you've already mentioned the quality assurance point, but the other point that Professor Cole makes very clear is that the nature of the contract, the packaging up of the design and construction elements, which can happen in a number of different models, is the key issue. I was just wondering if Peter Watton could reflect on the steps that have been taken since Professor Cole's report. If there are other comments from other panellists, I'd be interested to know. It's specifically around the quality assurance point to make sure that things are made built to spec and that they are safe. Okay. A report will be submitted to Edinburgh Council next Thursday on the council's full response to the Cole report. I will send it to the clerks on Friday once it becomes public for your information. It's over 100 pages long in terms of the response, but the response has started. We are carrying out intrusive surveys on all existing buildings based on a proportionate risk based approach, starting with those at the highest risk, which is post 1995 construction. That information and our approach is detailed and appendix one that is submission to this committee. All PPP-1 and PPP-2 have been remediated and fire stopping issues have been addressed and will be further addressed during the summer break. All council properties are currently undergoing a condition survey. As part of that condition survey, fire specialist surveys will be carried out as an additional appendix. It's fair to say that since PPP-1 or approach to quality assurance has increased significantly, as a result of the Cole report, it will again increase significantly. We've engaged with our main supplier, Hubco Southeast, and agreed with them a series of measures taken into the kind of the Cole recommendations, which again is attached as appendix 2 in my submission to this committee. I think that the fundamental issue obviously in relation to PPP-1 was the lack of quality assurance. We will now have the Clarkerworks on all in-flight construction projects and will have them on all construction projects moving forward. However, I think that it would be wrong to say that having the Clarkerworks on site is the answer to all the problems. However, it does mitigate risk in terms of a direct relationship with the client about what is actually happening on the site, i.e. what you procured is actually what is being delivered, particularly in relation to those elements of the building that are not visible once it is constructed. Moving forward, we have significantly increased capacity in terms of in-house resource professionalism. I think that most importantly, in speaking to my colleagues before we come in here today, the decisions relating to PPP-1, the senior responsible officers or education officers, the decisions relating to how the capital was spent and how the project delivered was delivered within that envelope. At that time, the private sector, as we have heard, was the case. Leave it to us where the experts will deliver it for you. Clearly, something went wrong, particularly in relation to the masonry elements of those 17 buildings. We have learned a lesson. We are now moving to what we term as a corporate landlord approach. That means that the property professionals will deliver the building and maintain it through its lifecycle so that decisions that are being made relating to capital cost of construction take into account the lifecycle cost of the asset, vis-à-vis the revenue cost per annum in relation to what you are actually building. That is what the industry requires and what should be happening. I hope that some of those elements could be some comfort in relation to how we are moving forward, in particular in relation to those projects that are on-site and that are due to come on-site. Can I just ask one point for clarification on that? One of the points that Professor Scott raised was that because design and build had been essentially put together in one contract under whether it is PPP or design and build, there is a lack of transparency around the design elements and some of the detail around that. Is that a point that you have either addressed or seeking to address? We are certainly speaking to address. The problem is that with design and build at some point you innovate the design over to the actual contractor. From that point on, the designer and the project team are working to the contractor. I suppose that the challenge is how do you retain the benefits of DBFM and design and build and still get the direct quality assurance as the client? That is the issue that needs to be addressed. With PPP at that time, I think that it is a very important point for the committee to understand that the contractor, as part of that consortium, had an investment in the miracle that was delivering the schools. Typically, what happens, his return will be shares in that company. What he has created is a commodity that will be sold as an investment. Typically, the first party to exit, i.e., sell their shares, will be the contractor. What the investment market is buying is not—they do not look at it as 17 schools. They look at it as the right to receive a revenue term from a local authority for a period of 30 years. It is an investment. From that perspective, the contractor typically would exit quite early in the SPV. You have heard from the coal report that the shares in PPPP1 have been sold several times over the years to different investors. Are there any other reflections from other panel members about the implications of the coal report and any changes? I do not know if there is any. Form the witnesses that you do not need to press a button. That gets done for me. That is getting very confusing. You have got to press a button more and more here in Edinburgh. Thank you for that. I will give an example. I was at one of our schools that was constructed last week at Ureside School in Inveruri. It was reassuring for myself just to see the practice being adopted by the contractor. There are a few ingredients to ensure that a successful project—one is ensuring that we have the right contractor. In Aberdeenshire, our approach is that we go through a framework whereby we pre-qualify the contractors to make sure that the right contractor is there. Also, in terms of ensuring that we have the right designers as well, it is so important, with a quality assurance by the contractor and quality control on-site as well. What I witnessed last week at Inveruri was effective quality control. The contractor, a very effective site manager, had taken photographic evidence of all the cavity walls, the wall ties and wall head restraints. All the tradespersons on-site had to sign off the undertaking of the work and date that. The site was immaculate and the quality was first-class. It was more of a construction company of the work. Again, I would contend a good contractor before, but I certainly learnt the lessons I was listening to what has been established from the coal inquiry. I had taken that through to their own tradespersons. I was speaking to the contractor, the Robertsons, who was our PPU contractor. They are putting in place the training of their bricklayers, the findings of the coal report, to ensure that they recognise the significance and importance of quality of the work and importance of safety. There is certainly a spotlight on construction right now in the industry that is reacting to that. Certainly from our own perspective as well, there is just that awareness that we would contend with the schools that we have constructed more recently, with no defects being found. Also, schools deliver through a traditional method at the same time that the PPP era, no defects were found there, but we cannot get complacent, but just that additional quality checks and quality assurance checks are in place. One final question. One of the most concerning conclusions that Professor Cole put in front of us was that, as a result of that, there are almost certainly a number of undetected faults and buildings across Scotland, and we just do not know what those are. I guess that that is really a question for Dave Atkin, but is that a conclusion that you would concur with? Is there any way that we can scale and size that issue? I do not think that I am in a position to answer that in terms of scaling and size in that issue. In terms of the core report, what it has done is highlighted the misconception of the role of building standards in the construction process. I think that that has certainly been highlighted from a local authority building standards point of view in terms of the lessons learned. I am aware that the building standards division, the Scottish Government, is currently reviewing the inspection regime that is in place within the legislation just now, and labs will be involved in that. I think that it has been hinted on earlier that it runs right through the core report that there is no silver bullet solution here that has to be a holistic approach, a collective approach, and everyone has their part to play, as building standards will, through inspections. As an organisation, labs are organising an industry event in August, where we have invited all key stakeholders, project managers, architects, engineers, colleges and universities to come together as a collective group. We are going to use coal as a backdrop just to see how we can move forward with this and assist the Government with its research. For giving me just on the very specific point about undetected issues, is that a conclusion that you agree with? It would be hard for me to pass judgment on that, because building standards are only required to carry out reasonable inquiry. Can I ask just further to that then? Was there an over reliance on building standards? I think that that runs through the misconception that runs through the core report on the role of building standards. I have to declare a particularly interesting question and I will write some questions around Aberdeenshire schools. My daughter goes to one, and obviously I have an interest in the schools there. I would like you to give me assurance as to what was done when the issues with the Edinburgh schools were identified, and what Aberdeenshire council did to inspect the schools that were built under the same scheme for parents like myself? I will just get the information here. It was included in the submission. When this issue arose in 2016, we carried out a desktop assessment initially to identify the schools that were built in that era, including the PPP schools. We immediately carried out a visual survey of all the schools, and they did not indicate anything of major significance. We used scan devices and water scopes to look at the presence of location wall ties and wall head restraints. However, we changed that and targeted an intrusive surface, and we only took that late autumn last year. That identified some issues that need to be rectified in terms of the absence of head restraints, some of the structural frames, and some localised inadequate embedment of wall ties. Silith Edinburgh might not, on the serious scale, so we certainly answered your question. We certainly moved forward with a programme of the desktop exercise. We then did visual surveys by independent engineer affairs to do that. We did an additional reassurance and intrusive surveys. Once we did the intrusive surveys, we established that there were some localised issues that needed to be remedied. In terms of moving forward, how we are doing that, which is all important, is that there is commitment by the PPP contractor, Robertson Education Aberdeen, that they will rectify the defects, that they have given that commitment, and they will rectify the cost to themselves. As recently as this morning, I spoke to Robertsons and they gave me a commitment. They are geared up to undertake this work during the summer period. We are at just now, we have a slight debate between the engineers in terms of the scale of the work to be carried out by the wall head restraints. More in view is, do not take any risk on this, undertake the work. Firm advice on that, we need to undertake it in that regard. To provide some reassurance, both our independent engineers and the PPP project co have stated that there is no immediate risk to the occupants of that building. In that regard, we were reassured by the contractor, because certainly safeguard our pupils is our ultimate concern. We are looking to carry out that programme during the summer holiday period. In addition, and not just directly as a result of the co-report, but as a result of the on-going concern about some of the fire stop-in issues, we had a work-in-conjunction with the project co that had a fire risk assessment carried out and identified a number of issues with regard to the fire stop-in at the PPP2 schools. I can assure you that those were a significant number of issues, and it works to them to those schools that were undertaken in April of this year. With regard to the processes that you had when the PPP schools were being built in Aberdeinshire, Professor Cole's evidence was really centred on not having a clerk of works present in the Edinburgh schools. Was that the case in Aberdeinshire? We had no clerk of works involved. As I said, we were in territory. I used to manage the clerk of works at that time, and we were never requested to be involved. At that time, it had identified no requirement to be involved because of the model that was being delivered. How has that changed going forward? We have got clerk of works. Across Aberdeinshire, we have got 20. We have done this problem with Smithers. 20 problems with Smithers was probably more than most authorities in Scotland. We have worked to attain that resource, and they are on all our capital projects and on the maintenance projects as well. Also, when we did the similar model for the DBFM through Hubco, we had independent clerk of works on that as well. I would add that in terms of clerk of works, it is all about quality inspections by qualified clerk of works. There is a lot of work to be done by all the authorities there. There is a ticking time bomb in terms of the age profile of clerk of works and attracting people into the clerk of work industry. It is certainly something that we are looking at as an authority, and it is certainly something that needs to identify the training for clerk of works. There was another issue that was mentioned in the last week's evidence about the standard of training that was taking place for people with brick layers. Subcontracting people and not being aware of who was in sight, what qualifications they had, what standards, how was that addressed, or how was that managed by Aberdeenshire? In terms of that, I can say a couple of things there. I can say about the number of people who went into the industry. The last year's intake of brick layers across Aberdeen, across Grampian, there are 12, and that number is far too low. We have a piece of work in Aberdeenshire developing a young workforce, which all authorities will be taking forward. What we have identified is a need to get people into the construction sector. We are working with education, HR and some of the major contractors to organise a workshop and seminar, how would you take that forward? We do not think that the existing practices are sufficient, so certainly that is one aspect. Again, speaking to the industry, they are doing additional training. I mentioned earlier on, since providing a video to train their parenthesis and just to reinforce the message. There is always a contractual life for us to inspect and to contract the qualification to perform on site. I think that I take to undertake the work on site. There is probably something more that we can do contractually just to provide reassurance that the individuals carrying out the work on site are qualified and have the skills to undertake the tasks. Thank you very much. I thank the panel for coming along this morning. I would like to pick up on some themes that I explored last week with the panel, and I have quite a specific question. I would like to hear whether you feel that the inspection activity in relation to the specific problems that are identified in Edinburgh is considered to be adequate in your local authority areas. I am particularly keen to hear from South Lanarkshire this, so obviously Mr Lowe's authority covers my constituency. There are a number of actions that we have undertaken since the co-report was reported and indeed since the incident at Oxgangs happened. In relation to our secondary school estate, we had Fairhurst consultant engineers carrying out interviews of surveys to three schools. In terms of the PPP contract, we had three phases of works, so we selected a school from each of the individual phases and that expanded to contractors who worked on that programme for us. The Fairhurst then did a walk around the site to identify walls that they would want to carry the interviews of survey on and they also checked it as built drones. Falling on from that, they did the interviews of survey and came back and confirmed that the walls were built as they should be and that they were stable so that there were no issues in relation to that. There were minimum repairs noted as a result of that and they were carried out with no disruption to the school. In terms of the primary school estate, we did a visual inspection of the whole estate. I think that it was last April and we had a walk around survey and we then selected five primary schools for the interviews of survey, which was a selection from the five different contractors that worked across the programme. We also did desktop audits and checks with the designers who had worked in the programme to confirm that the same wall detail that had been used in Edinburgh was not used in any South Lanarkshire schools and that was confirmed that that was the case and we got assurances back in relation to that. We checked our project records too. We did a clerical works engaged in every project that we carried out and whose job was when they were on site to monitor the quality of work that was getting carried out at here and specification as well and checking standards. We could go back into our project records and in many cases in those project records we had photographic evidence, for example of the external walls that were built that showed the presence of wall ties, showed the spacing of wall ties and you could see the embedment as well. Rather than having to go back and do further interviews of surveys then from the desktop exercise we could actually start to see that and started to build that picture too. Again there was only minor repair works issue noted as part of the entries of the individual survey and these were carried out with no disruption into the schools. We have an annual cycle inspection too of all properties within South Lanarkshire, not just schools and that is carried out by our in-house team of building surveyors who look way beyond the number of elements that was picked up in the co-reports so they will do a whole condition assessment of the school because we would use that in terms of reporting information that came back to the Government in terms of property condition and we also use that in terms of our life cycle maintenance and having a look at our capital programmes going forward so that we can properly plan future investment requirements. Those annual inspections last year had completed at the end of March. We went back and we checked the records in relation to them to see if any issues had been picked up as that and again that gave us a reassurance that everything was in place as it should be. I was just going to ask in terms of the other local authorities because I do not want to leave what seems South Lanarkshire centric. If you could maybe comment on the issues that I have raised. We are currently out into the surveys. As a result of that, we have identified five properties that have similar issues. It is not identical, it is not to the same extent. It is mostly, for example, in a panel, there should be 100 wall ties and there is only 80. We have adopted a very risk-averse approach. I am sure that you can appreciate it and we are remediate in those circumstances. It is similar to the others in terms of all the work on the existing PPP and the similar projects in the quality assurance aspects. Moving forward, we are developing a survey programme for that at present. There is also a piece of work that we are doing nationally, so there is a consistent approach in how we assess problems for condition and suitability. That has been carried out by the Scottish Government, Scottish Future Trust and the Association of Directors involved in that as well. We are inputting to that as a council, just to provide the reassurance. However, there has always been a monitoring regime, as I know, that checks are involved. However, what we are moving forward towards now is a more intense condition survey approach. To go back, it was something that Mr Wharton had said in a reply to Daniel Johnson's question about financing. You were talking about how the asset gets sold on by the original contractor. If you knew that, why then was that particular contract or that particular finance still used? That is the same for every PPP contract or the BFM. The ultimate owners of it are shares in the company that are draidable. It is not an isolated—it is not isolated—the Edinburgh's PPP one. It is the same with them all. It is effectively a commodity, and that commodity is the right to receive a revenue income from a local authority covenant. It was my impression from how you answered that that you hadn't foreseen that. I just wanted to clarify that. I would like to check with Mr Wharton first to understand the process of what happened at Oxgangs. My understanding is that, after the initial incident there, a visual inspection was carried out of Oxgangs and 16 other schools. Further to the visual inspection, the school was reopened, but after the intrusive inspection it was then closed for a longer period of time. Was the further intrusive inspection automatically triggered? Is that an automatic process following an incident like that, or was the decision only taken to do an intrusive inspection after the visual inspection had been carried out? It was the latter. The ESP, the provider, had carried out visual inspections and did not identify any issues. Obviously, the wallet fell down and had to be repaired. A method statement of how that was going to take place. As an additional precaution, an intrusive investigation was done by ESP to look at the rest of the walls in Oxgangs. It was at that point that they came in to our offices and told us that they could not guarantee the safety of the children, not only in Oxgangs, but in the other 16 properties. That left us in a position with very little choice, but they closed the other facilities and proceeded with additional intrusive surveys and, ultimately, remedial works. I would be interested in everyone's thoughts on this. My feeling is that, should an incident like that not automatically trigger the need for intrusive inspection, is there an issue of process here, that there needs to be a much more stringent, clearer process on what happens in the aftermath of incidents like this, so that you do not have, as was the case here, of a school reopening before closing again? I think that it would be virtually impossible within a contract, in a context, to cover for every eventuality. What happens is, because we lost possession of the school, then ESP lost the right to the unitary charge in respect of what the council was paying them. Ideally, you would want to cover every situation, but I think that, in practice, it would be impossible. I would be interested in anyone else's thoughts on this process in your local authorities after this incident. Was the immediate decision taken to move to intrusive inspections—I know, Mr White, you discussed this with Gillian Martin a moment ago—best practice in your authority? Is it part of an agreed process in your authority to move to intrusive inspections? Is it only once visual inspections have been carried out that a decision is then taken whether or not to move to something more intrusive? Just again, from a South Lachard perspective, we took the view in terms of the secondary school of state just to move straight to intrusive surveys. For the primary schools, we were not going to carry out intrusive surveys of 121 primary schools. It was an element of carrying out a visual inspection quickly to determine whether there was anything that was apparent, but knowing that that is not going to show hidden faults, we then packed it up with intrusive surveys. In general, we would always have an intrusive survey as part of our approach to looking into issues such as this. That seems like best practice in an instance like this. You did a sample of primary schools? We did a sample of one-from-each contractor. We picked five schools that were carried out by five different contractors, and we surveyed them in terms of primary schools. In the secondary school of state, we did a sample survey of three secondary schools, which were through the different phases of the contractor. Mr Aitken, have you got a comment to make on that? I have a comment to make on that now. Good morning, panel. We have heard evidence that the crux of the matter is that nobody was taking responsibility on behalf of the client and that perhaps misguidedly stepping back to avoid risk. I would be interested to hear the panel's reflections on whether, in seeking to transfer the risk away from the public sector, those who are procuring the projects are too detached from the detail of them. Mr Loh? Sorry, I was just going to say that that is not something that we did in South Lanarkshire. We decided to be in real very hands-on in relation to quality assurance throughout our PPP contracts and throughout our primary school programme that we carried out internally. Then we did engage a clerk who was— Why did you do that? Well, I think that I probably just tried to explain that in more in my answers earlier as well. In terms of the size and scope of the programme and the importance of it to the council and what it was going to be delivering on our behalf, there is an element where, if you become detached from that, what sort of controls have you got? Are you adequate controls in place? From our perspective, we felt the importance of those programmes and their delivery, then it merited us being very much as hands-on as we could be in that programme to ensure that we were getting the specification of the property that we were seeking to get as part of those programmes. And so would you say that that more hands-on approach in that element of scrutiny in itself assures a better quality of construction? I suppose that it's got an added layer in terms of quality construction going back. I suppose that, fundamentally, going back to issues in construction, it is much wider about the errors that are not related solely to a particular group of property. It is not all about schools. It is not all about PPP contracts. It is not about any contract type. It is about errors across the construction industry and how you resolve those errors. There are probably two or three different things that you can do in relation to that. We can employ armies of checkers to go in and just constantly check every person to make sure that they are doing everything that they should be doing. Alternatively, it is that bit about going back into the construction industry itself and trying to change that and change attitudes and change behaviours. It becomes part of a wider industry issue to say that how collectively can we improve quality and construction, which is not necessarily always about putting more people at the back end of the check-in. It is about encouraging contractors from the top down to have a process of thinking that we want to improve quality standards. We do not want to be handing over projects at the end of good defects. That filters down from the top-level of contractors all the way down to the bricklayers and site. It goes back into the quality standards of their training when they get their certification to start with, but how do you keep that up-to-date construction methods changed? I think that the colleague is going to come in a bit on skills and training shortly. You would acknowledge that that independence scrutiny and removing the slight conflict of interest in terms of quality assurance is important, though. We felt that it was important, and that is why we put those checks in every contract. I think that it might have been Mr White to say earlier on that you came into the process later. Would that have guided your decision to be more hands-on, or would it just be the culture that you think you had there? I was not involved in that at the time, but I would suggest that that is the culture that we had within the organisation. While we came into the PPP arrangement, I think that we signed about 2006, which was a period into it. By that time, many of the folks we have talked about today are much later than that, so those things would not have been a part at that point in time. Does anybody have any comments to make in the latest point? Just a brief run on the transfer of risk. In my experience and what we have been through with the PPP-1, you can transfer all the risk that you want, but you will never actually in practice be able to transfer a reputational risk. Just an aspect is that, while authorities do not have to employ Plackawocks, there was an independent certifier. Again, the perception at the time that the independent certifier was carrying out that rolling back the client as in working between the contractor and the client ensure that the works were carried out the right standard. What history has told us is that they were on the inside for one and a half days a month and we would certainly never have the capacity to check everything. The other thing that is fundamental is that Clackawocks is not the plan I see here. We have to get it through. It has got to be constructed correctly. It has got to be designed correctly. It has got to be constructed correctly as well. The Clackawocks will solve the path of the issue, but there are other strands of activity that we need to resolve as well. I think that the word magic bill is not used a few times and there never is one, so I think that everybody recognises that Clackawat wouldn't be one either. Clearly, our main concern here is to ensure that present and future schools and other public buildings are going to be safe. Is the procurement process itself flawed? And if so, what has to be done to change it? I understand one in terms of how we move forward with the procurement. We have got to work within the procurement rules. If you are in the private sector, you can select who you want to turn the date work. In the public sector, we are quite rightly open to competition. It has got to be transparent and integrated to the process, and that is an absolute given. Where that is something that is lead to is that you do not always get the contractor that you would generally want to have on a construction project. On that basis, you need to ensure that you have an effective procurement strategy, how we look to that in Aberdeenshire as pre-select through a framework, so you ensure that you are only getting contractors done to date the work that has been tried and tested in the heard successful outcomes. In that context, I would not say that it is a procurement issue in terms of what was seen in the industry for the defects industry. We have got to ensure that, as construction professionals, we work with the procurement service and work within the legislation to ensure that we get the right outcomes. Is it then the contract process that is flawed? In terms of that, there are different ways of undertaking it. I would think that all of us here have been doing constructions a long time, and we are probably changing our thinking of what is the right approach. We are certainly encouraged to go down a design and bill model to transfer risk and ensure control of cost. I know that, in Aberdeenshire, we are now minded towards a traditional model in which we retain most control, and that is the approach that we are taking most of our larger construction projects. Is that the path that other local authorities are going down now? Yes. We are back to a more traditional approach, but we are also working with our hubco in relation to addressing the issues. I do not think that procurement is the issue, because the client team set the rules of engagement for procurement at the outset. I think that the more careful thought needs to be into what those rules of engagement are in terms of the issues that the coal report or inquiry has risen. Clearly, particularly the PPP contracts are quite complex, and the companies have top lawyers that put those together and negotiate them. How good are councils at matching their skills in terms of perhaps getting the right lawyers to back them up in the negotiation process? Every local authority would be different. For Edinburgh, we have a framework with all the major firms in Edinburgh, so something that is complicated is that we would bring in external expertise to advise. The industry is learning from past mistakes on PPP contracts that were entered into 15 years ago. It is still evolving in terms of the issues that have arisen, for example, the NHS, the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh. You would sign up to some contracts today that were entered into 15 years ago because of what has been learned in that intervening period in relation to the PPP model. Of course, those contracts were entered into 15 years ago, so they still have another 15 years or so to run. Exactly. When the contracts are signed, is there any risk assessment on it? Is there any process of risk assessment on that contract to manage any issues that might come out from it or potentially come out from it? In terms of the negotiation, some of those contracts take a year to negotiate, so through that whole process, you are constantly looking at the risks. In commercial negotiation, it is about compromising on some things and not compromising on others. That is the cut and thrust of a skilled negotiator to be able to ensure that they are getting the best for effectively the client, which is the council. There would still be areas where there was, I will not say, weakness but where the risk is higher than in other aspects of the contract, so that the council presumably would want to keep managing that risk and ensure that it was mitigated where possible. Absolutely, but in each and every circumstances, you have to look at the respect, the negotiating strength of each party. If I had a contract that was extremely valuable and I am negotiating with three parties about who gets that contract, my negotiating position is improved considerably as opposed to a one-to-one. The competition between the parties trying to get that contract allows the local authority to be able to come out with a better outcome because you are in a better negotiating position. Can I ask, then, if the local authority is a place that is in the best position, how did it end up getting a deal that did not involve the safety of the schools at the heart of it? I am absolutely 100 per cent prepared to admit that, at that time, the council got it wrong. Yes, but that is not getting it wrong. That is fundamentally missing the whole point of what you are there to do. That is not making a mistake. That is making an absolute huge error of incredible proportions. I am not sure whether there is a question there, but I agree. I think that it was made as a statement and I do not feel that you have to try to respond to it. Sorry, Colin. Can I ask still on this question, just to tie this one bit up? Reference has been made that the contractors have been making good some of the deficiencies. Is that uniform that, in every case, the contractors are picking up the cost? I can only speak for Edinburgh, but yes, that is the answer to that question. Is that the same for the government? Yes, but in terms of the PPP arrangements, that would be part of the normal maintenance. So leaving the risk aside, the cost at least does not come into the public purse? No, I am aware of no. There will be other costs, of course. Does that mean that we keep talking about error, but the pattern shows that it is happening across the country and that the deficiencies have been picked up quite extensively? Is it not that we are seeing a deliberate attempt by contractors to cut corners, cut costs, to try and come in within budget? Is that what we are looking at? I think that the era at that time was a new concept. It was moved away from traditional onto design and build. Contractors would appear to have had a free reign, rightly or wrongly. There was probably far too much work on it. There were harsh penalties for failing to complete on time, and because of that, that impacted inequality, and that is the reason why we have not seen it. We keep trying to put nice words around it, but the fact is that the corners occur. Absolutely, there is just no doubt about that. Deliberately? You cannot really ask them to start throwing accusations at them. However, you have got to look the here and now. The evidence would suggest the here and now. We have now researched and analysed our more recent projects, and we have not found that level of defect. It would tend to suggest that the industry is matured, the sector is matured, and we are not in that same situation. We certainly do not want to be there ever again. All of us sitting here are not instrumental in procuring these projects. We are instrumental in making sure that we remedy the defects that have happened before us. Okay, thanks, Colin. Sorry, a break. Okay, Mr Law, very briefly. It was just to quickly back up. I agree with what Alan is saying there as well, and I would just back up the point. There is an element where just volumes of work at particular points in time. At that point in time, there was a huge volume of work going on across the country as well, which puts added pressure on the contractors in terms of speed and getting things moving, which I think can be a contributory factor. Okay, thank you. Thank you. One of the issues that has been reflected earlier, so obviously not spend a lot of time on it now, but the question of whether there is an issue about a gap in skills and training both within the local authorities but also within the construction industry. The first question is, has there been a change in policy within local authorities around capacity issues? When, back in the day, you would have had an architect's department, a fully staffed planning department, you would have capacity at that level to be able to monitor projects. Am I right in thinking that that capacity has diminished? Was that part of being the difficulty in supervising those projects? If so, what are the local authorities doing about that? I will clarify again from a South Lancer Council perspective that we have a team of around 100 multidisciplinary officers, architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, structural engineers and the like. The team that is there to deliver the programme tends to be a team that has been in place over a number of years and has built up a fair degree of knowledge and experience of managing projects and delivering the fairly successful projects. I do so myself in terms of our school estate. From our perspective, that is something that has not been the case. That staffing level has remained consistently high. We routinely check year on year in terms of workforce planning, what works are coming ahead for us. We look at volumes of work, we look at types of work that are going to be coming as well. We then cross-reference that with a team that is in place to make sure that we have the right skills match or not, and then we would adjust a team accordingly. In some cases, we would take the view that potentially we may not wish to add to the team because that is a constant level that we want to keep at. However, it is important that there are external frameworks, we consultancies or whatever else as well that we can go and we can engage with in order to bring in staff or consultants on a short term or on a project where potentially we do not have the skills or expertise inside to deliver that, or alternatively, we just do not have the capacity at that point in time. Is that different in other places? It is identical in Edinburgh. There was a time, coincidentally, around the time of PPP1, where there was a view that all disciplines should be outsourced and there should be no one in the house team. However, today, around 100 architects, engineers, clerkerworks, etc., who are all delivering projects directly in house in terms of design through to construction. However, we have also got frameworks in respect of the delivery of major projects or to draw down when work volume goes up. Similar to Aberdeenshire, we have around 100 internal resources. We use external resources, probably £2 million a year in external resources. I have always had good support with office and political leadership to resource. They recognise that a big programme needs to be resourced efficiently. We are okay in that regard. It is harder to attract staff, as I would say. I have never been in full complement. That is across. It fluctuates, sometimes it is estate surveyors, sometimes it is engineers, sometimes it is building surveyors. It is hard to attract the full complement of staff. To be clear, the lack of supervision of the projects was not about the capacity of the councils to do it, but it was an active choice that it was somebody else's job. On the question of the skills base among the construction industry, I am rather troubled by the idea that left-to-their-on-devices contractors basically try to cut corners or rather reckless. There is a picture that is emerging, reckless in terms of safety, and at an operative level, at the basic level of the workforce, they are unaware that they are doing the wrong things because of the lack of training. Is that an unfair characterisation of what has happened? I think that what we are suffering from now, in lack of skill set, is a result of the recession in that, at that time, people leaving schools to get into a profession during a recession, we are not going to get into a trade that was basically a ground to a halt. However, the difficulties that Alan has alluded to for local authorities have been able to match, in a buoyant market, the salaries that are available in the private sector, and that is always a restraint. What Edinburgh has tried to do in every single procurement contract relating to construction, there is an obligation for, as part of the tender, for apprentices to be taken on from the local community of where the asset is being built. That is an absolute obligation on the successful party that is, now it might be Woodwork, it might be Bricklen or whatever, but there is an obligation in terms of, and it is scored as part of the procurement process. Those initiatives have happened in different places at different times, and they are to be welcomed, but I am just wondering, is there something about the construction industry itself? Trade unions within the construction industry often talk about the subcontracting out to the point where there is not proper supervision. The level of health and safety in Scotland in the construction industry is still a scandal, the level of fatalities that we know is still a concern, but what you seem to be saying is that, to their own devices, the contractors will cut corners. If they are cutting corners in terms of the safety of the buildings, they will then be complete, presumably because there are safety issues for those construction workers that are working within the industry. How do we address that broader question? In the procurement issues that you have seen, the flaws emerge in some places that are avoided because there is good supervision, but in the private sector where buildings are being constructed, and there is nobody supervising in terms of public interest, is there a major problem there in terms of safety? My general impression is that safety has improved considerably over the years, and we take it very seriously in Aberdeinshire. We have got two full-time safety officers within our team, and the construction skills cards, you won't go on a site without it, and the induction processes that you need to adopt before you go on site, and that's from my perception, but I'm not on sites every day, but there's a generalisation that's been made. It may be that there's greater safety on the site, however the capacity of individuals who are working on the site to either be aware of or flag up that their corners have been cut, doesn't seem to be working. If you imagine you're a young person working in a site, building a school, you either don't know that you're not doing the right thing, or you do know that there's nobody that you can speak to about it. Either way we would suggest that there's a lack of skills to know there's a problem, or the lack of a space for them to go and tell anybody about it, because this picture that you're creating that's basically if you don't watch these people at hawks, they'll just build things that are unsafe. Now, I'm sure the contractors have been interested to hear from their view and that characterisation, but they would also, from the point of view of the person who's doing the job with autonomy, with a trade, who would identify there was a problem, what they've been asked to do or not been asked to do, is there an issue about where they're able to go, so it's either they don't know they're not doing the right thing, or they do know, but there isn't a place for them to raise that. Sorry, possibly even a third part, that they do go and raise it, but still somebody makes a choice not to do anything about it, which I think is potentially the third element to that. I think it is a difficult one, as we kind of spoke about earlier, that, you know, is it just the case that I'm engaging more and more checkers to go and sit and talk to everybody all the way through a project to make sure they do things, or is that that, but that, again, effectively, if people have got a role and they understand their role and they know what they've got to do, then it's just that it's incumbent upon them that they do it, and I think that that goes back to potentially going back to the contracting organisations as well in terms of the responsibility and that kind of top-down attitude as well and cascading that down. The same as we would do for health and safety and the like as well and say things are unacceptable, there is that, but it's almost a, you know, possibly even a change in some respects of culture, that, you know, time is important and a job, costs are important and a job as well, but timing costs shouldn't be at the sacrifice of quality, so quality, you know, needs to be made sure and trying to develop and deliver projects that are error free as best as possible. So I think it's that, but that people will need to be comforted that if they are going with an issue or they are raising an issue, then there is that commitment, you know, from the top-down in a company that that will get sorted. Do you have a view at all on some suggestion from last week that the delusion of apprenticeships in the construction industry, because, you know, the old trades, if you think they'll craft, you would just say that people would have a sense of their own responsibility and would say, well, no, actually, I can't deliver this in the way that you're suggesting, but if it's broken down and diluted, people are doing their own wee bit and they're not necessarily seeing how different things are coming together? From a building standards point of view, what sort of feedback we get from surveyors who go out on site is that the traditional structure of a construction company now is completely changed from what it was 10, 15 years ago. You know, you had your apprentice, you had your charge hand, you had your foreman, and you almost had an inbuilt sort of quality system, if you like, that was taken for granted. That's now gone under a modern structure where a lot of the things are sub-contracted out, so there's been a significant change there. Would you concur with the view, very often expressed by the construction unions, that there's an issue about sub-contracting out so far, or what they also style, the bogus self-employed, that in fact you can have a construction company, which is really tiny and all the work is sub-doubt and there are consequences for quality in relation to that? I think that there needs to be, you know, whatever the structure is of the company or the contract, there has to be procedures in place to ensure that the alternatives are competent. Is there procedures in place to make sure that the people working on sites are competent? I do believe that certain sectors have the competency levels in place. That brings us to the end of this evidence session, and thank you very much for your attendance and your evidence. Next week, in the last evidence session in the inquiry, the committee will hear from the Minister for Local Government and Housing and the Scottish Futures Trust. That brings us to the end of the public part of the meeting and I will wait for the gall, it's clear. Thanks again.