 Good morning, and welcome to the seventh meeting of the local government housing and planning committee in 2022. I would like to ask all members and witnesses to ensure that their mobile phones are on silent and that all other notifications are turned off during the meeting. The first item on our agenda is to decide whether to take item five in private. Item five is consideration of the evidence that we have taken on the Scottish social housing charter. Are we all agreed? We now turn to agenda item two, which is to take evidence on the Scottish social housing charter from the minister for zero carbon buildings, active travel and tenants rights. Mr Harvey is joined today by Scottish Government officials, Michael Boyle, social housing charter regulations and Anne Cook, who is the head of social housing services. I welcome Mr Harvey and his officials to the meeting. The committee has received copies of the updated charter with changes from the previous iteration from 2017, shown in red. Scottish Government briefing, a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice Housing and Local Government and written submissions from Living Rent and Alacho were also included in the meeting pack. Members should note that we will be invited to consider the Scottish Government's motion on the charter at next week's meeting, which Mr Harvey will also be attending. I intend to allow up to around 90 minutes for this session. Before I open up to questions from the committee, I now invite the minister to make a short opening statement. Thank you very much, convener. It is my first time back physically in a Parliament committee room for quite a while, so it is a great pleasure to be here. The Scottish social housing charter has been in place, as you said in your opening remarks, since 2012. It has been reviewed in 2017 and has now been further reviewed in 2021. It describes what tenants and other customers of social landlords can expect from their landlord by stating in clear and plain language the outcomes and standards that all social landlords should be achieving when providing housing services. In doing so, the charter helps them to hold landlords to account. During 2021, to help us to prepare the revised version of the charter, we asked tenants, social landlords, the housing regulator and other stakeholders for their views on the charter and the impact that it is having on services for tenants and other customers. Our review of the charter involved a series of virtual consultation events alongside the formal consultation. The strong message from across the sector is that the charter continues to be of value and relevance, it is working well, it is key to improving the landlord-tenant relationship, it is being used by landlords and tenants to compare and monitor performance and is encouraging landlords to deliver improved services for their tenants and other customers. The regulator reports annually on landlord performance against the charter, and their reports confirm that year-on-year improvements continue to be made across most of the charter outcomes and standards. The independent analysis of the feedback from the virtual events and the formal consultation clearly showed that the charter has a positive impact, that the outcomes and standards should remain largely the same and that it continues to be of relevance and value and supports improvements in service delivery. We, of course, have carefully considered all of the consultation analysis and made some minor changes to the outcomes, standards and supporting descriptions. We have confined changes to those few that stakeholders suggested would improve the quality of services that social landlords deliver and to reflect policy and practice developments. Changes that we are putting forward include incorporating a reference to human rights and the right to housing for all individuals into the charter, recognition of the benefits of using a range of digital and non-digital communications and recognising the changing landscape in the context of decarbonisation in relation to the quality of social housing. We have also highlighted the range of actions that social landlords can take on their own and in partnership with others to support victim survivors of domestic abuse and an additional emphasis on the role of social landlords to prevent homelessness. Those modest revisions have updated and future-proofed the charter, reflecting developments in practice policy and legislative requirements. The charter continues to provide an improvement framework and a statistical baseline for both tenants and landlords to assess and compare performance individually and across the sector. It encourages and supports landlords to continue building on improvements that they have already made in delivering the high-quality services that tenants and other customers want and expect. I look forward to hearing the committee's views and answering any questions that members may have on the charter. Subject to that, I hope that the committee will be content with the revised charter and will recommend that the Parliament should approve it. The forefront of my mind on the issue is the on-going energy and cost-of-living crisis in which households are suffering from energy prices and an urgent need to transform heating systems. Given that, I would like to ask the minister how the Scottish Government has reviewed and consulted on the revised charter and specifically how tenants have been engaged. The consultation on the charter revision has been extensive. There was a 12-week consultation on the Scottish Government website, which was publicised widely by the Government and by other stakeholders, and there were 12 virtual stakeholder consultation events for tenants and landlords and others with an interest in social housing. That process was facilitated by the tenant participation and advisory service and the tenant's information service. The range of issues that you have mentioned, particularly in relation to cost-of-living, touch on some very long-term challenges that the whole sector, including the rest of our housing system, is going to have to deal with in relation to both energy and other costs in relation to affordability. The issues in the current consultation on the new deal for tenants will also touch on that. Thank you for that response. How do you think that the charter needs to be evolved given the stated aim in the new deal for tenants consultation to develop a more unified rented sector with more consistent regulation? That is probably an area where some of the questions remain open as we are currently consulting on the new deal for tenants, the rented sector strategy consultation. We have clearly indicated some potential changes to the role of the regulator in relation to social housing, but in relation to the private rented sector, there is no charter equivalent. There is no regulator at present, and we are proposing one. The opportunities for closing the gap in outcomes for housing across different sectors. The opportunity for social landlords to develop their wider role in relation to energy systems, for example, into the wider community, and the opportunities to learn from good practice and perhaps learn the lessons from where practice has not been so good in relation to tenant position. Those are all areas in which I think that there is going to be some interesting overlap and connection between the social and private rented sectors, but also not necessarily direct read across. The social rented sector, for example, has some innate advantages in relation to tenant participation. It tends to be bigger landlords with a geographically defined focus, not always but often, and quite often a more stable and older population of tenants. Some of those factors lend towards the ease with which good social landlords have improved their practice in relation to tenant participation. Those factors are often absent in the private rented sector, and trying to achieve that level of participation and tenant voice is going to be a challenge, which the current consultation is actively exploring. Thank you for that response. I am good to hear that there is some potential for overlap and connection between what we are doing here today with the social rented sector and the private rented sector proposals. I would like to move on and bring in Paul McClellan with a couple of questions. Thank you, convener. Can I refer everyone to my register of interests? I am still a seven councillor on Eastland Council. Morning, minister. Can you explain in what ways do you think the current charter has helped to improve standards and outcomes for tenants and other service users? I think that overall the picture is very strong, since the original charter was introduced you will be aware that the regulator monitors and reports against the outcomes in the charter, and it has shown a continual improvement, pretty much year on year. I think that there is a strong view across the sector, both from the creation of the charter, the first review and now the second review point, that it is being effective, it is improving standards. I think that it is always worth reflecting that practice and standards vary. Every social landlord I think will recognise that they can always do things better, and it is always appropriate for any organisation, public service, private third sector to continually reflect on how they can learn the lessons and do better. I think that that applies to the regulator as well. We can continually reflect on how the regulator can provide better information for tenants, enabling them to hold their social landlords accountable. I think that the view is very strong, and the evidence is very strong across the sector that the charter has had that strong and pretty consistent impact in improving service. The next question is in response to the charter review. The analysis showed that there was a slightly less positive view about the impact of the charter or that individual tenants had rather than social landlords. I do not know if there are any thoughts or comments that you have on that. The responses from individuals, some of which might have been about the actual service that they were getting from their social landlord, rather than about the contents of the charter, is probably the main reason for that statistical difference between the overall level of positivity from organisations as opposed to individuals. It is, of course, always legitimate for people to raise whatever issues that they have in this context, and if they have an issue with their social landlord, it is perfectly fine for that to be heard. That needs to be dealt with by their social landlord or, in extremist, by the regulator, rather than necessarily being reflected in an individual difficult case or circumstance that is reflected in the charter itself. However, I think that the overall view from organisations and from individuals in relation to the contents of the charter was pretty supportive. There weren't really very many major proposals for change, and that is why the actual changes that were proposing are relatively modest. I suppose that, not really to the charter, is there anything that we can keep an eye on, as such, if there was a deterioration going on, or are there other indicators outwith the charter? Probably what I'm saying is, do we keep an eye on that, for example, as our regular views, that we can keep an eye on what I suppose the individual tenants' views would be? It's slightly outwith the charter, but I think that it's obviously something that would be worth monitoring if that was the case. Of course. It is Parliament that has given the responsibilities and duties to the regulator and the regulator reports to Parliament. We're proposing, or at least at the point of discussing, some potential changes in the current consultation to the regulator. As I mentioned earlier to the convener, there's a proposal for a regulator for the private rented sector as well. There'll be some discussion, no doubt, about how they might integrate to what extent or whether there are reasons that we should keep them fully separate. The regulator will, I think, be reporting fairly soon to the committee, and that's always an opportunity for the committee to hold the regulator to account for the work that it's doing and for the reports that it's presenting. Thank you very much for your response. I'm going to move on to questions from Mark Griffin. Thank you. Good morning, minister. I'll draw members' attention to my register of interest as I know of a rented property in North Lanarkshire. Minister, you've set out some of the changes to the chart on why, and I just wanted to touch on the incorporation of a reference to human rights and a right to housing for all. I just wanted to explore the concept of a right to housing as opposed to a right of choice of housing. There are many people in housing who essentially have that right to housing met, but it wouldn't be their choice to choose that particular tenure. There are those in a private let who would want to be in social housing. Just to ask what discussion was had on that particular change as to reflect perhaps a right to choice in housing rather than just a right to housing? I hope that there's a good degree of recognition of the fact that we're pretty consistently talking about the right to adequate housing as a human rights issue. I think that moving the debate on to recognise that that needs to be expressed and experienced right across the tenures, that that right to adequate housing includes affordability, it includes some of the issues around personal control and dignity, which is why we're talking about some of the changes in the PRS in relation to things like personalising a home and recognising that a rented home is a home. It's not just a property with a tenancy, it's somebody's home and that's hugely important. In relation to choice, I suppose there are very many reasons and different reasons in the different sectors why somebody may feel that they don't have the ability to make choices about where they live or the kind of property that they have. In relation to the private rented sector, it may simply be a matter of price. We're very, very aware of the particular challenges of rent increases, especially in cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh over recent years, which is why we're committed to bringing forward proposals on rent controls. The social rented sector already has regulation of rent and requirements on landlords to consult. The choice that people have is therefore not necessarily the same in relation to the social and the private rented sector. I hope that those issues will come out in the current consultation and, if the committee has particular views on how we can express that better, we'll take account of that. I just wanted to move on to a different area and ask how the regulator uses the results of landlord's report and how they use that report to gauge against outcomes and standards in their regulatory framework. It might be that officials have an extra word to add here, but I suspect that some of that will be questions that should be put to the regulator. As an independent regulator, Parliament sets the legislation, setting its duties, Government can propose changes to that, but we don't instruct the regulator on how to perform its functions or, indeed, on don't instruct individual social landlords on how they should achieve the outcomes. There are questions here that are probably more relevant to the regulator than there are to the Government. I'm not sure if there's anything that you want to... I would just say that the regulator collects information annually. It does an annual report on the charter and landlords also have to do an annual report to their tenants. It monitors performance across the charter. It's also got a tool on its website where you can go in and compare landlords. It gives people a really good and easy way to say, how are we doing in this particular outcome and how is another landlord doing? It makes that information available both by its annual report, by collecting statistics and comparable statistics across all social landlords and reporting on them annually. Just for all of our awareness, the committee will be having the housing regulatory later in on 22 March, so very soon. I'm going to now bring in Graham Day with a question. How would you respond, minister, to the concerns that are being raised by living rent, that the current process of self-assessment against the charter's indicators is not suited to delivering the charter's outcomes and that a more robust and accountable regulatory approach might be needed? Thank you. I'm grateful for the opportunity to hear from living rent about their perspective. If I remember rightly, I'm meeting them later this week, so I'll get a chance to explore that in a little more detail. I do note that they are pleased with the charter itself, that they have agreed that the charter outlines worthwhile outcomes. However, if I understand their perspective properly, their view is that there needs to be a change in how social landlords are regulated rather than a change in the charter itself. I'm sorry to come back to the point that there is an open consultation on some of those points, but it might be wrong to pre-empt that current consultation. The consultation proposes a greater involvement for the role of the housing regulator, as well as the creation of that new regulator for the PRS, which would improve standards and enforce tenants' rights. The vision and principles for regulation are being consulted on and will be based on standards of quality, affordability and fairness to try to achieve that 10-year neutral outcome that I was talking about earlier. I would all like to think that some of the work that we're currently doing that will flow from the current consultation on the new deal, the rented sector strategy, will go a long way to addressing some of the concerns that living rent has. As I understand it, those concerns are not principally with the charter or the changes that we're proposing today. Can we just explore about how some of the legislation is implemented, both in practice and perhaps in spirit? The social housing charter talks about standards and outcomes that homeless people can expect from social landlords in terms of access to help and advice the quality of accommodation, and continuing support to help homeless people access and keep a home. I have cases at the risk of becoming parochial in my own constituency, where individuals have been given notice periods by private landlords. They've approached the local authority as they go to in terms of finding accommodation. What they're being told is to sit tight for the period of their notice, and then they'll start the eviction process. The council will appear reluctant to take away some of the burden and some of the stress that those individuals are in the early stage by offering advice, perhaps engaging with a private sector landlord. I'm just wondering where that fits within the charter, if it fits at all, and whether, even if it's okay, it's perhaps not in the spirit of how that should be applied? I mean, I suppose, in short, I would say I don't think it's okay, but it does connect directly to that question about the private rented sector, having no regulator, having no equivalent to the charter. Now, the new deal for tenants consultation doesn't go into specifically saying whether there should be a charter like this or expanding it to cover the PRS, or precisely what the regulator should be. It opens up a range of options for that, but at the moment, in the situation that you describe, the private landlord isn't regulated in the same way in relation to prevention of homelessness. Sorry, I haven't explained that quickly enough from my perspective. What I'm getting at here is the conduct of the local authority in the context of when they are approached, and they are simply telling tenants to sit tight for that period, then there'll be a period of the eviction process, which is very unsettling for the tenants who are seeking a social housing gift for one of a better word. So I'm coming at it from the point of view of whether that is appropriate for the local authority to simply be pushing it down the road, kicking the can down the road, if you like, here, or should they be engaging at an earlier stage, and whether this is in any way covered here? I mean, I think it's fair to say that the charter itself relates more to the responsibilities of the social landlords than to the local authority, unless the local authority itself has council housing. If it's a separate function around welfare rights advice and housing advice, for example, it's not necessarily covered in the ambit of the charter. I think, though, that the approach that we're taking to try to achieve 10-year neutral outcomes, the approach that we're taking to try and introduce regulation in the PRS that is perhaps not identical to the social rented sector but integrates with and achieves that more coherent approach to achieving that human right to adequate housing for everybody, regardless of 10-year, will go a long way to addressing the kind of situations that you're describing. And in the context of resolving neighbourhood disputes, providing tenancy support, adequate tenancy support where it's needed, do you feel that the reporting mechanism as it currently exists, the self-assessment, if you like, is robust enough to ensure that what is being recorded is accurate? I don't think that we have concerns that there's major issues with accuracy of the reporting. As I say, we are looking to propose a change to the role of the Scottish Housing Regulator in relation to its existing functions in the social rented sector or a greater improvement role for them. It will be for the committee when that legislation is put forward to consider whether we've got that approach right or an alternative approach is required. So I look forward to the responses to the current consultation. We'll consider those carefully and look to see if we can take forward the most effective solution possible and look forward to the committee's engagement on that as well. Thank you, Mr Day. Clearly, what's coming through here is that there's a number of pieces of work that we're taking forward in Scotland over this session around housing. This is one piece, there's the new deal for tenants and so on and so forth, and there are all bits that are going to hopefully work together to make housing better for people in Scotland in general. I'm going to bring Miles Briggs in with some questions. Thank you, convener. Minister, good morning to your officials as well. I wanted to ask a few questions with regard to some of the outcomes, and I'll start with outcome five with regard to repairs, maintenance and improvements. I'm sure every MSP will meet with tenants and no concerns around timescales for works to take place. How is that going to be properly monitored? One of the things that I'm always shocked about is not in terms of the teams that deliver the improvements but the length of time, sometimes the longest waits that people face. I have a case myself where it's been up to five years to get problem resolved. I just wondered in terms of the chart of what difference you hope that that will make. There are significant issues in the last couple of years, and we're aware that timescales for repairs is one of the things that has suffered in relation to the pandemic. I think that most people would acknowledge that for very understandable practical reasons. It is going to be really important that we make sure that, as we recover from the pandemic, social landlords do what they can to not just reduce those timescales but address any backlog. The regulator who you'll be hearing from later this month collects information on those timescales. I'll be as interested as you are in the on-going reporting of the information that the regulator can present there to ensure that we address those issues. However, it is for the regulator independent of government to go about collecting that information and for the social landlords to address how they best achieve the outcomes that are set in the charter. To go back also to where Graham Day had pursued question with regard to outcome 12, we all welcome homelessness being included in rough sleeping. One of the aspects that I don't think is necessarily captured though is the need for many individuals who will need supported or assisted living and how that's provided. I just wondered if that was something that the Government was looking at as well. I believe that around 5 to 7 per cent of homeless people need that supported living model put in place. There are very few people providing that. Ryan Alba here in the capital is doing a lot of good work around that in Leith, but I would like to see that potentially looked at as well, because I think that it's an important group of tenants who often find themselves homeless who need that supported living model. I think that it would be a positive thing for the charter to also look to include as that homelessness offering is developed further. In isolation it's a very fair point. I think that there's a huge value to the kind of services that you're talking about and I think that that's understood across the sector. I suppose that one of the issues with the charter is we want it to be a clear, comprehensible, easy-to-use document for tenants, not an incredibly high-level, detailed policy document that only housing professionals can make use of. Through the consultation we were keen to understand what tenants want to see in the charter itself. That doesn't mean that a huge range of other options from the kind of services that you're talking about through to the detail of how we provide welfare rights and money advice services to tenants, how social landlords perform the wider role of those that choose to, and a great many more aspects of the detailed operation of social housing which aren't necessarily captured in the outcomes. We wanted the outcomes and the charter itself to reflect the priorities of tenants and also to remain a document that is expressed in clear language that is easy for tenants to use. I think that the absence of a specific detail on something from the charter doesn't reflect the fact that it's not important. It's simply about ensuring that the way we revise and express the charter reflects the priorities of tenants and makes sure that the document remains something that is useful to them. Thank you for that. Just finally, could I ask what plans therefore the Scottish Government have to do a fundamental review of the charter then within the next five years, given that we saw quite a gap between 2012-21 to review it and what the plan was with regard to potentially updating the charter in the future? The previous review was 2017, after its creation. We would expect that we would anticipate another review at five years. I wouldn't imagine that we need to make major comprehensive change before that next review period, but it's fair to say that, on several points that have come up already, the situation is changing in relation to energy and net zero targets decarbonisation, the role of social landlords in achieving that. The situation is changing in relation to the wider landscape of tenants' rights and the approach to achieving 10-year neutral outcomes between social and private rented sectors. There will, of course, be opportunities to continue to use and to look at the charter in that changing context. However, I think that our expectation is that we would go through a further review at the next natural five-year point, rather than opening it up again at a deeper level much sooner than that. I would like to bring in Megan Gallagher. I refer members to my register of interests, as I am still a serving councillor in North Lanarkshire. Good morning minister and good morning panel. I would like to pick up on the answer that you gave to my colleague Miles Briggs in relation to engagement with tenants. One of the issues that you have highlighted is that you wanted the charter to be easy to use, but it could end up turning out to be a high-level, detailed policy document. In Annex B of the briefing paper that was supplied to the committee, a quote from South Lanarkshire Council, tenants development support project states, most tenants do not know what the charter is. The Scottish Government needs to do more to ensure all social tenants are aware of it. I would like to ask your self-minister, could more be done today's awareness of the charter among tenants? I think that the answer to that will always be yes, since its creation through its review and now obviously the cohort of tenants will change. People who might have been engaged with 10 years ago might not be the tenants who are there today. Our intention is to repeat the approach that we took in 2017, the last review point, where a series of events were held to promote the charter. They were judged to be quite successful and pretty popular, so our intention would be to go through that again and to develop a publicity strategy to ensure that as many tenants as possible are aware of the charter. That is not just about the Government, it also means encouraging landlords themselves to promote the revised charter in their engagement activities with tenants and other customers. The intention is that there will be some hard copies made available to those who want them, but social landlords have recognised, as the rest of us have, over the past couple of years, that the digital means of communication can be really effective. After an initial period of uncertainty, a lot of social landlords' tenants found that that was something that they had taken to as well, so a lot of those digital means of communication will be used very effectively too. On the point of engagement in relation to events and making sure that people are made aware of it, you mentioned digitisation there, which I am sure will be an important part of it, but, as we know, there are still quite a number of people within our communities who are not part of the digital age. It is just to make sure that the charter will still be able to be voiced to those people, particularly people with disabilities, who can actually physically attend events that you are hoping to hold in order to promote the charter. As I say, as well as online, there will be hard copies made available to those who need it. I would expect not only the Government's work but individual social landlords' work to involve a range of different methods and approaches. To be fair, a lot of social landlords have shown a great deal of creativity since the charter was created and then at its review point in showing how they can broaden that engagement and do that effectively in a range of different ways. We are now going to move on to questions from Willie Coffey, who is joining us on blue jeans. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning, minister and colleagues in the panel. I wonder, Patrick, if I could ask a few questions relating to the Scottish housing quality standard and how it interfaces with the charter. First, in paragraph 4.1 of the charter, it says that landlords are accountable for the work that they do and the performance that they deliver. How, at the ground level, are tenants able to hold landlords to account? Is it through things like the tenant satisfaction surveys and so forth, just exactly how do they hold a landlord to account if they were unhappy about that performance? Ideally, if things are working well, that tenant voice is heard and social landlords hear it directly. However, the regulator has the responsibility given to it by Parliament to monitor the work of social landlords against those outcomes, including tenant participation and tenant voice. As I said earlier, the evidence has shown since the creation and review of the charter in 2012 and 2017 that the evidence is pretty good that the charter has been an effective tool in raising standards, but if there was a major turn in the other direction, that would be picked up by the regulator in its reports to Parliament, and I think that the opportunity would be there for action to be taken either by Government or by the regulator itself. Thank you for that. I mean, I've been a local councillor for many years before and when I came to Parliament. Over the years, there's been numerous examples in Green Day, highlighted one there, and I heard about one only a couple of weeks ago, minister, where that person was allocated a house, and it's not Easter, sure, I'm talking about stress that, was allocated a house where the heaters weren't working, they were hanging off the wall, there wasn't any hot water in the house, doors were hanging off in the house, and the carpet was all state. How ineith do tenants get that experience through to the regulator? How ineith do we protect tenants from that kind of performance? It's obviously a little difficult for me to answer a question specifically about one particular social landlord and the experience that a particular tenant has had. It's not a picture that any of us would want to be the experience that people have in the social rented sector or indeed in any other part of our housing system in Scotland. I think that the charter and the operation of the regulator in holding social landlords to account against the outcomes in the charter is an effective way of ensuring that we do continue to raise standards. That is not to say that everything is perfect or that any social landlord can't continue to improve their practice, but they can. The evidence has shown that they are continuing to improve their practice, but it would be wrong ever to rest on our laurels and think that every problem has been fixed or that every social landlord is perfect. I think that the story is one of continuous improvement and we are committed to ensuring that that continues. Do you think that there should be a direct route for any tenant with an experience like that? I know that they can go and see their local councillors and they can talk to their MSP and even their MP if they want to. Should there be more of a direct route even to the regulator for instances like that? The reason I ask the question, Patrick, is whether social landlords, when they allocate a property or a tenancy, also give that tenant a copy of what the standard should be so that there is almost a contract and agreement between the landlord and the tenant about the condition and the quality of the house that they are being offered? I do not think that that is done. Is that something that might be worth considering? I am not sure that the formal housing standard is provided and I am not sure that necessarily that high-level detailed information would be the most effective information to give to tenants. However, it is a reasonable question to ask about how we can ensure that the right kind of information is given to tenants about the standards that are expected for them. In many ways, that is the purpose of the charter, to convey in clear and comprehensible language, rather than the language of a, as I said earlier, housing policy professional, the standards and outcomes that people should be able to expect from their housing. I think that continually improving the place of tenant voice, both in the social and private rented sector, is something that I am very committed to. The comparison that I have made in discussing the private rented sector, for example, with countries where tenants unions are much more developed and have a much more involved role within the housing system, including in some cases a statutory role in relation to decisions such as rent setting, is a situation in which the power imbalance between landlords and tenants is not as stark as it is here, because tenant voice is more powerful. I think that there is not necessarily a direct read across, not necessarily a copy and paste approach to what some of those other European countries are doing that can just be implemented here straightforwardly, but I think that there are really important lessons to learn from the countries that do have a stronger tenant voice across all tenures and make sure that that power imbalance is not as stark. I think that I have been very clear that that problem of power imbalance is more severe in the private rented sector than it is in the social rented sector, which does have a regulator, which does have a charter, which does have standards not only in relation to the building fabric but the service that tenants can receive from their landlords, but as well as closing the gap between the social and private rented sectors, we need to continue to do whatever we can to raise standards across the board. On that, on the private rented sector, you have mentioned it a few times and the possibility of a regulator coming in to cover the private rented sector. Do you see that merging into a unified charter, do you like, or shall we continue to have two charters and sets of standards applicable? I know that the quality in social housing compared to some private rented sector housing is quite stark. The difference is stark and often I find tenants coming to me from the private rented sector who are fairly shocked about the quality of the housing that they are living in. There are no applicable standards that they can discern in the year. There is no capital programme of upgrades and maintenance for them to look forward to. Could you say a wee bit about that, Patrick, about how we might want to bring the two a bit closer together? Sure, I can say a wee bit about it. I might not be able to go much more than a wee bit because, as I say, the consultation is live. It is a really important question about what extent would a regulator for the private rented sector perhaps align with, perhaps share some functions with or perhaps diverge from the current Scottish housing regulator for the social sector. There are significant differences at the moment. We are committed to reducing the gap in outcomes between those 10 years, but there will probably always be some degree of difference between the legislative framework, for example. If you look at the section on rents and service charges, we have a very wide difference between the legislative arrangements in relation to rent in the social rented sector and the broadly free market approach in the private rented sector. We are now proposing major changes there. We have the experience of rent pressure zones, which have not been used at all in Scotland. We now have a commitment to introduce a single national system of rent controls with some degree of local flexibility. We are not yet at the point of having a detailed proposition on that of legislation to put to Parliament, but that work will be on-going. Whatever we were to say about rents and charges within the private rented sector would need to take account of the legislation that is still to be developed and introduced and debated through Parliament. However, there will be other elements of what is in the charter that I think would fairly reflect an expectation that somebody should have of their housing, regardless of which 10-year they live in. Something like the charter, if that was the way that we were to go in relation to the PRS, would have some common points, but probably also some divergence. The same thing will be true of the PRS regulator that we are proposing. There will be a very live debate about to what extent it should align with and to what extent it should diverge from the approach of the existing social sector regulator. That is very helpful. When we are talking about charters and standards, should we think about extending our gaze or the reach of those things to be more than the house that our person lives in? What about the immediate environment that people often get complaints about too? Should people have a right to expect a certain quality in the immediate surrounding environment that they live in, and not just the house and its maintenance and its services within the building that they live in? What are your thoughts on issues like that? Should we be thinking more long-term about trying to extend this to achieve a greater standard and quality wider than the particular house that our person lives in? Very clearly, the social rented sector should be taking that role. Many social landlords take the wider role in relation to environmental factors, in relation to the community at an economic level or a social level. As I mentioned earlier, in relation to energy issues, social landlords could have a really critical role in investing in the heat networks that we are going to need to see developed and implemented extensively throughout this decade. Those heat networks will have an impact not just on social landlords' own tenants but can be catalysts for the wider community way beyond the social landlord itself. There are already examples of that, but not enough. I suppose that the question is to what extent should the charter seek to capture that wider role and the consultation that we have undertaken. As I said earlier to Mr Briggs, we wanted to make sure that the changes that we have proposed to the charter are addressing the issues that tenants want to see in the charter that they will feel are effective for them. It is not to say that other issues are not also important to social landlords, to the Scottish Government, to our net zero targets, to our homelessness and child poverty targets. Not every important issue is necessarily best placed captured in the charter itself. I think that the wider approach that Willie Coffey talks about is hugely important, but it is again slightly outside of the scope of what we should be putting in the charter itself. The revisions that are put forward today are pretty much in line with the strong view that what is currently in the charter was working well and only needed modest changes. Okay. Many thanks for that, Patrick. Thank you. What you have done is picked up on something that I was beginning to think about, which is wider than the charter, but there certainly is an opportunity with the Government looking at building 110,000 new houses, 70 per cent social housing and a parallel process that should influence the national planning framework where we are talking about 20-minute neighbourhoods. It seems to me that social housing has that opportunity to influence and affect and shape those 20-minute neighbourhoods if we are talking about building that amount of housing. It is good to hear that you recognise it, but I also understand that what we are trying to do is to create a document that is accessible for tenants' direct needs. At the moment, it is getting their homes where they feel safe and where they can get those immediate needs met. That is very fair. In relation to the one part of my own remit that we have not talked about, active travel is also critical to that. We have a clear commitment to reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent by 2030. Investment in communities on a place-based approach is going to be critical to achieving that, making sure that people can get to what they need sustainably and affordably within communities and, again, as really important players in a wider community. Social landlords have a really powerful, pivotal role to play in achieving that. I think that Graham Day wants to come in again. Thank you, convener. You made the point earlier, minister, that we are dealing with a charter itself. That is what we are here discussing. We have strayed into other areas today, which has been all to the good. A small suggestion, perhaps. You have commented in the course of this session about how you would expect social landlords to raise awareness of the charter. Is there a requirement on social landlords to make tenants aware of the existence of the charter and the regulator that might lead to an improvement in the situation? Those social landlords who are doing everything that the charter requires of them will do that. However, if those who were not aware that their tenants understood what the charter required and about the existence of the regulator, that might drive up behaviours. I am just wondering whether that is something that is worth considering. I am fairly sure that there is a requirement to make tenants aware of the charter, but there is not a specific legal requirement, but landlords have to report annually to their tenants. They are required to have an annual report to their tenants, so they are responsible for promoting it amongst tenants. I suspect that, from our work with tenants, although over the past two years we have not been able to go out and about, we usually go out and about meeting tenants regularly, but I suspect that it might be just a case of targeting information more, tenants' movement changes, new tenants come in, our tenants' movement nationally is getting older and they recognise that and they are wanting to involve a range, trying to get more young tenants and newer tenants in place. It is probably more a case of targeting publicity and working with landlords to ensure that they are doing their annual report that they have a legal duty to do and that they work with their tenants to promote the charter as a tool for improving performance. From the social landlords that I have spoken to, there is a degree of recognition that, even where tenant participation and engagement are good, it is much easier with a stable cohort of tenants. They face challenges to try and get beyond that. We talk about the same thing here in Parliament when we talk about the usual suspects being that the same committee witnesses might come along on different issues or the same organisations that the Government finds it easier to consult with. Participation and engagement are challenging and trying to get beyond a familiar cohort of people is always a challenge. I would like to think that the fact that Government and local authorities are now exploring much more actively more participative and deliberative forms of democracy, such as in the jury, such as in assembly, might inspire social landlords to think about what we can learn from that approach and what we can learn from other ways of throwing open the doors to participation. As I was saying to Megan Gallagher, taking a wide range of different approaches rather than thinking one solution is going to be right for everybody. I think that we have come to the end of our questions. Let's look around the room. I thank the minister and his officials for their evidence today. I look forward to seeing you again next week when we will consider the motion on the social housing charter and I now suspend the meeting for five minutes. The third item on our agenda today is to consider a negative instrument, the Local Governance Scotland Act 2004, Renumeration Amendment Regulations 2022. As this is a negative instrument, there is no requirement for the committee to make any recommendations on it. Do members have any comments on the instrument? No comments. Is the committee agreed that we do not wish to make any recommendations in relation to this instrument? All agreed. The next item on our agenda today is to consider a legislative consent memorandum on the UK building safety bill. Members have received copies of the LCM along with a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee's report on the LCM was circulated to members as a late paper on Friday. The Scottish Government considers it appropriate for the Parliament to consent to this LCM and the Cabinet Secretary's letter states that stakeholders are also supportive of a UK-wide approach. We therefore agreed at a previous meeting that there would be very limited value in taking evidence on this LCM. However, we are still required to report our views to the Parliament on whether we recommend that the LCM should be approved or not. Do members have any comments on the LCM and whether we are content to recommend its approval? Everyone is content. Thank you. The clerks will arrange for a short report setting out our recommendation to the Parliament to be published in the coming days. We agreed at the start of the meeting to take the next item in private, so as we have no more public business today, I now close the public part of this meeting.