 Good morning and welcome to the 23rd meeting of the committee in 2018. I'd like to remind members on the public to turn off their mobile phones and any members using electronic devices to access committee papers. Should please ensure that they are turned to silent. We have received apologies today from Tavish Scott MSP. We are joined at the committee today by Sandra White MSP and I shall bring her in later. Our first item of business today is an evidence session on the Glasgow School of Art. This is the committee's first evidence session on the art school and I would like to place on record that we will be taking a further evidence session on this particular topic. I'd like to welcome our witnesses today. Eileen Reid, the former head of widening participation at Glasgow School of Art, Malcolm Fraser, an architect, Roger Billcliff, the director of the Roger Billcliff gallery and Charles Rennie Macintosh scholar and Stuart Robertson, the director of the Charles Rennie Macintosh society. We are all here because Scotland has lost a masterpiece of global importance and many agree that the Macintosh building was the most significant piece of architecture, indeed the most significant piece of art that has ever been produced in Scotland. After the 2014 fire that destroyed part of the building, the investigation by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service was clear about the causes of the fire and the reason for its rapid acceleration. There was enormous sympathy and understandable determination to move on and rebuild but now the building has been completely destroyed in a second fire and many people, not just in Glasgow but around the world, want to know why. I know that some of the experts in our panel today have raised those questions. Media reports that the weekend in advance of this committee meeting have tried to focus again on the debate around rebuilding and I'm sure members will have questions on that subject. Before we do that, can I ask the members of the panel if you think lessons were learned from the first fire? If not, why not? If in your view there was a systemic failure of risk assessment on the part of the custodians of the Glasgow School of Art Macintosh building, perhaps we could start with Roger Bilcliff? We don't know if any lessons were learned because the school has not said a word about the 2014 fire. The Scottish Fire Service report that was published is redacted and it tells you what happened but it doesn't tell you but they must know why it happened and who was responsible for it. The school has refused to comment about the fire other than saying that the initial spark caused by a student using a banned substance within the school was an accident so we don't know whether they have learned anything, we don't know whether they have proceeded to protect the vent that caused the fire to spread. We're talking about a fire that was just put out within three minutes of the fire brigade arriving but by the time they arrived it had already gone up to the top floor because from the basement up a chimney effectively a chimney but Macintosh designed it as a ventilation shaft and modern ventilation shafts are blocked off at each floor automatically when a fire occurs to stop fire spreading. The school had spent £8.5 million of HLF money between 2008 and 2012 to make the building in the words of its then director fit for the 21st century. By not protecting those vents it was by no means fit for the 21st century and was a firetrap waiting to happen and the luckiest thing that happened in that fire is that nobody died. If they had died and there'd been a fatal accident inquiry we would have had answers to the questions about why the school wasn't protected. There could have been a public inquiry which would also have answered those questions. The school promised the Macintosh society that we would see the results of an internal inquiry. We don't know whether that inquiry ever happened because we've never seen anything. So whether lessons have been learned, nobody knows. Eileen Reid, you worked at the school from 2000. Do you know if an internal inquiry took place after the 2014 fire? There are two. A lot of rumours are circulating, which is part of the problem here that we're relying on here, say, on rumours. The two major ones concerning an inquiry are this. One, that on the Saturday morning following the 2014 fire a senior member of staff was tasked to investigate the causes of the fire and photograph the building with the chief fire officer in North Glasgow and that a report was written and that it was suppressed. I don't think that that's one version. I don't think that it's a correct one. I think that the correct version is that the task was to organise the decant very quickly of the Macintosh building and in doing that to photograph and to go around the rest of the building, obviously not the part that was burnt or that was photographed, too. What seems to have emerged from that is that there were multiple failures of health and safety in the Macintosh building in the run-up to that particular degree show. Not a report but a list of concerns and findings were handed to the director at the time, Tolman. In my own view, what's gone wrong here is that at the very least when that emergency committee was set up in the Saturday morning, there should have been an immediate investigation, an internal investigation. I don't mean a disciplinary one where maybe that has or has not happened about the cause and the source of ignition, but a systemic investigation into, as Roger said, how we've ended up in a situation where the most vulnerable, apparently it's the top of the list for the fire service in Glasgow, as the most at-risk building of fire in Glasgow, possibly Scotland, and how we've ended up in a situation where the risk, quite obviously, wasn't calculated properly about the protection of the building. I think that if an investigation had taken place, then perhaps it was the only way. I don't know how lessons can be learned unless there's an investigation into the causes of the 2014 fire. The investigation into the managerial processes and health and safety was what the fire service did. The fire service, quite rightly, its main focus is on the point of ignition and cause. It's not for apportioning responsibility particularly. In the art school, anyone who works in there, anyone, and I would defy anyone to say otherwise, anybody who works in there knew that building was a risk. We all knew it. We used to talk about how many minutes we would have to get out because it was so precarious, given 100 years of not abuse, but the way the building is used, flammable with details and the rest. We all knew it. Our main protection was the fire alarm and the smoke alarm. It felt frequently but probably wasn't. I set it off myself once. If you were at the top of that building when that fire alarm of you moved, that was before. We didn't need reports, we didn't need risk assessments, we didn't even know then that the baffles or the ventilation ducts weren't closed off, but we knew that that was a very risky and hazardous building. Of course, I'm concerned with the iconic building, but it was a threat to life, too. Thank you very much. Stuart Robertson, would you like to come in? I think that they've covered a lot. I think that again, there are elements that again after the 2014 fire, I think that the loss of what was on the Macintosh side was very much underplayed at the time and the school was predominantly focusing on the degree show in the students, so actually Macintosh was very much underplayed in the level of what was lost in the first fire. It wasn't really put out to the public domain very easily and even today it's very hard to analyse through the website what was actually lost. I think that it was over 150 original pieces of the Macintosh furniture plus his two original oil paintings. I think that there's elements there about the original fire. We know how it was caused. Again, there's discussions about the supervision of the art school and how all those inflamable materials were allowed to be brought in to the school, which again, as Roger said, we've not been privy to an investigation in the report, so it's very hard for us to add to that. Malcolm Fraser, from an architect's point of view, in terms of the response to the first fire, do you think that it was the correct response and how would you have thought that the art school management should have gone about? Well, I think that lessons had been learned. I also have the benefit that my daughter was studying at the GSA and in fact graduated the day of the fire. We'd been at her graduation and we were leaving when we got a text from her that there was a blown horizon, a really horrific text. I think that we need to wait until the report from the fire and rescue service to understand what's gone wrong this time. I think that there is some issues of statutory oversight which we need to look at in more detail and better statutory oversight because this happens to too many historic buildings. It's just one of a number recently and we need to make sure that the lessons that we draw from these Macintosh disasters aren't just about the Mac building itself but can apply to all historic buildings in Scotland, which we need to take more care of. We don't and indeed, for me, the cause of the first fire was treating the Macintosh as an icon to be monetised without taking good care of it itself and creating an empire around it without taking care of the dual of the heart of it. I think that the second one, the causes, are more failures in statutory oversight and I really hope that the investigation tells us how we need to tighten those up to make sure that we take care of buildings on site. A building in Glasgow that was lost in Littlewoods in Liverpool around about the same time are more examples of that. I plead to look wider and look to improve the lot for all historic buildings as well as taking care of the future of the Macintosh building. You have said publicly that a certain type of insulation was used, which was flammable, but in Glasgow School of Art's document that they released on what we know this summer, they said that they abided by all the statutory regulations, both from Glasgow City Council and Historic Scotland, and I think that Historic England was mentioned as well. That material is legal. It was used in Grenfell. I am distressed that it was used in the Macintosh, but I have looked in great detail. Do we know for sure that it was used? They have not confirmed but all reports were that it had gone in. There are reports from the site that had gone in. I do not have looked in great detail at this because this is an extremely sensitive point. I do not believe the material is flammable. I have seen tests on it where it just does not go on fire, no matter how many blow torches you put on it, so I would not raise that as being a contributory factor to the fire. Once again, I would want the investigation to confirm that. The comments that I heard this morning suggest that, as Malcolm suggested, there has been a level of exploitation of the legacy of Macintosh, that there has not been the recognition of the cultural significance of the building and the due care that would go along with maintaining that. I was interested in some of the comments from the submission that we got from Malcolm Fraser about the 2014 fire and the insurance. What I am interested in is the fundraising that went around it. There was an insurance pay-out at the same time that there was a big degree of fundraising. I think that you are saying that the fundraising was for additional work. Would that be a standard? You have described other buildings, historic buildings, that have been vulnerable to this kind of risk. Would that be the standard insurance arrangements? Insurance and both fires were different because one was an existing building and the other was during work. During work, what has happened now is that there is a standard insurance clause that is taken out. The school has confirmed that it was in place, which pays for the rebuild of what is lost during a fire, during construction. That is absolutely standard industry practice. I understand that that is in place. I regretted people saying, why should we spend all this money when we have a housing crisis, etc. That is an understandable thing to say, but it is not Government us paying the money. Insurance should pay out to put the building back as it was, and that should just put a lid on that question entirely. I am not disputing what you are saying, but I thought that Glasgow Art College said that they think that the insurance would cover it, but they would also be looking for charitable and other inputs to the overall funding package. It seems to suggest that insurance would be enough for an overall funding package, so they made clear that they were not looking for public money to fill any gaps. I cannot speak for them, but I cannot say why they should be doing that. After the original fire, as I understood it, they raised money to look for betterment, to pay for better insulation, fire alarms, etc. Endowments and more space and things like that, they used that as a vehicle to improve the general lot of the estate. That was what the fund raising was for, but I would not be able to do that. I was going to ask everybody to think that it was clear that that was what the fund raising was for. You mentioned other materials that were lost in the original fire. The school had meetings with Windsor Castle in Yorkminster to discuss how they dealt with their fires. One of the things that came out was to do a forensics of the art school before doing any clear-up. Again, that cost money as well, so that is outside the insurance costs. There were elements such as that. That was one example of additional costs. Again, as I said, I am not sure what the value is. It is some of the £4 million of Macintosh furniture in the items that were lost in the fire. The reason that the fire spread in the first place was because this one ventilation shaft was not protected. There were another dozen of them throughout the school, so obviously insurers were not going to pay for the protection in those ventilation shafts. That would be extra to any money that the insurers paid to reinstate the parts of the building that were damaged. The school rightly could not do anything else. It decided that it would have to look at those shafts. We do not know what they did. As far as the insulation is concerned, there was a paper published by the Architects Journal, which was written by the chief conservation architect of Page Park, where he itemises and actually specifies the insulation that was used, which, as Malcolm says, was the same that was used at Grenfell. That is a question that the child of any Macintosh society asks. What relationship do you or traditionally have with the Glasgow Art College when it comes to the importance of that building? Have you been involved in any on-going, prior to the fires, involvement in discussions around maintaining that building or protecting that building? That is an area where we would like to be more involved. The society has been very supportive. The society has got an advocacy role of all of Macintosh. A couple of years ago, we did building surveys of all of Macintosh's collection, which was funded through the Monument Trust. That was 50 buildings, including monuments, to give us a gauge of what the condition of all those buildings are. The society has had an on-going programme of very much looking after Macintosh and the collection and promoting it worldwide. We would have liked to have been more involved in the last four years of the project. I have found it very difficult to get access to the building over that period of time. I can maybe count in one hand how many times I got access to the building. I have had some discussions more recently since the last fire from one of the architects on Page Park and staff members at the School of Art saying that they wished that myself and the society were more involved in the project. I have two questions. I want to start with picking up on some of the comments that were made. Obviously, in 2014, there was a catastrophic failure. To what extent if you were to take the example of some other organisation and there was a catastrophic failure, what that organisation would have to do would be to go back to basics, go through all its processes, its policies, see what it could do differently, if it could do something differently. That is what you would anticipate in normal circumstances to happen in a large organisation. To what extent did any of that happen? What was the culture operating post the first catastrophic fire in 2014? I left the institution in November 2014. It seems that nothing much was done at all. I have talked to lots of current colleagues and ex-colleagues. The systemic failure—any institution of that size has to manage risk. We cannot have unavoidable risks, but the culture at GSA in relation to the building was one of managed risk. We lived with it. It survived until now. There is a sort of attitude that has not happened for 100 years. Why would it happen now? It is a logical fallacy, but it is not very good for a factor in risk assessment. Decisions on investment, health and safety really had to be taken in a wider context of significant pressure on their budget. There is a small specialist institution. They have economies of scale. They have huge challenges. The approach to risk in a way that was looser than it should have been. For example, there was one health and safety officer for the entire school, not just the entire school. There was no dedicated fire officer. The health and safety officer for years prior to the 2014 fire was warning repeatedly, as was the Macintosh curator, that there were significant risks. Things like the boards that were used to cover up the ventilation shafts, contractors would come in and remove them and not put them back in the electrical conduits that would go up into the shaft. That is maybe not a record in any formal report or inquiry, but apparently it is recorded in the health and safety committee minutes. It worked up until 2014, but it failed. I do not think that there is any particular individual at fault at all here. I think that it is systemic and I think that it is a misjudged attitude towards risk for such a hazardous building and such an iconic building. For me, for the lives of the people who... It is small. The individual senior managers have a huge remit, and I think that that has to be factored into how they managed the building and the school in general, not to mention resources. However, I do not understand and you have just made the point why they did not immediately conduct a thorough and rigorous investigation. I do not know. They were doing what our university culture asks of our institutions. They were increasing the estate, bringing more students in, building big, flashy new buildings, getting them named after themselves and not looking after the jewel at the heart of their estate. That is a primary failure and it is not just Glasgow School of Art, but many institutions do the same, fail to care for the jewel at the heart of themselves. I know that other colleagues are going to look into the future in terms of whether there is an inherent resolved conflict between somebody like GSA operating their business, if you like, and being the protector of this world heritage site. However, I ask Malcolm, because it is something that has puzzled me, but at the time of the fire, the GSA issued a statement to say that, at the time of the fire, the Macintosh building was not part of the GSA's operational estate and was in the management and control of care construction in Scotland Ltd. What does that actually mean? Presumably, the GSA remained owner of the site and, therefore, they were the principal, the contractors were the agents. Would you then expect there to be no oversight function at all? Nothing to do is nothing to do with me. I am the owner, but I have absolutely nothing to do with this building. Is that how it would normally work? The legal process is that a site is handed over to its main contractor. The main contractor, in order to carry out their obligations when looking after the site, has to have that ownership transferred to them for the currency of the contract. That is standard practice. Is there no subsequent communication between owner and contractor? Is there nothing that happens? There is communication, yes. The GSA should put in place structures around the contract, which requires the main contractor's care construction to look after, construction design management, health and safety, procure the contract properly, employment practice, all those sorts of things. Those structures are in place. I would like to talk about the adequacy of those structures and the statutory oversight that goes with them, because I think that is what has been missing. I have heard nothing that has said that the proper processes were not put in place in terms of project management, in terms of construction management, in terms of what was required of care construction. I hope that the Fire and Rescue Service is working with the Building Standards Department and other agencies to ensure to have oversight of the contracts. We do not just want to girdle about in evidence and look at the building and work out how it started. We need to know why materials were stored in the wrong place, or why compartmentalisation of the building was not in place, or why the people who here have said were there and trained to inspect the building 24x7 for fire were not there. Where were they? What was the training that they went through? What was the system that ensured that they took and that said that they had inspected the building? What was that oversight and where did it go wrong, because clearly it did? That is fine. I suppose that we also need to know, because I am assuming from what you have said, that you are not absolutely directly aware or otherwise of what exactly was in place between the GSA board and care. We do not know that, either, so that would be a key part of the jig. I think that you are referring to that as well. We hear about the investigation. I would like to hear about the detail of the investigation and that it is going to look at contractual arrangements, building control, building standards and construction design management regulations and how they were applied in this case, because those are the critical places where several things have clearly gone wrong. Can I just add a supplementary to that? The construction design management regulations that you mentioned were brought in 2015 as health and safety regulations. They are quite demanding, aren't they? They expect the contract to cover very wide possibilities of risk and take into account past history and the historic nature of the building. Is that correct? They were not brought in, but they were changed in that data at that time. They have been brought in gradually. There should have been a fire risk assessment as part of the construction design management process. As I am alluding to it, I would like the investigation to absolutely need to look at the adequacy of that. If it is not adequate, why was it allowed through as being not adequate, what needs to be tightened up there? Some fire experts have questioned why there was not a temporary sprinkler system in it. We know that there was a sprinkler system about to be installed, but it is a partly good practice in certain circumstances to install a temporary sprinkler system. Perhaps, but sometimes you find that it is the sprinkler system industry saying that. I do not necessarily think that out of this will come the need for every building site to have a sprinkler system during the currency of the works. That might make life very difficult. I would hope that there would be talk of that, whether it would have made a difference, whether it was feasible, etc. Alexander Stewart Can I touch on the role of the board of governors at the school? They are the senior role within the school process. Their resondettia was to look at the effective management of the school, the vision of the school, the investment, and they were responsible for risk assessment. How competent do you believe that they have been prior to the first fire and before the second? They have not had a great deal to say. The Muriel Gray's comment last over the weekend was the first substantive comment since 2014, but the board has changed considerably and it has changed along with the school's attitude to Macintosh. Up until 20 years ago, the administration was very much aware of Macintosh and very much aware of the importance of the building, not just to their teaching, but to the wider... Most of the directors of the School of Art since the war had been taught in the Macintosh building or had other connections. That stopped around 2000 and that an administration was built which was not dependent on people who had been trained in the school and knew specifically about the building. There was only one curator of the Macintosh collection who had been there for 20, 30 years, so he was a good source. The composition of the Board of Governors seems to have changed as well. If you look at it now, it seems to be full of academics from other institutions, retired civil servants, a couple of businessmen. Go back to 1900 when the school was built, it was primarily a board of local businessmen who found the money to build the school. The money did not come from the Scottish Education Department. These people, the board, excuse me, the board found the money. So the board is totally different and you might say that, well, the school is totally different. In 1900, the College of School of Art had one building, the Macintosh building. Now it's got 15, and only 20% of the student population either visit the Macintosh building. I know students who are now practicing architects, jewellers, whatever, who said that in their time at the art school they never went through the building. So there are all sorts of changes and the board has changed in the same way and it's a board which reflects changes in administration in higher education, in the growth of the school, but it doesn't in any way reflect that they have a jewel at the heart of their estate. Once again, I mentioned my daughter being particularly useful experience. She had been told that the intention, before this year's fire, was to move all first years into the building after the rebuild to be taught together so that everyone could experience the Macintosh building, which she thought and I thought was a really, really good idea. The glory of the building is that it is such a great teaching environment, such a great learning environment. We have plenty of Macintosh behind the glass, we do not touch, et cetera. This is and was and should be, again, a working building for students. The richness of education that Scottish students have had in there is reflected in the output of Scottish architects. We need to return to that. I would like the Glasgow School of Art to be talking about what they would want to do with that building again when they get it back and what students go in it. I would like them to reconsider the idea of putting all first years in it, because that would be a really positive thing to put forward. The whole leadership of the organisations is crucial. You have given examples of what they were planning to do and how that was progressing. That sounds reasonable about what they were trying to achieve to ensure that there was that opportunity. The fitness for purpose and ensuring that the governance and scrutiny was in place, I get the feeling that that still was a big issue for the school, for the management and probably for the students as to how that was co-ordinated to ensure that the building was given its opportunity to feature as it should and that it was continually put at risk. It would appear even after the first fire, so lessons had not been learned. I have a real issue about the governance and scrutiny of the whole process and the leadership of the school going forward. I would say with respect and that my colleagues might disagree with me that that is not my impression that lessons were not learned in relation to the proper scrutiny of building contracts and things that should be put in place. Again, I await the investigation, because I think that there has been failure within those processes. However, my view, and Ileens closer to it perhaps—or I have a closest through my daughter—was that things did improve after the first fire. This current contract was properly put in place, albeit that it failed so catastrophically. The school has never commented on what lessons it might have learned. We do not have and you do not seem to have the evidence that supports that claim, so we have to treat that with a bit of scepticism. If they were not transparent, if they were not good with our governance and scrutiny, questions still remain unanswered in the whole process. That is the crux of the matter here. I hope that those issues would come out with the investigation. I am concerned that it should be too narrow, just based on a fire report, when it should be looking as you are indicating at the whole responsibilities and processes behind decisions that were made. Kenneth Gibson, and then Ross Greer. Thank you very much for following on from what Alexander Stewart has said. Given what we already know and have heard this morning, I will be a bit more direct than Alexander asked if Glasgow art school board and executive has actually fit to manage the reconstruction of the art school and its management going forward. Well, one cannot predict whether they are fit. All you can do is look at what they have done in the last four years and let us not forget that the art school was a building site because they allowed it to burn in 2014. Stewart has already said that he has not been consulted and McIntosh Society has not been formally consulted. There is a lot of expertise with McIntosh Society about the current reconstruction, the reconstruction that disappeared in June this year. I have been involved in one committee which was arranged to discuss whether the chairs in the library should be like these, should be ergonomic chairs or whether they should be McIntosh's chairs. That is the only input that I and other people with my range of expertise and knowledge have been involved with. The school and its architects have kept it under their own control. We are unable to judge whether they are qualified to do it. I have heard from contractors that they have done things in a very different way and that they were being instructed to follow a pedantic system, the system that their peers in 1900 have used. That is what McIntosh specified. McIntosh did not specify how the school was built. He gave the contractors a set of drawings of how it was to look and how it was to be laid out. How they built it was entirely up to them to fit within their contractual estimates. Some people say that McIntosh probably never made a sight visit. I doubt that, but I have heard stories of special nails having to be bought from America because nobody makes the same kind of nails here to nail the library together. Nailing the library together is madness when you change the heating system to an underfloor heating system, which is the least conducive to maintaining the status of a wooden interior. The library interior is wood, wooden floor, wooden walls, wooden ceiling inside a brick box. You heat it in a way that protects it. The architects chose to put in an underfloor heating system against the contractor's advice, or at least the contractor said, well, if you do that, you have to construct it in a different way, but they weren't allowed to. You were talking about the rebuild in the school. I have said on a couple occasions that I would like to see a more sharing of knowledge and I would like to see the rebuilds, whether it is an expert panel or a trust put together to drive it forward, because I think that it is a big project. The school is very much a teaching school. I think that a lot of staff members have been doing dual roles over the period of time, and the school suffers on the education side. I think that there is an aspect that you are under a major conservation project, and it has to be with an expert panel put together to drive that forward. I make a slightly different point. What has actually happened since 2014 is that the rebuilding of the library, which was a massive undertaking, and the next one was even more so, of course, but it did detract from its core business. I know that it is not the education committee, but the 2014 rebuild of the library has diverted resources and attention and focus of what they really are supposed to be there for, and whether they put the expertise to do that, I do not know, and I would not hold any particular individual responsible, but the board, as a governing body, has got the ultimate authority, key role in providing oversight, to deliver this remit to the board in itself, places huge responsibility and time commitment on non-executive members, but what about the GSA's ability to focus on its core business, its delivery of strategic priorities, key Scottish Funding Council outcome agreements, its international developments, recruitment student experience, and, as a matter of fact, in the last two years, the GSA in the national student survey has been bottom in the entire United Kingdom, not just Scotland, but the entire UK. Last year, it said that it was about displacement of students and problems around the 2014 fire, and I do not see how the current setup is fit for purpose with this massive rebuild and what is going to happen with the student experience, how that should be their core business. In my view, there should be some overarching, very experienced board taking from experts across the country that is going to drive any rebuild forward and really let GSA get on with its core business, with the oversight of the board. I do not know anything much about the board, apart from the chairs' recent pronouncements, which do not seem to address any of this particularly. It is just about rebuilding that. We need something a bit more thoroughgoing, and they need to be creative in moving forward. They need a vision, they need to think about what they are going to do with that site, with that building, and what they are going to do with their own students, find a permanent campus over the next 10 years, and focus on their core business. That would be my view. I have not even had a supplementary at all, and others have, convener. I think that there is a consensus that there is an expert panel that seems to be that should take this forward, and I think that that is very productive. I was going to ask what kind of timescale are we looking at, because you are talking about developing an expert vision. How long is it going to take to get designs in place to contract it and build it? We are already at it. It was four years from the last fire, and a rebuilding had not taken place. What kind of timescale are we talking about before we see the Macintosh back to its former glory, if possible? That is not as an expert. I do not know, but I would say this to add to that timeline. There has to be a public consultation. There is a great deal of sentiment, emotion and hyperbole, and I can understand that. That approach does not sit well with a clear-sighted strategic vision for the future. Whatever board or panel, perhaps it could conduct this public... I know that they have said that we have decided at a meeting that it is non-negotiable, but it is not up for discussion. I do not think that that was a rushed statement, because, quite obviously, there has to be proper consultation. Even that process in itself is going to take a considerable amount of time until they decide what exactly they are going to do. The local community has suffered more than anybody else in all of that. They need to be... There has to be a much, much broader discussion. Even before the board and the man who we get to the point where they are digging out plans, the way that we talked about last week is that everything is there, it is like putting up Lego or something. It is really, really complicated, huge undertaking. The local, the Garnett hill community, the businesses... It has been a shock to Glasgow, but I think that this high-octane emotional response that we have been getting from certain of the spokespeople from the arts going, particularly the chair of the board, although it is understandable. We need to move away from that and have some real proper visionary creative thinking about the future. That in itself will take a long time. As for the building of it, I could not say. I think that there are also areas where I see the school being a catalyst and a master plan of partly a regeneration of Suckey Hall Street on the Suckey Hall Street side and whether that becomes a part of the campus or it becomes a design centre, but that part of Glasgow is needing a huge boost. I think that there is a wider element of the Victorian architecture in the city and how you take that forward over the next 20 to 30 years, because currently the city is not really looking after its Victorian architecture. It lives off it, as has been mentioned before. McIntosh is a big pool to bring people in from all around the world, but money has not been spent to support those buildings. Scotland Street School on the south side is a typical example, martyrs. There are other buildings. The hill house is undergoing restoration just now, which I am slightly sceptical about on the security with no human being in place. There are a number of items that it needs to be as a master plan in how we drive that forward. I think that that is an area where we need a sharing. We need to have a more joined-up approach within the city. There are a lot of things going on in the city, but there is no joined-up approach, and I think that that has to change. I would like to go back to the statement from the GSA that Annabelle Ewing brought up about the site not being in its operational state when the second fire occurred. The GSA had put out two statements in a row along those lines. In response to that, Cure Construction put out a statement saying that there was an agreed fire safety plan, but it was not clear when they were saying that it was agreed, whether it was agreed internally within Cure as the site manager at the time or whether it was agreed with the School of Art. Are any of you aware whether the fire safety plan was agreed between the School of Art and the construction company, or whether it was entirely down to the construction company? I have to have been submitted even as part of their tender. I will have to have been updated. There are all sorts of sharing processes and oversights that are in place there. Clearly, to me, there has been either a failure in the plan or a failure in its execution, and I think that the key to this fire lies somewhere in there. I want to see the investigation telling us what has gone wrong with the plan and its execution and how better statutory oversight can ensure that that does not happen again. If the GSA were involved in the development of the fire safety plan, as you are indicating, it would have been the case through the contract, is it unfair or even dishonest for them to have attempted to distance themselves in the way that they did in those statements? Those statements are what prompted Cure construction to put out their own statements saying that there was an agreed safety plan? The GSA appointed the project manager, the design team and the principal designer to take forward the construction design management plans. All of them should have had the oversight of the plan. Again, without knowing the details of the plan, I do not know whether they have ticked off an adequate plan or an adequate plan has gone forward and not been properly carried out. The procedures on site that were agreed as being necessary were not carried out. That is what the investigation will tell us, but there clearly is enormous failure to happen within the process. I have not heard that there has not been the proper documents and oversight put in place for the contract. Looking ahead, if the site is reconstructed in one form or another and returned to the ownership and operational control of the School of Art, what confidence can we have that that will not happen again? What would we need to be confident that there will not be a third fire in the way that I do not think that anyone thought after the first fire that there would be a risk of a second one? Such immense destruction to something of such immense historical importance to Scotland. I think that there was a perception amongst the public that steps would be put in place to make sure that that did not happen again. It did. What would we need to be confident that it would not happen for a third time? Can I say if we talk about the first fire and the second fire? Since the first fire, I mean I've had a lot to do with artists who are trained or even students or staff at Glasgow School of Art and the older ones tell me, well there were fires every month and they were put out by the staff and they tended to be caused mainly by people smoking and students and staff smoking in studios and they put them out. Now the last, the 2014 fire was caused by somebody contravening the regulations that the school set up itself and was apparently done with the complicit acceptance of a member of staff of the school. How do you legislate against that happening again? The school, the students today fill the school not with turps and oil paint and everything else but with very expensive, very hot projectors, dozens of television and computer monitors, cable strewn all over the building linking these together. It is a fire truck. I mean the firemen will tell you that most fires are electrical unless someone falls asleep with a cigarette in bed. They happen because of an electrical fault. The school's product is driven by modern technology today and so yes it will happen again. Sadly fires are no respecter of what people don't want to happen. Rather than being about fires starting and you make a very fair point fires will happen. You used the phrase before about compartmentalising, it's about preventing fires from spreading, that the design of any reconstruction would have to put huge emphasis on ensuring that if any incident did occur it could be compartmentalised and contained. I would hope that any designer involved in it would be fully aware of that. Of course the school gets away is the wrong word, because it's an A star listed building. Building control does not have the oversight of it that it would normally have. Things are allowed to happen because of its status. If you're building it from scratch you can build all of these things into it. It seems to me that there are two questions that somebody needs to answer and it's quite unclear as to who will answer those questions and make decisions. What should be rebuilt? Are we looking at a like-for-like replica as the phrase has been used to restore it to its former glory? Or should it be notwithstanding the shell of the building but what's inside it some sort of interpretation of what it was? Secondly, what should it be then used for once it has been rebuilt? And a number of suggestions are coming forward and if you ask 10 people you'll get probably 10 different answers on this question. Everything from a museum but then how do you build a new building that replicates an old building authentically? An exhibition space that rightfully gives artists a space, a working school. By then there will have been over 12 perhaps more years of blah past without being a school and given that the GSA has 14 other buildings to use should it be used for a school or as others have alluded to more of a community space given the massive upheaval that has caused to the surrounding area. What do you think Charles Rennie Macintosh would want to happen next? How do you second guess that? Most architects, sorry Mark, are probably faced in the same position would say yes rebuild it or yes let me have another go at it but giving it to somebody else to have a go at is not going to answer the question because you don't know what you're going to get and we have seen not too far away from the art school what you get if you leave an architect with carte blanche. The art school is not a difficult building to build and partly going back to the earlier question we will talk more about it in terms of time how it should be built, who should build it, when it should be done then it will take in years to actually put it up. It's two towers, a central tower and a great big empty space in between it which was full of studios and it's all computerised in theory one could press a button and Malcolm knows much more about this than I do but in theory you could the information we have got could allow the drawings to be produced say within three months and then you need to find a contractor the site can be cleared it would be very quick to put up but there will be a lot of talking about it. I think it should be rebuilt as it was because it's a it's a work of art and unlike the Mona Lisa which is hand-touched by the artist and nobody can replicate that what you see of the art school is the work of a hundred tradesmen who built it but what you also see is the concept of the designer now that concept remains and there is no reason why it can't be replicated but it needs to be done. I mean there are other examples. We talked about Aparc and Windsor Castle nobody knows the difference in those places. There are things that you shouldn't do and you could say that the interior of the house of an art lover is something that you shouldn't do but fortunately there are no artistic areas should we call it within the art school that need interpretation. It's a very simple building I think to put up. Difficult site but what Macintosh put on it apart from the complications of the worst elevation on the library is a relatively simple perfect answer to the brief. I think the building's too important to disappear. I think it's as a masterpiece of a building. It is Mac, classed as Macintosh's masterpiece. It shows you everything he was trying to do. I think I can remember it was 2010 when they did an audit or prior to 2010 they did an audit at the campus and it was only building fit for purpose of the campus which says a lot about 1960s buildings and such that went up. I think you're at that cusp of the community modernism where Macintosh is the importance of it culturally. I mean you wouldn't build student flats on top of Edinburgh Castle if it burnt down so I think that the Macintosh building is such an appeal to come in. It is one of the big attractions for people to coming to the art school. It's world class. It's viewed around the world as world class and I think sometimes we don't appreciate what we have in this country and it should have world heritage site. It should have had it a number of years ago. We did a learning journey to Chicago in a learning journey to Barcelona to see what they were doing and be said why is Macintosh not world heritage within our own city and I think that's something that the city should work for for the future because I think it's very beneficial but for it to disappear would be a tragedy and it would show that Scotland doesn't care about culture. We have more information on this building than any building in Scotland. A huge number of its fixtures and fittings are in storage off site so the return to site would not be effect similarly they will be authentic. There was parts of the library that were ready to go in there off site too. It is reconstructable but we would have to be should be the purpose of reconstructing it is that reconstructed it's a great working building and I go back to where I started. This is not a work of art as in you look at you stand away from it was a good working building it was tough it took a kicking it being used and abused and could continue to be used and abused in its rebuilt form for the purpose that was originally built. Part of its beauty is it's so unusual for a historic building that still works perfectly for its function that gives it more importance it's a building of transcendent importance in architectural history we must get it back not do something different make certain decisions about the heating system do all these sorts of things which I think that architects were struggling with quite well and should continue to struggle with but we should rebuild it and again and these are the two critical questions. It worked and its beauty was it worked for students informed them it sent out good students into the world it was a creative place it was a hard working place it's been terrible what's happened but it needs to be what Macintosh designed it for still working in the 21st century and that's a glorious thing that's a thing to celebrate and we need us and the school to focus on how to get back there learning lessons along the way the legacy of the Macintosh should be that fewer historic buildings burn in the future that there is better oversight that we care for them more that we give them importance they deserve even down to things like that you know if you repair a building you pay 20 percent if you knock it down it's zero build a new one it's zero it's that sort of ridiculous thing that we labour under as architects who care about historic buildings so I would like to think we can get back to having students in there in a wonderful working building that's how living work of art not a dead reliquary work of art that spins out lessons for how we care for other such buildings in future I would agree in principle that that you know in an ideal world one should do that but Macintosh build designed that building with Fran Ubury the director of the school for x number of students it's now got three x number of students in it it's overcrowded they cannot work in the ideal situation that Macintosh intended for them and the vast majority of them do not need the facilities that he provided just as a brief follow-up to know a short time is who should be consulted on next steps and who should make the final decision there's the Scottish Parliament the Scottish government owned the building and I proposed that it become a different kind of building and the art school should move its students somewhere else and I'm aware that I did not propose who should pay for the art school to find a building to to to house a student somewhere else but there are so many stakeholders in it I mean Stuart could could probably list you a dozen off the top of his head all of those people who gave money for 35 million or they didn't quite give that much for the for the reconstruction have a have a voice in in in what should happen in the future and the art school has said nobody wants their money back but they didn't they were careful not to ask them if they'd give them the money again because I know from some of the charities who gave money that that's going to be a no no um so there are hundreds of people not just in Glasgow but around the world who could have a valid input into how the school should be rebuilt going to go slightly over time we've got one more member of the committee and we have the constituency member for the art school here Stuart McMillan thank you I've found this a session to be very interesting and the first question is do you think any public money should go into the rebuilding if that is the case if a version 3 takes place? Will the insurers say that they will fund it? I mean we don't know what the sums 100 million has been suggested but we don't know how much the building was insured for they would presumably on any insurance policy be either a like for like clause or a cap and and if the function of the building changes and the art school has to be compensated for the loss of accommodation for its students then presumably that is a is a public cost I think there's another thing as well I know when it's a building's going under construction usually the insurance is split between the construction company and the school on that process that happened when we did work in 2006 at Queen's Cross so I don't know what is again what the insurance company was on the construction site as well. There will be considerable public money spent anyway indirectly and if the job is done properly this time for however long it takes then it will be certainly the case when I say indirect public funding what I mean is not here is 50 million. If it's done properly there will need to be a very there will be a change in infrastructure you know the whole kind of managerial infrastructure in order to accommodate I mean it was bad enough just rebuilding a library and despite what Roger says I'm no expert so it but it doesn't make sense to me why it would go up so quickly if it took so long just to to put the library at the top of the building together. I spent two years doing research and such so there was an awful lot of investigation in that period of time and again doing the forensics and investigation and an awful lot more was learned about the building and McIntosh through the first fire so there was a lot of various information so that was all carefully done before they started doing the work and it's still available all that information is there the 3d all the added information because the building had changed over decades each decade there have been subtle changes so the fire stripped some of these things back on the first fire so there was a massive amount of information that was learned about the original building okay I don't know I don't know I think it depends on what decisions are made about the use of the building in the future and I really really believe and somebody raised it that needs to go out it needs to be full consultation there needs to be a proper discussion about that and I think once that decision is arrived at then we can look at it for example somebody was saying to me the other day the displacement from the mack building was possibly only about 20 maximum I'm not sure we need to check with the art school of displacement from the McIntosh building elsewhere and um and that needs to be you know that's something that has to be taken into consideration my own personal and this is an emotional response when it was when it burnt down this time I just felt it's gone it's lost it's gone and I know my colleagues you want to you know them because you have a sentiment at all I suppose and it almost feels too soon you know it's gone what are we going to do it's a bit like you know when the buddhas were blown up in Afghanistan or whatever you felt this great wrench but sometimes something has just gone and I've now come around to the view that yeah it definitely has to be rebuilt but whether it's rebuilt immediately as fast as possible in order to accommodate a relatively small percentage of students well they just take some time over this if the guys are right and of course they are we do have the plans we do have the plans it doesn't need to be built now you know a next generation can build it go round in circles examining our entrails tearing each other apart for blame it needs to be rebuilt it needs to be rebuilt for students I think we should go ahead and do that I would regret if talk of public money going into it got the insurers of the hook I would like to see leadership from the glass of school of art in talking about insurance and finance and what it will take and what timescales are and what they think should happen in it and as I say I would like that to be about students and about how students share the experience of that wonderful building so I would like to invite leadership for them from them in terms of looking at the finances of it and talking about uses of it and talking about a programme for getting getting it back I want to see that building crowning Garnett hill again full of creativity in students as soon as possible thank you very much we're joined today by the constituency member for Glasgow school of art Sandra White MSP before you ask your question Sandra can I ask you if you have any relevant interest to declare to the committee no no no no no thank you thank you very much I'm coming from it in two issues obviously the fantastic iconic building I would say it's tragic but I think it's criminal it's happened twice and I want that on record but also as Ireland had mentioned the community itself they really can't afford to wait another 12 15 years to get their lives back on track now if I could just touch on the 2014 fire have lessons been learned I think I've heard what you've said as far as I'm concerned no lessons have been learned from that fire the report was redacted but my understanding is it was a student it was a projector running for three hours a member of staff tried to put it out but actually blew up the shaft so the questions that I wanted to ask and I don't know if you want to answer it but perhaps the committee could look at this why was the cover of the shaft off why was no fire retardant material inside the shaft and why was the report redacted and another one I wanted to mention I think for information it's been brought up by a number of members in regard to key construction and obviously the Glasgow school of art now I've had a number of meetings with the board but the only person I've ever met with is Tom Innes I haven't been able to meet with the chief of the board Muriel Gray haven't met with her at all and when I asked these questions as has been asked by Annabelle Ewing surely you would check on what was happening they told me they had a project team and they reported to the board every month and I would hope that the committee perhaps would write to the Glasgow school of art to see if they can get these minutes because far as I know nobody around here realizes there is a project team that I was told by Tom Innes in regards to that and the other issue I want to ask is do you think the board is fit for purpose you know should it remain in its present form or should the iconic building not just the school of art but the iconic building yet be under World Heritage site but also be taken under public control and out of the hands of the board because I think from what I've seen lack of transparency no communication the local community at all in regards to what's happening in the area I don't think they're fit for purpose so if I'm able to throw that out chair is that be all right with quick answers or I'll leave it to the to the committee does anyone want to very quickly answer those points you have itemised exactly what is wrong with the school of arts handling the 2014 fire and going forward until this summer's fire I'm they probably had absolutely nothing to do I mean the the most common reason being put forward for the fire now is a piece of old wiring at the top of the east elevation of the school sparking and setting fire to the roof photographs of the fire show it starting in the roof and spreading from east to west and then falling on to the O2 building my understanding is it's fell into the O2 building the abc so surely if you're talking about you know basically who's culpable in these other places these questions have got to be answered well the contractors can't design scaffolding against the possibility of the catastrophic fire I mean if you did that all contracts I would think would be unviable I mean Malcolm will know how that will affect costs security going about surely they should have seen it well yes but sprinkles sprinkles were in the school in 2014 but they were not connected up because the the the sprinkler firm encountered asbestos asbestos which should have been removed by the architects and their contractors between 28 and 2012 now that's why I say that the fire department report should be shown in its unredacted form so that we know who is responsible for because we're going to continue employing them it's not a blame game I'm not saying they should go to prison but we're going to continue employing them the same architects who were employed to do the 2008 refurbishment of the school were employed to restore the burnt school in 2016 or whenever it was and the staff are still there who were responsible for it I don't want to send them to prison but I would like to make sure that they don't operate in a system where they can do it again thank you did anyone else want to quickly come in very quickly it relates to garrick hill community as well one of those astonishing things was the fire alarm didn't go off that night and this so-called gold plated security that was agreed or not agreed seemed to comprise of three security guards in total so there was only one on at any given time and he was located in a port of cabin and I'm supposed to sort of spot this visually you know there's all sorts of you know the community have been seen we didn't hear any fire alarms and you're thinking well now I don't know where the responsibility lies for all of that but I think I think the board management not been fit for purpose is really because it's beyond their capacity and their infrastructural capacity rather than maybe personal failings and that is where the discussion needs to go about some other overarching board the community suffered more from Glasgow district councils building control department than it has from the art school thank you thank you very much for coming to give evidence so it's very quickly Malcolm Fraser suggests that the committee inquire about the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service investigation to establish its terms of reference and ensure that it does get to examine contracts responsibilities adequacy and on-site compliance very helpful advice I'd like to thank you all for coming to give evidence today and we shall be having a follow-up session and inviting management from the Glasgow school of art and we'll be putting some of these issues to them I'm sure thank you very much and we now close the meeting and move into private session thank you