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I talked about communication, and that was important. Obviously, the bill has its technical aspects. I will bring in Kate Hall and Rachel Sunderland to talk about some of the discussions that they have had, but one of the key things for me was to talk about the technical specifications as we move forward as well as the SBA process. That is where the individual discussions with the developers have been really important.

Although the approach that we have taken is similar to that in England and Wales, the fact is that the tenure system in Scotland is slightly different. As a result, we needed to take a nuanced approach, and that might have picked up some of these issues, too. Again, things might have been picked up in our individual discussions with stakeholders on the technical issues, but we have certainly listened to what the stakeholders were telling us, and I am sure that there will be further questions about that.

The key thing was to listen to stakeholders. Because I was going into the process without having had a consultation, I was keen to make sure that I consulted the stakeholders as much as possible. I know that colleagues and officials have been doing that on a regular basis, and I will continue to do it, too, as the bill progresses. I have always said that it is an open-door process, so if a developer needs to come and speak to me or our residents, I am more than happy to pick that up. However, it all comes back to the immediacy issue and the need to get the legislation through to quicken the pace of what we are trying to do.

As I have said, discussions are on-going. There is existing legislation on fire safety, but the question is how that fits with the cladding issue. There are always discussions to be had, and when we speak to residents and developers, this is an issue that comes up.

As I mentioned to the convener, there is also an issue around fire safety maintenance in buildings; there is a difference between that and fire safety in buildings. After all, the question whether things are being maintained is slightly different from issues of fire safety, which have been picked up by existing legislation.

As Rachel Sunderland has said, we are just following the outlook of the Governments in England and Wales. The Northern Irish Government is just starting its process, and it has already been in touch with us to discuss where ours fits in. We are very much following the scope that was chosen by the UK and Welsh Governments.

I will come back to the broader discussions. You made a point about underground car parks. There have been specific cases in which action has been required. I spoke earlier about our discussions with other stakeholders; we had to get their agreement before we could do anything about that issue. If a building is at immediate risk, the legislation gives us the ability to take action. There will be consultation, but we will have the power to go and do something, whereas, previously, we did not have that power. We looked at a previous case where things had happened quickly but a period of consultation with other stakeholders was still needed to move things forward. The part of the bill that deals with that is important, because it gives us the ability to act on buildings at immediate risk. We have discussed that regarding individual buildings.

The factors play a really important role. There have been some mixed experiences, which is part of a broader issue with factors. Some residents have been very supportive of factors, whereas some have not. There is a raised awareness of the role of factors and of the broader issue of building safety, particularly fire safety in underground car parks.

The discussion is about not only cladding but overall fire safety. The issue of fire safety needs to be picked up in regulation. If we remediate the cladding issue but there is still a fire risk, there is still an issue. There is existing legislation about that. There are lessons to be learned and we have had experience of having to take almost immediate action to make buildings safe. We have learned from that, and that was also helpful for other stakeholders such as local authorities and the fire service. We work closely with those key stakeholders.

Rachel Sunderland or Kate Hall may want to add more.

The pilot was set up to look at high-risk buildings, and ownership was one issue initially. I am aware that you have raised this issue before. Some building safety regimes are already in place and we have learned the process. When we discussed this in May, we did not have to deal with the RAAC issue, which was just coming into view. We were looking at how safe our schools are. I am not saying that there is no on-going building maintenance at schools, colleges or universities; there are regimes in place and we know what those look like.

There is a broader building safety group that looks at those issues. Kate Hall or Rachel Sunderland may want to talk about that. There is already an established building safety regime. Rachel or Kate may want to touch on the other things you mentioned.

The building and fire safety group has specific discussions on those points to ensure that the regimes and building control system that are in place are monitored. It is really important that those issues are picked up. We will obviously continue to have discussions with the UK Government on what it is doing; there are on-going discussions on a number of issues. However, as I said, the ministerial group on building and fire safety picks up those issues.

Obviously, we have learned lessons from what the building safety regime looked like for RAAC, which, in a way, came out of the blue. We must make sure that nothing comes as a surprise, so there are regular discussions about that.

Another important point, which we have not touched on so far, is about the building safety levy and how it develops over time.

That is not my area of responsibility, but I work closely with the minister who is responsible for that and I have been involved in but not led discussions on the building safety levy. Developers are aware of the levy being introduced and what it will look like. We are working closely with UK Government colleagues on that.

It is important to set this in the context of the broader, longer-term outlook. We are working closely with UK Government colleagues on how to introduce that legislation. Discussions are already under way with developers, who might have slightly different people at the meetings—perhaps more on the finance side. Those discussions are taking place in parallel with what we are doing already as we look towards introducing the building safety levy.

I will let Kate Hall respond first and then come back on that myself.

I am happy to write to the committee if there is any progress on that, but we continue to push the issue on a regular basis.

In speaking to residents, that issue has come up quite a bit. It was raised at a meeting that I had just last week with residents of a number of developments. A key point is that there has been a large increase in the number of people in the directorate who are working in the cladding area. I know that we need to do a bit more work in that area, and we are looking at communication protocols.

Communication is slightly different for each building, each developer and each factor. There has to be a personalised approach, but communication needs to get better. As I said, the directorate has grown over the past number of months as the bill has developed and as we have done more work in this area. I acknowledge that we need to do more on communication, but it needs to be personalised to each building.

Even if there is nothing in particular to say, we should tell residents that there is nothing to say but that work is being carried out. The fact that there has been a vacuum is what people are concerned about. We have picked up on that in the pilot project. The issue has been raised by residents. I acknowledge that more could have been done, but we are working on that just now.

Homes for Scotland has arranged round-table discussions and we have also met individual developers. We tend to meet a mix of managing directors, finance directors and the technical people who need to be in the room. We also have technical people in the room when policy is discussed at round tables and at the individual discussions, so things are quite well covered.