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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.

That has been the main issue in the discussions with Homes for Scotland and with individual developers. I will bring in officials to talk about the technical discussions that they have had.

When I came into this role, I had a number of key objectives, one of which was to get a developer commitment letter to ensure that they signed up to what we were trying to do. The issue was raised when I spoke to individual developers at that stage, and we got the letter signed; the next stage was to move towards the long-form contract, which was when the SBA issue came up.

When the SBA process was raised, I asked officials to set up a task and finish group, which has been running for a number of months now, to work on the exact specifications. We did that, and Homes for Scotland was present at that meeting; we then had individual and round-table discussions. In fact, there have been a number of round tables as we have worked on that.

As the tenure system is slightly different in Scotland, there was a Scottish advice note, and we talked about moving towards a publicly available specification and the technical specifications to go along with that. We also had individual discussions with developers.

The SBA will pick up different things in different buildings, depending on where the developers are. We have tried to work very closely with developers, but we need to have technical specifications, both for the safety of residents and so that we are satisfied. That is incredibly important.

The key thing for me was to have individual discussions and to listen. I visited a number of buildings, so that I was not just hearing from developers but going out and telling people what we were looking at, what we were doing and what clarity we needed. That has been the priority all the way through and we are not far away from getting agreement with all the developers. It has probably slowed down progress, but it is important that we, and the developers, are happy with the specifications. Most important, even though they might not know the technical specifications, residents must believe in us and in the developers. That has been a focus for me all the way through, and it will continue to be a focus in our discussions with individual developers.

I will bring in Rachel Sunderland or Kate Hall to talk about where we are now. I know that really good progress has been made on that and that we will soon have that agreement and be able to move forward. It is important to have that in place. Rachel might want to say a little more about that.

Again, convener, I am happy to write back to the committee when we reach agreement, to keep you up to date on that.

I will bring in officials in a wee second. Generally speaking, the cladding safety issue is the most important thing. When it comes to individual buildings, I know from the first week in the job that there were specific concerns about one building—I will not name it—on which tough decisions had to be made. Within a day or two, there were issues that were causing us real concern. There were a couple of buildings like that, for which decisions had to be made in order to negate risks quickly.

On the binary—pass or fail—scoring, our getting down to the level of detail that we are talking about and having agreement in place on the specification are really important. In relation to some of the evidence, some people might not be aware of our discussions with developers about what that looks like. That is the level of detail that we are down to, because this is not just about the specifications going forward, but about where we are just now.

Discussions are always taking place with developers about individual buildings that are going through the system, so that aspect is always looked at.

Kate Hall or Rachel Sunderland might want to talk about some of the technical discussions that have been had. The questions that are always at the forefront of our minds are these: as work is carried out or as we move towards work being carried out, is the building safe and what is the standard?

If there are specific risks, as there have been in some buildings, we have taken action to negate those risks. In my statement, I mentioned giving us the powers to do that: at the moment, we must negotiate with developers and local authorities to allow us to take that action. When the bill is passed, we will be able to carry out immediate work, if that is required.

We have had issues in relation to negotiating with other stakeholders about negating some of the immediate risk. As I said, I have seen a couple of examples of that.

I will bring in Kate Hall to comment on the tolerable standard and what has been fed back. As I said, the issue is at the forefront of our minds, always.

On that point, Mr Coffey, it is important that developers engage on future standards. Are they reviewing their own processes? I would not say as much as that, but in relation to other buildings that come forward, more care is probably taken. We know that they are aware of the on-going maintenance of the buildings; it is not just a case of coming in and replacing cladding. Developers are aware of that issue, going forward.

I will bring in Kate and Rachel on that point. That issue has been raised by developers. We talked about what the SBA process looks like, when the entry goes on the register and by when we should ensure that the work has been carried out. That has been picked up by residents. Part of the issue in the bill is that you could, hypothetically, get a developer to sign a developer commitment letter or a contract, but one of the key points is that, if a company does not carry out the work, there must be sanctions available to us that might result in the developer not being able to develop in Scotland. That is the ultimate sanction, although I do not think that we would get to that point.

On that point, I have been at meetings at the ministerial level, and officials regularly have discussions with UK Government and Welsh Government colleagues. We have also already had the Northern Ireland Executive—which has obviously just been reformed—speak to us about what lessons it needs to learn from that. It is very much a four-Governments approach and process in relation to that learning. There are discussions going on all the time about lessons from the UK Government and Welsh Government in relation to what we need to do. It is also raised in the ministerial Government meetings that we have.

That will be subject to the budget process that we are going through just now. Sorry, I did not pick up the first point in your question.

We have published the figures on the spend, and we will continue to do so as we go forward. We have been as open and transparent as possible on that. We have talked about the split between orphan buildings and remediation by developers, and there is commercial confidentiality in that. Again, perhaps that could be part of what we publish on our own building programme, which we will continue to publish on an on-going basis. I do not know whether Micheila West would like to touch on where that sits within the bill. It is not something that I am aware of.

We have certainly been, and will continue to be, open and transparent about the spend, and I expect to see a significant increase in that as we get through the SBA process and into the long-form contract that we have talked about. Perhaps Micheila West would like to add to that.