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For the purposes of Cladding Remediation, an SBA is an assessment carried out by homeowners to determine the fire safety risk in buildings due to cladding. Duty of care for properties lies with the owners.

The Scottish Safer Buildings Accord is an ambitious attempt to secure the cooperation of Scotland’s leading developers to address the cladding problem. It is a complex and commercially sensitive negotiation. The Scottish Government has held productive discussions with Homes for Scotland and developers in recent months and subject to satisfactorily concluding negotiations the Accord will be agreed and signed in the coming weeks.

The Cladding Remediation Unit did not employ a full time communication staff member from May 2021 to April 2022. Since May 2022 a communication staff member has been employed, but their role crosses a number of responsibilities.

The Cladding Remediation Unit have employed 0 full time Communication staff since May 2021. The team currently has one dedicated staff member covering as both Head of Communications and Stakeholder Engagement, and the Accord Service Design. This member of staff took up post in May 2022.

This was discussed at the Cladding Stakeholder Group as an option and is currently being explored.

We have received eight pre-final reports.

The working group does not, in general, create new material separate from that created to organise the meetings such as agendas and meeting notes, which are now subject to publication. The Chair will take a view on proactive publication of any new material in line with FOI principles and the need to respect the confidentiality of blocks engaged in the Pilot.

The Single Building Assessment takes a holistic approach of assessing buildings. Following professional advice from fire engineers, splitting the process would not fulfil the critical life safety requirements of the Single Building Assessment.

Each local authority was awarded an allocation of funds, to be used in the last financial year, ending 31 March 2022. Where it has not been possible to spend this in full, local authorities can continue to use their allocation in 2022-23 until fully spent.

Existing funding has not been exhausted and there are no plans to provide additional funding at present. However our emergency budget review, published on 2 November 2022, has outlined significant funds to help those most affected by the cost of living crisis. The Scottish Government will continue to do everything within our resources and powers to help those most affected by the cost of living crisis.

Updated guidance on the expanded criteria is being finalised and agreed with local government partners and will be published on the Scottish Government website in the coming weeks.