Chamber and committees

The following table shows how many staff have been allocated to the Home Owners Support Fund in recent years. Staff are fully trained and highly experienced and levels have been sufficient to meet demand for the Fund.

An internal review of the Home Owners Support Fund began in the Spring and will complete later this year. If Ministers decide to make any changes to the eligibility or operational arrangements for the scheme updated guidance will be published.

Every building must gain the consent of homeowners in order to begin the contract process. Every building will require a qualified Fire Assessor to spend typically a number of weeks on and off-site to gather sufficient data and evidence to conduct a competent Single Building Assessment.

We are aware of the supply chain constraints in this field which is why we are working closely with Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Institute of Fire Engineers to ensure an appropriate stream of qualified assessors.

A Single Building Assessment will deliver a full assessment of fire risks on a building by building basis to highlight any issues related to fire safety including, but not limited to underground car parks and charging points.

We are aware there may be constraints in the market place and we are working closely with a number of Scottish firms and with industry bodies and forums to monitor market availability, therefore we are able to prioritise Single Building Assessments.

All the 15 buildings using the grant based approach have been issued grant letters and had initial payments to allow contracts to be placed. All have fire engineers and surveyors working on assessments.

The Cladding Remediation Unit was set up in June 2021 in the Local Government and Communities Directorate. The expenditure on staff whose primary role is to support the programme is:

a)

Core Scottish Government: 2021 - £241,280.00

Core Scottish Government: 2022 (until July) - £113,635.44

Interim contractors 2021 - £52,938.90

Interim contractors 2022 (until July) - £105,369.00

b) Since the start of the Single Building Assessment programme in June 2021 we have grant funded £432,613.63 to support 12 buildings who are currently undergoing assessment. We have a further £510,553 in committed spend to finish these buildings assessments and support 3 additional buildings in starting their assessments through the grant funding model. We have an additional 29 buildings where we will use procurement functions to hire fire engineers and access contractors to begin assessments.

We have confirmed consent from 26 buildings. We have consent in principle from the homeowners from 29 additional buildings since we invited new buildings into the programme in May 2022. The timescale for the contracting process follows the standard Scottish Government procurement rules. We are aware of the supply chain constraints in this field, which is why are working closely with Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Institute of Fire Engineers to ensure an appropriate stream of qualified assessors. Time scales for the completion of Single Building Assessments are driven by the complexity of the building and are agreed as part of the normal contracting process.

As the programme progresses, we will gather information from our Single Building Assessments to compile a register of buildings that have been assessed through the programme. Local Authorities will be asked to provide relevant information.

We are currently working with 7 buildings to finalise assessments ahead of remediation. We have asked developers, as part of the Scottish Safer Buildings Accord, to supply data on work that is being undertaken and privately agreed between residents and developers.

Since 1 September 2018, the Scottish Government has paid £344,825 to Communities Housing Trust to administer the national Self Build Loan Fund.