Apologies for that suspension. I think we have sorted out the technical issue by moving to a new committee room. So I am going to give the floor back to Miles to continue with his questions. Thank you convener. My second question was with regards to a number of external building elements which are excluded specifically from the requirement to use non combustible materials. For example doors, windows and glazing, and I just wondered if the panel was satisfied that these exemptions will not compromise fire safety potentially, and if not what changes would you like to see within the regulations? Chris, may I maybe start with you? I'm not on this because I wasn't on the group that was working on this at all, so I've only had to pick up latterly. I'm going to duck that slightly and say clearly that windows, all these things are very key in external wall systems and it's one of the critical matters within the single building assessment that we'll, I guess, might touch on later. Thanks, Peter. Sorry, I'm hoping I've got this on. You're very much correct to highlight those problems. They were highlighted at the very early stages of the panel's discussions, not only are there issues around potentially flammable products such as some window or door components, but there's also other supplementary small from gromats upwards that get involved in a cladding system. Now the challenge for us all is that the huge number of these products would make comprehensive testing of them all on large-scale rigs almost impossible. However, on the back of Grenfell and the well-publicised problems south of the border, a number of very specialist bodies, such as the Centre for Window and Cladding Technology, SBC and Society for Facile Engineers, have prepared some very good analyses. The last one that I saw of them was of substantial thickness and I think there's another piece of work to be done there as we move forward from BS8414 and BR135 into how we assess the whole of the assembly in a robust manner. In the interim, I think, a ban on the main part of the facade, the flammable cladding, the use of A1 and A2 materials only, which, for our purposes, are non-flammable, is the only sensible precautionary way forward. As I said before, I don't think that we can be taking risks with people's lives. Thank you. Does anyone else want to come in? I'm aware that George and Laura obviously have had issues, but do either of you want to come in on those points? No, if not, my final question was with regards to, I welcome the fact that the Government have moved to reduce from 18 metres to 11 metres. In terms of that specific reduction, all buildings should be included, not to set this 11 metre height. Apologies if I'm monopolising that. There needs to be a balance between the actual risk and how we deal with that in policy and in regulation. There's very little evidence, for example, that one-in-two-story timber clad structures of the kinds that we encourage and see in the national parks or that we address as part of the zero-carbon agenda are causing significant problems. The advice that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Scotland gave to the committee was that below 11, they weren't seeing significant issues. Again, I apologise for repeating myself. I think that that really is an issue that we need to keep an eye on. As we move forward to deal with the zero-carbon agenda, there is going to be understandable desire to use these products, and what we can't afford to do is find ourselves in a position where we've got a five or a six-story block of flats or even a four-story. Before anyone says that, it seems unlikely that the Danish are building eight-story plywood clad buildings. We're going to have to examine how we deal with these. I would suggest fairly soon if we were to meet the Scottish Government's climate targets, obviously. There are materials that we can get that are more far-resisting. There are robust compounds that we can put behind them, but it's a highly complex technical issue. I think that it would require the same kind of panel that's been looking at the cladding crisis, I think that I could call it safely, to also consider how we take that forward across the whole of industry. The final thing that I'm going to throw into that is a word of caution. I and the RIS entirely endorse the retrofit policies of Government in Scotland and the UK and the ambitious targets that have rightly been set, but that too runs the risk of introducing flammable materials into existing buildings in a way that will require considerable care if we're not to see some sort of repeat of, dare I say, even the door-and-house problems, a different issue of the 70s and 80s in this country. That's helpful. Thank you. Does anyone else want to? I'd like to come in on this one. Laura. Thank you very much for having me. Colleagues, I'm not in the room with you. Thank you very much for moving, so George and I could join. From the insurance industry's perspective, we know that fire doesn't distinguish between height. We certainly welcome the change from 18m to 11m, but we're conscious that there are certain buildings that are under 11m that may still be at significant fire risks. The insurance industry really looks at high-risk properties, not specifically around high-rise, so they don't believe that there should be a height limit, although clearly 11m is significantly better than 18m. I also just wanted to flag the distinction that the industry has. Clearly a lot of the conversation is around combustible cladding, but we know that that's not just an issue with some of these buildings. It's also about the structural integrity of those buildings, meaning that fire can shoot up through perhaps the inside cavities of a building. Those are the two areas that the industry has really started to understand where there are building defects in the past. Thanks for that, convener. Okay, thanks, Miles. We've got a request from George to repeat the first question. The second question, so I'm just going to ask that again so that he can respond. The regulations would prevent the use of highly combustible metal composite material in external cladding and insulation. Is the definition of such material robust enough to ensure that the danger posed by such material has been reduced as far as reasonably practical? George, you wanted to come in on that. Yes, I'm not sure that it has. There are a few things in it. One of them is the limitation on 10 millimetres, and it's unsure as to why 10 millimetres has been chosen. It just opens the window for people to make 11 millimetre panels. I'm not sure that it covers a wide enough range of highly combustible facade panels. For example, HBL materials are still allowed with this regulation. I'm also unsure why 35 megajoules per kilogram was chosen. That seems to be a very high number to me. We know that ACMs and MCMs are capable of achieving much lower than that. They're capable of achieving three megajoules per kilogram, because lots of them are rated to A2S1D0. Okay, thank you for bringing that piece in. Important bit of detail. Okay, I think we're going to move forward with the questions now, and I'm going to bring in Annie Wells. Thank you, convener. I'd like to look at the new building regulation 3.28, which requires buildings to be designed to reduce the risk to occupants' health from overheating. What implications would this have for developers, and what impact might it have on homeowners' use of their property? Any tickers? Don't worry about dominating Peter, if you need to. You've got the answers, the insight. I fear that I'm struggling a little because that is dealt with by others on my committee, for which I apologise, ladies and gentlemen. One of the problems, as I understand, that's arisen as we've moved towards much higher stands of insulation and air tightness in buildings is that, in some cases, even before the concerns of Covid, we had very significant problems with air changes within a building. Ironically, in some cases, we've introduced artificial ventilation that was almost the same as the building would have been before we ventilated it. So you're right to be worried. A lot of people have created what I'm going to deliberately call plastic bags and unexpected folk to stay in it. Now, Tim Sharp at the University of Strathclyde, for example, has been doing a very significant amount of research on this and working with Scottish Futures Trust, Scottish Government, RIS and other bodies in a way forward. I think that this is going to get slightly worse, and I'll tell you why. The most recent changes to the Scottish building regulations on insulation and zero carbon in actual fact probably don't go quite far enough to meet the ambitious targets sent by Scottish Government, which means we're going to see another round in the near future and we're also going to face issues about when we retrofit buildings. I'm afraid I can't offer you any great technical insight into that risk other than to say that we have to continue to focus on using experts such as Professor Sharp and his team at Strathclyde. Yes, absolutely. I've formed part of the Scottish Government's energy standards working group and understand that the phasing in of the new standards for under section six will take into account the very thing that you're asking there around ventilation and the importance of ventilation. As we build tighter, I suppose, ventilation becomes a bigger issue, but the ventilation strategy is being considered within the changes. Perfect. Thanks, convener. Thank you very much and thanks for the responses. I'm now going to move on to questions from Paul McClellan. The question that I wanted to ask was obviously about the regulations that are coming in and about the existing regulation. It's around about carbon dioxide emissions and it's to require the design and construction of buildings with direct emissions heating systems to be capable of reducing the energy demand of the building. I'm just wondering what you see the practical impacts of that and Dave will probably come to yourself first of all and then open up to the panel and see what everybody thinks after that. So the practical impacts of the changes that are coming our way, that's what you're asking. I suppose it's, from my understanding anyway, having been involved in that working group is that it's pretty much in terms of buildability is the status quo, so it leaves the flexibility in there how you actually achieve compliance, what will be a holistic approach again. You'll look at the building fabric, but you'll also look at how the building is insulated, how the building is used, how the building is ventilated, all these things, what will be a holistic approach at how you achieve compliance with section 6. I'm going to bring in Marie with a couple of questions. Thank you. Good morning, panel. A homeowner is still being prevented from moving or obtaining mortgages due to flats being covered, but potentially combustible cladding being valued at zero. What impacts are having in people and just pose that question to yourself, Chris? Thank you for that question for myself. Thank you very much. I think this whole scenario that we're discussing is very much centred around, we've called it, safety and so on, but health and wellbeing. When I gave evidence two years ago at the first time I came to one of these things, I had some horrific mental health statistics of how people in flats were being affected and they were truly horrible, and that was two years ago. We're now two years on and I researched it further just yesterday, bearing in mind I was coming here today, and again find that which magazine has been running some stories and accounts in regard to the people living in flats, and again these mental health statistics are still horrific, and that is because, yes, people still cannot move. So I had one of our owners, not in the development I'm in, but he has a property in Glasgow. He's on the verge, had been on the verge of really a breakdown because he couldn't sell. When abroad to work for a few months, he's now back living in North England, but still can't sell because he can't get the certification. That is impacting him hugely, and he believes he's in a building that's safe, but the actual impact on people, we have people in the building that I'm particularly familiar with, we actually have EWS1 certificates, wonderful, people can sell them. But potentially there are other issues not related to the metal cladding, and I'm not here to criticise the press, but of course the heading in papers of cladding is one that gets people's attention because of Grenfell, but we really need to understand that it is so much more than cladding, and particularly as a layman, and when we're trying to convey information to people who are in that situation, who own flats, it isn't just cladding. People don't understand that, and this guy was saying, but my building's safe. So I said, so how do you know it's safe? He said, well, you know, the Scottish Government ought to just release all these buildings that are safe and let them get their certificates and carry out, how do you know your building's safe? He said, well, you just look at it, it's, you know, it hasn't got any metal, but how do you know it's safe? Because it goes far beyond that. It goes into the construction. Not only does it go into the materials, but it goes into the competency of the people who fitted them. Were they appropriate? Did they follow the design? And you just can't tell that. So yes, people are really on the edge, can't move, can't start, you know, growing families, moving job. There are still people who are stuck in that situation, and it is frankly horrific. Thanks for that. My next question, I want to direct to Laura Hughes, and it's really about the insurance industry. Just really wanting to know, you know, ensure what homeowners or properties wrapped, essentially muscle cladding. Do they have access to affordable housing, sorry, affordable building insurance, and what are the insurance industry doing to help this stuff? Yes, we can. Thank you very much for that question. Yes, I mean, as Chris has clearly just set out those who are having to live in some of those buildings are experiencing severe trauma, and the industry is entirely sympathetic to those who are currently in this difficult situation. As Chris referenced, I really want to be clear that this isn't just an issue around cladding, it is about the structural integrity of those buildings. Cladding is clearly one of the issues, but the structural construction of the buildings and material used is a very important factor, which the insurance industry certainly does take into account. Insurance is a business that is based on risk-based pricing, and as the industry has started to delve into the detail of how some of those buildings have been constructed, they have identified that there, unfortunately, are significantly high fire risks related to some of those buildings. That, unfortunately, has led to high insurance premiums for some buildings, so we know that that is a problem. We have been working closely with the insurance industry. We at the ABI have convened an industry round table that includes underwriters, insurance brokers and reinsurers who try to get to the bottom of what is driving some of those price changes and what the industry can do. One of the problems that we have across the UK is that nobody has enough data on those buildings and those that are affected. We fully support and welcome the work that the Financial Conduct Authority has started to collect data from insurers and brokers to try to understand some of the difficulties and some of the key drivers of the increases in pricing, so that we, as an industry, can work with relevant Governments and other stakeholders to look at whether there are solutions or options to try to ease the difficulties that some of those homeowners are experiencing. Ultimately, however, the answer is to remove combustible cladding and do other work that would enable the building to be declared as safe, including the various structural work where needed. Ultimately, if you remove that risk from the buildings, the building's insurance premium cost will follow that risk reduction in being a reduction in price. Does anyone else want to come in on that question? No, okay. I'm going to now move on to questions from Willie Coffey. Thank you very much, convener. It's just to probe a little more on that issue that Marie raised there about zero valued homes in the EWS1 certification. Is there a bit, maybe I'll direct it to perhaps Craig and to Laura, the insurers and surveyors amongst us? Is there a potential legal issue there about applying a certification scheme that has no statutory legal basis? It has particular issues as I look at my notes here in Scottish property law and using that to tell a homeowner that their property is valued at zero pounds. Is there a huge potential legal issue there when you're hanging that on a non-statutory law system? Craig, can you offer us some... Yeah, thanks very much, Mr Coffey. From my perspective, we're talking about EWS1, the external wall system 1 form that's been developed since the issue at Grenfell, the problems that have been addressed by the series of advice notes that were first released in for England and EWS and how it's been developed to counter that. Obviously, it was developed for England specifically at first, for buildings over 18 metres to address a particular problem. It's designed to inform lending, so it's really to give the lender an idea of whether there's a problem with the cladding or not, and it's meant to be in a very simple format to address that. In terms of whether it's got any potential legal issues with it being used, let's be talking about Scotland, obviously. I think that Scottish building standards have recognised that. They're coming up with their own system, the single building assessment, which is designed for Scotland. It's something we're supporting with, we're supporting with training, we're supporting with... Give lessons learned, let's say, from the EWS1 process as it's gone through its iterations and what was required. I can't really answer the legal question itself, I mean that's something I could certainly come back to you on with appropriate advice from the RICS, but certainly EWS1 is... The single building assessment will be a great improvement on that for Scotland, it's designed for Scotland specifically, and that's my response to that particular question. Thanks for that, Craig. Laura, could you help to contribute to my understanding of that issue, please? Thank you. I also can't comment on the legislative requirement or levers that might be on that, and that's largely because the EWS1 form and the single building assessment is not something that the insurance industry really uses nor does it use a zero valuation. Insurance is based on the costs associated with needing to rebuild that building should it be a total loss and therefore need to be demolished and rebuilt, so insurers focus on the cost of that rebuilding of a building, which is how they consider the risk. We don't use EWS1 or the single building assessment. Having said that, we have asked our membership to understand or let us know what their views on the single building assessment is. In general, the majority of insurers are supportive of the single building assessment, and if it is information that is shared with them, as insurers are busy collecting as much data and information as possible, they will consider that within their general assessment of the building, but generally speaking, insurers go into much more detail about the construction of the building and the materials used in that building, along with how that building is managed and run to assess the risk. The single building assessment or EWS1 and zero valuations are not really something that the industry considers as part of their risk. Thank you very much for that, Laura, but there still remains the issue that Chris perfectly described there about people having their homes valued at £0 because of a process. What could I ask Chris for your view on that? How can people find themselves in those circumstances because of a process that is non-statutory in law? In a sense, giving credit to the banks and RICS for at least trying to come up with an answer, with the EWS1 to address the mortgage question, so good motives sadly failed to address the tenure system in Scotland and the whole thing here. I understand why, because most of the properties that they are dealing with are not in Scotland. However, our problem is in Scotland and we do need to deal with that. It was a commercial arrangement, whether or not—I am not a lawyer, I used to be an insolvency practitioner—but whether or not there is a liability there for people on the EWS1, I would doubt it because it is a commercial arrangement between a buyer and a lender and so on, but I bow to lawyers on that. I would say that the SBA is definitely a step forward and I hear what Laura has said because their interest is making sure that a building is not going to suffer catastrophic loss. That is the route that they are looking for. It is a whole different ballgame in a sense from do I lend on this property or not. Is there going to be a catastrophic loss if there is a fire in this building? That is their bottom line. It is not that they do not care for people, but that is what they are there for. Actually, the SBA is a much better informed process and it actually gets into the detail as to how is this building constructed. I am involved with one at the minute where that information will become very clear. The sort of questions that insurers have been asking—specific questions—what about this bit of wall, what about that? Those sort of things will be addressed in a single building assessment. My view is that that information, which will be available to insurers, can inform the insurers with a reliability that was not there in the previous system as to what the materials are and inform their assessment of risk. I think that it is much more robust, much more detailed and actually addresses those issues much more comprehensively. I think that Peter and Craig want to contribute, convener. I think that it is worth—I certainly agree with Chris's points on the single building assessment. Definitely a really good step in the right direction. I am more encompassing assessment, including a fire risk assessment of the building, which is covering the points that we mentioned earlier. It is not just a cladding problem. I just wanted to drill down on the zero value issue. The zero value is not caused by the EWS form itself. That is the value that is being asked to go to the property on behalf of the lender, not being able to identify whether the cladding in this case is combustible or not because it cannot do that at the putdown zero value. It is really just to alert the lender that there is a problem. Thereafter, an EWS one form has been requested. The EWS one form was originally intended for buildings over 18 million, a very specific group of buildings. We found through practice that the lenders were requesting it for different types of buildings, and the valueers were requesting it for different types of buildings. We came up with additional guidance to try and guide valueers as to when they should not ask for the EWS one form to assist in reducing the zero value problems. It does not answer your point in the legal status of the EWS one form. Just to clarify what is used for it is just to give the value or guidance on whether the cladding is combustible and needs to be remediated at unknown cost or not. That is really interesting, but a potential seller would surely, if they chose to contest that valuation, the defender of that point would point to the certification process to justify it, which is a non-status situation. Potentially, if the seller resolved the opinion that the cladding was combustible or that it was not going to be a problem, then that could potentially be an issue. The RIS view has always been that the EWS one, regardless of the quality of it as a two, has been misapplied because of the problems that have occurred in the sector. We are in the fortunate position that we do not value buildings. We do not have to deal with that fallout. We support the Scottish Government's single building assessment. We think that that is the way forward, but I am also just going to very briefly draw attention to the British Standards Institute's PAS 9980 fire risk appraisal of external walls, which was released in January. That is, in our view, a much preferable alternative to the previous systems that were employed in the drills down on a building-by-building basis on what the risk actually is for that property. It does not apply a one-size-or perhaps a one-warning-fits-all approach. Now, the surveyors will rightly point out that that is me being sweeping with a very, very wide brush indeed, but we are dealing with highly complex technical issues and they require highly complex responses. It is not, as Chris correctly points out, just what the cladding material is in some places. We have very flammable insulation within unsealed carities, and we know from English experience that they may not be properly protected. We have other problems with buildability. Really, just around that, I am flying a flag as well for the Scottish Government's building standards to continue to take account of PAS 9980. I am also going to put a note in the direction of CYBSE, the Charter Institute of Building Services, where engineers have been heavily involved in the development of that, given their specific expertise. Thanks. That would be very much for your answers. We have covered the question on the building assessment programme. That was going to follow up on Arrianne, so thank you and back to you. Thank you, Willie. I am just going to follow up a little bit further there. I think that you have begun to speak about this, but I will tidy it up a little. I am going to direct this question to Chris to start with. That is what challenges do you foresee arising in taking forward the single building assessment programme and the Scottish Government-funded cladding remediation work? That is one bit of a question. I represent a region that has a lot of islands and rural areas, so I would be interested in hearing what the challenges might be faced by those parts of Scotland. I will get them all in one go. How do we ensure that quality is not compromised in favour of budgetary savings? I will kick off if I can remember all those. There are challenges. I remember sitting in a meeting by Zoom discussing this two years ago at a similar committee and said that what we need is essentially an MOT for buildings so that people can go away. If you buy a car, you look it up, there is a certificate. At least within the last 12 months it has been tested and verified that it is safe. Out of that essentially came what we now have as the SBA. The idea being that every building eventually in Scotland should have, if you like, an MOT or an SBA that says that this is a building that is safe and also provides detail as to what is in that building so that you know what the components are, which are key. You also are able to verify not only what the components are but that they were fitted and constructed in accordance with the proper instructions because without that there could still be a risk. We are finding about a year at the end of the summer last year when the SBA pilot scheme kind of got under way. There are 25 buildings in that scheme, some are further down the route than others. The challenge in moving from the wonderful idea that we had to the actual implementation of it—I had black hair when we started and it is now grey—is just a whole different ballgame. Having the pilot scheme is identifying issues in how this can be done. One of the issues that we have faced and others have faced is the limited resource in terms of people who are competent and qualified to undertake that work. In a building that I am familiar with, when they went to seek who could undertake a single building assessment—we are talking about a kind of 279 flat development in two big core buildings, 11 stairs—who could do it. There are precious views, so you widen the scope to include national UK companies with good names. Many, I think three or four, I cannot remember the exact number, were invited to put in their work plan as to what work would be done. Sadly, even some of the big names, it seemed like they went to the directors at that company and said, Okay, we've got something that will fit that bill. We'll take this template off the shelf. That should give you the information on an SBA. No, it does not. Some of the proposals that came back had no reference to the Scottish guidance note, no reference to the Scottish legislation at all. Given my professional background in the past, if I had submitted a proposal to a bank or someone in the terms that they were submitting those proposals to us, they would have been able to have thrown it out. Apart from the fact that they were bad English, which was one thing, they simply did not address the issues. When it came to look at who could do it, you felt that you could place no reliance on those people. Of course, there was working hand-in-hand with the Scottish Government team as well, and they didn't direct us to who it should be, but it was quite clear that there were one or two that stood out, head and shoulders, and the others were nowhere to be seen. There are very few people who can actually do it at the minute. To some extent, that is being addressed, but we are talking about very few people. Scottish Government and RICs are training people up, and there's an additional component that will enable assessors who are competent, who can be relied upon, who have got a good track record but enabling new people to be added into that scheme so that there will be more people available. But we're talking about 25 buildings. We're a year on, and only a few of them are actually under way. This isn't a matter of blame. It's a matter of fact. That's where we are, and the reality is that even when you get those people, I was talking to a surveyor the other day, an assessor who's doing one, and he had gone out to contract us to get some of the work done. I can't remember which, but it was whether it was the scaffold or cherry pickers or something, and then these guys had come back and given him a quote to do the work, and the guy who's responsible for doing the SBA said, you've got to be joking. I haven't got that sort of money in the budget to do that. You're pulling my leg. So that puts yet another time delay in, and you've got people living in those flats who know that there is an assessment under way, so in this development, people are saying, well, is it under way? Has it been finished yet? Will it take a week? No, it will probably take four or five weeks. We might have to close the road because you might have to put up scaffolding. You might have to have cherry pickers, and it doesn't happen like that. So there are huge hurdles which have to be jumped in order to progress this, and whilst the people who are in single building assessment pilot schemes have some comfort that maybe something's happening, at the last count of buildings in Scotland, which are over 18 metres, so we're not too many 11, but the 18 metres, there was well over 300 in that. So you've got people living in 200 or 300 odd flats, developments, where nothing is happening, they don't know what's going on, they don't know where they're at, and they are finding that intolerable. So there are huge hurdles. People are doing their best to try and address it, but there really isn't a magic wand. So I've only addressed one of your questions. For that response, and clearly a very challenging situation that we're facing, does anyone else want to come in on the challenges piece? So I think I saw Craig first and then they've picked at the post. Thank you, convener. Yeah, I mean this really falls on from what Chris was saying. I agree entirely with the point that he was making. In terms of challenges, that we have seen, the last time I came to speak to this committee was the focus very much in competence. You remember Professor Hosey brought out the issue of competence, the lack of competent professionals in the market. Since that meeting, we've worked very closely with what was MHCLG to develop a training course for people to be able to do external wall system assessments and an appreciation that it was a niche area. There were a lack of numbers in the market of people who could do it. That was also assisting with jamming the system up. So the course has been designed, a thousand odd people enrolled in the course. There's so far there's only been six, around about 63 people completed it, and there's been issues with people wanting to get on and complete the course. And one of those is professional indemnity insurance, the availability of PI insurance, and the feeling is, you know, why should I spend my time doing the course when, at the end of it, I might not get PI insurance to be able to do the survey or the inspection in the first place. On the quality of our budget, the SBA, so just to expand upon the training course, we've since been in discussions with Scottish building standards to, as Chris mentioned, create a bolt-on to allow those course completers to equally work in Scotland. I think the initial numbers of people who were interested in working in Scotland, you know, English surveyors, let's say, 16 odd per cent, you know, so, you know, around about 160 people have been able to come in and assist with the process in Scotland. Facing the same issue, PI insurance. But the system that Peter mentioned earlier, past 9980, we also fully support, it's being used as part of the training course for external law system assessors, and it promotes a risk-based approach, so it's not just, there's a problem, let's strip the cladding off, it's look at the building holistically, look at all of the fire risk, are there other alternative approaches instead of just removing the cladding and working to create a more proportionate response to the fire risk rather than just immediately going for the cladding. Thanks Craig for that additional, those additional comments, so Dave and then Peter. Yeah, suppose we're looking for greater assurance and process and greater rigor being introduced with these changes to the regulations. I think it's important for the committee to note that under regulation eight, where remediation is required or has been identified as a need, that that will be subject to a building warrant and a completion certificate. So that's an important change there being introduced under the regulations. In terms of the, we've talked about competence as well, a significant change within regulation eight is what we'll see a far more prescriptive approach taken when dealing with cladding systems as well. Test data will need to be submitted as part of the building warrant process that confirms the materials forming part of an external wall cladding system meet the European classification of A1 and A2. It'll also place a statutory duty on designers, specifiers, developers, building owners and managers to employ competent people to oversee that. So that's an important change being brought about with the changes in the regulations. In terms of competence again, there's been a lot of work being undertaken by the Scottish Government. I've been heavily involved with the Scottish Government's future board and there are a number of work streams there coming through that. One in particular is the workforce strategy work stream. From a local authority verifier's perspective, we've introduced a competency assessment system, CAS, as we call it. That will ensure that staff with the necessary skills will work on high-risk building types. Another work stream is the delivery model. This month, we'll see the formation of a building standards pilot hub project. That will include investigating the establishment of a fire safety hub, tasked with providing local authority verifiers with the necessary levels of support required to ensure more complex fire safety designs that are competently handled. Finally, we have the compliance plan work stream that is being worked on right now. That will include the introduction of a compliance plan manager. Those people will be employed by the relevant person. That's a term used in the building Scotland act. That will ensure that safety critical features, such as external wall claring systems, have been designed, procured and installed to meet the fire safety standards. I hope that that provides the committee with some assurance that there's additional rigour that's been applied with those changes. Thank you very much for that day. That is certainly reassuring to hear the kind of raft of requirements now. Peter, do you want to come in? Then Laura has indicated that she wants to come in too. I agree with what Davis said, and I'm going to build on it. A regulation, no matter how well drafted, is of no value if it's not enforced and delivered. Over the last 20 years, I can count the number of projects where I have seen independent clerk of works and site engineers on the fingers of one hand. In my case, that will be rather less than the rest of you. We no longer have site agents, we no longer have site architects, we no longer have site engineers. Housing associations bless them, still employ clerks of work. Some public authorities do it. What we therefore find ourselves in a position of, in many cases with design and build, is particularly guilty, is of builders and developers marking their own homework. Now, building control have employed their resources as best they can in a risk-based system to deal with this, but the requirement is huge. The RIS thoroughly endorses the move towards a compliance management regime. Previously, the application for the completion certificate from building control, those of my age will remember it as a habitation certificate, had to be submitted by their relevant person. They gave a legal undertaking it was built. Other than when there was a serious risk identified, that was taken at face value. I repeat again, people were marking their own homework. The compliance plan moves to fundamentally change that and, in a way, subtly different from those envisaged in England under the building safety bill. That person will have to be independent in my view, there are various views on that within the discussion groups. They will have to be divorced from those who have a financial interest in the delivery of the building at a bottom-line cost, and they will have to have very clear legal liabilities and duties. I would suggest to you more akin to those of an expert witness than they are of a traditional consultant. A lot of what we are discussing today around cladding and quality and rumination only works if we have that strong leading system for delivering it on site. The challenges to that, as Craig, Dave and others have identified, and especially Chris, is ensuring that there are professionals, the clock of work, the site staff to deliver that quality, that understand how to build things. Every professional institute in the UK today has put in place to start training. There will be a lead-in period for that. The architects are no different from the surveyors, the technologists or the engineers. My advice to the committee is that we must see those as part of a wide net of measures to protect the public from a repeat of this disaster. Remember, this disaster is a repeat of the disasters that happened with concrete precast buildings in the 60s. We do not seem to have learned the lessons from the past, and those and other jurisdictions that have moved away from a mainstream building control system have seen that brought large on them. We now have an opportunity—I am getting a bit preachy, I apologise—through compliance plans and through the cladding scheme to make a real difference for the next 20 to 30 years, but that relies on us keeping on top of the problem and not resting on our laurels. Otherwise, I fear the next time we see Chris, he will have the same amount of hear-as-I-do. Thank you very much for that response. I am going to bring in Laura Gryffin with new questions. Thank you, convener. I just wanted to echo some of the comments from the panel on the importance of ensuring that those completing works on those buildings have the appropriate competency and enabling the insurance industry to have the confidence in those that are completing those works. I think that what the insurance industry has seen over the past five years and longer than Post Grenfell is that that competency has not been met. The more insurers investigate the construction of buildings, the more they understand that they have not been built exactly how they have been signed off or as they were planned to. I just wanted to touch on Craig mentioned professional indemnity insurance, which is essentially liability insurance for those professionals who are providing a service. That liability insurance covers a historical period, so it is not just about providing the liability for the works done here and now, but it provides cover for the works that have been undertaken in previous years. The professional indemnity insurance market has hardened significantly, largely for those in the construction industry and those surveyors and those involved in sort of fire safety elements, but it is also hardened significantly across the globe and for all other sectors involved. It is also hardened for solicitors and brokers and others. What I really wanted to touch on is that the training that is going on is really important from an insurance industry perspective to be able to have the confidence that those working on those buildings are doing the right thing and there are not going to be any liability claims for negligence or causation in the future. I think that the industry is starting to get a better understanding of those who are competent and there are certainly professional indemnity insurance available for those who can clearly demonstrate that they are doing various pieces of work to help that. I just wanted to touch on briefly the last element of the UK Government back in February 2021 announced a Government-backed scheme for professional indemnity. It is a very narrow scheme. It is largely for fire engineers and those working on EWS1 forms. Forgive me, I am unsure if that is going to lead out to the single building assessment as well, but it will be relevant in Scotland. We are very much looking forward to the scheme being launched, which will certainly help the speed of remediation and the ability for certain individuals to be able to access the right professional indemnity insurance to do the works that they need to do. I thank you, Laura, for that response. Chris has indicated that he would like to come back in and then I will move to Mark for questions. My understanding is, as I hit the nail on the head, that the scheme in England will extend to the work that is done under the SBA for the EWS1 element of that work. Therefore, partial covering of the PI costs, but not wholly, but at least a step in the right direction. If I could continue the discussion on professional indemnity insurance, what would help your members? What do you think needs to be addressed to give you members the assurance that they will be able to get and the assurance that they need to carry out this work? Clearly, that is a major issue as we go forward if we have nobody to assess those buildings. I have not been involved in the discussions personally, but members of the RSS team, during the design and implementation of the training course, I have been working with the Government of Westminster to look at a PI package that would cover surveyors or course completers. That has not been bottomed out yet, so I do not really want to elaborate any further on that, but it is certainly something that we will expect in further details on soon. In the absence of professional indemnity insurance from the private market, having some kind of government-backed scheme would assist, if that would be possible. I apologise for brenging in again. I sit on the RIS's insurance steering group, but I also sit at national level on the Royal Institute of British Architects steering group. Architects, by and large, now find it completely impossible to get PI cover for any form of cladding work or remediation. Small practices are still under, for example, the RIS insurance scheme, able to get a limited amount of fire coverage for normal domestic type projects. Some of the very big UK practices with their own mutual insurance scheme can provide an element of coverage. We therefore find ourselves in the position where those professions, because it is the same pool of underwriters for architects, for technologists, for many surveyors, cannot get PI insurance to remediate the problems that are ahead of us. Previously, that would have gone to contractors and subcontractors, as specialist contractor design portions. The evidence that the RIS and the CICV, which is a cross-sector body in Scotland that lazes on a range of building issues, has is that even building contractors are having great difficulty obtaining PI coverage. Craig is right that the scheme that draws from Westminster and Moebates Denny to Scotland helps with the identification of the problem, but what we are in a position of is going to have great difficulty finding people that can put in place the remediation scheme required. At the same time, in the last two years alone, insurance for consultants has increased by in the region of 200 to 400 per cent if anybody deals with fire safety issues, which has forced a large proportion of practices that are capable of doing that work out of the sector. I stress again that that is not just architects. It is not just my members who are hearing the same comments from Chris's members, from the Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists, from fire engineers. It is quite understandable, and Laura will have a view on this, that the market shies away from these very considerable risks. There is a boorach out there in many projects. The most sensible view that I have heard from CICV, rather than architects, is that we find ourselves in the same position as we did for insurance cover for flooding and from asbestos in the 90s, and that government, either at devolved or UK level, should be thinking about whether it can act as a reinsurer of last resort absent any change in market conditions. That is a very difficult question. It is outside my ken as an architect, but, otherwise, I think that all the good work that we are doing will potentially stall before we can fix all those buildings. The losers in that, of course, are going to be people such as those that Chris Roberts represents. Thanks, Peter. Indeed, Laura would like to come in on this question as well. Laura? Thank you very much. I just wanted to echo that we are, as the insurance industry, very cognisant of the fact that there are a broad number of professionals who are finding it difficult to find them able to access and, indeed, afford professional indemnity insurance. I just wanted to touch a bit more on how that operates. When you are looking at providing cover for the liability of those professionals in a historic manner between six and 10 years previously, in the environment in which we know that building regulations have been determined by some as not fit for purpose and there is clearly a lot of work going on to try and improve them, the market got incredibly hard. That was not helped by the fact that, essentially, professional indemnity insurance is not a particularly profitable area for the insurance industry. Over the past theme, a number of insurers have pulled out of that market, and that is what determines a harder market. We at the ABI work with the International Underwriting Association, which also has a lot of professional indemnity insurers. We have taken a close look at the professional indemnity insurance market for years since Gwenfell. The insurance underwriting association has recently drafted some model wording in a way to try to help professional indemnity insurers to open up their market a little bit more. We have started to see that. Insurance is often a very cyclical operation where it tends to go between hard and soft markets. In the dynamics that we are seeing at the moment around how those buildings are built and the significant claims that the insurers are seeing, they are certainly very nervous about providing fire safety and cladding cover because of the previous claims that they have seen and the risk of the significant number of claims in the future. We are starting, and I repeat that it is going to be a slow process. There is certainly no silver bullet to this. We have certainly had conversations with Government officials more in Westminster than we have in Scotland about the realities of are there options for professional indemnity government-backed schemes? I am really positive about the fact that the Government-backed scheme for PI will be operating in Scotland as well as England, but it is not yet launched. As I said earlier, it is a very narrow scope. The reality is that it is not going to help that broader number of professionals that are seeing the problems. As I said, we know that there is availability of insurance out there, but unfortunately it is extremely expensive at the moment because of the risks associated with it. Those comments are very helpful, and I think that they will be helpful for us to highlight the issue to Government. It is clearly a substantial issue. I would like to move on to another area and to talk about cladding remediation work in Scotland and perhaps comparing that to what is going on in the wider UK. Essentially, where are we in Scotland on cladding remediation compared to the rest of the UK? Are we lagging? Are we leading the way? What is the state of play in Scotland and are there lessons to be learned from what other parts of the UK are doing? As I indicated, the SBA pilot scheme, which will inform the necessity for remediation a lot. We also talk about mitigation as well as remediation, and some answers to some of the issues might not be ripped that out, replace it. Actually, are there efficient ways that will significantly reduce the risk and make it tolerable? We all live with risk every day. Can we reduce risk? There is remediation and there is the possibility of maybe less expensive mitigation things being put in place, but in terms of where we are at, the actual work of people taking things down or taking things off and putting things up is hardly happening on the ground. We are at just before that stage. We are all aware of the big development in the west of Scotland where work was done and that took some years, but actually the main core of buildings in Scotland, nothing has actually happened on them yet. We are two years on from when we started discussing them. How do we get there? It has to be informed by the single building assessment, because that will identify what actually needs to be done. The idea is that the SBA will take and I latched on to Laura's phrase from two years ago. I remember her talking to me in a conversation and saying that we are not talking about high rise buildings, we are talking about high risk, and that has been thoroughly recognised within the single building assessment that buildings are either deemed to be high risk or low risk. If your building is deemed to be high risk, the SBA should give the route to get you into low risk and the things that need to be done, but in terms of what is actually happening on the ground or in the air and around flats, precious little. How does that compare to work in England, Wales and Northern Ireland? I cannot answer for Northern Ireland. I am aware in England where, of course, the tenure system is different so that a management company or a free holder can instruct and just go out and say to someone to do this work. We do not have that ability in Scotland. It does not reside here. There is not an owner because buildings are essentially co-owned or they might even be owned publicly or whatever, but we cannot just impose that. There is another hiccup in the system there that you have to get owners' assent to have some of this work undertaken. That is a different scenario. In terms of having things done, I am not too familiar with what is happening in England. I keep a watching eye, but there are more buildings, so there is more work being done. I will keep the brief relief to hear. I am aware—the RIS is aware, because it was asked to assist with some aspects—that building standards division in Scottish Government has been looking at resources and placements for additional technical assistance to move forward the remediation scheme, as I infer a reasonable rate of knots. How far that has gone on the ground, I would not be aware of. That would really be a question best directed at building standards division, but I speculate as to whether Dave might have had any insight into that through the future's trust. Not really, no. Obviously, labs are working in partnership with the Scottish Government helping with the SBA methodology, if you like. Once it is rolled out, there will be an impact on local authority resources identifying the buildings that could potentially require to be remediated. I think that it is dangerous to compare what is happening in England with what is happening in Scotland. The scale of the problems is different regulations. Personally, what Scotland is doing very well is the pre-emptive work, limiting things down to 11 metres. That is certainly seen as leading the way. The building standards system in Scotland is seen as leading the way. To be able to make more of a comparison, additional data would be good to understand what the full nature of the problem is. We have the high-rise inventory for 18 metres plus in Scotland. There are 774 buildings in England, and we have 12,500 buildings. Anecdoteal evidence from lenders and value shows that most of those in England have had an EWS1. That does not mean that cladding has been remediated. There is good data on the 80 metres plus. Having more data on 11 metres plus would certainly be beneficial to start working out the nature of the problem and where we are in it. However, it is a very complex issue. As we have seen, we have many legitimate stakeholders involved in the process. The many working groups that we have attended since Grenfell shows that the sheer scale of people involved is all with legitimate viewpoints. However, it is a complex problem to address. The words that have come up many times are unintended consequences. If we are working with immediate reaction, we can definitely create unintended consequences. We have had learning points in the EWS1 process that we are passing on to the building standards team. The building standards team in Scotland has taken a sensible approach to making sure that they are not creating unintended consequences with their approach. That is definitely commendable. I simply say that I am in fairly constant touch with the building standards team here. Indeed, I was speaking with them yesterday, but I know that they are considering ways in which they can advance this at a pace. It is not an easy situation to deal with, but they are certainly working very hard on it. I guess what is the space? Finally, I have some questions on BS8414. Mr Drummond, you talked in an earlier answer about how, as we move on from BS8414, have we moved on from BS8414? Is it still a route to compliance? Now there is a difficult question. Let us answer that slightly backwards. BS8414, or BR135, is no longer acceptable for use on buildings above 11 metres in Scotland in any of the medium-risk groups that are set out in the minister's letter. We can no longer use it for any residential, places of public assembly, we cannot use it for student residences, we cannot use it for hotels. We certainly cannot use it for hospitals and nursing homes. At the moment, BS8414 can still be used to demonstrate limited combustibility in properties below that threshold. One of the concerns that my panel had, and I would respectfully suggest that we should all have, is what we now know about the presentation of those previous tests by some manufacturers and test houses outwith Scotland. We are in a position where very great caution must be exercised interpreting and understanding them until such time as the new product regulator in England deals with it. My personal view, and I should stress that it is a personal view, is that we should be very cautious about its use in most facets of the building regulations until we come faith on it. I am also going to go back to something that was highlighted earlier, which is that although it is a large-scale assembly test, it does not take cognisance of what happens when we add extra components into that system. Now, that makes sense. There might be 400 different kinds of windows that you could apply to a cladding system, but you cannot test them all. Building Stands division carried out a review as part of my panel's work on comparable systems to BS8414. The conclusion was that, done properly, it was still a reasonable indicator of how a cladding panel in isolation would form. Again, and this is my personal view, not necessarily shared by the fire safety experts on all of them on my committee, I think that further work has to be done on an appropriate test regime that allows us all to sleep at night and takes account of a wider range of issues as the Australians and some of the Middle Eastern Governments have tried to grapple with in the last year. However, I would be very cautious about its continuing widespread application at the current time. That is helpful. I think that the key phrase that you used was when properly done, because I think that we have definitely heard evidence that that is not the case. I do not know if our colleagues online know that you have publicly raised concerns on BS8414. I do not know if Laura or George want to come in on whether you have an opinion on whether it is appropriate to continue with the process. Yes, yes, hello. There have been many studies done on APR14 and the consistency of it, and concerns have been raised about various things on it. The fuel source itself is quite variable and varied by a factor of two from test to test. The construction itself is not really detailed in a way that allows it to be replicated on a building. You can put features in like cavity barriers in locations that are not recorded necessarily, and that does not get replicated through. From my perspective, it is not a robust test, although some products are good compass. On the board line level, there are lots of things that can get through in the criteria itself in 50 minutes that does not seem to be appropriate. I think that a more robust standard is needed to approve systems like that. I want to echo what George said on the realities of BS8414. It is failures from the testing that the FPA did that the ABI commissioned back in 2018, and we presented to the committee back in 2019. We are fully supportive of the removal of the use of BS8414 for certain buildings, and I am certainly pleased that that evidence has been taken on board. As Mark has touched on, the greatest criticism of BS8414 is the flawed use of it. Again, that comes back to the competence of the people who are trying to apply it. Back in March 2021, the changes to the technical handbook saw BS8414 removed, however, as Peter alluded to, it can still be used as a route to compliance. Just to provide the committee with further assurances, however, under section 34 of the building Scotland act, if it is proposed in any building warrant application, building standards verifiers are required to notify the building standards division of the Scottish Government under section 34 to ensure its appropriate use. We are not aware of any issues since the removal of BS8414 back at that time, and we are also not aware of any application citing its use since it was removed. However, we do understand that there is an intention to reintroduce it within the annex of the new handbooks, the new versions of the handbooks. However, the changes to regulation 8 that I mentioned earlier will limit the use of BS8414 as it will not be permitted on buildings over 11 metres high, so it will be hugely marginalised in terms of its use. However, we have that greater scrutiny on the appropriate use that will be looked at. We also have a fire safety expert panel. Men and women know far more than I in the subject, and 8, 4, 1, 4 is always an interesting discussion. We can never get an agreement on it. We have experts who have worked on the development of it, who understand the pros of it, and we have also been presented with the cons and the limitations and the shortcomings of the test itself. I think that it is important to understand what 8, 4, 1, 4 is. It gives an indication of fire spread. You can compare two different materials in specific controlled conditions. It is not proof of a material in an external wall application, and that is probably the shortcoming that needs to be understood when it comes to 8, 4, 1, 4. Thanks for that very useful detail. I want to move to a close, but I just wanted to give you all the opportunity. If there is anything that you think we have not heard, I would just like to have an indication if you would like to come back in. Chris, certainly come on in. I think we welcome the new legislation, the surgery instrument. I think it's brilliant, but I was going to say we don't want to be sitting here in 20, 30 years looking back. Well, I won't be, but people saying what they did that, but we've still got a problem. So the issue that I see and I have experience of it personally is where developers develop their building, they've got their plans and so on and so forth, then there's this handover to factors. In most cases, developers will be instrumental in appointing the factors at first instance. So I'm not sure whether I'm comfortable with that approach, but anyway, that is the way it is. In particular development, a well-known national UK developer did his stuff, withdrew from site, said he had handed the plans and the O&M manuals over or left them in the office that the factors were to move into. They are adamant that they left them there. The factors are adamant that they weren't there when they moved in. So you would think that's simple. You just go back to the developer and say, okay, can we have another set, please? Oh, no, we haven't got them anymore. Oh, we go to the local authority records. Oh, well, they're corrupt. So the factors haven't got the information, apparently. The builders don't have the information, apparently, and there is no reliable information within the local authority portals. So going forward, there needs to be, for new builds from here on, a real robust system where the information relating to the material and construct and O&M relating to a development is passed to the factors, but also, in my view, is in a central repository that is secure. Now, my understanding before my time, but back in 2007-08, that some of the local authority records, which were essentially, I think, paper-based, there was an edict that they should be transferred to an electronic form, and my understanding is that some work was undertaken by a contractor, but actually what happened was that that was corrupted. So this isn't a limited problem. So that's looking back. That's history. It's gone. We've got to live with that. But we might have new regulations, we might make things safe, but we need to ensure, going forward, that this never happens again, and that there is a safe place where this information is kept and is available. So that's my big plea. Thank you very much. Anybody else want to come in? Okay, so Peter, I think Dave also indicated Craig. Having worked throughout the British Isles, there is no doubt in my experience that Scotland has benefited from the most robust of all five regulatory frameworks. And that has benefited us. However, if I have one criticism and it is only one, it has the tendency since the Garnock house fire for that system to be reactive. Rather than proactive. The changes that we have seen since Grenfell, like the previous fire safety review panels, the work streams that are being done in compliance management are all now proactive. I would very much endorse that view that we continue to investigate and take the lead on ensuring that we have building regulations in Scotland that meet not just current needs but future needs in the most robust way possible. Thank you. Dave. I think that, as Craig mentioned earlier, changing building regulations is a hugely complex matter. It's not an easy task at all. It requires in-depth investigations, consultations, and those must be robust and defensible or you'll end up, as Craig mentioned, unintended consequences. I absolutely sympathise with the owners. The situation is not of their making. However, going forward, I suppose, to provide Chris with some assurance in terms of a new build, we have been on quite a bit of a journey. It's the unfortunate nature of building regulations that evolve over time, but they require tragic events such as Grenfell to drive change, which is the unfortunate nature of them. Reviewing the regulations, as I said, is not an easy process. It involves setting up review groups with relevant stakeholders, reviewing other legislation, impact assessments, various consultations, reviewing the information gathered and so on. With that in mind, we have been on quite a bit of a journey since Grenfell. Various reviews have identified and recommended areas within the current system that can be strengthened. As I mentioned earlier, the creation of the Scottish Government's Future Board has seen several work streams taking forward. In particular, the introduction of a compliance plan manager should go a long way to address some of the issues that have been raised today. Since 2019, we have also seen consequential improvements to fire safety standards. Those have been introduced in the technical handbooks. By way of sprinklers and reducing the flatted developments in social housing dwellings, we have two escape stairs and buildings over 18 metres in height. We have more onerous fire safety measures for external wall cladding, systems applied to buildings over 11 metres, and we now have enhanced fire detection and evacuation alert systems for use by the fire service. On top of that, with the existing stock, we have the cladding remediation team, which has been set up within the building standards division, focused initially on the high rise inventory. It has now moved on to the SBA, the single building assessment, looking at buildings over 18 metres. We have been on quite a bit of a journey since Grenfell. Thank you for that, Dave. It's good to hear the run-down of what we have put in place. Just to wrap up my points, this has been covered by the entire panel. It is a very complex issue, not only in terms of designing new regulations, but the problem with existing buildings, the cladding crisis, designing new regulations, looking at life safety, the issues with buying and selling are a hugely complex problem. RICS welcomes the ban for combustible materials and the hard work that is done by Scottish building standards so far in implementing. It is wise to tread carefully. I know that there is a significant call for a superior process, but it is wise to tread carefully and to use further research beyond the ban on combustible materials. We look forward to further proactive collaboration with industry colleagues and government. Thank you very much for the invitation today to give further evidence. Thank you very much. No one else wants to come in on that, so I am going to draw the session to a close. It has certainly been a very rich session. I think that you have given us plenty of directions to look or to be aware of, and that has been tremendously helpful for everybody on the committee. I also want to give us themes that we might discuss with the minister next week. As we agreed at the start of the meeting, to take the next item in private, I now close the public part of this meeting. Thank you.


Usually, when a major storm heads towards Sasebo, U.S. Navy ships go out to the harbor to get out of the way. But what if your ship is under maintenance? This is an unusual situation for us due to our repair period not being able to get underway. I am confident from the anchor underfoot to the storm line, see fast tugs, the ballast work we've done and everything else that the Bonhommer Shard is ready to handle the storm. USS Bonhommer Shard needed to prepare in a way they haven't before. When the storm passes that we can turn right back to the repair work and be ready to meet our next patrol deadline. The hardest part of the storm is expected to hit in the early morning. We are BHR and in Sasebo we're ready for Typhoon Nagori. Seaman Christina Coffey, Fleet Activities, Sasebo, Japan.