Y Llywyddig adonwch ar gweithgfaeth cymdeithasol o'r friedd mewn gweithgfaeth yng nghymru yn 2019. Rydyn ni'n mynd i ddim gael cyntaf i gyfawr rhaid i ddweudio eu môl amser. Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n gwneud o fynd i'n mynd i'ch bod i'ch putrwynyddiad o hwnnw. Rydyn ni'n gwneud o dechrau o'vigwch o'r pwyntio ar gyferafolion o casmau a'r lleiais iddynt? Agend item 2 is consideration of the Scottish Housing Regulator's annual report and accounts for 2017-18. I welcome from the Scottish Housing Regulator George Walker, the chair, and Michael Cameron, the chief executive, and I invite the chair to make some brief opening remarks. Thank you, Mr Dornan. Mae'r cyfnodd yn comisi. I thank you very much for inviting us this morning to present the Regulator's annual report and accounts for 2017-18. I'll make some remarks to begin with and we're very pleased to take any questions that you have about our annual report, of course, but I'll touch on three important things from that report and indeed from our current work, which I'm sure you'll have some thoughts on too. First, I think it's important that I draw to your attention that RSLs and local authorities continue to perform well against the charter standards and outcomes. Now, in August last year, we published our fifth national analysis, as you'll likely know. We found that landlords again continue to perform well in the service areas that tenants tell us matter to them most. The good news from that analysis is that tenant satisfaction now sits at over 90 per cent. I think that we'd all think that that's a pretty good outcome. That is due in no small part, I need to say, to the tireless work that's done by many of the voluntary governing body members who work tirelessly to help achieve that outcome for tenants and they're there to be congratulated for that, of course. Secondly, I want to acknowledge to you that we've again had to use a statutory intervention powers in the past year to set that in a wee bit of context since 2012. We've intervened in 12 cases with RSLs and we did that to protect the interests of tenants of those landlords. Last year, we took some time to think and reflect and we published a lessons learned report on our early interventions and what that really highlighted was that the failures that led to interventions had serious implications for RSLs, including potentially significant costs involved, and we're mindful of that. That makes it all the more critically important now that governing bodies really do assure themselves that their landlords are well run, that the landlord focuses on the right things, manages risk and delivers good services at a price that their tenants can afford. In doing that, that will help to avoid them getting into a position where the regulator needs to intervene. The main thrust of the changes in our new regulatory framework that is in particular around self-assurance is aimed at getting landlords to do just that. That takes me on to my third thing that I'd like to touch on and that is our new regulatory framework. As the committee, I think, may well know, we're coming to the end of a major consultation on this framework. Through this, we're promoting a culture of assurance, openness and transparency right across the sector. As I've mentioned earlier, our approach in the new framework is to aim to support landlords to be well run and deliver what tenants, people who are homeless and other service users need and want. To be clear to the committee, our statutory objective and our functions haven't changed, but what we are doing is refreshing the tools that we use to regulate. The new framework will be the culmination of a year-long process and discussion that we've been having with tenants, landlords, representatives of bodies and funders. We've had good feedback and lots of engaging discussion through that consultation. We've had round-table events right across the country, including 10 for tenants. For us, it's been a very inclusive and highly worthwhile listening process. Consultation closed on 14 December, as you might know. We plan to publish the new regulatory framework and guidance by the end of February with a new framework coming into being from April this year. Sitting alongside that new framework, we've proposed something that we think is interesting and important. That is that we have proposed working with the sector to develop what we are calling an advisory toolkit to support landlords and, in particular, governing body members to ask the right questions, make sure that the governance and the assurance that they get is as good as it can be. If you like, that's really all about supporting responsible landlords to do the right things for their tenants, those are homeless and other service users. I'm pleased to say to you that the first cut analysis of the consultation responses show a very broad support for the new framework proposals. We will publish an independent review of the consultation responses by the end of February. If you are at all interested in what those responses have been, the 90 or so that we've received are already live on our website. As you'll know, a key role for us is helping to create an environment where lenders are confident to invest in an RSL. That flow of money is important and I'll wrap up in just one minute, Mr Dornan. Is that okay? We were very pleased in our engagement and the feedback from UK Finance, the representative body of lenders, who said in their response to the consultation that funders to Scottish RSLs take great comfort from the current approach of the Scottish Housing Regulator, which is risk-based and proportionate. In fact, it is that that leads to what they would suggest is up to £40 million of annual savings and interest payments a year to Scottish RSLs. Finally, and I'll wrap up to keep it brief, we're very grateful for the uplift that we've received in our funding this year, sorry, 2019-20, and that certainly will help us to implement the new regulatory framework. However, I do need to say to you that we're encountering real frustration around the pace of recruitment and the increasing demands that we see coming our way. My board is concerned about our capacity to keep responding to new areas of work or problem-regulatory cases that might arise as a result of that. So, convener, I realise time short, so I don't wish to hog the floor. I'll happily hand back to yourself and we'll answer any questions that you have for us. Thank you very much. Andy, you wanted to come in. Yes, thanks very much. Convener, I thank you for coming along this morning. You said something about your new regulatory framework that you're going to be introducing later this year. Can you just say a little bit more about what outcome you intend to achieve? You think that we'll be achieved by that, and what is most likely to change, possibly from your perspective, but perhaps also from a housing association or tenant perspective? It's a very good question because we put a lot of thought into what we had learned from past experience over the last five years into how we proposed that framework, Mr Whiteman. Really, what we were looking to achieve is a high-level focus on getting assurance openness and transparency across providers and, of course, enhancing that from ourselves too. In particular, we're looking to support those boards, boards in governing body members, they call themselves different things. We're looking to support them in getting the levels of assurance that they need from their management teams, that the individual landlords are doing the right things, managing risk and some of the things that I talked about earlier. Why is that? That is about the fact that in the cases where we have had to intervene, and indeed our lessons learned report demonstrated this, that in the main those interventions have been around governance failures and in some cases financial failures as well. You can see the theme that therefore runs through that. One of the key elements of it that I'll maybe get Michael to comment on a little more, if you would like, is a move towards annual self-assurance statements. The annual self-assurance statements are statements that would be signed off by the governing bodies and the chairs of boards. To give them, if you like, I've used the language in many of the roundtables, to give them permission to make sure that they feel able and comfortable asking the questions and asking for the assurance that they need from management teams. Those annual self-assurance statements are really all about self-identification of where a governing body is compliant with the standards, but also identifying areas where they fall short and helping them to plan for that. There are other elements, of course, to the statutory framework, but that is the high-level aim that we are looking for in a perfect world and it will take time, of course, if we can work effectively alongside governing bodies with a toolkit that I touched on in my opening statement, we would really like to see the cases of intervention around governance fall, but we recognise that that will take time. Michael, I don't know if you'd add anything further. The only thing to add there is around the specific new requirements that we're going to be introducing. George has touched on the requirement on landlords. That's both local authorities and RSL landlords to provide us with an annual assurance statement, which is their governing body or committee, the relevant committee of the local authority, confirming that they are assured that they are meeting all of the regulatory requirements and the standards that are applicable. We will also produce an engagement plan for every landlord and we'll publish that engagement plan, setting out exactly what we will expect of each landlord and what we will do. For the bulk of landlords, that might be nothing more than a requirement to provide us with the normal statutory returns, but it's an important way for us to contribute to the transparency that George has touched on. The final major change that we're looking to introduce will be a regulatory status for every RSL that will set out our view of that RSL in terms of the level of compliance it has with the regulatory requirements and the standards of governance and financial management. That's helpful. Last year I was asking you questions about what evidence you have that tenants are using the charter to effectively hold housing associations to an account. You said that governance failures is the principal reason why problems arise. That's good. I want to also return to a question that I raised last year which is about tenant participation in housing associations. We have housing associations like Castle Rock, Edinburgh that has 6,247 units. There's only 169 tenants or members of it. That dropped to 145 this year. Only 18 turned up to the AGM Sanctuary Scotland housing association 6,600 units. Four people attended the AGM. Rural Stirling housing association 561 units. 270 members. That's good and 37 at the AGM. As I understand it, housing associations are not in law required to facilitate their tenants being actual members although in practice many are through limited companies that know their capital and registered societies. Obviously local authorities can't have that relationship. In terms of improving governance, how important is it to increase the legal participation of the tenants themselves to be able to hold a housing association to an account and for them effectively to be able to drive through the kind of governance changes that would help to ensure that we don't have failures? At a high level we use the term tenant voice and we think that tenant voice is really important and indeed that's been in the forefront of our mind and you'd see it peppered through the proposed regulatory framework. Partly because of that and because we also wanted to listen to tenants and I'll come on to your specific point is that as I said we did 10 tenant events on the consultation right across Scotland from Lerick to Stornoway to Moffat and I think major cities in between to really listen to what tenants were looking for in the new framework. Of course that seemed like a sensible place to start so I suppose the short answer to your question is we think it's very important that tenant voice is heard. One thing that came through strongly in that consultation was that tenants really liked the idea of annual assurance statements. A number of them said to us in those round table meetings which by the way board members were at all of those including Michael and I. One of the things they said was that it can be quite difficult to engage with the ARC, the annual return of data. There's a lot of stuff in that and even scrutiny committees who review that for tenants it can just be overwhelming but actually getting involved and engaged with annual assurance statements and seeing that was something tenants really welcomed. As to engaging with tenants across the board that's something we encourage you're right it's not set out in statute and of course there are different set up there are different corporate structures of different bodies different RSLs and some don't require memberships and some do but we work very hard to encourage that level of engagement. There is something though that says that there are times when tenants are perfectly happy with the services they're getting and unfortunately they choose not to engage and we've seen some examples of that but that's not to say that we don't think it's very important that that should be encouraged and it's something I probably bore RSLs to death conferences and where I talk because I talked so much about tenant voice so it's very important to us that that is there and that's why it's in the framework. Michael, I don't know if you'd add anything in particular about the legislative aspect of that. I think not specifically around the legislative aspect I think it's clearly important that landlords give tenants that are interested to participate in decision making those opportunities. I think where there has been success in the sector has been the development of tenant scrutiny panels which is a formal structured approach for tenants to look at the landlord performance engage with the landlord to identify ways to drive improvement and we have been able to see that that has generated quite a bit of interest from tenants to participate in that way rather than necessarily in the more formal governance structures although as you say it is important that landlords provide tenants with opportunities to do so. OK, just finally, I have an example a constituent who won't name names but their housing association has insisted that they make changes to the way they manage the property that they all live in and this is based on an interpretation a new interpretation of the Scottish Secure Tenancy and one of the tenants went to the AGM and the housing association is kind of so remote that they just got brushed off so what I'm worried about is that if we need to improve governance and we always need to improve governance governance won't be improved in an environment where the stakeholders and I don't like that word but the tenants themselves do not have the opportunity to have an effective voice to challenge to explore, to inquire to contribute to new strategies and all the rest of it so it's not really a question for you because you're a regulator I understand that but you've put your finger on governance failures so governance failures in any sector energy, whatever all have broadly similar things you can do to make them better so it's not really a question I have a comment if you like and I couldn't agree more I think that that's absolutely right that ability to listen and hear from tenants and indeed we talk about I think there's even language about it I know there's even language about it in the new framework we talk about the use of complaints and complaints as being an opportunity for management teams and governing bodies to hear from and listen to their tenants and see themes and so what you're talking about in effect is a complaint that sounds like that that was maybe not heard as well as it could be so I think we would agree with that point of view and it's why we talk about this issue in great detail a lot of the time as an example of that will be myself and another board member are jointly running a session and speaking at the SFHA's chairs conference on Friday this week and that will be quite a big theme of what we're talking about is that engagement piece, tenant voice and how that relates to the new framework that we're proposing so I agree with you and it's certainly something that is very front and centre of the regulator's thinking indeed it's why we currently have a tenant on our board and we're going through a board recruitment process at the moment and we will add to that board so that we have strong tenant voice on our own board OK, thanks Thank you very much, Graham Thanks, convener It's a big thing when you step in to a housing association and when that happens there are costs involved and we need to ensure that there's value for money we've had a submission I don't know if you've seen it from the Glasgow and West of Scotland forum of housing associations We have seen that, yes You've seen that and so they express concerns about the costs that are passed on to housing associations when you step in and they describe some of the costs as crippling, that's their word they talk about consultants being brought in they're saying that there should be greater transparency over the daily rate of consultants they highlight one case at Well House Housing Association where there were direct costs of £222,000 from the statutory manager spanning three financial years but it only has 800 tenancies and there was another case they don't name the housing association but one with only 330 tenancies where the cost was £750,000 at the end of the day it's tenants that could pay the bill What do you do to try and keep these costs down? Where is the transparency? When I read about you bringing in consultants I thought it must be easy to find out who they've appointed and what they're paying and I couldn't find that information anywhere Where is that information? Who have you appointed? What have you paid them? Let me start with that if I can, Mr Simpson and I'll maybe get Michael to pick up on some of the specific fee too because I think it's an important question and indeed we've met with the forum on this as recently as December I think it was Michael and I sat with them their chair and director and discussing this I suppose what pleased us in this issue they've raised is that they're certainly not raising concerns about the importance of robust regulation and at times they need to intervene indeed I think even in their submission to yourselves they made that point that actually they're not questioning those needs for intervention The costs of that are not lost on us and that's why we would prefer not to intervene where we can but equally Parliament has given us some powers and the responsibility to protect the interests of tenants homelessness those who may become homeless and other service users and that's what we try to do We see intervention as the last resort and in a minute we'll maybe get Michael to talk about what runs up to that because I think that that gets lost in this a little bit for that but very hard to make sure that a lot has happened before we reached the point of intervention We do see ourselves as a strong, robust but proportionate regulator and what is interesting, I made reference in my opening statement to the fact that the lenders tell us that based on their levels of comfort with the regulatory approach in Scotland that saves an interest cost about £40 million a year to RSLs We get that there's a flipside to that where one does step in and intervene that there are costs associated with that Indeed the forum talks about increased interest rate costs, so there are two sides to that For us, the reason we've proposed the framework that we have and I won't rehearse my answer to Mr Wightman and what we're trying to achieve with that is if we can get governing bodies really assuring themselves really digging into this and governance to an even higher level than it is in those few cases where we've had to intervene, then we very much believe that those cases of intervention should fall because the best way to avoid the costs involved with that and we're very aware of the costs we discuss it at our board and we've published it in reports the best way to avoid that is to engage with the regulator at an early stage to sort out issues before it comes to an intervention to engage properly with that so that we can bring that to a conclusion quite quickly so I suppose overarching in that what I'm trying to say to you is that the costs into being are not lost on us but of course the cost of a catastrophic failure or an RSL going broke which is one of the things we of course want to avoid would be significant too Michael, maybe you'd like to comment on some of the specifics and maybe in particular the work that happens I don't know, is it maybe invisible if that's the right word before intervention? I think it's important to set out how we operate as a regulator and in the first instance we will engage with a landlord where we've identified or been brought to our attention that there are significant issues and we'll look for that landlord to improve on those issues without us having to use our statutory intervention powers where we judge that the landlord is either unable or unwilling to address the issues that we think it would then be appropriate to use our intervention powers so I think as George has said that's very much a last resort and in almost all of the statutory interventions we've had to date there's been a significant engagement with the landlord prior to us starting to use our intervention powers very much a last resort as George has said, we are aware that there can be costs to the organisation as a consequence of statutory intervention although I'm always kind of brought back to the quote from an organisation that has been through statutory intervention where they pointed out that the costs weren't the cost of intervention but the cost of putting things right and I think that's important to bear that in mind too but nobody's questioning your right to step in and do things the question was around transparency I don't think you really answered that we've got a submission that says that the costs of bringing in statutory managers which you've got to do can be crippling so what I'm trying to find out is where is the information on who you've appointed I mean we've got some evidence here that you're bringing up people from the south of England there's the cost of flights accommodation where can we find out who you've appointed why you've appointed them what scores were used to and the weightings were given to various factors in that process where is it I can't find it there's two things I'd say to that the first one is that when we conclude a statutory intervention we publish a report on that intervention and within that report we set out the direct costs of the statutory intervention including the costs of any statutory appointees that have been appointed on to organisations are figures that are drawn from those published reports in terms of who we appoint we have a published list of statutory managers which we have put in place through an open selection process I think it's safe to say that the market for that type of person with the skills and experience that are necessary is more developed at the UK level so at a level that's not surprising that a number of those who are successful through that open selection process came from out with Scotland there are people from within Scotland that we use as well so it's about us having available to us the right people with the right skills we will be re-running that exercise in the coming year and that's an opportunity for anyone else within Scotland who has the necessary skills and experience to apply and within that publication around statutory managers we set out the day rates that each individual works to so where is this list this is all published on our website we can make sure that we get the appropriate links into it's certainly not easy to find things then so we'll make sure we get that information to you and we'd certainly accept that the user experience through our website could be better if I'm honest with you it's looking a wee bitty dated now and we accept that whilst our staff can point to a place to get it and indeed we've got a process underway now alongside our framework review to revamp that website and therefore make things that user journey much more visible to that we'll take on board your point though perfectly fair one about raising the visibility of that but also we'll get that information to the committee and yourself if you'd like to have it so one more question on this the letter also says urges you to consider alternatives to statutory action have you done that are you able to do that I as Georgia set out already that's actually how we work at the moment and we've had this conversation with the Glasgow and Western Scotland forum the type of things that they were suggesting we might want to consider what we do just now as Georgia said we've used our statutory intervention powers in 12 RSLs since 2014 and we've had significant levels of engagement with more than that through a non-statutory route but the key thing here is that judgment we have to make about the organisation's willingness and capacity to address the issues that need to be addressed that's the onus that is on us to make that judgment and when we judge that the organisation isn't able or willing that's when we would look to use our statutory intervention powers there's a couple of short interventions Kenyne? it was to follow on from what Graham was saying and from some of the responses we've received already the issue of transparency is quite significant in the document that we received you're basically in response to Graham Simpson talking about the issue raised of flight and accommodation costs most housing associations in Scotland are very well run so why is it difficult to find the right people, the right skills here in Scotland given the fact that tenants will have to pay these extra flight and accommodation costs on top of any consultancy fees which I imagine would be higher for people being flown up than people here in Scotland I'm just wondering if you can respond to that the other issue which is related to this is that the Glasgow and West of Scotland forum has said and I quote in the great majority of cases but they then go on to say later on paragraph 4.7 that was 3.2 they say whether the statutory action was necessary in view of alternative remedial plan proposed by the association so there's a dispute about what happens in a case where there is that dispute do you just basically say in our view we have to take action regardless of what the association thinks because we're talking about again in 4.7 an on-going case where 810 will be burdened with an additional 2.6 million over the next decade because of a low interest loan has been reprised by the lender after statutory action in terms of that people flying up or people in Scotland being the case you made the point the majority of housing associations are well run we agree with that the majority are well run there is an issue with the size of the number of bodies in Scotland and the experience around to do it because of course if you are currently I don't know to take an example if you're currently the chief executive of the director of a well run housing association you may well have the skills to go in and help another association or be the statutory manager of a full-time job and so there's something about that push and pull and that's why Michael talked about that marketplace being a bit more developed UK-wide than Scotland-wide and indeed why we'll be re-looking at that in the coming year and re-tentering that we've certainly been encouraging Scottish individuals and organisations to get involved with that because those courses are not lost on us but there's something around the availability of both skill sets and the time when the intervention comes up that's there Michael I don't know if you have any else to add to that do you want to add anything else to that first and then we'll touch on the example that Mr Gibson gives us I think the important thing to say in that regard is that we did conduct an open selection process and we assessed those that came forward there are very particular skill sets that are needed for people who are able to go into failing organisations stabilise them start to develop the necessary improvement plans and it's important that we have those skills available to us so that we can act effectively and quickly when we need to and indeed so that those individuals are able to keep the duration of any intervention as short as it possibly can thereby hopefully minimising Sorry, a cost to factor in these selection processes a cost to factor Yes, so you would think well we might bring this guy in for you down south but you might cost 20,000 more or whatever that would be that would be a mitigating factor against Absolutely, we would take that into account when we're looking at who we appoint to what both availability and price is a factor in those considerations Perhaps George is fine with this I'll pick up on your second point about the 2.6 Well the first point you made was around where there's a dispute about us into being in that particular association that you're referring to there was indeed we have an appeal process that organisation made an appeal and the appeal is heard by two of our board members and an independent panelist and that appeal was heard just before Christmas and the appeal panel upheld the decision to intervene so there is that root of appeal that organisations can take and in that instance that organisation did take up that option of the appeal The scale of the financial cost I think what it's probably important to say in that regard firstly we need to be careful about what we say in terms of what's commercially sensitive information particularly around on-going discussions between an organisation and its lenders and as George has said it is the case that where a landlord is faced with such a level of weakness in its governance failures in how it's being run that there can be costs on the back of an intervention we're very open that that is a reality there Our assessment however is that any potential cost to that particular RSL's borrowing is likely to be considerably short of that figure that's been quoted I'm sure that I'd be relieved to the tenants otherwise they'd be paying each over 10 years I apologise One of the things that the forum has said is that SHR needs to be certain that no other viable alternatives to statutory action are available to ensure that and they've suggested that where the immediate viability of an association is not in question there could be some kind of breeding space I think I'd say two things to that as Michael's described we already do that that's not public though and it's that fine line isn't it between what we say because actually no organisation and in some cases organisations of Michael's who have come to us and said you know what we've got an issue can help in those discussions take place I don't think any organisation wants us at that point periods of long months when those discussions are taking place to be washing their dirty linen in public and saying organisation A, B or C is an issue and we're working on it with them so we already do that and work with organisations and there's much work that goes on behind the scenes that isn't necessarily seen because of that it's just fixed and sorted and it's done and so the process that Michael described of this early work takes periods of months and weeks we would certainly take examples where we signal very clearly and if we take the case that the forum has raised concerns about I'm assured and my board was assured that that organisation was under no illusion that they had a period of time to work with us and try and fix this or we may need to step in again that discussion took place over a period of months on Friday that we're intervening in a Monday so the first thing is that that's there the second thing to say is because we recognise the sensitivities of these things there in fact was a proposal made through the framework review and I've forgotten who made it actually Michael might pick it up because I forget but actually saying to be more transparent could you apply an intervention notice and say here's an intervention notice and if you don't sort this in a month or a week or whatever you'll do that and indeed the board had a discussion just last week about whether that's something that we could consider and whether we could do but of course it's back to that sensitivity issue because lots of organisations have sometimes mind their issues that they're talking to us about they want to post a notice that we're talking to them so we're having a debate around whether there is something we could do there that enhances that transparency because we're all for transparency or indeed or how would we avoid any unintended consequences of that if that makes sense Michael would you add anything else? No I think we'll move on now we have got a lot of questions still to be asked we've got a very busy agenda ahead of us this morning so I'd ask that if the answers could be kept a bit shorter that would be really really helpful Alec and then Annabelle want to come in on points of views If there's a shortage in terms of Scotland in terms of these 32 managers with expertise to bring in are you going to take some action to try and address that to try and skill that training whatever to be able to to have that flexibility and more people available in Scotland and is there a flexibility there because it just seems it's not flexible in terms of what they seem to be saying here is that if there was the opportunity if you identify there are issues they then have the opportunity to go and bring expertise in themselves then that does not lead to what they describe as the crippling cost as a result of a statutory intervention I'll leave that I'm happy to pick up but in terms of the we're a regulator we absolutely will look to re-run the open selection process and it may very well be that that enables us to have more Scottish based statutory managers available to us and that would be no bad thing I would question whether it's our role to create the marketplace for that but what we will certainly do is ensure that we run an open selection process we'll make that as widely known as we possibly can as many people coming forward to be considered for that selection as possible I think in terms of your second point our normal way of working is as you've described it that's what happens just now we are engaging directly with a number of RSLs where they are co-operating with us they are bringing in additional co-opties on to their board or they are bringing in additional management capacity to help them make the necessary improvements and therefore avoiding the need for us to have to use our statutory intervention powers that's our normal way of working and in fact we do that in more organisations than we use our statutory intervention powers in Thank you Annabelle Ewing if you want to answer questions after that Okay, thank you Just picking up on that point what then briefly are the key components of the skill set that we are talking about in a couple of sentences what is the skill set Some of the key things are being able to come in very quickly into an organisation and understand what the challenges and difficulties are and do what is needed to stabilise the situation and that involves looking at the situation with staff with the governing body and critically also with the organisation's lenders Okay, so going back one step what kind of when you would consider an applicant for their suitability for that role what kind of qualifications or experience would you be looking for to show that they could then perform that role I think you used the term experience and I think that's absolutely critical We're looking for experience of having turned around failing organisations that's a very important one and I think it's probably worthwhile saying that these are organisations where we're having to intervene these are organisations with significant and deep-rooted problems and it's not it would be wrong of us to consider this as a kind of development opportunity for somebody who's not got the necessary skills and experience already there I think that would not be us doing what we need to do to fully protect the interests of tenants in those organisations so we're looking for people with the right skills and critically the experience of having worked in those similar types of situations before and that gives us the confidence that they're going to be able to go into that organisation and quickly start doing what needs to be done It's quite broad brush and I really struggle to understand why in Scotland with all the various skilled people we have who have dealt with umpteen different kinds of organisations scenarios in terms of the experience they've gathered, I find it very difficult to understand that there wouldn't be anybody if I could just ask on that point if perhaps you could write to the committee setting forth exactly what it is when you meet your open tender what it is that you are specifying and in the regard to the open tender very briefly, convener you say that the chief executive said a moment ago that you were looking to run the to rerun the open selection tender process what do you mean by that? Are you setting forth a new tender? So when is that to happen? Over the course of this coming year and for how long will that the result of that be in place? At the moment, I think the current one has run for three years and I think that that's what we would look to do again. I would have thought, given the committee's comments that you would find it quite important therefore to do what you could to ensure that there is awareness raised in Scotland that people in Scotland can apply because I think you've felt the slight frustration on the part of members of the committee that an awful lot of public money is being spent perhaps it could be viewed unnecessarily when there is very good homegrown talent in place that with a bit of focused attention you could probably find and therefore they would do a great job. Could I perhaps turn to my next question? I'm getting a look from the convener. On a different subject obviously one of the requirements in your annual report is to discuss the performance of landlords against the Scottish social charter standards and outcomes and I just wonder if you could tell the committee how landlords have performed as against that charter over the last year. I can, I'm happy to pick that up and on page you may or may not have right in front of you I don't know the annual report on page five of the annual report we can easily send it to you if you'd like that talks about the 90% satisfaction levels that I touched on Miss Ewing and it talks about there are 16 charter outcomes in the Scottish housing charter of those in the past year 11 have improved and the others the remaining five have remained stable none have gone backward so that would point to pretty solid performance and I think I'm right in saying albeit I've only been chair for 18 months that over the past five years and the five years worth of data that we have published we have seen improving trends in terms of compliance against a good number of the standards but as it stands 11 improved and five are stable 16. Thank you for that and obviously it's heartening to see that progress is indeed being made but if we take for example the level of satisfaction generally that you cited which is high at 90% I think you said but if we look then at for example factoring services although that has it has to be properly mentioned increased over the last year nonetheless it sits a bit lower than that high level of satisfaction overall so it sits at 67.4% what do you think is going on there and what do you think needs to happen to see that increase further because obviously you know factoring services are a very important part of a tenants experience yes I may get Michael to comment on that and just say that the data I was using there at the 90% it is a bit tenants only just because I wouldn't want to mislead the committee that that's a global number covering everything but Michael would you like to comment on factoring and you're absolutely right there is a difference in the satisfaction level between tenants and between those owners who receive factoring services social landlords and that's why we carried out a thematic inquiry into factoring to help us understand what the kind of key issues may be for factor donors and interestingly the key issues in many regards for factor donors are more simple and straightforward than they are for tenants and it's largely about the responsiveness of the landlord and then the management fee level and we've seen a modest increase in the satisfaction level at the same time as we've seen a modest decrease in the average management fee now whether those two things are a direct causal link or not it would probably require a bit more investigation but we will continue to keep a focus on factoring services given this disparity between the satisfaction levels and tenants and the same can be said for the satisfaction level amongst gypsy travellers who use the services provided by social landlords through gypsy traveller sites they have a lower satisfaction level than tenants too and that's another reason why we have a strong focus on what's happening on those gypsy traveller sites OK, that's good to hear and obviously as regards to the figures the satisfaction rate has increased in terms of factoring services the position with regard to local authority factoring services appears to have been in decline over the last few years I wonder if you've got any specific comment about that Nothing specific around why that is we understand that position and when we're engaging with individual landlords we're looking at why those situations might arise I mean obviously within those are averages so within some local authorities the position has indeed improved in others it's not and we engage with individual landlords around those factors when they come through in our annual risk assessment as critical so beyond that nothing to say OK, but perhaps then it would merit further engagement of a more detailed sort and perhaps also it would be to if indeed some local authorities are being tired unfairly with this kind of gloomy conclusion of the position of the last years it might be helpful to have the table of the 32 local authorities and say who's making progress and who needs a bit more attention which ones need a bit more attention because that would be useful information and would improve transparency I would have thought And there's a couple of things around that we'll set out whether we're engaging with a local authority around factory and services so there will be that transparency there and the data is all in the public domain we put that out in an open data format but we will be looking again at how we present all that information partly through the work we're doing around our website but also in some other work we're doing about how we can get the best information to people in the best way so that they can find it most usable and that offers opportunities for an even greater level of transparency around some of this information OK, we'll watch that space, thank you Thank you very much, Alex Can I ask a question around rents and affordability can you say what's been happening this year in terms of rents any predictions that you have in terms of where rents are going do you think that it is still affordable albeit that is quite a relative question but are we providing good value for money and are you satisfied with the levels of engagement with tenants in terms of setting rents It's worth starting that off by saying that in our view generally we believe that the current rent for most tenants in most homes is affordable but we do know from our work with the national panel of tenants and service users that future affordability is a major concern over two thirds of the panel members identified to us that this was an issue that concerned them principally I think around worries about the changes in the benefit system and how that would impact on their ability to pay rent but it is an issue of significant concern for tenants I can say that over the period covered by our annual report we know that rent increased on average by 2.4% up to an average figure of £76 per week differences between RSLs and local authorities of roughly about £11 a week in that rent What is quite interesting is that back in when we started measuring this back in 2013-14 the planned rent increases by landlords was at 3.6% we then started to engage with landlords around that and to put messages out about a concern around continuing affordability in a situation where planned rent increases were above inflation and certainly well above planned increases in the income of tenants that we were seeing at that point whether that was from earnings or from benefits the planned increases over that period then fell to a low point of 1.9% in 2016 last year we did notice that it started to go up again last year the planned increase in rents at an average level was 3.2% so that is an issue that we are again focusing on in terms of continued ability of tenants to pay it is worth saying obviously that landlords all started different positions on rent levels and some may very well have a bit of room where they could look to increase their rents while keeping them affordable but it absolutely is something that we will be keeping a very close eye on in terms of rent increases affordability to tenants great thank you okay I want to ask a couple of questions around your report into homelessness in Glasgow can you give us a key findings and tell us what progress the council is making in improving the homelessness service it would be fair to say that this is a significant piece of work Mr Dornan done over the course of last year that the council got engaged with very engaged and indeed what was interesting when we had shared the report that was finally published that you are referring to with them and what was very valuable in that because we talked about people working with us was that they accepted what we were saying in that report that was helpful to get engagement with them now and we are now at the point where in the last quarter of last year there was some evidence of some modest improvements but it was modest there was a plan agreed with that and I'll let Michael maybe come on to talking about the next steps because there will be a next leg to this which will start quite soon I think it's worth just restating what we did find in that report in March last year and that was that people who are homeless in Glasgow are waiting too long to get a house and that they're spending too much time in temporary accommodation the council was not housing people quickly enough and it wasn't referring enough people to RSLs to enable it to discharge its statutory duty quickly enough to everyone RSLs, some RSLs were making a good contribution to helping the council meet its duties but some could do more in that regard so we made a series of recommendations to the council and to RSLs and we have been monitoring the implementation of the council's and RSL's response to those recommendations we will now go back into the council over the coming months to examine exactly what outcomes are being achieved and delivered and that will then determine what our next steps as a regulator are and how we engage with the council thereafter so can I just clarify then that the council took on all your suggestions and now you're going back in to see what the practical outcome is the council agreed on those recommendations or I guess our principal concern is around the pace of change and whether the changes that are happening in the council are happening quickly enough to be able to demonstrate those genuine and significant and sustained changes in the outcomes for homeless people and that's what we want to go in and test I notice you're now engaging with 19 local authorities on homelessness services are there common themes that need to be addressed to improve these services? We have indeed engaged with 19 councils over the last year around homelessness and there have been some quite consistent themes for that engagement and they tend to be around firstly the access to the service itself then around how quickly people are being moved through into permanent accommodation the availability and quality of temporary accommodation is another significant issue and also the kind of advice and support that people are provided with as they're going through that journey around homelessness so those are the kind of main things that have led us to engage with 19 local authorities probably worth saying that on the back of the work we did with Glasgow that's given us a much clearer understanding of where some of the challenges rest in delivering effective homelessness services and we are using that to help us direct where we need to have a higher level of scrutiny around homelessness and I think in particular that will be very much that focus on the individual's journey through the statutory homelessness process Okay, thank you very much just on the work that you'll be doing on homelessness in the future is there anything outside of what you've mentioned there that you intend to do in the future? I think it's very much about us picking up on some of the agendas that are coming out from the Scottish Government in response to the recommendations from the HRSAG and that I think in particular will result in a clearer position around the expected standards and temporary accommodation and we will look to pick up a monitoring role around that that's in development at the moment so that's one that we will run alongside to ensure that what we put in place enables us to report back effectively on whether those standards are being achieved Okay, thank you Graham, you want to come in very briefly? Yes, a very quick follow-up to the convener's line of questioning as you'll know we've made a major piece of work on homelessness I read with interest your report on Glasgow that was easy to find You've said you're going back to Glasgow, you'll be working with them Will there be a follow-up report? Can we monitor easily whether improvements have been made? When will that be published? We will publish that report and the timescales haven't been fully finalised yet but I would expect that to be relatively early in the new financial year Okay, that's good Thank you Can I go back to what you mentioned earlier when we talked about rents benefits? I saw a report recently where five councils said they had over a million pound of housing debt that was directly as a result of universal credit Have you looked at what the impact to universal credit is on our RSLs? I'll pick that up at the gross level If you look at last year's bearing in mind of financials and where we are reporting in the financials of RSLs and arrears etc is always a bit behind given the financial reporting There is no evidence yet based on our last couple of years and your report that there is any significant significant increase in arrears taking place There is certainly anecdotal evidence of organisations that they are seeing a different pattern Certainly there are patterns where the various test and pilot programmes around universal credit have been in place but at a totality level there is not yet any evidence of massively increased or significantly sorry let me change that word significantly increased rent arrears taking place which would be one of the signals of that pockets within the RSL and local authority community that are flagging this as an emerging issue But of course in Scotland there are a modest number of pilots taking place so I think some would say the real impact hasn't hit yet of that but it's something we're certainly paying attention to Michael in terms of more up to date and what the team is seeing day to day and hearing something beyond the published evidence Mr Rolly is the stuff you'd add to that Obviously we'll be getting the new set of figures fairly early in the new financial year and that is one that we'll be paying close attention to to see whether there is any evidence of that starting to come through in the reported level of rent arrears I mean I think partly the mitigating actions that have been taken by the Scottish Government have addressed some of the potential impacts that there could have been until now but I think we are expecting to see an impact exactly when that starts to come through we'll see in the figures but we are absolutely getting the kind of anecdotal information that you touched on from individual landlords that this is starting to have an impact particularly those in the vanguard of the roll-out of universal credit and the associated sanctions and I touched earlier that through our work with the national panel of tenants and service users we were getting a strong sense back from them that this is an issue that they are particularly concerned about around future affordability of rent Is there any other major challenges facing social landlords risks, uncertainties? Yes and we publish every November a statement of the key risks that we will focus on we've touched on a number of them already today I think some of the you know it's possibly unfortunate that we haven't got through this whole discussion without mentioning the word Brexit but I'm going to do so now I think we're very aware of some of the potential risks that there can be for social landlords around some of the consequences of Brexit in particular around supply chain disruption the potential increase in cost that might come from that Labour supplies particularly in construction and maintenance is an issue and we're also aware that there is a significant number of EU nationals who live in homes provided by social landlords and there are uncertainties around what their position might be and what impact that might have on a landlords level of lets and income stream so there's absolutely issues there that we're looking at the the lending market is unquestionably becoming more competitive and that presents challenges for landlords and there is the potential for some increasing cost to landlords as a result of that and we're also seeing more landlords venturing into the capital markets rather than using traditional lending and that can bring opportunities as well but challenges and some risks so we'll be making sure that we're monitoring the impacts of those kind of developments in the sector okay thank you very much Mr Walker you talked about earlier about managing the risks and managing the costs and we talked about your budget initially and in the report you highlight some of that and the demands you have and the capacity that you're trying to deal with in the report you talk about 80% of the costs are related to staff and the staffing complement has reduced from 80 to 50 so can I be asked to give us some update and some comments on the budget and if we can expand on the concerns that you have about staff vacancies going forward I certainly can to give some sense of where SHR has been and is now our budget at its maximum like all of the Scottish public sector we're all having to tighten belts and that's appropriate in this environment the budget was 4.7 million and the staff complement fell as a result of that we got a modest increase in the past this current year and for the upcoming year which we're very grateful to receive because 80% of our costs our staff costs as you've picked up that means that the ability to trim fat is much more limited so we've moved location we've moved our office and saved I think a birth, was that a third more of our costs in doing that we've gone through, we're in the process of realigning ourselves and organising ourselves internally differently to align with a new framework to do that the slight the discussion the board had just last week and the concern around recruitment has been twofold one, there was a recent pause on recruitment that the Scottish Government obviously our recruitment goes through that source albeit we're an independent regulator understandably we knew that because of Brexit and that put us on hold the process for us feels a bit challenging at times we had one post that we're recruiting to it took us 11 months of going through it because as a regulator as you might guess we have to go through an internal recruitment process first we can then go externally and the reality is for us sometimes some of the skill sets that the regulator is looking for are more rare and therefore we're going to struggle to find them within the civil service and we have to go externally and so for us that process is very elongated and causes us pause because of that the board sat down just recently recently as last week and actually looked at that and started to assess getting ourselves ready for the new framework a reorganisation internally where we not to be able to recruit to those posts how we would handle that and what we would hold back on doing so I suppose the message I'm trying to give you is that resources have gone down that's fine we've managed that as well as resources have gone down we've absorbed an increase of I think at last count about half a million pounds of unfunded costs and we've coped with that I'd like to think fairly admirably and done it what we're signalling now is that having gotten some enhanced resources which we're very grateful we've got to pick up the pace of recruitment and that is proving challenging some of that is because there's a lot going on in the Scottish Government there's Brexit preparation and we'd all get that but of course we've had a lot of focus and recruitment for the new tax authority the social security authority and so on and so it's been slim pickings if I can put it that way to attract candidates internally and hence going externally matters so we're just signalling that that's a worry for us it will manage that worry because the board is on it and we'll look at what contingency plans we've put in place should that challenge get greater and you've identified that you've had this programme of efficiency savings and that has assisted and helped you to deal with some of the challenges and some of the demands that you have but are you getting to this stage that you think that there's a risk that you're not able to provide and you're not going to be in the same capacity across that organisation to ensure that you can tackle those challenges? I think I'd say I might pass to Michael in the detail but actually I think I'd say at a high level two things one, I feel our resources are at the stage where the extra resources have been given are really helpful I think without that it would have been a challenge but I have to recognise that the Scottish Government has given us those extra resources we made the case and that's been very very valuable to us if this pace of recruitment continued to be there and was slow and two, if we were to see the number of interventions go up, interventions take a lot of resource it's a big sucking of resource into those and so that's why the whole approach to the new framework Mr Stewart has been around this self assurance getting organisations to self identify now look we're not aft we know that won't change overnight and that's why we're working with landlords on the toolkit that we talked about because we would like to see that come down so by effectively managing those two things are resources and our ability to recruit the challenge I've identified and trying to manage down the levels of intervention we would hope we would be in a good place what we would worry about at this point in time would be the perfect storm would be if we can't recruit we can't fill those vacancies we've got and we get hit with a significant number of conflicts, interventions that would be the perfect negative storm for us if that makes sense but although we're flagging concerns I'd also want to assure the committee this is something that the board is very cited on and indeed we are planning for okay thank you very much so you'll manage to cope with any difficulties that you may see you think that that because you've made efficiency already and are you able to make any further efficiencies going forward do you see any scope or do you want to add to that Mike? I think we've taken out somewhere between about 30 to 40% of the cost from our organisation over that period of change that we've gone through our staff account for about 80% of our budget we currently as at today have a 15% vacancy rate largely as a consequence of the challenges around recruitment that George's touched on I think that makes it challenging for us to keep delivering at the level that we are delivering we have extraordinarily committed and professional people working in our organisation and they do what's needed to be done but I obviously have a duty of care to them in terms of their wellbeing and I think if we can get to the place where we don't have the vacancy rate that we currently have and there's not any significant change in the demand levels on us then I'm confident that we'll be able to deliver what we are asked to deliver but it's those two sides to the coin that are challenging and I recognise that that's not necessarily different to a whole range of other public bodies at the moment given some of the challenges that there are in that field Thank you very much Annabelle, last question Looking to the slight changes to your powers further to the ONS's reclassification of our ourselves as private sector bodies do you feel that you're absolutely in top top shape to deal with the slight changes to your powers I think that we feel we're ready to handle it or maybe get Michael to comment though The main change that has a most immediate impact is the change around our consent powers and those consent powers will end on the 8th of March and just a couple of weeks ago we wrote to all registered social landlords to identify, flag to them that this change is coming to set out what they would need to do both in advance of that day and then after that and we're also currently producing guidance for landlords that will be available to them at the end of February that relates to the situation that will then be in place after that critical day and we'll use every opportunity we can to keep flagging those changes to landlords so that both we and indeed the sector are ready for those changes when they come in we've also done a significant amount of work to our IT systems to ensure that they're ready for that switch over from consents to notifications Okay, thank you thank you very much and with that positive note I'll thank George and Michael for attending today's suggestion I suspend briefly to allow the witnesses to leave the table Thank you Agenda item 3 is consideration of two statutory instruments which seek to modify the Housing Scotland act 2006 and I refer members to paper number 3 I wish to welcome Kevin Stewart Minister for Local Government Housing and Planning Simon Roberts Policy Manager Housing Standard and Quality and Kirsten Simone Lefevre Solicitor Scottish Government Those instruments are laid under affirmative procedure which means that the Parliament must approve them before the provisions can come into force Following this evidence session the committee will be invited at the next agenda items to consider motions to approve each instrument I now invite the minister to make a short opening statement Thank you convener and good morning to the committee Thank you for the opportunity to appear today to speak to the motion to approve the Housing Scotland act 2006 modification of the repairing standard regulations 2019 and the Housing Scotland act 2006 supplemental provision order 2019 For technical reasons convener, the amendments to the repairing standard are split into two separate instruments because powers to make orders and regulations cannot be combined Those instruments taken together will improve the repairing standard the standard required of homes provided by landlords in the private rented sector This meets a commitment in the programme for government to introduce changes to improve the condition of properties in the private rented sector and follows our public consultation in 2017 on those changes There are several specific provisions in those instruments Firstly, there are measures that come into force from 1 March 2019 which are intended to clarify existing duties under the standard to provide that a house must meet the statutory tolerable standard to make it clear that the repairing standard does not apply to short term holiday lets and to recognise that landlords are not at fault and landlords refuse consent to carry out common works Secondly, from 1 April 2021 the duty to provide fire and smoke alarms will be removed from the repairing standard This is because we are extending the standard currently required in the private rented sector to all tenures From that date the duty will be part of the tolerable standard to all houses so that change will not affect what is required of private landlords Thirdly, there are some substantive changes which will raise and improve the repairing standard and which will come into force from 1 March 2024 so that landlords have five years to bring houses up to standard These changes will require private rented housing to have accessible food storage and food preparation space safe access and use of any common parts and attainment secure common doors with satisfactory locks devices to reduce the risk of electrocution and electrical fires a fixed heating system so that there will have to be a system or installation in houses for heating space and water and we are adding other fuels to the existing duty and electrical installations to be safe We will work with stakeholders to develop guidance to support landlords in these changes and the regulations specify matters that guidance may cover and this will also include the condition of pipes supply and water for human consumption Finally from March 2027 the existing exclusion for various types of housing agricultural tenancies will be removed from the repairing standard This realises the commitment that I made together with the Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy at the Agricultural Housing Summit in Perth on 1 October last year that housing in this sector should meet the repairing standard within eight years It is unacceptable for tenants and families living and housing under agricultural tenancies in Scotland in 2018 to be living in substandard homes which we would not accept if provided by a private landlord in our urban areas Convener, those instruments are an important contribution to improving the quality of our private rented housing However, I recognise that more needs to be done and that is why, for example I will give serious consideration to the final recommendations of the cross-party working group on tenement maintenance to drive a culture of change to encourage proactive maintenance in tenements Of course, we have separate work going on to deal with holiday and short-term let To conclude, these instruments bring forward a range of measures which are supported by stakeholders to meet our commitment to raise standards in the private rented sector helping to ensure that private tenants are able to live in homes that meet a standard that they are entitled to expect Thank you convener Thank you very much minister I invite questions from members I would agree with the minister in terms of the improvements that are being made but at the timescale it seems a bit long 8 years What are your thoughts on that? We need to give a reasonable amount of time to carry out the work and to spread the cost particularly where planned works will be needed across a number of properties We sought views on implementation in our consultation and there was overall support for the implementation period that we have put in place I encourage landlords private landlords to begin this work now if they are not already up to these standards that we are setting It's always a fine balance I agree with Mr Rowley but I think that we have got that balance right giving folk the opportunity to get that work done over a period but I would encourage all to move further and faster if they can I think that there's a danger that people will wait till I've got five years to do that Can I also ask a different question in terms of energy efficiency standards within the private rented sector where are you at with that? In terms of energy efficiency the energy efficient Scotland route map which was launched in May of last year confirmed that we would bring forward regulations that would require private rented sector properties to be a EPC band E a change in tenancy from the 1st of April 2020 and in all properties by 31 March 2022 and EPC band D change of tenancy from the 1st of April 2022 and in all properties by 31 March 2022 the consultation a company in the route map also proposed that all PRS properties be required to meet EPC band C by 2030 where technically feasible and cost effective we will publish draft regulations for consultation in the first half of this year for minimum energy efficiency standards convener Thank you very much convener The changes you are proposing to make safe kitchens and fuels and doors etc are being introduced as a modification of section 13 4A5 and 6 of the Housing Scotland Act section 13 1 of that says that a house meets the repairing standard if wind and wobbiter tight and exterior of the house supply of water, gas and electricity I wonder what considerations are in your mind when you choose to put new criteria for meeting the repairing standard in section 13A which is an absolute you must do this or the 4A5 and 6 which is to meet it you must have regard to these things having regard to things is a fine judgement convener we have had discussions previously at this committee around about the use of terminology including have regard to I will pass to Ms Semine LeFev to give the legal ease in terms of in regard to and then I will come back to Mr Wightman's point in general we are adding certain criteria to the repairing standard that a house must meet in order to meet that standard the conditions in sections 4A5 and 6 is the guidance of how to determine whether a house has met that and that guidance has been replaced also by Regulation 3.3 which explains how you decide if this has met the standard okay I'm with you thank you for that explanation right that's useful second question on the holiday lets the policy note says that this is already covered by existing legislation but it clarifies legislation that's to come into force from the 1st of March 2019 first of all what is that legislation from the 1st of March 2019 just that first of all just to clarify the housing act of 8488 2016 do not include holiday lets under the current rules a holiday let is most likely to be regarded as an occupancy agreement rather than a tenancy and is therefore not subject to the repairing standard this is not changing but because the question of whether a particular let is an occupancy agreement or a tenancy which is a question of fact it's not always clear for the owner whether or not the standard applies so we are clarifying this in these regulations beyond that as I said in my opening remarks Mr Wightman is very well aware we're looking through a working group at short term lets as a whole we're governed by other regimes but that work is on going to see what we need to do to improve the situation in terms of short term lets and I think that what we have done here is put in place we're making that distinction clear in this that there's a difference between a private tenancy and a short term let we're glad of considering that he has gone to some lengths to say that there is a distinct difference I see the language and it's useful I'm just wondering what would happen to a property that where the owner is working offshore or working in the middle east and is absent for four or five months of the year and rents the house as a holiday let for the rest of the year would that be subject to the repairing standard? It's very difficult for me to give an answer to a hypothetical question when I don't know what the agreement between the owner and a possible tenant or a possible holiday maker actually is if it is a tenancy then it would have to meet the repairing standard if it's a short term let then that has to meet other regimes and as I say that's something that we're looking at in depth those other regimes That makes sense so if there is a tenancy in place for even if part of the year have to meet the repairing standard If it was a tenancy it would have to meet the repairing standard Yes Graham, you wanted to go on I think all of this makes sense minister I just wanted to ask about that because it inserts a new element to have safely accessible food storage and food preparation space which to me means or could mean a fridge a cupboard and a workspace to prepare food So what evidence has led you to this? There have been situations convener where we know that people have had tendencies which have not had adequate kitchen space this is making sure that all tendencies have that in terms of the detail of what is required to create a safe kitchen we will lay that down in guidance I'm quite happy to share the guidance as we move forward so that the committee can see exactly what we are proposing but we are countering and they are a small minority of cases but cases where folks have not got the right facilities in a home that they are renting we believe that they should have these facilities and that's why we're moving forward in that from In that case I'll move on to agenda item 4 a formal consideration of motion S5M-15439 calling for local government and communities committee to recommend approval of the draft housing Scotland act 2006 supplemental provision order 2019 invite the minister to speak and move this motion I'll just move the motion please convener any contributions from members in that case I invite you to sum up and there's nothing to say but the motion is motion S5M-15439 in name of the minister for local government housing and planning be approved are we all agreed? thank you the motion is agreed unanimously the committee will report the outcome of this instrument in due course agenda item 5 is consideration of motion S5M-15441 calling for local government communities committee to recommend approval of the draft housing 2006 modification of the repairing standard regulations 2019 I remind everyone only the minister and members may speak in this debate and I invite the minister to speak and move the motion I'll formally move the motion convener in that case the question is motion S5M-15441 in name of the minister for local government housing and planning be approved are we all agreed? thank you and are we happy to delegate authority to me as convener to approve the report approve the report sorry okay yet no bono the committee will report on this outcome of the instrument also in due course and that takes us to the end of this session I want to thank the minister particularly given his cold or whatever it may be and I'll suspend the meeting to change the consideration of public petition PE1688 on homelessness crisis in Scotland by Sean Clark in calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to frontload £40 million from the ending homelessness together fund allocated for the core homeless over the next five years to be used in the next year to build new homes and refurbish existing properties so that the core homeless are safe and comfortable homes in Tandon with support services and expanded housing first policy we'll ask consider this petition at our meeting on 21 November 2018 and agreed to write to the Scottish Government to seek its views on issues raised in the petition a response has now been received from the Scottish Government as well as a written submission from the petitioner and these are included in our meeting papers do members have any views? yes, thanks computer I have read with interest the note by the Clark and I think that sets out the background to the petition very clearly and all relevant developments I know that the petition was lodged on the 7 March 2018 and I note that since that time in fact there have been a number of developments so we've had the housing and rough sleepers action group HRSAG's publication of their 70 recommendations in June 2018 we had the Scottish Government set out their plans for the high level action plan setting out in detail the actions to be taken further to the 70 recommendations also of course working in partnership with local government and that high level action plan was published in November 2018 so from the time of the petition being lodged in March 2018 there have in fact been a number of developments taken by the initiatives taken by the Scottish Government I know from the papers that the Scottish Government does not support the petition the Scottish Government feels that its approach has set forth further to these recent developments including the £50 million fund over five years with a £23.5 million from that fund together with a smaller amount coming from health portfolio so amounting in total to £23.5 million has been allocated for rapid rehousing the housing first and indeed the housing first pledge has been made so I think and finally I would say also that it appears that the petition is not supported by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations nor by the Glasgow and West of Scotland forum and they make specific comments on it so my view would be taking into account all of these factors which to be fair to the petitioner the petitioner came forward with ideas they have been considered a different route has been proposed by the Scottish Government but I think taking up many of the feelings that led the petitioner to lodge the petition so I feel therefore that in the circumstances perhaps events really have overtaken the petitioner's objectives and therefore my view would be that the petition should be closed but obviously this committee with its keen interest on homelessness issues and work that it has done to date should continue to take a very close view on the actions as they roll out and what the Scottish Government is doing and I'm sure that committee will continue to keep that under very close scrutiny so I would suggest that we therefore close the petition. Thank you very much. I broadly agree with Annabelle Ewing that the papers that the petitioner are all set out in the public domain and the Glasgow and West of Scotland Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and the Government have all made their views clear our job as a committee is to look at the evidence in front of us and I'm not persuaded that homelessness would be better tackled by front-loading £40 million or £50 million if it is a route to doing that effectively. I commend the petitioner for bringing this forward because I think the urgency of the homelessness crisis we're facing is very, very real and I think that was reflected in the inquiry that this committee undertook into the topic last year and it is a matter of regret but nevertheless a reality that a lot of the proposals that are put forward in the Government's homelessness taskforce are not proposals that can be instantly implemented they will take a bit of time and that's just an unfortunate fact so I'm inclined to agree with Annabelle Ewing that we should I think probably I'm not sure if we have the power to close this position of whether we would recommend to the petitions committee that they close the petition in whatever way that our work on this petition I don't think there's much to be gained by taking it any further. OK, thank you. The power of rest with us to close the petition because it was handed on to us. Does anybody else have any views or comments that you'd like to make? Are the views of the committee members similar to what have been heard here? Is there anybody who's not minded to close the petition now? OK, thank you. Given what I've heard from it's clear that there's a unanimous decision to close the petition but it's clearly on the grounds that the Scottish Government has made its petition clear doesn't support the policy set set out in the petition also has its own preferred approach and matter has set out clearly in the letter that the minister sent to the committee. I do think that we should commend the petitioner for raising this issue first of all with the petition committee and then further with us but as the committee has made itself clear things have moved on from then we will be keeping a very close eye on the homelessness situation and hoping to see improvements on it over the next year or so. In that case, that concludes the public part of today's meeting and I move the meeting into private. Thank you.


So let's recap your last two years you've had a child you've won two Super Bowls And now you have another one on the way so what more could you possibly want in life? No, I mean like life is good, and I just love playing in Philly like it's such an amazing Electric city and it's good of football towns there's in football that chair set. I really do it's it'd be hard to walk away from this place What was it like? Growing up in your household. It was a lot of pressure with my pops You know when you're a kid and you get drafted in the first round of the NFL you play ten eleven years in the NFL I've done a lot of things. I never thought I'd do but you're very rarely doing something your dad didn't do So growing up.  That's always a good NFC East battle. Why do you guys have difficulty with Eli Mane? Because last year you guys had a tough time with him. Probably a Hall of Fame quarterback when she said I don't know I'm gonna read back. No, please ask me all the questions you want. I think he's a Hall of Famer. He's seen every coverage He's very poised Does anything bother Eli? I'm always like what from his facial expressions. I don't think he gets bothered by anything He knows when he plays us the rush is gonna be there. Yeah, you know our front four is as good as any in football


The reason I get James Meadway on when there's a big economic story is because he makes complex economic problems understandable to myself and to my audience. The BBC often struggle with this. So it seems to be habitual that, especially their political commentators, mystify more than they reveal when it comes to economic commentary. Someone who created some controversy on social media with her analysis, her explanation of economic fundamentals was Laura Koonsburg on Politics Live. We'll take a look at this. I'm going to get Ash's instant reaction to this afterwards. Oh, it's just enormous, Joe. I mean, it's just absolutely eye-wateringly enormous. And if you think of the debate that we had, really, from the late noughties all the way through to the 2015 election, you know, that was defined by, how is the country going to pay back what we had to borrow in the credit crisis? This is that and some. Okay, this is the credit card, the national mortgage, everything absolutely maxed out, enormous levels of the country basically being in the red. And as Faisal says, it's not really sort of a surprise. You know, we've all known that, seeing businesses shut, shop, shop, pub, shop, people stuck at home. The economy basically put into a deep freeze for months on end, but seeing it spelt out like this in black and white is really, really stark. It's really, really important. And it just seems to me that today in a sort of political sense is maybe a more scary equivalent of that moment when the coalition took over in 2010. And David Laws, the chief secretary of the treasury, leaked that note he'd been left from Lee Embarassing. There is no money left. This is Rishi Sunak standing and telling the country, for the next few years, there is really no money. And of course, that's going to mean hugely difficult decisions in the years to come, but also the point that Faisal, you were making this morning. We're not even through this, okay? No. The beginning of the economic emergency, perhaps the ending almost of the health emergency if the vaccines come good as people hope for, but this is really only the beginning of the second act and the third act, how we pay it back, isn't, it was still on way off. That was Laura Kuhnsberg sort of giving points which were further to the right than Rishi Sunak, she's saying that the country's credit card is maxed out, we're running out of money and this means that, I mean, essentially she's implying, this means that austerity is going to have to come around the corner pretty soon. Economists aren't saying that. So why is the BBC's political editor saying that, Ash? Well, look, I'm not going to make any sort of implication or inference about what her ideological leanings might be. What I will talk about is the structural role of this country's political journalists. They're not serious people and they're not serious about ideas. They're court historians and usually court stenographers, but court historians who prioritize access above all else. And so they're not really going to delve in that deep. They prefer the kind of pageantry and the contest of personality and they're equipped to commentate on that, but not very much else. So I think that she's a reflection of the severely limited fields that she finds herself in. She's got lovely taste in jackets though, fantastic hair, can't fault her. There's also a second problem and it's a deeper problem. And if there's thinking about this today about economic storytelling, because how you explain the economy lays down the parameters of the space you have in which to move, all right? So how you choose to describe what's going on is, as James was saying, wholly ideological. And it sort of struck me today that 40 years on we're still living in Thatcher's Britain. And the reason why I say about this because we have not escaped the world of metaphor, the world of illusion that she had constructed. Stuart Hall's writing on the language of Thatcher and the economy is very interesting because one of the things that he identifies that Thatcher did was played into her gender. So she would say, I've been accused of preaching the parables of the Hala, the Pala and the homilies of the housekeeper, but I'm a woman and I know something about prudent household management. And of course, a national economy is just like a household economy. And so the minute you tell that story of a national economy is just like a household economy, you can't factor in the idea of borrowing is very cheap. I can't get to grips with that. You know, I didn't do economics. It doesn't seem to be instinctively true because even my instincts has left us to go, oh, but I understand money and how much you've got and what you have to spend through my own household expenses. And that was a really powerful thing that Margaret Thatcher did. And that paradigm for understanding, right? That you can only spend what you have coming in and that was generated by the size of the economy has stayed with us all of that time. And I think that if the left or anyone progressive wants to make any kind of headway in that, staying in the kind of lefty think tank world, which can be very, very technical, very, very dry, isn't going to cut it. What you have to do is tell a different kind of story. And I do think that James's reference to World War II and the way in which that debt was managed is a very smart way of doing that. Cause you're appealing to something that is already, you know, so deeply wedged within the country's consciousness. You know, you're never more than two to a few points away from World War II when it comes to the national conversation. And I think that that can help you do that, can help you tell that different story because without that kind of story, which feels instinctively true, intuitively true, the left is going to have a very, very hard time building a kind of national case against austerity. I mean, what people might say there is that there was a austerity after the Second World War, they'll sort of say, you know, people had rations. So how do you sort of, what's your elevator pitch to someone who is convinced that Britain has its credit card maxed out and some sort of austerity is going to be needed? How do you debunk Laura Koonsberg in 60 seconds? It's a challenging task. The Second World War story is easy because we have a choice after the Second World War. You could either go, oh, my God, debt is now 200 or more percent of GDP, the highest it has ever been in this country. And you go, oh, my God, we must panic and do nothing except worry about how to repay the debt and don't set up the NHS and don't massively expand education, don't set up the welfare state. Or you can go, that debt was for an exceptional period of time, we're going to set up the NHS, massively expand education, set up a welfare state and they chose a latter and we still live with that. And we don't live with debt because we've paid off the debt over a long period of time because it doesn't matter that much. That's the situation we're in now. If we could do it then just coming out of a war, we can do it now in a much, much richer country than we were back then. I mean, just to me, that just seems fairly obvious. What I find spectacular that has touched on this. I mean, it's not just Laura Koonsberg, that there's a whole suite of, it's not really economics editors. I'd hope all the economics correspond to better than this. It's the kind of political journalists. There's a whole suite of them who are incapable of actually talking about what the economy is and how it works. Laura Koonsberg was not just wrong about how the government finances itself, watching that. She was even sort of factually wrong about what Rishi Sunak was doing. He didn't present a spending review that said, this is really serious, now we have to make cuts. He literally didn't say that. It's not even remotely true. Never mind that it's not true that the credit card is maxed out because there is no credit card. You don't find Robert Pester, someone who's supposed to know about these things, giving the most nonsensical, garbled account of how quantitative easing works. Now granted, quantitative easing is pretty weird, although in evidence it's fairly simple. The Bank of England issues electronic money and buys government debt with it. That's what it does. That's all you kind of need to say to get the basics. And it's completely garbled and these people are wandering around. Never mind whether they're being ideological or secret Tories, they're just not very good at this. They're getting the basics wrong. They're misinforming the public in really, really critically important ways. Now what I find interesting in the middle of all this is that some of the institutions, like the Institute of Fiscal Studies, which was a big support for austerity and people should remember that in the early 2010s. He's now coming back and saying, well, it was a bad time to do it. You find that the consensus has shifted. The consensus even in the Tory party, Boris Johnson says he doesn't want to do austerity. See how long he sticks to this. But that consensus has shifted. Now, why on earth isn't Laura Kuhnsberg able to recognize this as somebody who's supposed to be politically attuned to the world is a bit beyond me? It's not beyond me. It's not beyond me. And I think some of it is ideological affiliation, but I also think that the world of political journalism is stuffed to the gills with people who are there by virtue of their connections and their class and not their talent, quite frankly. And I think that you could throw a dart, hit any one of them and go, you're not here because you're good at thinking about things. I would say that that's the rule for that upper most echelon of political journalists. The good ones. And I'm not talking about ones which I deem good because I think we share values.  That's the exception. That is absolutely the exception. Mostly that people who love scurrying around SW1, absolutely high off their own farts, convinced of their own importance, because they're constantly talking to important people. That's the sum total of their job and how they derive their self-worth.