I am grateful for the opportunity to talk to the committee about the steps that the Scottish Government has taken to ensure that building regulations and fire safety are robust. That work has added urgency following the tragic events at Grenfell tower. My thoughts and deepest sympathies remain with all those who are affected by that tragedy.
In the days that followed the Grenfell tower fire, the Scottish Government immediately took proactive steps to establish a ministerial working group on building and fire safety. The group was set up with the primary aim of offering public reassurance and ensuring that we took any action that was needed as a result of what we know, or will find out, about the Grenfell tower fire.
The group’s work has been twofold. Our first focus was on responding proactively and immediately to offer reassurance to the public on the fire safety of high-rise buildings—in particular, high-rise domestic buildings. The nature and scale of the work was resource intensive, and I express my gratitude to local authorities, housing associations and the other organisations that were involved for their responsiveness to our requests. That helped the ministerial working group to establish quickly the extent of the use of aluminium composite material in high-rise buildings.
I also record my thanks to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service for the steps that it immediately took to prioritise home fire safety visits in domestic high-rise properties. More than 1,200 visits have taken place, and everyone who requested a home fire safety visit has received one. Inspections of high-rise residential buildings have also carried on, and almost 900 inspections have been carried out since the Grenfell tower fire. Sixty thousand fire safety leaflets have also been distributed to provide reassurance to residents. However, the ministerial working group is conscious that public reassurance on fire safety must be on-going, so we have commissioned a targeted national fire safety campaign for high-rise domestic buildings, which will be launched shortly and which focuses on key messages, including fire safety, evacuation and stay-put procedures.
The group’s second focus has been on a wider range of measures to enhance and strengthen building regulations, enforcement and compliance as well as fire safety. Today, I am able to inform the committee that I have appointed two established leaders in their field of expertise to chair the two groups that will undertake the review of building standards. Professor John Cole will chair the review of enforcement and compliance, and Dr Paul Stollard will chair the review of fire safety in building standards. I am delighted that we are fortunate enough to have two chairs of such high calibre leading the work.
Scottish building regulations from 2005 prevent the cladding of high-rise domestic buildings with the same type of ACM that was found on Grenfell tower. However, ministers are aware that, although such cladding was clearly a major contributing factor to the rapid spread of the fire, it may not have been the only one. We will therefore be ready to respond to any relevant findings or recommendations that emerge from the Grenfell tower public inquiry, and our work programme will remain flexible in order to allow us to take any appropriate actions.
Although it is important to understand which buildings have ACM on them, it is equally important to understand that the presence of ACM cladding by itself does not necessarily mean that a building is defective or dangerous. It is the extent of use of ACM as part of the overall cladding system that forms part of the judgment of a building’s safety, and it is information on that that we sought to collate.
We quickly gathered information from all local authorities that no social high-rise buildings were clad in ACM, and we then gained clarity from 31 local authorities that no ACM had been found in building warrant applications for private domestic high-rise buildings.
Glasgow City Council reported the presence of ACM on some private high-rise properties. We offered that council assistance in further interrogating the information that it holds, and it has now accepted that offer. We expect it to establish soon the exact number of its buildings with ACM, the type of ACM and the extent of its use as part of cladding systems. From that, we expect Glasgow City Council to provide the same information that we have received from other local authorities. As the committee rightly noted during its previous evidence session, Glasgow City Council has a responsibility to its residents to progress that work as a matter of urgency.
I hope that that brief overview of a very complicated issue is of use and that the committee recognises that the ministerial working group is taking all of the issue very seriously. Our work programme covers a number of important streams of work, and we have put mechanisms in place to ensure that we are able to take action as and when needed.