Chamber and committees

Good morning and welcome to the 10th meeting in 2022 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. I ask members and witnesses to ensure that their mobile phones are in silent mode and that all notifications are turned off during the meeting.

Willie Coffey and Graeme Dey join us remotely. Mark Griffin will also join us remotely but is unable to be here for the start of the meeting.

The first agenda item is to decide whether to take in private item 3, which is consideration of the evidence that we will take on the Scottish Housing Regulator’s annual report. Do we agree to take that item in private?

Members indicated agreement.

It is interesting that you had already had experience of working remotely. You had modelled resilience and had systems in place, so you were able to act quickly. When you talked about resilience in your opening remarks, I wrote down the question: “What would resilience look like?” I look forward to hearing more about that when you publish the report.

I want to pick up the issue of staff vacancies. How did that affect your work in 2021? I also ask that you update the committee on the latest recruitment position and whether there are remaining staff vacancies or budgetary pressures that might affect your current work plans.

You mentioned that recruitment was tough at that time, in the context of the pandemic. The committee is hearing from a lot of sectors across the board that it is difficult to find staff. Do you think that recruitment is tough in general, or are the difficulties to do with the pandemic? I am trying to get a sense of whether we face a crisis in finding people to take on jobs in all the sectors.

Item 2 is evidence on the Scottish Housing Regulator’s “Annual Performance Report and Accounts 2020/21”. We are joined by George Walker, the chair of the SHR, and Michael Cameron, the chief executive. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting.

Members have received copies of the annual report and accounts, along with a short summary of work that has taken place since the period covered by the report.

I invite Mr Walker to make a short opening statement.

Thank you, Mr Walker. You touched on the pandemic a little and I would love to hear more detail on that. How did the regulator respond to the risks arising from the Covid-19 pandemic? How did your response change as the pandemic progressed?

It is good to hear that overview of what you have been doing. Willie Coffey, who joins us online, will ask the next questions.

That is reassuring.

You talked about how you were able to move quickly to remote working. Will you say a bit about how you supported your staff to work from home, when that became necessary?

It is interesting that remote working has brought staff wellbeing to the forefront and emphasised the importance of that to organisations.

Earlier, you spoke about the work that staff are carrying out. The regulator’s work involves engaging with landlords and tenants but, suddenly, you were moved into a remote world. I would love to understand more about how that work was carried out. Were you able to be effective over the past year?

Meghan Gallacher has questions on charter awareness.

Thank you, George, for bringing that to the front. It is good for the committee to hear that and to recognise all that work and all the engagement that takes place.

Graeme Dey has some questions about social landlords’ maintenance of their homes.