Chamber and committees

Pam Gosal, you indicated that you had an interest on rural issues and housing. Do you still want to come in on that?

Why is that?

Callum Chomczuk, do you want to come in on the general question? We will talk about rents and evictions in detail later.

On the back of that, I am interested in whether there is an indication that landlords are not meeting their legal obligations when it comes to providing energy performance certificates to tenants, issuing gas safety certificates to tenants within 28 days of a check and providing a copy of the electrical inspection condition report to tenants, where that is legally required. Do you have information on those things that landlords are meant to do? Are they generally doing that across Scotland? If that information was posted publicly, could that be used as an indication of a good landlord?

In the future, how will we know what impact the bill has had on the private rented sector and on tenants’ lives? We are interested in whether you think that the bill should, in the interests of transparency, include a requirement for the Scottish Government or local authorities to regularly report on the impacts. If so, what key indicators should be used to measure the impacts?

Does COSLA have a perspective on that?

The next item on our agenda is to take evidence on the Housing (Scotland) Bill. We are joined in the room by Tony Cain, who is policy manager for the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers, which is otherwise known as ALACHO, and by Callum Chomczuk, who is national director of the Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland. We are joined online by Mike Callaghan, who is policy manager for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I welcome the witnesses to the meeting.

We have quite a few questions. We will try to direct them to witnesses so that they know what is coming. Mike Callaghan, if you type R in the chat function, we will know to bring you in. There is no need for the witnesses in the room to operate their microphones.

I will begin with a general question for Tony Cain and Mike Callaghan initially, but Callum Chomczuk is welcome to come in. In your submissions, you identify a lack of coherence in the bill. Will you expand on your views on the overall coherence and effectiveness of the bill as a package of measures to assist in the realisation of a new deal for tenants? What improvements could be made?

Mike Callaghan, would you like to come in on that question and talk about COSLA’s submission?

We will move on to focus on rent specifically and I will bring in Willie Coffey.

The good news is that we will hear from the Minister for Housing next week, so you have primed the pump for our discussions with him. Thank you very much for joining us today and for a very useful conversation. We have gone over time, but I let the meeting run on because it was very helpful to hear from you.

That was the last item in public on our agenda, so I close the public part of the meeting.