Chamber and committees

That is an area about which concern has been raised. There must be a level of public trust in the processes that are in place, whether in relation to procurement, building standards or construction methods, which I mentioned earlier. We must always ensure that public trust is maintained and that people have the reassurance of knowing that those who procure buildings do so in the right manner and for the right reasons. Mention has been made of best value and energy standards, and all those aspects need to be looked at during the procurement process.

At this point, I am reassured, but if there are any areas where lessons need to be learned, the Government stands ready to do that. We have processes in place in the Government for such concerns to be raised directly with ministers through officials, for example through their work with professional bodies, so that we can act accordingly.

I will take the NHS as an example. Of course, bodies in other parts of the public sector are working to different timescales. In the NHS, based on the progress that has been made to date, we expect the surveys to be completed by the end of November. The work that is on-going is looking first at buildings that are perceived to present the highest risk, to ensure that the necessary work is undertaken.

When it comes to the school sector and the small number of buildings—it is a very small number—on which more invasive work is required, we have been reassured that that can be done during the October holidays, when staff and students will not be in situ, and completed by the end of October.

There is a variety of works teams in place for different sectors. I have given the examples of the NHS and schools and have explained where we are as regards the speed with which that work has progressed to date.

We are at the discovery phase. As I mentioned in my introductory remarks, we are working with the regulator and councils to establish the scale of the issue in social housing. That will also ensure that we have a greater awareness of what might affect certain schemes in which people have exercised their right to buy in previous years. We are already conscious of the issue. I have asked officials to look at it, and to ensure that we discuss it with the local authorities.

We are also conscious that, as we sit here and talk about these things in the round, we are talking about people’s homes and concerns. We are keen to be able to reassure, wherever possible. One of the most important ways of doing that is for councils and registered social landlords to work, as they are doing, to ensure that we have a greater awareness of the extent of the problem.

As I have said, I have already tasked officials to work with COSLA and others to see what we can learn from previous examples in which there has been a right to buy in areas of non-traditional construction methods.

We have a degree of reassurance on some of those issues. Stephen Garvin is involved with a group on which that issue has already been raised. At the start of the process, the Government had questions on capacity and capability—Stephen can give more detail on the reassurances that we have already attempted to receive.

One of the key aspects is the level of expertise and knowledge that already exists in our 32 local authorities, which is very important. We should compare that with the rather disparate nature of the situation down in England, particularly in education, where schools do not have the ability to access local authority knowledge because of the different way in which the system is set up.

We are very close to the fact that we need to keep an eye on the issue. Whether there is a role for Government or whether it is a role for someone else, we are already asking questions about that.

I will bring in Stephen Garvin, as he is on the group that has discussed that issue.

Forgive me for interrupting, but the issue of transparency is important. We have been very keen to work with local authorities to ensure that the information relating to the school estate was published and that information was given to parents about the extent of the issue in a particular building and the mitigations and other measures in place. Clearly, the naming of a building could give rise to great concern that the problem is throughout the building when, in fact, it affects only a very small part of it. In some cases, it turned out that the issue affected a part of the school estate that had not been used for years. The local authorities have that information, which will be published, and they will continue to update it.

In the NHS, each health board will publish that data for its area, and NHS Scotland Assure will publish an update for the whole of Scotland. That will ensure that that information is brought together at strategic level for the whole of Scotland. I am very keen to do that, but in such a way that the responsible building owner provides information to, for example, parents and staff and trade unions about where that is a concern within a building, so that context and reassurance can be given rather than just a list of names.

A really significant part of the evidence that the committee heard earlier this morning was about how knowledge about and expertise on the situation with RAAC has developed over time. Research is, of course, a very important aspect as we learn more about RAAC. It is already being discussed at the UK-wide level and Scottish Government officials are involved in those discussions. The Scottish Government is not looking at the issue alone.

With the possible exception of the Department for Education down south, we are trying to work collaboratively and jointly to discuss research, the capacity in professional organisations and so on. I recognise that the previous panel discussed that and I reassure the committee that it is being discussed across Governments, including the devolved Administrations, to see what more needs to be done in that area.

That is perhaps something that the first panel could have assisted with, but I will give an overview.

There might be a number of issues. You heard from Scottish Fire and Rescue Service colleagues earlier that some of the work can be done in the building, which can still be used. A variety of things can be done. The work might be to deal with water ingress that is having an impact.

I will ask Stephen Booth to assist in answering that question, and perhaps refer you back to the professional bodies that were on the first panel.

You touch on a very important point. I urge colleagues right across the Parliament to be very careful about the terms that they use when talking about RAAC. Members have used terms that would suggest that there is an imminent risk of collapse or that there has been a collapse or structural failure that suggests that we should have closed buildings earlier. We need to be cautious in our use of language in this area.

We are taking the issue very seriously and have been doing so for some time. I hope that the committee is reassured about that. We are happy to provide further evidence of how that work has been taken forward, not just by the Government but by others. However, some of the public discourse has been unhelpful and may cause concern.

We all have a responsibility to ensure that the Government is being held to account and that we are doing what we need to do—and the same is true for local authorities. However, it is not the case that, if people are in a building that has been identified as containing RAAC, they are in an unsafe building, and we must reassure them that the building owner is monitoring the building to continually check that it remains safe. If anything changes and the Institution of Structural Engineers guidance required mitigation to take place or a full building closure, that would happen. Indeed, it has already happened in some areas. It has not come as a surprise. In some parts of the school estate, work had already been undertaken before the summer and areas of the schools were closed.

That aspect of reassurance about the situation is very important, as is the reassurance that we will continue to stay in close contact with the Institution of Structural Engineers, the HSE and other Governments to ensure that, if anything in our approach needs to change or if there is anything that we think should change in the wider public sector’s approach, we will be saying that publicly.

We listened carefully to the previous session, so I will bring in Stephen Garvin, who can go through some areas of work that have already been looked at and say where the discussions are at this point.

I stress that, as I mentioned in my original remarks, it was the Department for Education and not the UK Government as a whole that signalled a change. We have not received any evidence that would suggest that we should do anything differently from what we are doing and have been doing for some time, which is to look at the Institution of Structural Engineers guidance. We have not seen compelling evidence that justifies the Department for Education in England’s departure from that IStructE guidance. We have asked for all the information that is available to ensure that everyone is sharing that information and that we have full knowledge. However, as I think you heard this morning, IStructE has confirmed that its guidance remains good practice in the area and that it uses the risk-based approach to managing RAAC.

I again point to the fact that there is a very different management model for schools in England, where more than 3,000 bodies are responsible for the school estate. In Scotland, the 32 local authorities occupy that role, each of which has a professional estate management team. That is one of the many reasons why we do not feel that it is necessary or, indeed, would be wise to follow where the Department for Education has gone. The change relates to that one department in the UK Government; it is not UK Government-wide.