Scottish government accused of ‘scandalous lack of urgency’ on facade cladding

As part of the programme launched by the Scottish Government in response to the Grenfell Tower fire, renovation work on the façade cladding of the affected buildings has not yet been completed.

While the cladding refurbishment pilot scheme contains 107 listings – which could be either individual buildings or multiple properties in a complex – details obtained by Scottish Labour under the Freedom of Information Act have revealed that work has only started on five of these.

And the Scottish Government added that “work to remediate the risks has not been completed for any of the entries”.

Assessments have so far been made for 30 of the 107 entries, the government added.

In contrast, a Holyrood committee report last year said that in England, work had either started or been completed on more than two-fifths of affected buildings (42%) by December 2023; that total includes 1,608 buildings.

Renovation work has been completed in 797 buildings (21%) in England, the report said.

Labour said the figures from Scotland showed a “lack of urgency” from ministers at Holyrood that was “scandalous”.

Following the fire in a London high-rise building that killed 72 people in 2017, the Scottish government launched a programme to renovate the facade cladding.

And earlier this year, Holyrood passed a Scottish Government bill designed to facilitate the implementation of the program.

The Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill empowers ministers to assess buildings with unsafe cladding and carry out remediation. All remediation work is then recorded in a special register.

But with work not completed on any buildings, Scottish Labour Party spokesman Mark Griffin slammed the government, saying: “The SNP's lack of urgency in removing this dangerous cladding from Scottish buildings is nothing short of scandalous.”

He said: “Years have passed since the Grenfell tragedy, yet the Scottish Government admits that work has not been completed on a single Scottish building.

“The SNP Government cannot take fire safety lightly – it must act with the urgency needed to remove this dangerous cladding from Scottish buildings.”

While the Scottish Government received £97 million in 2020 to solve the problem, Labour said only £9 million of that money had been spent.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “With the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act 2024 and the technical specification for single building assessment now in force, we are accelerating the pace of implementation. In our pilot programme, all 107 pilot entries will undergo the required pre-screening and if they fall within the framework they will be referred to a developer or Government-led Single Building Assessment (SBA). We have identified 12 pilot entries under the framework that do not have an associated developer and have confirmed that we will commission SBAs as a priority.

“When a developer or building owner is identified, we expect them to do the right thing in assessing and remediating buildings to bring them to a tolerable level of risk. We continue to work with stakeholders to understand the risk profile of different building categories and to gather information on the assessment and remediation activities.”