'Lives at risk' as ministers spend just 11% of £97m Scots safety fund

The Herald Scotland

a day ago

There are concerns that that is no change from an assessment by the Scottish Parliament's local government, housing and planning committee from February, last year which found that only two of 105 being assessed in Scotland at that point for cladding remediation have had any work carried out.
A total of 72 people lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower fire in London in 2017. Its cladding is believed to have contributed to the rapid spread of the blaze.
The Scottish government set up a cladding remediation programme following the disaster, but it has come under fire for failing to act quickly enough.
A block of flats in Aberdeen is the first in Scotland to have dangerous cladding removed last year (Image: Michael Tait Communications Ltd) It has emerged that an April analysis on spending from the Scottish Government shows just £10.823m out of the £97.1m received from Westminster via Barnett consequentials five years ago has been spent to deal with potentially flammable cladding on buildings
And the financial commitment has slumped from £6.752m in 2023/24 to £2.243m in 2024/25.
Scottish Government analysis shows that around one in nine residential buildings over 11m (36ft) tall may require work to on their external wall systems in the wake of Grenfell.
READ MORE:
Why is the Grenfell Tower blaze tragedy a disaster for Scotland?
'Outrageous': Row over ScotGov's 'undemocratic' consultation over rent rises
Why can't ScotGov end the nation's housing emergency?
'Appalling': Hundreds of Scots evicted from council homes despite ScotGov ban
It is now estimated that between 1,260 and 1,450 of the residential buildings in Scotland which are 11 metres or over may require repairs to external wall systems that over life-safety fire risks.
So far, as of the end of June three Single Building Assessments (SBAs) resulted in work being required - with just two started.
In England as of June of the 5,190 buildings being monitored for unsafe cladding, 2,490 (48%) have started or completed remediation works, of which 1,767 (34%) have been completed.
Some 15 SBAs were underway or completed as of the end of June, with 14 funded by the Scottish Government and one by a developer.
There are also a further 600 expressions of interest (EoIs) in what is described as a Single Open Call process which allows property owners to apply for government funding to have their properties assessed using SBAs. Nearly 200 of those were from Scottish councils.
The Scottish Government says that at the end of end of July, 258 initial grant offers have been made to building owners and residents to take forward an SBA.
Scottish Labour's housing spokesman Mark Griffin said: 'These figures lay bare the SNP's reckless inaction on cladding.
Mark Griffin said ministers have been sitting on the fund"Ministers have been sitting on millions of pounds of cladding funding, but progress has been dangerously slow.
'The SNP must show the urgency needed, use the resources it already has, and ramp up action to rid Scottish buildings of this dangerous cladding and keep people safe.'
The Scottish Tenants Organisation said: "The Scottish Government is putting financial cost ahead of life and safety of tenants and residents of Scotland and it is not acceptable.
"The taxpayers' money was handed to the Scottish Government to remediate dangerous cladding and it is scandalous that so little of it has been used."
The Scottish Government's Cladding Remediation Programme was set up in the wake of Grenfell to safeguard residents and homeowners by addressing the fire safety risk to human life that is directly or indirectly created or exacerbated by a building's external wall cladding system.
It was also established to help deal with the consequential negative impacts which can exist in relation to the buying, selling and re-mortgaging of flats in Scotland.
At the time of Grenfell, cladding regulations were already stricter in Scotland than the rest of the UK, due to legislation that had been introduced in 2005.
This followed a fatal fire at the Garnock Court tower block in Irvine in 1999.
A 55-year-old man died in the fire and five other people, including a 15-month-old child, were injured in the Irvine blaze.
Witnesses reported that a vertical ribbon of cladding on one corner of the block was quickly ablaze and the fire reached the 12th floor within 10 minutes of it starting.
The flats were owned by North Ayrshire Council, who ordered the removal of plastic cladding and PVC window frames as a precaution "at whatever cost" so they could be replaced with safer materials.
The then local MP, Brian Donohoe, said at the time he believed there was something "quite wrong" in the use of the cladding.
Sean Clerkin, campaign co-ordinator for the STO, who was invited to give evidence at a Scottish parliamentary examination of the cladding issues said: "This is a major failing of Scottish Government policy and needs to urgently tackled."
Housing secretary Mairi McAllan (Image: Derek McArthur) Last week, the housing secretary Mairi McAllan announced a further £20m to speed up action to remove dangerous cladding in Scotland.
She said she was "determined" that, by 2029, every high-risk residential building over 18 metres will have been resolved, with buildings between 11 and 18 metres placed on a "clear pathway to resolution".
A deadline of October 31, 2025, was set by which developers must sign the developers' remediation contract, an agreement between the UK government and major developers, requiring them to fix life-critical fire safety defects in buildings they developed or refurbished over the past 30 years.
A Scottish Government spokesman said it was unfair to say that progress has been dangerously slow.
'This is an inaccurate portrayal of where Scotland's cladding remediation programme is currently at and doesn't reflect recent progress," said the spokesman.
'Since legislation came in to force in January, which gave ministers the necessary legal powers, more than 250 initial grant offers have been made to building owners and residents to take forward a Single Building Assessment.
'Ministers have committed that by 2029 every high-risk residential building over 18 metres will have been resolved, with buildings between 11 and 18 metres placed on a clear pathway to resolution.'