Seòmar agus comataidhean

The data is a piece of work that we need to look at in a little more detail across the housing sector. Again, it comes back to the work of the Scottish Housing Regulator in relation to what data it collects and how it uses its influence across Scotland. We have discussed that issue with COSLA. The housing to 2040 group—I know that we will touch on it later—has also talked more broadly about the use of data. A review group is looking at the data, and that is one of the issues that needs to be looked at. If you are referring purely to data on the housing repairing standard, a wee piece of work needs to be done on how we look at that and I would be keen to see that work. The situation is mixed across different local authorities and we need to develop that a bit further to understand it. It comes back to the damp and mould issue, for example. The Scottish Housing Regulator has the ability to write to the City of Edinburgh Council and other local authorities and say, “What is your data collection like?” and, “What are you doing around that?” That needs to be monitored on an on-going basis all the time. We need to progress that with the housing to 2040 group, COSLA and ALACHO.

Previously, you mentioned going back to the 1970s. I cannot comment on what went on in the 1970s and what programmes were in place. The convener mentioned at the outset that carrying out building MOTs is an important part of it. As matters continue to evolve through the discussions about RAAC and cladding, there needs to be a broader overview and a broader consultation.

You mentioned the work that the Scottish Housing Regulator is doing. That is probably about where RAAC has been identified. Where a number of houses with RAAC have been identified—in Aberdeen, for example, as was mentioned before—a more detailed piece of work needs to be done on what their situation is actually like. Aberdeen City Council is currently going through that work with all the affected residents. It is having one-to-one discussions with residents about what their options are, what their situation is and what condition surveys have been carried out on the properties. That work, which is being done with the Scottish Housing Regulator, continues to evolve, and we discuss it regularly with the regulator.

It then comes back to what comes out of those more detailed pieces of work, such as those being done in Aberdeen city and Clackmannanshire, and what that looks like going forward. A key thing is that, last year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated that the Government would “spend what it takes” to deal with RAAC, but so far no funding has been identified, including in the recent budget, so we need to see what comes out of that work to identify the requirements that Aberdeen City and Clackmannanshire have. We are not at that place yet. Those matters will be raised with the councils, and they have already said that they will discuss it with us when they get to the options appraisals and what the situation actually looks like.

There are a number of key issues in addition to that. One is about insurance. When the Aberdeen issue came up, we had a discussion with the Association of British Insurers about it. While insurance will not cover RAAC, properties will continue to be insured.

The other key issue involved talking to UK Finance about how it is dealing with the situation with private owners and what that situation will be going forward. UK Finance is in discussions with us and with local authorities on advising residents on what they need to do at this stage. Also, as I said, there will be discussions with Aberdeen City Council on its longer-term options appraisal, which will include private residents and social tenants. That piece of work is still on-going. We get a weekly update from Aberdeen on the number of discussions that it has had and what it is trying to do. We will have more detailed discussions with the council when it gets to the situation around the options appraisal and what that looks like, and any specific help from us would be highlighted at that time. We are not at that position yet, but I am happy to come back to the committee when more detail comes forward.

We are working closely with the regulator to do that. As the committee can understand, it is a big piece of work to try to identify that right across Scotland.

The Scottish house condition survey showed that 1.91 million homes in Scotland—75 per cent—were fully compliant, but about 25 per cent, or 638,000 homes, were recorded as not having satisfactory equipment for detecting fire. In the social rented sector, about 6 per cent of homes, or 38,000, were recorded as not having such satisfactory equipment. That survey was carried out in 2022, and physical surveys were also carried out between April 2022 and March 2023. We have probably seen more progress since then, but they were the figures from the latest Scottish house condition survey.

Discussions are on-going with local authorities about what they need to do to move forward more broadly. I think that the figures that I gave for compliance have probably increased, and I hope that the next house condition survey will show an increase.

I am not aware of the full figures, but I can write to the committee. The Scottish house condition survey is carried out in buildings across the country, and I think that there has been an increase in implementation. I do not know whether any of my officials can give an update now, but I can come back to the committee on that point.

It is important to set the context. As house builders will tell you, the macroeconomic situation and the interest rates have not helped the market in Scotland, Wales or England.

However, the outlook on that is probably more positive now. When I have spoken to developers, they have used the term “green shoots”, so recovery is taking place. It will be interesting to see what the next decision on interest rates is, because the market is starting to pick up.

I hope that the macroeconomic situation will make a difference. That impacts on not only people’s general outlook, but the cost of borrowing. The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and individual housing developers have told us that that has had an impact, because they have budgeted for interest rates at 2 or 3 per cent, but they are paying more than 5 per cent. I will touch on the banking side of things by mentioning that things are particularly tight around borrowing. However, last year, house building completions were at the highest rate for about 20 years. That is the context. I appreciate the challenges and the drop in numbers.

A number of things are really important. I come back to the housing to 2040 strategy group. At the previous meeting, we talked about the longer-term objectives and the most important priorities currently. One of those is supply. Joe Brown or Laura Dougan might want to say something on that particular point.

One group is looking at short-term supply. We are also talking about the number of voids and empties. That is not to do with house building; it is to do with short-term supply.

Your other point was about innovative finance. We have had a number of discussions on that in the past number of months. As I think I said when I came into this post, one of the key priorities is about flexing up finance in the sector. A number of months ago, we had a round-table discussion with housing associations, where we talked with, for example, the Scottish Futures Trust, the Scottish National Investment Bank and the hub company about whether we could look at different models. That work continues. We had the same discussion with registered social landlords and housing associations.

Is there more work that we can do on that? Just two weeks ago, when I was down in London, we held the first meeting of our housing investment task force, which includes institutional investors, banks, members of Homes for Scotland, ALACHO and local authorities, where we considered various finance models. I will ask Joe Brown to come in on that particular point. What will the task force produce? Minutes will be published, and it will come forward with recommendations. That takes us back to our collaborative approach to working with the sector.

Ken Gibb was also there and he spoke about the opportunities. I do not know whether you have seen the article in The Herald in which he talked about the UK and Scottish Governments working together on, for example, guarantees, additional borrowing powers and the local housing allowance. To use his exact words,

“Housing is not wholly devolved.”

Some ask will be made, and it is important that we have a number of discussions with the new UK Government—whoever it is—in October and November about how it can give us the ability to be more flexible in terms of financing. That is really important. That is a broader view.

I want to mention a couple of other points, too. Laura Dougan or Joe Brown might want to come in on the subject of short-term supply, and particularly on how the housing investment task force will continue to develop—separate groups will take work forward and the task force will meet quarterly. Joe, do you want to kick off on the logistics around that particular group?

There are a number of things to mention. First, £35 million has been set aside this year to deal with the issue.

On the housing emergencies that have been declared, the week before last I was up in Argyll and Bute to talk to housing associations and some of the island communities about the position that they are in. The local authority, which is a stock transfer authority, is developing its housing emergency action plan and we have agreed to work closely with it. We are having the same discussions with it that we have had with Edinburgh—I have a meeting with the City of Edinburgh Council tomorrow or Thursday to talk about the details of its housing emergency action plan. Glasgow City Council is developing its housing emergency action plan, and we have agreed to work with it on that, too. We are also having similar discussions with Fife Council on its housing emergency action plan, which it has indicated will be published in June, and are working closely with it on how it develops that.

As I have said in the chamber, the response of each area is different, and it is important that we work specifically with each local authority on its plans. I mentioned the funding that has been set aside already for this year, and we are working on that with them.

There are other important issues relating to homelessness, such as the issue of voids, empty homes and allocations. Some figures that we are clarifying at the moment indicate that there is a lot of work to be done on that issue that would make a real difference. We are engaged in on-going discussions on that with ALACHO and COSLA, and I am confident that something will come out of that soon. Obviously, we will come back to the committee on that point.

There are a couple of other important factors. We want to work with the UK Government on the two biggest issues that were raised in the Crisis homelessness monitor, including the issue of the local housing allowance, which will be a key ask for whatever UK Government comes in later this year. We need to increase local housing allowance—there is no doubt about that. That is not only my view but the view that is expressed in the Crisis homelessness monitor, based on work that was carried out by Heriot-Watt University.

The other big issue that the Crisis homelessness monitor raised was the level of universal credit, which must be taken into account.

Of course, we need to increase the supply of houses and we need to build more homes—I talked about the discussions that the housing investment task force is having about what we can do with regard to the supply side—but we need support from the UK Government in terms of the local housing allowance and universal credit. As I said, that is not only my view but the view of Crisis, as expressed in the homelessness monitor. That comes back to what we need to ask of the next UK Government when it comes in.

Of course we need to build more homes. You mentioned the figures. How can we increase the finance that is available to build more homes? A number of pieces of work are going on around that, including the housing investment task force.

The other key thing is that there are opportunities. I talked about the work of SSEN and the seven or eight renewables hubs that are being built in Scotland. SSEN has just employed somebody to go through that. The connection with homelessness is that we will be looking for accommodation for workers in those areas because, if we do not have enough housing, whether it is temporary accommodation or whatever, all that that will do is to increase homelessness in those areas. There is a detailed piece of work being done by SSEN on how we house workers in temporary accommodation over, probably, two or three years, and what the legacy opportunities are. We had a meeting about the green freeport in November, which involved the five big companies that are involved up there. We had about a dozen housing developers, of which about 10 have not built in that area at all. There are economic development opportunities—that is replicated across Scotland—but we need to consider how we can ensure that they do not impact on different parts of Scotland. Pieces of work on that are going on, and there are opportunities to build more houses.

On homelessness, we can work on the voids, empty homes and allocations, but of course we need to build more homes. We have touched on what that would look like.

The £60 million that we have talked about has made a dramatic difference in that respect, and being able to flex the funding in the system will be key when we look at continuing our approach to acquisitions. The resource planning assumptions for local authorities might be coming out, but the fact is that they already have the flexibility and the powers to look at acquisitions. Having spoken to the local officers, I know that they are having those local discussions.

Again, we have said to local authorities that they have the power to look at acquisitions now, and we will be flexible in any discussions on the matter. We are continuing to look at more funding opportunities and to flex the funding in the system, but local authorities have the ability to do these things now.

I am not sure whether Joe Brown or Laura Dougan can respond. I will have to come back to you on that. I know that the review is on-going. I can write to the committee on that.

I have touched on those actions briefly. One is resource, and the committee has previously discussed the resource that is required. The current resource review is therefore incredibly important. Homes for Scotland is part of that review.

I have mentioned the planning round-table that we had, which Homes for Scotland was involved in. We are having discussions with Heads of Planning Scotland at the moment, which have been productive so far. Another round table is planned on how we look at those issues. That is one part of resource.

The second part is about what the transition from national planning framework 3 to NPF4 will look like, which has been raised in the feedback that we received. It comes back to deliverability and a focus on resource—how we get the plans done in time, which is the focus of the round table that is looking at the transition from NPF3 to NPF4. Joe FitzPatrick and I have joint meetings with Homes for Scotland, and those issues have been raised. The round table was held partly to look at those issues, which the resource review feeds into. Obviously, we need to look at the planning system so that it works as effectively as possible. That work is on-going. I, or Mr Fitzpatrick, will be happy to come back to the committee and report on progress.

You made a point about delivery of new starts. That relates to how we support the SME sector because, as we have seen, it is more vulnerable in some situations—for example, when interest rates or borrowing costs go up. We are having discussions about our support of SMEs through the resource review and how we make sure that we transition from NPF3 to NPF4 and to local development plans.

Again, Homes for Scotland has done work on demand and is having individual discussions with local authorities on local development plans and what the minimum all-tenures housing land requirement—MATHLR—process involves. That all feeds into what we are doing. It is about resources and making sure that the system works as effectively as possible.

I note that I have not been a councillor for 15 years. The larger developments do take longer, but 62 weeks is too long—the resource review has indicated that. There is also a piece of work to be done with Homes for Scotland, for example. It has to be a partnership in terms of the information that is provided at the start of an application. There may be on-going back-and-forth discussions where people say, “We need this”, and it may take time for information to come back. I saw that in relation to applications when I was a councillor.

The review will look at where the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Scottish Water come in and how those organisations can speed up their processes. They have been part of the discussions on reducing the length of time that applications take. Mr FitzPatrick is probably the best person to speak about the specifics, but I know that there have been discussions with SEPA and Scottish Water, as statutory consultees, about reducing the time that applications take. The time varies in different parts of Scotland, so we need to learn from best practice and reduce the time period for applications. I hope that we will begin to show some progress on that through the resource review and the round tables that we have been having. We have another one planned.