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To paraphrase, then, a process has been taking place over four years, with a number of fire advice notices being produced and various other bits and pieces happening, and there have been meetings with developers to get to the point where publicly available specification—or PAS—9980, which I think you meant, could be agreed.

Thanks for going into that detail. Prior to talking about the numbers, you gave a bit of background to explain why, potentially, we are in this position.

I appreciate that acknowledgement and I think that some of our other questions might help to surface some other reasons why we are concerned. I will bring in Willie Coffey.

Meghan, I appreciate your digging into those points. Finally, I bring in Mark Griffin to ask a supplementary question.

Good morning, and welcome to the 34th meeting in 2024 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. Mark Griffin is joining us online today, and we have received apologies from Fulton MacGregor and Emma Roddick. I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent.

The first item on our agenda is to decide whether to take items 6, 7 and 8 in private. Do we agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you so much. It is helpful for us to hear that the cycle of feedback and reflection is useful for you in developing your approaches. I have a couple of opening questions, then I will bring in other members.

The SPSO was set up in 2002 to provide

“a public sector complaints system which is open, accountable, easily accessible to all and has the trust of the Scottish public.”

What evidence can the SPSO provide that shows that those aims have been achieved?

Item 3 is evidence from the Minister for Housing on the legislative consent memorandum to the Renters’ Rights Bill, which is LCM-S6-49. The minister is joined for this item by Scottish Government officials. Craig Campbell is from housing registers policy and is housing registers and policy casework manager; Laura McMahon is a solicitor in the legal directorate; and Yvette Sheppard is head of the housing legislation and reform unit. Before we begin, I invite the minister to make a brief opening statement.

So that we can connect this into our conversation, can you say how many complaints there have been about public services this year and how that number compares with those in previous years?

Thanks very much. We have a few questions on the LCM.

I appreciate your setting out what you hope to achieve by bringing the LCM to Parliament, but I would be interested to hear how you think that the provisions fit into the wider work that the Scottish Government is undertaking on private rented sector reform. Could you give an example of how the provisions might work in practice? For example, if a prospective tenant saw an advert for a let that stated, “No tenants on benefits”, what should they do and what should they expect to happen?

We will now go online and bring Mark Griffin in.