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I noticed that George Walker wanted to respond to an earlier question.

Thanks for that, George. It is great that you have brought that up, because the net zero ambition is also impacted on by supply chains and labour shortages, which Michael talked about earlier. There are a lot of questions about how we are going to do all that work.

Miles Briggs has some questions.

Throughout this morning, I have been making notes on the board and how you are modelling such great governance with the tenants, as you discussed with Meghan Gallacher. You also mentioned that there are staff members on the board; I think that having people with on-the-ground experience can only lead to good governance and direction for an organisation.

Mark Griffin is now able to join us, which is great. I will give him the opportunity to ask some questions.

Thank you. Mark, do you have any further questions?

Thank you for asking that question—it was great, seeing as we have been discussing that subject with the minister in looking at the private rented sector and the new deal for tenants.

That brings us to a close. So much has come out of the discussion this morning—it has been really helpful for us. The witnesses discussed the fact that there are worries among landlords about net zero and how we do all that retrofitting, and I look forward to hearing about that.

That takes me back to a point that Michael Cameron talked about, which relates not necessarily to net zero but to the challenges that landlords face with regard to the quality of the housing that they have to work with. As we go forward, we really need to push for good-quality, good-standard housing, especially in the light of the fact that the Government has plans to build 110,000 new homes over the coming 10 years, or maybe a slightly longer period, and 70 per cent of that will be earmarked for social housing.

That brings up another question—which we do not have time to go into in this session, but which we can maybe touch on in a year—which is whether the Scottish Housing Regulator has the capacity to regulate 70 per cent of 110,000 new homes. It seems that you are going to be growing, but you will—from what we have heard this morning—be growing from a really great position.

I thank the witnesses for their evidence today. We agreed at the start of the meeting to take the next item in private so, as we have no more public business today, I close the public part of the meeting.

Good morning and welcome to the 10th meeting in 2022 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. I ask members and witnesses to ensure that their mobile phones are in silent mode and that all notifications are turned off during the meeting.

Willie Coffey and Graeme Dey join us remotely. Mark Griffin will also join us remotely but is unable to be here for the start of the meeting.

The first agenda item is to decide whether to take in private item 3, which is consideration of the evidence that we will take on the Scottish Housing Regulator’s annual report. Do we agree to take that item in private?

Members indicated agreement.

It is interesting that you had already had experience of working remotely. You had modelled resilience and had systems in place, so you were able to act quickly. When you talked about resilience in your opening remarks, I wrote down the question: “What would resilience look like?” I look forward to hearing more about that when you publish the report.

I want to pick up the issue of staff vacancies. How did that affect your work in 2021? I also ask that you update the committee on the latest recruitment position and whether there are remaining staff vacancies or budgetary pressures that might affect your current work plans.

You mentioned that recruitment was tough at that time, in the context of the pandemic. The committee is hearing from a lot of sectors across the board that it is difficult to find staff. Do you think that recruitment is tough in general, or are the difficulties to do with the pandemic? I am trying to get a sense of whether we face a crisis in finding people to take on jobs in all the sectors.

Item 2 is evidence on the Scottish Housing Regulator’s “Annual Performance Report and Accounts 2020/21”. We are joined by George Walker, the chair of the SHR, and Michael Cameron, the chief executive. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting.

Members have received copies of the annual report and accounts, along with a short summary of work that has taken place since the period covered by the report.

I invite Mr Walker to make a short opening statement.

Thank you, Mr Walker. You touched on the pandemic a little and I would love to hear more detail on that. How did the regulator respond to the risks arising from the Covid-19 pandemic? How did your response change as the pandemic progressed?