Seòmar agus comataidhean

Our next item is to take evidence as part of our scrutiny of the Scottish Housing Regulator. For this item of business, I welcome Evelyn Tweed MSP, and Paul Sweeney MSP also hopes to join us at some point.

The committee will hear from the SHR at its meeting on 17 December.

To inform our evidence session, the committee issued a call for views. Drawing on the responses to that call, the committee will hear from two panels of witnesses. On our first panel, we are joined by David Bookbinder, director, Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations; Tony Cain, policy manager, Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers, otherwise known as ALACHO; Patrick Gilbride, retired director, Dalmuir Park Housing Association; Daryl McIntosh, chief executive officer, Share Ltd; and Alan Stokes, policy lead at the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations.

I welcome all witnesses to the meeting. There is no need for you to turn your microphones on and off, as we will do that for you—that is one less thing to think about.

I will open our discussions with a couple of questions on your general views. My first question is about the statutory remit of the SHR and whether it is performing effectively. The SHR’s statutory remit is

“to safeguard and promote the interests of current and future tenants, people who are (or may become) homeless, factored owners and Gypsy Travellers.”

I will start at one end, then work across. Tony Cain, will you comment on whether, in general, the SHR is performing its statutory remit effectively?

There is something in there that maybe needs to be taken forward, so that we can look at why the experience in one place is different from the experience in another. Unfortunately, we do not have time to get into that at the moment, but we will make a note of that.

Okay. Who wants to pick that up?

Okay. We have had some good catch phrases this morning. [Laughter.]

I thank Paul Sweeney and Evelyn Tweed for joining us this morning and for their questions. I also thank the witnesses. It has been a really interesting and illuminating discussion and I really appreciate your coming in and giving your views this morning.

With that, I will briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

We are joined on our second panel by Lindsay Anderson, chair of the Link Group tenant scrutiny panel; James Calder, national policy and engagement officer at the Minority Ethnic Carers of People Project; Shona Gorman, vice-chair at Tenants Together Scotland; and Robyn Kane, secretary of Edinburgh Tenants Federation.

There is no need for you to turn your microphones on and off—we will do that for you. We will be directing our questions as much as possible to specific witnesses, but you are all welcome to contribute. Please signal clearly so that I catch your intention to come in.

I understand that Robyn Kane would like to declare an interest that is relevant to the session.

Thanks very much. I begin with a general question about how well the Scottish Housing Regulator is performing in its statutory remit. I remind us all that that remit is to safeguard and promote the interests of current and future tenants, people who are or may become homeless, factored owners and Gypsy Travellers. This question is for all of you. Do you have a sense of whether the SHR is performing that statutory remit effectively?

That was a general question. We missed a bit of it, so I will fill that in—it was about the awareness and understanding of the SHR’s role and functions.

Willie, do you want to follow up on that?

Thanks very much. Willie, are you done?

To clarify, although you mentioned a balance and that a more in-person, physical approach could be taken, do you feel that things are set up well now?