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Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 25 January 2024
Willie Coffey
Thank you very much for those responses.
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 25 January 2024
Willie Coffey
My other questions are about performance, the escalation measures and so on. You have mentioned several reports and a variety of recommendations from different people. Initially, in April 2022, HIS produced a set of nine requirements for the Forth Valley royal hospital. That was followed up, in the same year, by a further 11 requirements. Could you give us a little flavour of what those requirements are about? Why are they not being actioned, or are they being actioned now?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 25 January 2024
Willie Coffey
Do those recommendations all relate to governance?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Willie Coffey
Thanks and good morning. From listening to the conversation so far—and I am trying to place myself in the position of someone who has bought a property from you and lives in that property with this continuing risk—I get the feeling that the lack of progress has been pinned on complexities in the legislation, rather than the focus being on making the houses that people live in safe. Have you assessed your own stock over the 30-year period that the legislation covers and do you know which properties you built fall within the remit of the bill to have the cladding remediated? The big question is whether there is anything that you could have done or could do reasonably to address that, given that you know the condition of the buildings and the cladding that you may have. Is there anything that you could be doing outwith the complexities that you are describing this morning to get on with it, as some of the people in the previous panel were asking us all to do?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Willie Coffey
In the interests of time, no. I thank the witnesses very much for those contributions.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Willie Coffey
Yes, but, in your view, this is about Scottish building standards somehow slowing that process down. That was the sense that I got from you earlier—that, if only we could adopt the same standards as apply down south, that would somehow speed up the process in Scotland.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Willie Coffey
I will leave it at that. Thanks very much.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Willie Coffey
Thank you. Colleagues, should the bill be clearer about timescales for completion? It would not be usual to put deadlines and so on in a bill, but what do colleagues around the table feel about including in the bill some real hard and fast deadlines for completion of this work, from when the single building assessments are completed to actually getting the work done? Should we be firmer about including guidance on that in the bill?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Willie Coffey
Hi, folks. I am the MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Willie Coffey
I would like to go back to the point about how we could hasten progress and what the barriers to that are. We talked about building standards, and I think that Julie Jackson replied to a point about that. In Scotland, we are particularly proud of our building standards, and the legislation is more rigorous than that which applies down south. Julie, I have to come back to you on that point. Are you saying that Scotland should either loosen, slacken, lessen or abandon our building standards in order to make further progress?