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The Scottish Government does not collect data in relation to the turnaround of unsuccessful applications. The following table shows the average processing time in months for successful applications during each of the last six years.

The following table shows how many staff have been allocated to the Home Owners Support Fund in recent years. Staff are fully trained and highly experienced and levels have been sufficient to meet demand for the Fund.

The following table shows Home Owners Support Fund (HOSF) budget and expenditure for each of the last six years broken down by Mortgage to Rent (MTR) and Mortgage to Shared Equity (MTSE). HOSF is a demand led scheme and any difference between budget and actual spend reflects demand in that year and so there is no underspend or carry forward.

An internal review of the Home Owners Support Fund began in the Spring and will complete later this year. If Ministers decide to make any changes to the eligibility or operational arrangements for the scheme updated guidance will be published.

My officials give priority to cases with repossession orders and where a trustee is forcing the sale of a property, the requirement for secured loan payments to be 3 months in arrears will be waived. The Scottish Government does not hold data relating to the number of these types of applications that have been processed.

Every building must gain the consent of homeowners in order to begin the contract process. Every building will require a qualified Fire Assessor to spend typically a number of weeks on and off-site to gather sufficient data and evidence to conduct a competent Single Building Assessment.

We are aware of the supply chain constraints in this field which is why we are working closely with Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Institute of Fire Engineers to ensure an appropriate stream of qualified assessors.

All the 15 buildings using the grant based approach have been issued grant letters and had initial payments to allow contracts to be placed. All have fire engineers and surveyors working on assessments.

A Single Building Assessment will deliver a full assessment of fire risks on a building by building basis to highlight any issues related to fire safety including, but not limited to underground car parks and charging points.

We are aware there may be constraints in the market place and we are working closely with a number of Scottish firms and with industry bodies and forums to monitor market availability, therefore we are able to prioritise Single Building Assessments.

The Cladding Remediation Unit was set up in June 2021 in the Local Government and Communities Directorate. The expenditure on staff whose primary role is to support the programme is:

a)

Core Scottish Government: 2021 - £241,280.00

Core Scottish Government: 2022 (until July) - £113,635.44

Interim contractors 2021 - £52,938.90

Interim contractors 2022 (until July) - £105,369.00

b) Since the start of the Single Building Assessment programme in June 2021 we have grant funded £432,613.63 to support 12 buildings who are currently undergoing assessment. We have a further £510,553 in committed spend to finish these buildings assessments and support 3 additional buildings in starting their assessments through the grant funding model. We have an additional 29 buildings where we will use procurement functions to hire fire engineers and access contractors to begin assessments.