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The Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning chaired all meetings of the working group, it met five times between 28 April 2020 and 15 March 2021.

Eight buildings have received grant payments and all other buildings are being supported through the Single Building Assessment process.

The bidding prospectus underlines the Scottish Government’s commitment to a Fair Work First approach, and also the commitment of all of Scotland’s local authorities. We would therefore hope and expect that all bids would reflect that. We have made clear that the Scottish Government will only support applications which include clear commitments on this front.

The Cladding Remediation Unit has 14 members of staff.

Once operational Green Freeports will be subject to rigorous monitoring and reporting requirements. The Scottish Government will keep their performance under close review right across the fair work agenda. Provision of appropriate channels for effective voice, such as trade union recognition, is a key aspect of our Fair Work First approach.

A grant model was used to enable a quick start to the programme and to test the viability of an arm’s length delivery approach based on established principles behind Scotland’s property systems. Interim learning from this approach shows there is a need to move to a model based on directly procured contracts to speed and scale delivery and at lower overall risk. This change was announced to the Scottish Parliament by myself on 12 May 2022 - Update on cladding remediation programme: Cabinet Secretary's statement - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The terms of reference for the Cladding Stakeholder Group state the members agreed to maintain confidentiality of discussions. Discussions at the group cover information associated with high priority buildings and this cannot be disclosed due to the privacy notice agreed with homeowners.

As the Minister with responsibility for this area, I am the only Minister to attend the Cladding Stakeholder Group.

The Scottish Government is actively looking at a number of ways to support homeowners affected by unsafe cladding, which may include property purchase schemes. We will work with stakeholders and homeowners to find solutions that work in the unique Scottish context, which does not include leaseholders.

The Scottish Government hold central records for its own and Transport Scotland’s fleet. A breakdown is provided in the following table.