Building standards

Cladding

Cladding refers to an external wall covering used on some buildings. Cladding can be used to provide thermal insulation, weather resistance or to improve the appearance of a building. 

 The Cladding Remediation Programme aims to protect residents and homeowners by addressing the risks to life and other impacts associated with unsafe external wall cladding systems, following the Grenfell Tower Fire in 2017.  

The Programme seeks to do this by creating the approach for assessment of buildings, and ensuring that works identified to address any relevant risks to life are taken forward.   

It is anticipated that these actions will also help address the negative impacts which can exist in relation to the buying, selling, remortgaging and insuring of affected properties.   

• read our cladding remediation factsheet to find out more information about the Programme
• if you are a homeowner or resident you can sign up to receive our ​​​regular newsletter  and be kept up-to-date about the Programme. You can also read previous editions of our newsletter
• you can contact us directly via email at CommunicationsCladding@gov.scot
• we publish monthly management information and a quarterly official statistics in development publication, providing data and information on the progress of the Cladding Remediation Programme. All current and previous publications can be found in the Cladding Remediation statistics collection
• we published capital spend forecasts for cladding remediation in the public sector

Plan of action on cladding remediation

We published the latest update of the plan of action from 2025. In summary this plan sets out the following key actions:

• increase Single Open Call (stage one) funding to £20 million to help identify risks earlier and ensure buildings are ready to progress on a remediation pathway at the earliest opportunity
• equal access to funding for social housing and private residential properties
• launch of stage two of the Single Open Call on 7 August 2025
• accelerate mitigations by making £10 million in funding available to support the installation, upgrade, or overhaul of interlinked fire alarm systems in private, multi-owner buildings with cladding, where a need is identified at any stage during the Single Building Assessment process (SBA)
• begin the remediation pathway for buildings with completed SBA
• establish remediation pathways for all buildings over 18 metres
• complete the information-gathering exercise on all relevant buildings over 11 metres owned by local authorities or Registered Social Landlords
• finalise the Developer Remediation Contract

The first plan of action is available online.

Single Open Call  

In March 2025 we launched a new scheme for residential property owners, or their representatives, to notify us of their concerns about cladding in their properties. Subject to the height and age of their property, they will be able to apply for government funding for a Single Building Assessment. 

We have made £10 million available to fund assessments through this scheme. This offer will be available either until 30 September 2025 or once funding is fully committed. We will keep the number of applications under review and may run further rounds of the open call process. 

This offer is open to individual private owners, local authorities, and Registered Social Landlords. Private owner will be required to apply through a properly constituted body, such as a factor.

For buildings where the developer has accepted responsibility for its assessment and remediation, it will remain for them to take forward and fund that work.

Read more on the Cladding Open Call scheme, including how to submit an expression of interest on mygov.scot.

Programme pilot 

The Cladding Remediation Programme was initially in a ‘pilot’ phase, which was primarily focused on the design and testing of the Single Building Assessment process.   

Learning from the pilot identified a number of potential barriers, such as delays and blockers to assessing and remediating buildings due to difficulties in obtaining consent from owners and residents.   

We have taken steps to address these barriers by bringing forward the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act 2024 which commenced on 6 January 2025.  

Single Building Assessment  

The Single Building Assessment (SBA) is a process to assess the risk to life that is (directly or indirectly) created or made worse by a building’s external wall system.   

An SBA will report on what work (if any) is needed to eliminate or mitigate any risks of that kind which it has identified. This may include works that are the responsibility of the homeowners.  

An SBA will have to be carried out by a competent, qualified person and meet  compliance and assurance standards specified by Scottish Ministers.  

Cladding Assurance Register  

Once an SBA has been completed, in accordance with the standards, it should be submitted to the government to be entered onto the Cladding Assurance Register. Each entry will note key points from the SBA, such as details of any remedial works identified as being required.  

Scottish Ministers must report to Parliament regularly on the content of the Register. It is anticipated the first report will be made in summer 2026 and annually thereafter.   

The Register went live on 6 January 2025, and the finalisation of access arrangements is still under discussion. We will announce more details about access in due course.  

Background

• in June 2017 following the Grenfell Tower Fire the Building and Fire Safety Ministerial Working Group was set up to carry out a review of building and fire safety frameworks, regulations and guidance with initial focus on high rise domestic buildings. A number of actions were progressed. This group now is responsible for monitoring actions for the Scottish Government response to the Grenfell Phase 2 report.
• in 2020 a Ministerial Working Group on Mortgage Lending and Cladding was set up to consider the difficulties people experience when trying to buy, sell or remortgage properties in buildings with potentially unsafe external wall cladding.  In March 2021, the group published its final report and recommendations  
• in March 2021 Scottish Ministers announced that all recommendations from the Group would be accepted. This included a commitment to develop the Single Building Assessment, a methodology to assess domestic multi-residential buildings 11 metres and over in Scotland. We established the Cladding Remediation Programme to take forward the design and implementation of this work
• in 2022 following the Grenfell Tower Fire, legislation was passed by the Scottish Parliament to ban combustible cladding on high-risk buildings, and the highest risk metal composite cladding material from all buildings. You can read more in our advice note on fire risk in external wall systems in existing multi-storey residential buildings. It is important to note that at the time of the Grenfell fire the type of cladding used on that building was already banned in Scotland

General information about building standards relating to external cladding is available in our building standards technical handbooks.

Stakeholder groups