Cladding Remediation Programme: Next Phase Plan of Action

Foreword from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing

As Cabinet Secretary for Housing, I am committed to ensuring that Scotland’s Cladding Remediation Programme supports building owners and residents across Scotland to comprehensively address the risks posed by dangerous cladding, and to ensure safety for those affected.

In this work we remember all who lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower fire. This tragedy exposed serious failings in building safety across the UK. It highlighted widespread problems in how buildings were designed, built, maintained, and regulated. In response, the Scottish Government’s focus has always been and resolutely remains protecting lives.

Immediately following the Grenfell Tower tragedy we established a Ministerial Working Group on Fire Safety which continues to co-ordinate cross government activity to improve fire and building safety. The Scottish Government has also introduced legislation mandating the use of fire-suppression systems in new-build multi-occupancy properties over 18 metres, introduced regulations prohibiting the use of combustible cladding materials on high-medium risk buildings and introduced regulations requiring the installation of interlinked smoke alarms in all properties.

We have taken a clear, risk-based approach, acting wherever immediate risk to life has been identified, through our partnerships with responsible developers, social landlords, local authorities and, where required, through direct government intervention.

We committed to addressing unsafe cladding and the wider system failures that allowed these risks to go unchallenged. That commitment is now underpinned by law through the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act 2024, which took effect in January 2025.

The Act gives Scottish Ministers the powers needed to assess buildings and step in directly where needed to fund interim safety measures or full remediation. Importantly, it also creates strong legal standards for the Single Building Assessment — a new, bespoke and thorough way of checking the safety of a building which has been specifically designed in collaboration with experts to respond to the Grenfell fire and to ensure rigorous assessment in Scotland. This assessment looks at both the risks from the external wall cladding system and the overall fire risks inside, making it the first of its kind in the UK.

But our response is about more than statutory powers. Since the publication of our initial plan launched in March 2025, we have made early and significant progress to rapidly expand assessment activity across all housing sectors in Scotland. And this is only the beginning. We are now moving into the next phase of delivery, with a clear plan and long-term targets that reflect the scale of our ambition.

I am determined that by 2029, every high-risk residential building over 18 metres identified with unsafe cladding will have been resolved — whether made safe, decommissioned or replaced — and that every building between 11 and 18 metres will be on a defined pathway to resolution — supported by robust assessment, planning and funding for essential cladding remediation.

This work will be delivered with urgency, transparency, and accountability. Residents will be kept informed, protected and supported throughout. Strong partnerships across government, local authorities, industry and communities will be essential to our success of our collective national endeavour.

The scale of the challenge has always been and continues to be significant, but the moral imperative is resoundingly clear. We owe it to the memory of those who lost their lives in Grenfell, and to every resident still living with uncertainty today, to get this right. I look forward to working with all stakeholders to deliver a built environment where unsafe cladding no longer poses a risk.

Cabinet Secretary for Housing