Scottish Building Assessment: FOI release

Information requested

• Detail on how many buildings were in the pilot and how many have completed the SBA as at 13 February
• How many remediation plans have been put in place for buildings in the pilot scheme
• The exact status of the building at Stobcross Street (i.e. when the survey was completed and who is holding back it's release)
• Detail of the last correspondence with the factor of the building (Peter Crusak Property Consultants Limited) including the date of this correspondence

Response

• There were 25 buildings in the Single Building Assessment (SBA) programme. The pilot was expanded to 27 buildings and has again expanded to 105.
• The initial approach for the Single Building Assessment pilot involved giving grants to homeowners through a property factor. Sixteen Single Building Assessments were commissioned through this approach, which is referred to as Pathway 1. In May the Cabinet Secretary confirmed to Parliament that the Scottish Government would move to directly procuring Single Building Assessments, an approach termed Pathway 2. Eight Single Building assessments have been, or are in the process of being, commissioned through the Pathway 2 route. In addition three Single Building Assessments are being commissioned in partnership with developers. Fourteen Single Building Assessment reports have been submitted to the Scottish Government and remediation has started on one building.
• In respect of Stobcross Street, a survey was instructed by your factor and undertaken by MAF in May 2022 which did not meet the requirements of the Scottish Government. Following this, we met with your factor on the 17th June to highlight the shortfalls of the report. We then met with MAF in June to highlight our issues and sent them feedback on their report. MAF indicated they would require further funding to bring the report up to our standards. We met with your factor to discuss this on the 18th November and were advised to let MAF finish their proposal. No proposal was received allowing us to sign off funding to create an SBA report aligned with our standards as laid out in the Scottish Advice Note External wall systems in existing multi-storey residential buildings - fire risk: advice note - version 2 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).
• We have had an email from your factor on the 30th January 2023 indicating they were content to go ahead with Scottish Government procuring a new firm to complete the SBA to our standards We are currently producing a tender for this procurement.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.