Scottish Building Safety Levy: consultation analysis report
Analysis of responses to the public consultation on the Scottish Building Safety Levy which ran from 23 September to 18 November 2024.
2. Overview of Consultation and Engagement
Consultation
The Scottish Government published a consultation on the SBSL on 23 September 2024 which was open for responses for a period of eight weeks, closing on 18 November 2024.
The consultation invited responses to a range of open and closed questions on several aspects relating to the SBSL, including the strategic context for the tax, scope, calculation, operational considerations, and impacts. For all closed questions, respondents had an opportunity to offer comments to support their views.
The consultation received a total of 78 responses, nine from individuals and 69 from organisations. A full list of organisational respondents is set out in Annex A. Where responses have been submitted by organisations which are part of a larger organisational group, this has been noted in the annex. Some responses were received from different parts or different members of the same organisation. Where these responses are substantially different, they have been treated as separate responses; where these responses are broadly similar or identical, they have been treated as one response for the purposes of analysis, and this has been noted in the annex. This left a total of 76 responses from the original 78 received, and it is this total (76) which is reflected in the analysis presented in this report. Throughout this analysis, percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number and may not always total to 100% when presented in tables.
Where permission has been given, responses have been published in full on the Scottish Government’s consultation webpage and can be found here.
For the purposes of analysis, the responses have been categorised by respondent type as follows:
| Respondent type | Number of responses | % of total responses |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | 40 | 53% |
| Other housing/property stakeholder | 13 | 17% |
| Local government organisation[1] | 8 | 11% |
| Other organisation | 6 | 8% |
| Individual | 9 | 12% |
Responses were received both through the Citizen Space platform and via email submission. Of the responses received by email, a number of these did not respond to the questions directly but rather provided their comments in a statement-style format. This included 27 non-standard responses from members of representative body Homes for Scotland. All statement-style responses were analysed individually under the most directly relevant consultation question.
The consultation responses were analysed by Scottish Government officials, with comments allocated to certain themes under each question. The analysis is presented in Part 3 of this report as a question-by-question analysis, separated into three sections (Principles, Operational Considerations, and Impacts) according to the structure of the consultation document. The analysis presents the key themes raised by responses to each question and provides illustrative quotes from respondents where useful. Where comments were raised only by a singular respondent and did not relate to any other theme found, and where comments did not relate to the specific question or to the SBSL, these have not been set out in detail.
Other engagement and Expert Advisory Group
Where relevant, the analysis is supplemented by a summary of views from stakeholder engagement sessions and from meetings of the Scottish Building Safety Levy Expert Advisory Group.
The consultation was accompanied by a programme of engagement with stakeholders to facilitate further collaboration with the residential property sector. This included a Ministerial Roundtable and three official-led sessions considering the scope and calculation of the tax and potential impacts on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). A summary of attendance at these sessions is set out in Annex B.
To help inform policy development for the SBSL, the Scottish Government convened an Expert Advisory Group comprised of representatives from the residential property development sector, as well as representatives from relevant professional bodies in connection with tax and local government building standards. The Group’s remit is to provide expert advice, challenge and scrutiny of policy positions on the design of the SBSL. The Group has so far met on five occasions, and summaries of discussions at these meetings are available here.