Annual New Supply Shared Equity (NSSE) sales are published as part of the attached Affordable Housing Supply Programme Out-turn Reports.

More homes: Affordable Housing Supply Programme - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The number of NSSE sales with a golden share attached and retained are included in the following table by local authority.

The Scottish Government does not gather information on the affordability of rents in the Build to Rent sector.

Build to Rent is recognised as a mainstream housing delivery mechanism and can complement existing housing models.

Build to Rent can be characterised by:

• Single institutional ownership and professional on-site management of the entire development;
• Individual units are self-contained and separately let;
• Resident access to shared, communal facilities and on-site amenities integrated as part of the development.

Shona Robison: There is no central source for this information, however some of this information is held by local authorities and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS).

In November 2019, the Scottish Funding Council published a call for information to Scotland’s Colleges and Universities to seek assurances on fire safety in their respective estates. All Universities and colleges advised they had collated up to date information on the cladding types used on their buildings. All but one of 28 institutions reported satisfaction that all reasonable steps have been taken to ensure that where cladding is present, it is safe. The Scottish Government relayed this information to SFRS.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) are the enforcing authority for most non-domestic premises that are covered by Scottish fire safety legislation i.e. Part 3 of the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005, as amended and the Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006. SFRS have a risk-based audit programme which targets activities and resources at premises which offer the greatest risk to the safety of relevant persons in the event of fire. SFRS enforcement activity is about promoting and enabling sustained compliance with the law. It also ensures that actions are taken to deal promptly with serious risk and that duty-holders who fail in their obligations are held to account. Confidential information on fire safety and to some extent, building construction, is therefore collected and evaluated as part of a SFRS enforcement audit.

Building warrant applications are checked by local authority verifiers for compliance with the building standards (including fire safety as set out in Section 2 of the Technical Handbooks). During construction, a Reasonable Inquiry process allows for assessment of the works in accordance with the approved (compliant) building warrant drawings. Only after a new building’s completion certificate is accepted by the verifier can the building be occupied. Local Authorities keep building standards registers, including building warrant records.

The First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber) features within the Scottish Tribunals Annual Report. In addition to this the Housing and Property Chamber has recently published a statistical report which provides information including; the jurisdictions of the Chamber, the application process, case volumes and outcomes. Both of these reports can be found using the following link:

https://www.housingandpropertychamber.scot/who-we-are/annual-reports

The First-tier Tribunal for Scotland Housing and Property Chamber (Procedure) Regulations 2017 section 26.-(10) requires that a decision of the First-tier Tribunal with a statement of reasons must be published. The Housing and Property Chamber has developed searchable databases of all decisions, from each jurisdiction, which can be found using the following link:

https://www.housingandpropertychamber.scot/apply-tribunal .

In accordance with Section 78 of the Tribunals (Scotland) Act 2014, the President of Tribunals is to prepare an annual report about the operation and business of the Scottish Tribunals. To draft this report, the President of Scottish Tribunals requests that each chamber president within the First-tier Tribunal provides details as to their chamber's business and any important changes or projects within their respective chambers. This information is collated by the Judicial Office for Scotland and then presented to the President of Scottish Tribunals for consideration and approval. S78(3) provides the statutory basis for the information that is to be contained within the report, primarily that the annual report must explain how the Scottish Tribunals have exercised their functions during the financial year, as well as any other information that the President of Scottish Tribunals deems appropriate. The report is approved by the Lord President and sent to the Scottish Ministers in advance of publication.

A copy of this letter will be placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (bib number 63213) and published on the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service website.

Our records show that 178 properties have been purchased with golden share and 171 properties retain golden share through the Open Market Shared Equity scheme.

Current building regulations require that fire spread on external walls is inhibited. The guidance which supports the regulations calls for non-combustible or limited combustibility cladding and insulation materials on the exterior walls of high rise buildings over 11m and high-risk buildings. Combustible cladding and insulation can only be used in such situations when the fire performance of the whole of the cladding system (including thermal insulation and fire barriers) has passed a large scale fire test. The Scottish Government requires to be notified when such a test has been used to demonstrate compliance with the regulations.

The current review of building regulations has considered a ban of the highest risk cladding materials including the role of the large scale fire test, BS 8414. It is expected that amended regulations will be laid in the Scottish Parliament shortly.

The fourth and final meeting of the Building Standards (Fire Safety) Review Panel 2020-22 took place on 24 January 2022. Draft minutes of the meeting were circulated to members of the panel for comment on 03 March 2022. The final minutes will then be published by the end of March 2022.

The Housing to 2040 strategy and the New Deal for Tenants Draft Strategy consultation both encourage professionalism in the housing industry. The consultation particularly seeks views on how to drive up standards in the private rented sector, including around training.

There are currently no plans to undertake such a review. The Scottish Government receives a low level of correspondence about how the system of house buying and selling operates in Scotland.

In this Parliament we will review the role of taxation in supporting our Housing to 2040 vision for both new and existing homes and our communities.

Housing to 2040 commits the Scottish Government to developing options for tax reform. As part of that, we will consider how changes to existing local and devolved taxes could help deliver the Housing to 2040 Vision, within the context of our overall approach to taxation.