Seòmar agus comataidhean

I know that Food Standards Scotland has had a flat-cash budget settlement from financial year 2022-23 through to the current financial year of £22.7 million. Real-terms erosion will have an effect. What funding challenges is FSS facing, and what measures are you taking to mitigate them?

What you have said is reflected in the external audit that was published in December. Given what you have said about a potential planned overspend, are you confident that the FSS will achieve financial balance in the current financial year?

Could you develop that a bit further and say what practical action you are taking with the Scottish Government to address that deficit? You mentioned that you are working together. What does that look like in practice?

I appreciate your candour. Thank you very much.

I apologise.

I appreciate the opportunity to join you this morning. It has been very interesting to hear panel members discuss how the quality standard of decision making around dangerous buildings could be improved.

I wonder whether the requirement for CARE accreditation could be stipulated in the context of a section 29 or 30 order. I am conscious of what the City of Edinburgh Council representative said about building standards, which was that action is usually taken immediately to remove any immediate public risk; a cordon is set up; and then there is, in most cases, a bit of a cooling-off period. Given that that is the point at which a more considered assessment can be made, might that also provide an opportunity to stipulate that bringing in CARE-accredited structural engineers in listed building cases—which, as has been discussed, are relatively few in number—would be an appropriate and proportionate measure? Indeed, the cost of doing so could be recovered from the owner if it incurs an extra fee for the council.

That is an interesting case. Another case that I have noted, which might be of particular interest to Mr Ewing, is the Secretary of State for Scotland v Highland Council—the so-called Achintore case—involving Fort William primary school, in which the council attempted to defend its proposed demolition of a B-listed school building. It constituted a prima facie offence under legislation equivalent to the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997; the case predated it, but the test was broadly similar to the test available for offences under section 8 of the 1997 act, and the Secretary of State for Scotland at the time succeeded in obtaining an interdict to prevent demolition, providing evidence that remedial works were in fact possible. Now that Highland Council, ironically, uses the building as offices following a full refurbishment in 2018, that case perhaps illustrates that the key here is having a sort of umpire of expertise, if you like, at the heart of decision making so that the case can turn on those judgments.

On Professor Masterton’s earlier point, if the CARE register were to be enhanced in statute, not only would it provide a powerful incentive for conservation accreditation for structural engineers in Scotland and a higher standard of assessment for the engineers making those decisions; the list of people who would seek to get accredited would probably grow, if that became a legislative check in both the 2003 act under sections 29 and 30 as well as a potential enhancement to the enforcement powers in the 1997 act. Do the witnesses agree that that is likely? There are cases where one person’s engineer makes a fatal decision about the building and another engineer disputes it. If they are brought in, accredited conservation engineers more often than not tend to find the solution, when other engineers have doomed the building.

It helps me get an indication that there is some cooling-off period, which might provide an opportunity to enhance the legislation. It is not as if you move in with a bulldozer and completely level a building in 24 or 48 hours or whatever. That would happen only in very rare and exceptional cases.

Renfrewshire Council has submitted written correspondence to the committee, highlighting some of the difficulties with enforcing the powers in the 1997 act. I have had similar correspondence from Glasgow City Council, which said:

“We note that although the Planning Authorities (in Scotland) have powers to act where a designated heritage asset has deteriorated to the extent that its preservation may be at risk - in practice such powers are rarely utilised due to the significant cost, complexity and uncertain outcomes in light of constrained resources and significant competing demands”,

such as using a compulsory purchase order to obtain a building.

One of the absurdities of the current legislation is the compensation requirements if the building has received consent for restoration, even though it is derelict. There is a rarely-used provision under section 45 of the 1997 act that directs minimum compensation to offset cases where the building has deteriorated, and the cost of restoration can be recouped, but it has only ever been used once in the act’s history.

On that basis, do the witnesses agree that, after more than a quarter of a century, the legislation is ripe for legislative review, and that the committee could perhaps consider in its recommendations asking the Government to undertake a review of the 1997 act and how effective its provisions are in that regard?

It seems that fundamental problems have been identified in relation to resourcing. In its 2023 report “Adult mental health”, Audit Scotland noted that limited and short-term funding across many mental health services is creating additional challenges in addressing staff recruitment issues. That makes it difficult to fill vacancies, because funding is often provided only on a fixed-term basis, which is undesirable to applicants. We have seen that play out in relation to not only third-party services, but core services such as those that are provided at Skye house, where a culture of high staff turnover and a lack of leadership was identified as a key causal factor in the poor performance of that unit.

What long-term strategies are needed to address that short-termism and to deal with the resultant issues with staff recruitment and retention that are currently being experienced across pretty much all aspects of Scotland’s mental health system?