Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government’s business rates policies reflect the full range of its strategic priorities, including the importance of support for town centres.

The Scottish Government has treated local government very fairly despite the cuts to the Scottish Budget from the UK Government.

I will set out details of the 2017-18 local government finance settlement tomorrow as part of my announcement on the Scottish Government's 2017-18 Draft Budget.

Each of the 32 local authorities is responsible for resourcing their building standards services appropriately.

I have become aware that since the economic downturn of 2008 there have been situations where experienced Building Standards Managers and staff have either retired or taken voluntary exit arrangements from local authorities. At the same time there appears to have been little corresponding intake of trainee or apprentice Building Standards Officers in many areas of Scotland. I understand that as the volume of building projects has been increasing some local authorities have had difficulty in recruiting and replacing staff. The Scottish Government is currently consulting on Building Warrant Fees which includes a proposal to increase fees to provide additional funding to local authorities.

I am currently reviewing the appointment process for verifiers from May 2017 onwards, however there are no plans for wider consultation on the matter. The review includes consideration of the results of the Scottish Government national customer survey under KPO5 of the verification performance framework.

The latest figures for Quarter 1 (April – June) of reporting year 2016-17 show that KPO1 ‘Average time to grant a building warrant’ for all categories is 66 working days. For KPO2 ‘The % of CCNPs for accepted completion certificates fully achieved by relevant person and verifier’ is 47%.

The performance figures for both these KPOs rely on others such as applicants and agents to respond timeously and appropriately.

The Scottish Government has not made any assessment as each of the 32 local authorities is responsible for resourcing their building standards services appropriately. Where they do not have the necessary staff or specialisms in-house to undertake their verification functions, they should resource them externally.

The Scottish Government is currently consulting on Building Warrant Fees which includes a proposal to increase fees to provide additional funding to local authorities.

Building Standards went live in August 2016. All local authorities are our partners in the eDevelopment programme and have received online applications through the eBuildingStandards.scot.

Each local authority has their own business processes and their own level of digitisation of services. The introduction of electronic applications has involved substantial business transformation and modernisation of building standards services. For most authorities, this has required process change and some skills development to support the transition from largely paper-based processes to digital application handling.

We are monitoring uptake by service users, both nationally and by each local authority area, on an on-going basis. To date uptake had been far higher than anticipated with over 11,000 forms and applications being submitted through the service during the first three months.

We have noted that there has been a short-term dip in performance standards during the transition within some local authority areas, however performance is expected to improve with increasing familiarity with the new processes.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-05272 on 13 December 2016. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-05282 on 13 December 2016. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The Scottish Government has commissioned a number of research projects to consider the building standards fees structure and cost of verification by local authorities and has published the reports on the Scottish Government website.

1. Review the current Building Standards Fee Structure and Future Requirements (2011-12) Phase 1 report (March 2012); Phase 2 report (April 2012)

2. Review the current Building Standards Fee Structure and Future Requirements (2014-15) Final Report (March 2015)

3. Consider Proposed Changes to the Building Standards Fees Regulations and their Impacts (2015-16)Final Report (March 2016)

4. Model Changes to the Building Standards Fees Final Report (September 2016)

Each of the 32 local authorities is responsible for resourcing their building standards services appropriately. They are subject to regular monitoring by Scottish Government which includes local authorities reporting the relationship between verification fee income and verification staff costs through KPO6 of the verification performance framework.

The Scottish Government is currently consulting on Building Warrant Fees which includes a proposal to increase fees to provide additional funding to local authorities.