Nearly a decade on from the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which claimed 72 lives and reshaped how we think about building safety, the UK continues to grapple with the issues posed by combustible cladding.

The Grenfell disaster has been the catalyst for a major, sweeping overhaul of building safety regulations in the UK and industry. However, the pace of these changes is disjointed, and varies significantly across the home nations.

Scotland is notably lagging behind the rest of the UK when it comes to addressing endemic issues related to building safety. According to the Scottish Government, the nation has an estimated 1,450 residential buildings in need of cladding remediation work, including about 250 high-rises. Estimates suggest this would require up to £3bn of public money over a 15-year period to be spent assessing and removing potentially flammable cladding from buildings in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is taking proactive steps forward to address the scale of the problem: its national Cladding Remediation Programme, the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act 2024 and a developer remediation contract designed to bind housebuilders to safety obligations are all crucial parts of the plan to address the country’s unsafe buildings.

The terms of the developer remediation contract puts the onus on developers to commission safety assessments and fix life-critical issues in buildings over 11 metres tall – while keeping residents informed throughout the process. It also places responsibility on the developer to reimburse public funds already spent on remediation.

Persimmon Homes recently became the first developer to sign this contract, marking a practical and welcome step forward from a major player.

Yet, despite this raft of policy frameworks and guidance, the reality on the ground seems to be frustratingly slow. Let’s uncover the issue in more detail…

Why Scotland’s progress feels slow

To those people living in affected buildings – often already wrapped in scaffolding – the programme proposed by the Scottish Government might seem incredibly slow.

Given the estimate that around 1,450 buildings in Scotland need remedial work to address potentially dangerous cladding, a substantial part of the population is currently exposed to risk and uncertainty – which must be a national priority.

The Scottish Government targets are ambitious, with aims to resolve every high-risk residential building with unsafe cladding over 18 metres by 2029, and move buildings between 11–18 metres on clearer paths to remediation. But ambition must translate into real action on the ground.

Looking at the key factors, part of the hold up seems to be the Single Building Assessment (SBA), a thorough process that is designed to understand life-safety risk and inform remediation plans. As with any detailed methods related to safety, the assessment regime is constrained by industry supply and capacity. 

However, there aren’t enough qualified fire safety engineers and competent professionals to get through the backlog of assessments quickly. The resulting bottleneck is delaying everything from assessment to contract negotiation and building works. 

In England, progress has been faster in absolute terms: more than 1,600 buildings have seen dangerous cladding removed under the English programme, compared with just one or two in Scotland under its official scheme so far.

Clearly, there isn’t a lack of will in Scotland, but structural and capacity constraints are impeding the necessary progress. 

Other political pressures

Beyond capability constraints, Scotland’s proposed Building Safety Levy has generated a fair bit of debate. 

The levy was conceived to raise funds for the remediation programme, but critics in the industry argue that adding costs to new-builds could constrain housebuilding, deepen the housing supply crisis and deter investment in a difficult market. 

It’s a tension that illustrates the complex balance policymakers across the UK must strike between ensuring building safety and supporting affordable housing delivery. One should not discount the other; there must be room for both, but that can raise difficult questions. 

Learning from Grenfell

Regulators and designers are also adapting after Grenfell. New competency requirements, extended claim periods for defect liability and stricter record keeping are reshaping practice across the entire spectrum. For engineers like our team at Clancy, this has fundamentally changed our roles.

Grenfell wasn’t simply a failure of materials or design; it was a failure of systems, accountability, and urgency. It showed what happens when risk is underestimated, and people’s safety is treated as secondary to cost and convenience.

Scotland’s response to addressing building compliance issues rightly necessitates that safety must always come first. The investment being made in SBAs, changing legislation and ensuring developer accountability are all vital parts of the jigsaw.

But now that intent must be matched with delivery to protect residents.

What must happen next

To accelerate progress in Scotland, we need:

• Stronger collaboration between government, industry and communities to reduce bureaucracy without compromising safety.
• More qualified professionals in fire and façade engineering to clear assessment backlogs and drive remediation works forward.
• Transparent timelines and communication with residents, so they know when their homes will be made safe.

Ultimately, cladding remediation is about protecting lives. Scotland has the policy framework to succeed. It’s now time for the speed of execution to meet the scale of the challenge head on, and honour the memory of Grenfell.