The Scottish Government Cladding Remediation Programme has been set up with the aim of protecting homeowners and residents of buildings with cladding in Scotland. Cladding in this respect generally referring to the external wall system used on some buildings, to provide thermal insulation, weather resistance or to improve a building’s appearance.
The Cladding Remediation Programme aims include to ensure that residential buildings with cladding are assessed to identify whether this presents a fire risk and following this, work may be needed to eliminate or mitigate these risks depending on their severity.
A building must meet all of the following criteria to be in scope of the Cladding Remediation Program:
- is a flatted, residential building
- has an external wall system (i.e. cladding)
- is 11 metres or more in height (from ground level to uppermost habitable floor level)
- was constructed or developed between 1 June 1992 and 1 June 2022
A Single Building Assessment can be carried out by a competent, qualified person, to assess any risk caused by a building’s external wall system, and identify if any work is needed to eliminate or mitigate these risks.
On 25 March 2025, the Cladding Remediation Programme launched the Single Open Call, which is an opportunity for residential property owners or their representatives, such as their Property Factor, to register with the Programme, for a government funded Single Building Assessment.
Scottish Government have made £10 million available to fund assessments through this scheme and this will be available either until 30 September 2025 or once funding is fully committed. Scottish Government have committed to keep the number of applications under review and may run further rounds of the open call process.
The number of residential buildings in Scotland which are 11 metres or more in height is estimated to be around 13,400.
Of these, around 1,100 are estimated to be high-rises which are over 18 metres in height (18m+) and around 12,300 are estimated to be mid-rises which are between 11 and 18 metres in height (11-18m)
It is estimated that around 250 of the residential high-rise (18m+) buildings and around 1,020-1,200 of the mid-rise (11-18m) residential buildings in Scotland will require work to alleviate external wall system life-safety fire risk.
In total, this means that an estimated 1,270-1,450 of the residential buildings in Scotland which are 11 metres or more in height may require work to alleviate external wall system (EWS) life-safety fire risk.
The Cladding Remediation Directorate forecast the program of Single Building Assessments and remediation work, which could require £1.7 to £3.1 billion of public funding over a potential 15-year period, underlining the scale and complexity of the subject.
As at 30 April 2025, the Scottish Government Cladding Remediation Programme updated the public that two Single Building Assessments, based on the specification published in June 2024, had been completed and a further 13 Single Building Assessments had been started, but not completed.
The two completed Single Building Assessments identified that remedial works were required, with works having commenced for one of these, but not the other.
Cladding Remediation is recognised as a complex, substantial and important project, with the Scottish Government engaging with multiple stakeholders across the construction sector to develop a remediation scheme which can be scaled to national level.
That this work lies out with the remit of services which Property Factors provide to their customers has been acknowledged, however, HPMS have been engaged directly in discussions on the essential assistance our industry can provide and how this can be organised.
We have begun the process of registering the buildings we factor which we understand meet the relevant criteria for the Single Open Call and await the next steps in this project. We look forward to working alongside the Scottish Government, the various other professionals involved and the homeowners of the buildings involved to support this Remediation Programme operating successfully.
You can find more information about the Scottish Government Cladding Remediation Programme from their website here – https://www.gov.scot/about/how-government-is-run/directorates/cladding-remediation-directorate/.
