External wall systems advice
Information on the Scottish advice note: ‘Determining the fire risk posed by external wall systems in existing multi-storey residential buildings’.
Background
The UK Government established the building safety programme after the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017. The UK Government’s Independent Expert Panel on Fire Safety was also established at this time. The expert panel published consolidated advice on 20 January 2020 dealing with the fire performance of cladding, fire doors and other construction details (now withdrawn). The advice is intended to assist building owners in managing risk, but has no legally established status in Scotland and does not take precedence over Scottish building and fire regulations, standards and guidance.
On 30 March 2020, through our Building and Fire Safety Ministerial Working Group, Scottish Ministers agreed to set up a Technical Working Group to develop a Scottish advice note to determine the fire risk posed by external wall systems in existing multi-storey residential buildings.
The Scottish advice note will bring clarity to the different legislative requirements and guidance in Scotland and take account of the key findings from large scale and intermediate scale fire testing of external wall cladding systems carried out by the UK Government.
The group met four times and the minutes of its meetings are published below.
Your views
The Scottish Government gathered views on this draft Scottish advice note from those affected by, and responsible for, fire safety in residential buildings. This helped to inform revisions and the final published document.
The draft Scottish advice note and a short background note containing a set of questions and a response form are provided below.
To support feedback on the draft Scottish advice note, three webinars were organised in September and October 2020. Over 400 people registered for the webinars. View a video of the final webinar.
Latest version of advice (December 2022)
Following consideration of the comments received during the consultation period, we published the Scottish Advice Note: Determining the fire risk posed by external wall systems in existing multi-storey residential buildings on 4 August 2021.
We published The Scottish Advice Note: Determining the fire risk posed by external wall systems in existing multi-storey residential buildings (Version 2.0) on 16 December 2022 which replaces Version 1.0. Version 2.0 includes editorial changes and more detailed guidance on the external wall system appraisal process.
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