Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC): Cross Sector Working Group minutes 21 August 2024

Attendees and apologies

Internal stakeholders

• Building Standards Division (Chair)
• Health and Social Care, Finance, Digital and Governance
• Justice
• Learning
• Lifelong Lerning and Skills
• Local Government and Housing
• Workforce, Infrastructure and Digital

External stakeholders

• Aberdeen City Council
• Built Environment Forum Scotland
• Falkirk Council
• Fife Council
• Health and Safety Executive
• Historic Environment Scotland
• Institution of Structural Engineers
• Local Authority Building Standards Scotland
• Manufacturing Technology Centre
• NHS Scotland Assure
• Police Scotland
• Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
• Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service
• Scottish Property Federation

Items and actions

Welcome, minutes and actions 

The chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and invited those attending for the first time to introduce themselves. The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed without change. Actions from the previous meeting have been completed, with updates on two of them below.

Scottish Government update

RAAC overview report

• a report will shortly be published providing an overview of RAAC response work to date and the current position with RAAC across the public sector. A sector by sector update on discovery, assessment and mitigation/remediation will be included
• the report will be published on the Building and Fire Safety Ministerial Working Group website
• the chair noted it is around a year on from the UK Government Department for Education’s change in their risk appetite on RAAC, so timely to issue a ‘state of play’ report for Scotland
• while some reporting and survey work was still in progress, there was now a largely complete picture of RAAC response, assessment and longer-term management across the public sector. Recognition was given to the role of the Cross Sector Working Group in being a key enabling mechanism in supporting the RAAC response

Action 13.1 – A link to the report to be circulated to the group when published.

Lessons learnt exercise

• it was now 12 months since RAAC became a ‘response’ issue
• officials were currently planning a survey and debrief exercise to gather lessons learned. This would support consideration of any future building issues of a similar nature
• the first stage would be a light touch survey issued to everyone who has had RAAC involvement through the range of coordination groups
• returns to the survey would be analysed to identify key themes which would in turn inform facilitated focus group discussion
• a report would set out what went well, what could be improved and how processes could be put in place to support any future incidents. The report, including recommendations, would be circulated for feedback in due course
• the facilitated workshops would be independent of the RAAC Co-ordination team to support objectivity
• the survey would be issued next week (w/c 26 August), with dates pencilled in for mid-September for the focus groups. These would be short sessions themed to relevant groups of stakeholders
• the chair noted the intention to develop a framework to support any necessary response. While there had been awareness of issues regarding RAAC in some sectors this might not be the case in other situations and therefore the proposed lessons learnt work and ‘horizon scanning’ was a useful exercise to undertake

Action 13.2 – Members invited to express interest in involvement in focus groups. 

Sector Updates

Housing

• the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) has conducted two formal data collections, most recently in March, and continues to seek regular updates. A new update will be published in September or October once final data is received. 10 landlords were still investigating for the presence of RAAC
• while the SHR’s data collection exercise is limited to social housing, landlords and Local Authorities are aware of some private sector homes with RAAC, purchased through Right to Buy
• the Housing subgroup met on 13 August with UK Finance, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and The Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) all in attendance
• feedback was received by the sub-group of homeowners’ concerns over a lack of access to professional advice and that published technical advice was not meeting their needs as homeowners
• RICS and IStructE have agreed to a number of actions to assist. RICS will explore the possibility of creating a list of surveyors experienced in RAAC assessment. While it was not possible to provide advice on survey costs, RICS are planning to develop a consumer guide on RAAC to assist homeowners
• IStructE have put officials in touch with the Scottish IStructE chair and will support work to make guidance as useful as possible
• UK Finance are encouraging their members to provide support and advice to homeowners with mortgages
• Aberdeen City Council have published their options appraisal regarding properties with RAAC in the Balnagask area of the city, due to be discussed at a Council meeting today (21 August)
• the recommendation in the options appraisal was for demolition and to rebuild over time. Media interest was expected once the Council decision was made public
• IStructE noted that there were around 700 engineers in Scotland across 250 companies with their website operating a ‘find an engineer’ scheme. IStructE had requested a ‘statement of need’ which could be sent to all Scottish engineers to help illustrate the demand for RAAC experienced engineers and added to the ‘find an engineer’ website

• IStructE noted their limited resources and asked that housing organisations or authorities channel requests for assistance via their website or the housing subgroup

Action 13.3 - Statement of need to be shared with the Group.

Health

• the discovery programme has identified RAAC in 46 buildings and an additional three locations at a PFI site
• at some further locations a number of non-load bearing RAAC partitions have also been found
• point cloud survey work is underway at a number of locations with more detailed feedback to be provided to the RAAC Management sub-group in due course
• structural engineers have been conducting training sessions which are now almost complete across all NHS Board areas. NHS Scotland Assure has developed guidance to complement the training

Schools

• a further assessment of all 32 councils has just been completed  
• the overall picture was continuing to improve. Of the original 39 locations with RAAC, six have had RAAC removed, nine sites are in the process of having RAAC removed and two are scheduled for demolition
• by the end of 2024 there will be 22 locations with RAAC. Of these, eight have temporary mitigations in place. Of the remaining 14, 10 will retain RAAC with permanent mitigations such as support structures in place and four will be subject to regular monitoring

AOB

Noting previous discussion on the presence of RAAC in listed buildings, HES reported that they had been consulted in respect of one property.

Action 13.4 – Share architects guidance on listed buildings with group.

HSE noted that an inspection programme had been undertaken across Great Britain with a small number of visits in Scotland to hospitals and schools. No issues had been reported in schools with a couple of actions required in hospitals. The need for any further inspection work was considered unlikely, HSE considering that RAAC was well understood with appropriate measures in place. The HSE website had been updated.

Date of next meeting

To be confirmed.

Addendum - Update on RAAC plank risk: specific risks caused by rooflights - immediate action

CSWG members will wish to be aware of an Estates and Facilities Notice (EFN) issued on 16 September, across the NHS, specific to risks caused by rooflights within RAAC roofs.

Summary

A RAAC roof collapse, in a non-public sector building, this summer has highlighted that rooflights present a particular risk of RAAC failure and that the failure can extend beyond the immediate panel. While there is no current change in National IStructE Guidance, it is therefore advised that all unmitigated rooflight details are considered a ‘critical high risk’ and addressed accordingly.

The full notice can be found here: (https://www.nss.nhs.scot/publications/estates-and-facilities-notice-efn2401/).