GLASGOW School of Art has issued a new response to a critical report from the Scottish Parliament's culture committee, and criticised its questioning of contractors Kier.
In March, a report by the Culture Committee called for a full public inquiry into the two fires at the Mackintosh Building of the school (GSA).
Today the GSA has published a full response to the report, and notes its frustration with Kier Construction Scotland, which was working on the historic building when it the fire destroyed much of the building last June.
A statement says: "Throughout the parliamentary process we endeavoured to be open and transparent, and to engage with it as fully as possible not only by providing all the documents requested by the Committee, but also by making available further information to help them with their deliberations.
"Regrettably, the contractor, Kier Construction Scotland Ltd, (Kier) was less so, which the Committee must have found as frustrating as we did.
"It is therefore particularly disappointing that both the [committee] process and the report failed to fully interrogate and recognise Kier’s role.
"In the report it is not clear which party was in control of the site at the times of the specific matters considered by the Committee.
"This is a vital factor in understanding the context of the 2018 fire, and it should have been clear throughout."
It adds that "for clarity, Kier took control of the site on appointment as Principal Contractor in 2016.
"From that point onwards, up to and including the night of 15 June 2018, Kier had full responsibility for and were in full control of the site.
"Further, it is somewhat surprising that in the report factual information provided by highly regarded organisations who had an intimate knowledge of the Mackintosh Building should have had qualifications added to their submissions, whilst unsubstantiated speculation was accorded the status of fact."
The official Police Scotland and Scottish Fire and Rescue Service investigations are still to be concluded and published.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel