Ministers have been accused of putting lives at risk after it emerged it has overseen the removal of dangerous cladding of just one building seven years after the Grenfell Tower blaze that claimed the lives of 72 people.

It can be revealed that as of last summer, ministers have spent just 5% of an initial £97.1m remedial fund to deal with Grenfell-style cladding has been spent in the wake of the horrific fire.

The Fire Brigades Union Scotland has raised concerns at the "apparent heel dragging and lack of urgency" by both the Scottish and UK governments in what it called a "safety crisis".

They said that the lack of action in Scotland showed "complacency to the point of contempt for those living, working and being educated in buildings wrapped in these materials, and for the firefighters who would be called to rescue occupiers and extinguish cladding fires".

They say it is "vital" that action is taken to remove existing combustible cladding and that the costs should be borne by industry, rather than homeowners or the taxpayer.

It comes as groups meet with MSPs in the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday to discuss the progress of the remedial work - with the Scottish Tenants'  Organisation saying lives were being put at risk by the lack of action.

The Scottish Government’s Cladding Remediation Programme was set up in the wake of the blaze to safeguard residents and homeowners by addressing the fire safety risk to human life that is directly or indirectly created or exacerbated by a building’s external wall cladding system.

The Herald: Experts reviewed Scottish building standards in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire, aboveFlashback to Grenfell.

It was also established to help deal with the consequential negative impacts which can exist in relation to the buying, selling and re-mortgaging of flats in Scotland.

Some 105 buildings are in the pilot phase of the programme, first launched in August, 2021, which were identified through what is described as an 'expressions of interest' process. It was set up with the intention of moving to a wider delivery.

But officials have confirmed that as of mid-December there were 27 buildings deemed most at risk where formal building assessments have been commissioned, with just one building receiving what it calls 'mitigation' while 'remediation' is taking place in one other.

But in England, in a scheme monitored by the UK Government's Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, as of November 2023, there were 3,824 residential buildings 11 metres and over in height identified with unsafe cladding and some 1,603 (42%) have either started or completed remediation works with some 777 (20%) having had projects completed.

In Scotland, of the £3.66m spent so far, some £2.676m was for Glasgow, with £581,019 for Aberdeen, £315,870 for Edinburgh and £37,653 in Dundee.

A Scottish Parliament financial memo in relation to the programme said that a grant funding in relation to the programme proved to be "complex and slow, making significant demands on homeowners".

Total consequential funding provided by the UK Government for cladding remediation is estimated at £400 million.

Official research from three years ago found that over 400 mainly public buildings including high-rises and schools have the potentially deadly material in Scotland.

Some one in eight blocks of flats, mainly overseen by local authorities, and one in 10 local authority schools have the combustible material.

At least 95 high rise blocks and nearly 300 other buildings, including 244 schools, nine independent schools, five hospitals, one prison, five hotels and seven care homes were found to contain high pressure laminate (HPL) panels which safety experts have raised serious concerns in the snapshot survey.

It is feared the number of care homes with HPL is even higher as the survey was only 54% complete.

Further analysis of local authority high rises carried out the same year found that a further 23 of Scotland's 774 high rise buildings reported polyethylene type ACM panels (ACM-PE), another combustible material, similar to that found at Grenfell. An identical number were found the previous year.

A further 15 buildings with ACM panels reported "limited combustibility".

Thousands more flat-owners in Scotland are also estimated to have had their privately owned homes rendered worthless because they are wrapped in flammable materials.

John McKenzie, regional secretary of FBU Scotland said: "What happened at Grenfell Tower was an avoidable catastrophe that cost 72 of our fellow citizens to needlessly lose their lives. After such an appalling event the public would expect lessons to have been learned and swift action taken to ensure that the risk of another fire like Grenfell was minimised.

The Herald:

"The lack of meaningful progress in removing Grenfell type cladding from buildings across Scotland more than six years after the disaster is reprehensible and continues to show complacency to the point of contempt for those living, working and being educated in buildings wrapped in these materials, and for the firefighters who would be called to rescue occupiers and extinguish cladding fires.

"The reality is that in over six years very little has changed. The building safety crisis continues and the urgent remedial work to assess, identify and remove flammable cladding from Scottish homes, offices, hospitals and schools keeps getting kicked further and further down the road whilst the building industry, building owners and Governments continue to take minimal steps towards actually removing flammable cladding.

"The FBU stands in solidarity with all victims of the building safety crisis, a crisis they did not create. The union has always been clear – residents should not carry any cost for failure they did not cause. Developers, suppliers and building owners are responsible, and they should pay.

Read more from Martin Williams: 

"The Scottish and UK Governments need to work collaboratively to urgently return buildings to a safe habitable state, the continued delays in undertaking this work are completely unacceptable."

The Scottish Tenants Organisation, one of the groups that is meeting MSPs at the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday to discuss progress, said the lives of thousands of tenants and homeowners was being put "at risk" over the lack of progress of the programme.

It said it was an "utter disgrace" that progress in England is far more advanced.

"We call on the Scottish Government to greatly accelerate the replacement of unsafe combustible cladding in high rise buildings in Scotland by spending the full £97.1m allocated to it by the Treasury more than 18 months ago to get this work done."

Ministers have been under pressure to either pay for the issues or replicate the scheme launched in England by UK ministers to secure an industry wide agreement that will make sure developers pay to fix the problems created.

The scheme involves an extension to a Building Safety Levy chargeable on all new residential buildings in England which was to raise a further estimated £3 billion forcing industry to pay. A further £2 billion has committed by over 35 developers to make buildings safe.

The Herald:

In the Programme for Government published in September, last year ministers set out an intention to seek the devolution of powers to introduce a similar levy.

But according to the financial memo the Scottish Parliament does not currently have the power to introduce a levy and it is not included in the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill currently being considered.

A consultation on a devolution of power for a Scottish Building Safety Levy has been launched by the UK Government.

The £97.1m was received in Barnett consequentials following the UK Government’s announcement in March 2020 to remediate non-ACM cladding systems on residential buildings 18 metres and over.

But concerns have previously been raised that cladding will not be replaced as guidance accepted by ministers deems it "risk neutral".

The fears surround the PAS 9980 code of practice which guides fire risk assessors on how to categorise the risk posed by a building’s external wall. The UK government hopes it will result in more "proportionate" assessments and fewer blocks being branded in need of full remediation.

But the Mineral Wool Insulation Materials Association (MIMA), which represents the manufacturers of non-combustible insulation, has warned that the document’s use of ‘calorific values’ to grade the risk of different cladding panels could allow dangerous materials slip through.

The PAS 9980 code of practice for fire risk replaced a series of advice notes produced since Grenfell, which have been widely blamed for contributing to thousands of blocks with combustible materials on their external walls being denied mortgages.

Sean Clerkin, campaign co-ordinator of the STO said: "Every day that goes by risks a potential Scottish Grenfell occurring due to the incompetence of the Scottish Government."

Researchers from the Imperial College London and Warsaw’s Building Research Institute in 2019 found that HPL cladding failed fire safety tests 80 per cent of the time, while the category of cladding similar to that blamed for the rapid spread of the catastrophic fire at Grenfell failed 60 per cent of the time.

The two types of cladding were the most flammable categories assessed by researchers in was then the most comprehensive study to date.

HPL panels are typically made from wood or paper fibre layered with resin and bonded under heat and pressure.

There have been significant fires involving HPL cladding.

HPL window panels were used on Lakanal House, a building in south London where six residents died in a fire in 2009.

A block of flats designed for students in Bolton which was destroyed by a devastating fire in 2019 and led to a mass-evacuation was clad with HPL panels, according to planning documents.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The Cladding Remediation Programme is committed to acting to protect lives by focusing on identifying, assessing and ensuring remediation of buildings with potentially unsafe cladding.

“The Housing Cladding Remediation (Scotland) Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament in November with a view to addressing barriers to building assessment and remediation. The First Minister has committed to ensuring that all buildings within the pilot phase of the Programme are on a Single Building Assessment pathway by summer 2024. We are working to finalise the specification for that assessment.

“The pace of spending on the programme is increasing."