Row as ScotGov rejects inquiry over national treasure rebuild scandal

The June 2018 fire destroyed the building as it neared the end of a multi-million pound restoration project following an earlier blaze in May 2014.

The Scottish Government had come under fresh pressure to act after Glasgow School of Art admitted it is heading to arbitration with the company that insured the Mack over questions regarding whether it was covered in the wake of the 2018 blaze but insists that its faithful reinstatement will not be reconsidered.

The GSA has confirmed there were insurance issues after the Herald revealed that a wrangle over the cover had contributed to issues with pursuing the rebuild.

In the wake of the 2018 blaze, the GSA said it was confident that their insurance would cover the costs of the project.

READ MORE:  Glasgow School of Art: Insurance claim fuels Mack rebuild 'inertia'

READ MORE: Lachlan Goudie: ScotGov must intervene over School of Art fails

Glasgow School of Art: We 'appreciate' concern over future of Mack

Glasgow School of Art: students and politicians recall the 2014 fire

'A scandal': 19 months of 'inertia' over the rebuild of a Scottish national treasure

A Herald series of investigations revealed how attempts at the reinstatement of the masterpiece originally designed by renowned Scots architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh had stalled leading to serious questions about whether the restoration will ever happen.

Now the newly reappointed culture secretary Angus Robertson, who had been contemplating the next steps has ruled out a public inquiry that would have also included the risks posed by fire in historic buildings nationally.

He said minister did not support the calls "given the extensive investigations already undertaken by the SFRS [Scottish Fire and Rescue Service] into the 2014 and 2018 fires, and the action taken by the Scottish Government and its agencies in response to recommendations made in reports by the former culture, tourism, Europe and external affairs committee in March 2019, and the SFRS fire investigation report published in January 2022".

He said the publication of the report, the heritage agency Historic Environment Scotland (HES) has been carrying out a review of its guidance for use during the conversion of historic properties.

He said the work of an expert group being established to follow on from a Short-Life Working Group in the wake of the fatal Cameron House fire of 2017 will "consider the impact of, and feed into, fire safety guidance currently being revised by the HES review".

He said that revisions to this guidance will "be of benefit to projects such as the Mackintosh building reinstatement".

He said the Scottish Government has also considered the feasibility of a review of fire safety in Category A listed buildings.

The vast majority of such properties are in private ownership, such as the Mack.

But Mr Robertson said neither HES nor the Scottish Government have the necessary frameworks or regulations currently in place to implement such a comprehensive review.

"It is my view that the resources required, not just financially but in terms of expertise and personnel, would be extensive. Given the current financial landscape, it is difficult to identify a way that this could funded, or justified, given the protections already given to historic buildings in fire safety and construction legislation, and the progress already made since the 2018 fire," he said.

Concerns over the future of the Mack escalated in the wake of the GSA admitting that it was in dispute with their insurers.

The Herald previously revealed that a six-year failure to reach a settlement over a "complex" insurance claim over the fire that ravaged the Mack had contributed to the level of "inertia" over its reinstatement.

We revealed that a long-term inability to reach an agreement with insurers over a payout and a botch up over the way the school went about procuring experts to rebuild the Glasgow School of Art's Mackintosh Building after the June 2018 fire have been key to what some see as the effective "suspension" of works on the building.

The GSA refer to any insurance income received from the fire in its official financial records as a "contingent asset" meaning that it is only a potential financial gain.

While a design team was supposed to have been in place, according to the GSA itinerary, by August 2022 - that still has not happened with hopes of getting any council planning approval for the project not expected until the spring of 2026 the earliest, according to estimates based on the GSA's own schedule.

The GSA has now said that is has chosen to enter into arbitration proceedings with its insurers.

They confirmed that work to date, has totalled around £18 million and has been funded by interim payments from the insurers.

It is said that the GSA is now hoping to have a design team in place by July to identify the "appropriate route to delivery"

A fresh business case is expected with its conclusions to be made public in early 2025.

But as the Herald previously revealed, the project will not be completed by the original 2030 deadline and is not now expected to be complete within the next decade.

In the wake of the fire, GSA said that an insurance payout was key to cover the bill for rebuilding the Mack.

According to the school's project itinerary, the architect procurement process that has been postponed since March, last year was expected to take four months.

Funding arrangements have still not been confirmed and neither the Scottish or UK Governments have been approached to date by the GSA in any bid to secure funds to cover the capital costs of any restoration. The business case schedule talked of confirming funding arrangements to be in place by April 2022.

And no steps had yet officially been taken to appoint a main contractor for the reinstatement of one of Scotland's most internationally renowned landmarks.

An original GSA risk management analysis categorised a delay of more than six months with the project as "catastrophic".

A contrast has previously been made with the work done on the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was severely damaged by a blaze in 2019 and is scheduled to reopen at the end of this year.

Professor Alan Dunlop, one of Scotland's leading architects who once put his hat in the ring to become the next chair of the GSA and is a stakeholder consultee for the Mack project said there should be an inquiry.

He said he was not surprised the Scottish Government did not sanction an inquiry.

"A public inquiry would have shone light into the darker ineptitudes of leadership- past and present,"  he said.

"Communication between the School of Art and those interested in the future of the Mackintosh building has been consistently poor. The Garnethill Community have been treated shamefully as have generations of art students. No inquiry means no accountability and no justice."

The issues with insurance have emerged after the Herald revealed that in 2012, before the first fire, the GSA's land and buildings were valued at £8.138m. Before the second fire in 2018, the value was put at the same, £8.138m. After the 2018 fire, however, the valuation had dropped to £1.561m.

Some raised questions on the logic for the valuations in the wake of what is a six-year insurance complication.

According to financial papers, after the 2014 fire, an examination of the Mack valued it at "considerably in excess of the depreciated figure used in these accounts... accordingly, it was deemed that it was satisfactory not to impair the Mack".

However, after the 2018 fire, the extent of the damage meant that the value of the building was "fully impaired", meaning that there was a permanent reduction in its value. It left only the value of the land on which the Mack stood.

At the time of the 2018 fire the Mack was covered by what the GSA called an owner-controlled insurance programme, designed to co-ordinate general liability coverage for all parties working its rebuild.

That comprised cover for the contract works and the pre-existing structure of what is one of Scotland's most precious landmarks.

But according to a December financial analysis of the state of the GSA, the value and method of the receipt of insurance sums relating to the Mack had "still to be agreed" so represented a "contingent asset".

A three-year-old detailed business case examination of the project revealed that while a variety of funding sources may be available to deliver the capital project and support operation of the new building, its affordability was "dependent" on the outcome of the insurance claim.

Apart from the insurance dilemma, also putting a spanner in the works is the botched process for procuring architects to design the project.