The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) has released its manifesto ahead of the forthcoming Scottish Election, urging the next Scottish Government to take urgent, cross-portfolio action to better support the construction and built environment sector.

CIOB's plan focuses on three core areas: retrofitting and energy efficiency, tackling the construction skills gap, and improving building quality and safety. It argues that coordinated policymaking across departments is needed to avoid the pitfalls of siloed development, which it says leads to ineffective policies, delivery delays and inflated costs, with knock-on impacts for households, the environment, employers and people seeking to enter the industry.

Jocelyne Fleming, who leads CIOB's Policy and Public Affairs work in Scotland, said: "Scotland's challenges in housing, climate change, and building safety are not the result of a lack of ambition. They are the result of systems that are not designed to deliver complex change at pace and scale.

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"Our three key priorities, if addressed by the next Government, will go a long way toward cutting consumer energy bills and reducing rates of fuel poverty, decarbonising the built environment to meet climate targets, getting more people into work, and, crucially, ensuring everyone has a warm, safe home.

"Our manifesto, based in a fundamental shift to a system-wide approach to policymaking, outlines clear, tangible actions the next Government can take to move Scotland's built environment policy from ambition to delivery."

Under its retrofit and energy efficiency priority, CIOB proposes creating a Ministerial Oversight Group on Retrofit and developing a National Retrofit Delivery and Resource Plan to coordinate activity and resources.

To address skills, CIOB is calling for a Construction Skills Action Plan which takes a long-term, demand-led view of the sector's needs; aligns education policy, funding and curriculum with delivery requirements; removes barriers to apprenticeships for employers and learners; and supports upskilling the existing workforce, including in green and retrofit skills.

On building quality and safety, the manifesto urges the establishment of clear frameworks for building safety and maintenance, and exploration of a demolition levy to fund urgent safety and maintenance works, incentivise repair, maintenance and improvement activity, and help tackle VAT-related cost imbalances.

CIOB's full manifesto can be found here.