There is a shortage of specialist skills to support the remediation of buildings with unsafe cladding. There is a shortage of fire safety expertise, both in the enforcement and inspection of buildings with unsafe cladding; this has been a particular issue with fire engineers. To date, work has centred on the removal and replacement of Grenfell-style cladding, covering around 450 buildings. However, the demand for specialist skills is set to increase markedly with the new £1 billion Building Safety Fund, launched in May 2020, for removing other forms of unsafe cladding. The Department has estimated there are around 1,700 buildings within the scope of the new fund. The Department says that it has begun to look at supply chain issues through its project management contractor, but this is very late in the day, given that it has committed to allocating funding by April 2021. Recommendation: The Department should, within the next three months, assess the capacity of specialist fire safety skills within the sector and set out what the impact is on delivery of its timetables for the removal and replacement of unsafe cladding. It should include in this assessment options to tackle the skills shortage so that this does not become a barrier to remediation work continuing at pace. 8 Progress in remediating dangerous cladding 1 Remediation of dangerous cladding