The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) told us that the PAS 9980 standard for assessing the fire safety risk of external walls relied on specialist knowledge of building construction, fire engineering principles and material performance. The NFCC warned that there was limited availability of qualified professionals, and that its members were concerned that current PAS 9980 assessments were not meeting the intended standard. We also heard concerns from End Our Cladding Scandal and the NFCC about the inconsistent quality of fire risk appraisals and different assessors drawing different conclusions about what remediation work was required. The NFCC also told us that some PAS 9980 assessments were unjustifiably supporting the retention of combustible materials.29