A poor and sometimes cavalier attitude to fire safety and tenants’ concerns on the part of many of the organisations involved in the years leading up to the Grenfell Tower fire has been highlighted by the Phase 2 report from the Grenfell Tower inquiry, published today.
Two of the bodies attracting particular criticism are the local authority – Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) – and its arms-length tenant management organisation (TMO), which was responsible for the day-to-day management of Grenfell Tower.
The report says that the years leading up to the fire were marked by a “persistent indifference to fire safety, particularly the safety of vulnerable people” on the part of RBKC and the TMO, and that the absence of any independent or rigorous scrutiny by RBKC of the TMO’s performance of its health and safety obligations was a particular weakness. There was also an “entrenched reluctance” on the part of the TMO’s then chief executive to inform its board and RBCK’s scrutiny committees of matters that affected fire safety.
The two bodies were also criticised because of a lack of an approved fire safety strategy at the time of the fire, and the TMO’s only fire risk assessor for its entire estate was “ill-qualified to carry out fire risk assessments on buildings of the size and complexity of Grenfell Tower…”
Central government also came in for significant criticism in the report. Since the fire at Knowsley Heights in 1991, there were “many opportunities” to identify the risks posed by the use of combustible cladding panels and insulation, particularly to high-rise buildings, and to take action in relation to them.
These included: the results of fire tests involving aluminium composite panels with unmodified polyethylene cores, which burned violently; the standard used to determine the suitability of external wall panels; “vague and ill considered” language in official guidance (Approved Document B); and a number of serious fires around the world involving cladding using polymeric insulation and aluminium composite panels with unmodified polyethylene cores.
In addition, the relevant government department (Department for Communities and Local Government) was poorly run and allowing the day-to-day responsibility for Building Regulations and Approved Document B to be in the hands of “one relatively junior official” was a “serious failure”. Moreover, the department displayed a “complacent and at times defensive attitude” to fire safety matters, such as not treating with any sense of urgency and importance the recommendations of the coroner following the 2009 fire at Lakanal House in south London. In the years that followed that fire, the government’s deregulatory agenda dominated the department’s thinking to such an extent that “even matters affecting the safety of life were ignored, delayed or disregarded”.
The Building Research Establishment (BRE) was also identified as having a role in the lead up to the disaster, with much of its work on testing of the fire safety of external walls “marred by unprofessional conduct, inadequate practices, a lack of effective oversight, poor reporting and a lack of scientific rigour”. The British Board of Agrément’s (BBA) procedures were “neither wholly independent nor rigorous” and were not always rigorously applied. The report also says that Local Authority Building Control (LABC) – a body formed by local authority building control departments to provide support with training and technical matters – must take its share of the blame for the acceptance by the market of Celotex RS5000 and Kingspan K15 for use on buildings over 18 metres in height.
In terms of the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, the report says that the TMO manipulated the procurement process to avoid having to put the contract for architectural services out to public tender. Also, before the procurement process had been completed, the TMO agreed with Rydon that if it were awarded the contract, it would reduce its price. In addition, as cost became an increasingly important consideration for the TMO, an aluminium composite material (ACM) was chosen instead of zinc rainscreen panels.
The choice of combustible materials for the cladding resulted from a series of errors caused by the incompetence of organisations – such as Studio E, Rydon and Harley – and individuals involved in the refurbishment. “Studio E demonstrated a cavalier attitude to the regulations affecting fire safety, and Rydon and Harley relied on their previous experience, rather than on any technical analysis or expertise.” In addition, RBKC building control did not properly scrutinise the design or choice of materials and failed to satisfy itself that the building would comply with the requirements of the Building Regulations.
Turning to the role of London Fire Brigade (LFB), the report says the Lakanal House fire should have alerted it to the shortcomings in its ability to fight fires in high-rise buildings, and those shortcomings could have been made good if the LFB had been more effectively managed and led.
It failed to ensure that suitable training was provided to its control room operators on handling multiple fire survival guidance calls simultaneously and on their duties more generally. “Those failures were attributable to a chronic lack of effective management and leadership, combined with an undue emphasis on process,” says the report.
Speaking at the launch of the report, Sir Martin Moore-Bick said: “The simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable, and those who lived in the tower were badly failed over a number of years and in a number of different ways, by those who were responsible for ensuring the safety of the building and its occupants. Not all of them bear the same degree of responsibility for the eventual disaster. But as our report shows, all contributed to it in one way or another. In most cases, through incompetence, but in some cases, through dishonesty and greed.”
People with a duty of care needs to be held accountable.
Only a custodian sentence will act as any future deterrent