Grenfell Tower fire in North Kensington - news and discussion

[Lurdan]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 56: ‘Why didn’t we thump the table harder?’

For those who want them links to the daily reports:

Spoiler: Daily Reports

LFB mock script for call handlers did not include warnings about risk of reassuring trapped residents
Major IT problems and lack of resources hampered LFB efforts to train call handlers, Grenfell inquiry hears
LFB control room training still ‘ad hoc and lacking in structure’ two years after Grenfell, inquiry hears
LFB ‘should have worked harder’ to improve control training, says director

 

[equationgirl]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 56: ‘Why didn’t we thump the table harder?’

For those who want them links to the daily reports:

Spoiler: Daily Reports

LFB mock script for call handlers did not include warnings about risk of reassuring trapped residents
Major IT problems and lack of resources hampered LFB efforts to train call handlers, Grenfell inquiry hears
LFB control room training still ‘ad hoc and lacking in structure’ two years after Grenfell, inquiry hears
LFB ‘should have worked harder’ to improve control training, says director

Thank you again for keeping us up to date with the inquiry. It's a fairly damning indictment on the LFB this week.

 

[Lurdan]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 56: ‘It was worse than slow, it was sluggish’

And links to the daily reports:

Spoiler: Daily Reports

LFB officer disputes accuracy of figures showing low training rates in call handlers
Description of training improvements post-Lakanal ‘overstated and misleading’, former LFB commissioner accepts
LFB 'forewarned' on cladding but failed to implement national guidance, Cotton accepts
London Fire Brigade warned government of high-rise fire fears weeks before Grenfell

 

[equationgirl]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 56: ‘It was worse than slow, it was sluggish’

And links to the daily reports:

Spoiler: Daily Reports

LFB officer disputes accuracy of figures showing low training rates in call handlers
Description of training improvements post-Lakanal ‘overstated and misleading’, former LFB commissioner accepts
LFB 'forewarned' on cladding but failed to implement national guidance, Cotton accepts
London Fire Brigade warned government of high-rise fire fears weeks before Grenfell

On reading that I do have questions about the decision to outsource training, the selection process in general and how Babcock's won the contract if they apparently lacked the capability to create the training materials.

Thanks for posting.

 

[Lurdan]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):

Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 58: ‘I don't think we deserve to ask for trust until we demonstrate different outcomes’

For those who want them links to the daily reports:

Spoiler: Daily Reports

LFB ‘complacent’ to assume large cladding fire would not happen in the UK, former commissioner accepts
LFB commissioner describes use of racist language by firefighters
Conservatism at LFB led to ‘arrogance and complacency’, chief says

The week saw the last of the evidence from the London Fire Brigade, concluding with the current Commissioner Andy Roe. As mentioned on the previous page this was the first of the four topics which Module 6 will be looking at. Because it ties in with the matters looked at in the previous module, it has been dealt with separately to those other topics, which are:

• Testing and certification;
• Fire risk assessment; and
• The role of central government.

Next Monday and Tuesday there will be oral opening statements for these remaining topics.

On Monday after a short statement by Counsel for the Inquiry
Stephanie Barwise for BSRs Team 1, Michael Mansfield for BSRs Team 2 (covering central government and fire risk assessments), Adrian Williamson for BSRs Team 2 (covering testing and certification), Anne Studd for the Mayor of London and Martin Seaward for the FBU.

On Tuesday Matthew Butt for the National House Building Council, Samantha Leek for the Building Research Establishment and Jason Beer for The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

On Wednesday and Thursday the Inquiry will start with evidence from Local Authority Building Control. There will be one further week of evidence until Thursday 16th when the Inquiry breaks for Christmas. It will return on January 24th when it will hear closing statements for Module 5 and the firefighting topic of Module 6.

Meanwhile the row over Mercedes Formula 1 team signing a sponsorship deal with Kingspan, everyone's favourite combustible insulation manufacturer, rumbles on with Michael Gove expressing his 'disappointment' over it.

Grenfell Tower: Rethink deal with insulation firm, Mercedes F1 urged - BBC News

A spokesman for the Mercedes team said: "Our partner Kingspan has supported, and continues to support, the vitally important work of the inquiry to determine what went wrong and why in the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

"Our new partnership announced this week is centred on sustainability and will support us in achieving our targets in this area."

Can't honestly say that the sustainability of Kingspan as a business is at the top of my wish list.

 

[BCBlues]

Can't honestly say that the sustainability of Kingspan as a business is at the top of my wish list.

Can't honestly say I'm convinced either that Gove is 'disappointed' given the blatant corruption and cover ups his party are up to.

Thanks again Lurdan for the updates

 

[Lurdan]

A very interesting day at the Inquiry. Here's an archived copy of Peter Apps' lunchtime report for Inside Housing:

Government ‘cover-up’ of dangerous cladding ‘one of the major scandals of our time’, lawyers tell Grenfell Inquiry

In shocking opening statements delivered by lawyers acting for the bereaved and survivors today, governments stretching over a 30-year period were accused of repeated “deliberate cover-ups” of the risks of dangerous cladding.

Apps really only deals with the first two opening statements on behalf of the BSRs although they provided more than enough material. They were followed by another trenchantly worded BSR opening about testing and certification, and later on a statement on behalf of the FBU which, amongst other things, went into detail about the consequences of the 'localization' of fire services and the deregulation of fire safety assessments.

Like all of the Inquiry's sessions video is online, as are some of the written statements made by core participants. There are a lot more of the latter to come. Counsel to the Inquiry gave a clearly worded hint about some of the written submissions received from official bodies which we haven't seen yet.

By way of postscript. By the time this week is over many will have read the opening written submissions of the public or quasi-public bodies from whose witnesses we are going to hear. And will have heard what they tell you.

We have seen a number of concessions made by these bodies, particularly by DLUHC and the Home Office. You may come to wonder whether they go nearly far enough, and whether there are any further concessions to come before their witnesses come to assist us.

I would say this. This Inquiry is not a game of cat and mouse, where core participants might hope that their witnesses will smuggle something past Counsel to the Inquiry, or Counsel to the Inquiry might miss a trick.

These core participants and their witnesses know, or ought to know, what is in the documents. It is in the interests of the Inquiry's work, and so in the public interest, that these bodies fully embrace their obligations of candour and openness, and face up to the stark realities that they reveal.

Their written submissions tend to suggest that they have been drafted with fingers crossed.

We would urge the witnesses to come in this module to approach their evidence in the full spirit of cooperation, and make concessions unhesitatingly where justified on the material.

"Their written submissions tend to suggest that they have been drafted with fingers crossed."

I'll do some of the oral openings as web pages now the official transcript is up.

 

[Lurdan]

Peter Apps produced a second more detailed Inside Housing report on yesterdays hearing.
‘One of the major scandals of our time’: key revelations as the Grenfell Tower Inquiry turns to government
It includes links to some of the background reports and stories Inside Housing have previously published. The links in that archived version are working but here they are again

Spoiler: Links

August 2018 - Government did not act after warning about Grenfell-style cladding in 2014, minutes reveal
July 2019 - Special investigation – The lost lessons of Lakanal: how politicians missed the chance to stop Grenfell
June 2021 - Special investigation: how the government missed the chance to prevent the cladding crisis in the 1990s
Sept 2021 - Cladding systems failed government-commissioned fire tests in 2004, leaked document reveals

Richard Millett's opening remarks about this part of Module 6 can be found here. And here are web page versions of three of the oral opening statements made yesterday:

Stephanie Barwise for BSRs Team 1

Michael Mansfield for BSRs Team 2

Adrian Williamson for BSRs Team 2

The Team 2 openings both illustrated points by exhibiting documents which aren't yet on the Inquiries web site. I've added screencaps of them.

Most of the points picked up in the Inside Housing reports come from Stephanie Barwise's opening. Barwise is a corporate lawyer. She addresses the panel, making few concessions to a wider audience, and assumes familiarity with names and technical terms. You might find the Inquiries glossary of the latter useful. Nonetheless, as with her previous opening statements, she has a formidable grasp of the issues and the documentation, and a remarkable ability to put the stilleto in.

The Grenfell disaster is a predictable yet unintended consequence of the combination of the laudable desire to reduce carbon emissions coupled with an unbridled passion for deregulation, in particular a desire to deregulate and boost the housing construction industry. Government’s dependency on that industry resulted in government becoming the junior partner in the relationship, thereby permitting industry’s exploitation of the regulations.

Government’s response on realising the extent of the problem was to react by concealment instead of candour. The result is a prolonged period of concealment by government which should properly be regarded as one of the major scandals of our time.

The failure to identify and address the problem of fire safety in façades has, in one sense, transcended party politics, stretching as it does across Conservative, Labour, Conservative/Liberal Democrats coalition and finally, again, Conservative governments. That said, certain political ideals, principally deregulatory policies entwined with a radical housing policy, bear primary responsibility for the astonishing period of willful blindness reflected in a failure to revise ADB properly from 1992, and a failure to review it at all from 2006 to the time of the Grenfell fire and beyond.

The events which occurred at Grenfell are not merely the product of the absence of enforcement or oversight, as government now suggests, but are an unintended consequence of a political ideology which broke free from common sense and safety constraints. That is ultimately a failure of systems.

Three short oral opening statements this morning. The most interesting (relatively speaking) on behalf of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities which acknowledged a series of past failings. Other core participants have limited themselves to written submissions which are still being added to the Inquiry's web site.

 

[Lurdan]

Last Friday: "Our new partnership announced this week is centred on sustainability".
Today: Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes team ends deal with Grenfell firm - The Guardian

Inside Housing report about yesterday
Government ‘deeply sorry’ for failures in oversight of regulatory system before Grenfell
"We are very sorry that we failed to properly scrutinise that people were adhering to our absolutely wonderful regulations".

 

[BCBlues]

Last Friday: "Our new partnership announced this week is centred on sustainability".
Today: Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes team ends deal with Grenfell firm - The Guardian

Inside Housing report about yesterday
Government ‘deeply sorry’ for failures in oversight of regulatory system before Grenfell
"We are very sorry that we failed to properly scrutinise that people were adhering to our absolutely wonderful regulations".

A sharper u turn than either Hamilton or our wonderful PM could do

 

[Lurdan]

A sharper u turn than either Hamilton or our wonderful PM could do

Distinct smell of burning rubber

 

[Lurdan]

Grenfell United's response to the DLUHC's 'admissions' on Tuesday.

Twitter Link

Inside Housing - Grenfell survivors slam ‘disingenuous’ and ‘deeply offensive’ government inquiry statement -

Peter Apps of Inside Housing also produced a twitter thread succinctly setting out some of the problems with the Government's stance. It's archived here. Since it includes links to normally paywalled Inside Housing articles here it is with links to archived versions of them.

Spoiler

Peter Apps on Twitter 8th December 2021.

I think it is probably worth explaining in a bit more detail why the government's 'apology' for Grenfell yesterday was inadequate and disingenuous...

In its opening statement the government ultimately accepted two failures:

• Not realising local authority building inspectors were failing to properly enforce the rules
• A 'misplaced' trust in product manufacturers and contractors which was 'abused'

The implication was that it learned of these issues after the Grenfell Tower fire. However, the evidence simply does not support that claim. It is clear it knew, in some cases in quite specific terms, about both problems before the fire. Let's take the misplaced trust first.

Ultimately, this is a reference to the misleading marketing which led to the sale of highly combustible cladding materials for high rises. The government was repeatedly warned this was going on before Grenfell.

Brain Martin, its lead civil servant for the fire safety guidance, was told in July 2014 that combustible insulation was being widely used on high rises. He warned the country's largest building inspector (the NHBC) about this. They responded with a detailed explanation of how Kingspan's K15 was being used on high rises even though "testing carried out to date does not bear this out”.

What was done? With specific govt consent, guidance was weakened to make it even easier for these products to be specified.

20.12.03 - Key government official warned over use of Kingspan insulation on high rises in 2014

They had also been warned by the London Fire Brigade in 2009, following the Lakanal House fire, that the panels on that building did not meet the standards advertised. LFB said it believed this type of panel had been "supplied by more than one company".

21.09.23 - Government did not act on LFB advice to warn housing providers about combustible cladding eight years before Grenfell

It said ministers should instruct providers to check for similarly combustible materials. The govt rejected this advice, shut down the investigation and said it wanted to “..avoid giving impression that we believe all buildings of this construction are inherently unsafe”.

Not to mention that in 2002, it ran tests on a cladding system with polyethylene-cored ACM (the material later used on Grenfell) which failed so badly the 30 minute test was stopped in less than six minutes. It did nothing to ban the use of this product or warn about it.

It was warned again in 2014 that this material was in wide use in the UK due to a perceived weakness in our regulations and did not even write an FAQ to make clear that it was banned. This followed a series of large fires with the same product in the Middle East.

Not to mention further that in 1991, the government instructed that a huge fire in a cladding pilot project it was funding in Knowsley should be "played down" and never published a report revealing the cladding panels were combustible.

21.06.13 - Government sought to ‘play down’ cladding fire at pilot project it funded in 1990s, investigation reveals

Put all of this together and you can say that the government ::knew:: its trust in industry was 'misplaced'. It elected not to act.

What about building control? It's notable that many of the corporates have moved to blame building control. It's the easiest scapegoat - the organisation which was supposed to ensure compliance has admitted not doing so.

But once more, this does not sit easily with government. They were repeatedly warned over the years that building control were struggling. Take this response to a 2010 consultation for example:

How did govt respond? With austerity cuts to local authorities which helped reduce the number of building control inspectors by 27.4% in the next decade, at the same time as increasing their workload by pursuing policies to increase house building

21.04.28 - Hundreds of building control surveyor posts cut by councils since 2010, research reveals

It was also an active decision in the 1980s to marketise building control by making local authorities compete with the private sector for work. It was warned at the time and since that this would reduce standards but never lifted a finger to change this position

You also have to ask: what standards were building control actually being asked to enforce?

The govt knew guidance could allow dangerous cladding products through. It knew combustible insulation was being used in untested systems.

You can't set the rules up like this and then blame the inspectors for not enforcing different ones. If it thought the statutory provisions should not have permitted combustible cladding systems, it should have said so. Anything less was tacit consent.

Really, yesterday's apology was a means to point the finger towards other parties and spin the government's role as an unknowing outsider rather than an active participant in causing the crisis. It needs to be understood in that light

 

[Lurdan]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 59: ‘Recent tests have apparently shown it continued to burn for 20 minutes after a flame was taken away’

The opening statements heard on Monday and Tuesday were covered in detail in the articles linked to above. So this diary deals with the evidence on Wednesday and Thursday from past and present employees of Local Authority Building Control, about the certificates they issued for combustible materials installed at Grenfell. In her opening statement Stephanie Barwise described the LABC as "a spineless members’ association". After hearing the evidence from them this seems a rather charitable assessment.

Here are Wednesday and Thursday's daily reports if anyone wants them.

Spoiler: Daily Reports

LABC did not correct 'misleading' Kingspan certificate despite multiple warnings, Grenfell inquiry hears
LABC did not remove Kingspan certificate despite hearing insulation 'carried on burning for 20 minutes' in fire tests

 

[Lurdan]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 60: ‘You could have an exact repeat of the Dubai fire in any number of buildings in London’
Links (including, at the bottom of the page, to the daily reports) should all be working.

More evidence was heard of how useless the LABC were, followed by three days of evidence from the National House Building Council, which amongst other things is the UK's largest private building control company, and also issues warranties for the majority of newly built homes.

The NHBC addressed it's own concerns about whether combustible cladding complied with Building Regulations, and about the failure of manufacturers to conduct enough successful large-scale fire tests, by drawing up guidance which promoted the use of desktop studies, conducted by a "suitable independent UKAS accredited testing body", as a way of justifying the use of these materials. When it became clear that UKAS accredited testing bodies didn't have the capacity to deal with the volume of work

The requirement for a UKAS-accredited testing house was removed and replaced with a requirement for the assessment to be done by “a suitably qualified fire specialist”.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Inquiry is now on it's Christmas break. It resumes on January 24th with closing statements about Module 5 and the firefighting topic of Module 6. There will then be further evidence about testing and certification.

 

[brogdale]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 60: ‘You could have an exact repeat of the Dubai fire in any number of buildings in London’
Links (including, at the bottom of the page, to the daily reports) should all be working.

More evidence was heard of how useless the LABC were, followed by three days of evidence from the National House Building Council, which amongst other things is the UK's largest private building control company, and also issues warranties for the majority of newly built homes.

The NHBC addressed it's own concerns about whether combustible cladding complied with Building Regulations, and about the failure of manufacturers to conduct enough successful large-scale fire tests, by drawing up guidance which promoted the use of desktop studies, conducted by a "suitable independent UKAS accredited testing body", as a way of justifying the use of these materials. When it became clear that UKAS accredited testing bodies didn't have the capacity to deal with the volume of work

What could possibly go wrong?

The Inquiry is now on it's Christmas break. It resumes on January 24th with closing statements about Module 5 and the firefighting topic of Module 6. There will then be further evidence about testing and certification.

Thanks for your continuing perseverance in making these digestible updates available for us.

 

[Lurdan]

The Inquiry sat for one day yesterday to hear closing statements for Module 5 and the first topic of Module 6 (firefighting).

Oral statements were made on behalf of Bereaved, Survivors and Relatives Teams 1 & 2, the Fire Officers Association, the Mayor of London, the Fire Brigades Union and the London Fire Commissioner. All have also made written statements - links here.

Here's the daily report from Inside Housing (archived):
Grenfell survivors call for ‘duty of candor’ and national body to oversee inquiry response

The oral statements from both BSR Teams were extremely critical of the LFB and it's responses to the Inquiry. Here are transcripts as web pages. I've added screenshots of some documents presented onscreen during the Team 1 statement, and links to documents referred to in the Team 2 statement.

Danny Friedman for BSR Team 1

Leslie Thomas for BSR Team 2

The Inquiry resumes on Monday.

 

[Lurdan]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry Diary Week 61: ‘Mistakes are meant for learning, not repeating’

 

[Lurdan]

The evidence which the Inquiry heard at the end of 2020 (Module 2), about how product manufacturers had gamed the testing and certification systems in order to miss-sell combustible products, led the Government to announce the setting up of the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS). It was established last April in advance of the Building Safety Bill currently going through Parliament.

Government to establish building materials regulator following Grenfell Inquiry revelations - Inside Housing
National regulation: construction products - GOV.UK

This week Inside Housing reported the OPSS had served prohibition notices on Kingspan to cease supplying Kooltherm K15 products manufactured since last August, and requiring it to arrange to recall those already sold but not yet installed. K15 had been advertised as having a Class C European rating but testing showed it only achieved Class D.

Kingspan ordered to halt sales of widely-used insulation product following fire test failures - Inside Housing (archived) - lots of background.
Kingspan told to recall Grenfell insulation - Sunday Times (archived)

Although the prohibition orders don't require affected K15 which has already been installed to be removed, developers may find themselves obliged to do so or face their properties being un-mortgageable.

K15 was one of the insulation products used on Grenfell Tower. What about the Celotex RS5000 insulation and the Arconic Reynobond 55 PE cladding which also contributed to fire spread? Both were withdrawn from sale immediately after the fire.

Although a ban on combustible products on buildings above 18 metres in height (above 5-6 stories) came into force in December 2018 they are still legal for use on buildings up to that height provided Building Control approve them. It was reported last April that three quarters of the mid-rise buildings (3-6 stories) which had cladding systems fitted in 2019 and 2020 were believed to have used combustible insulation, Kingspan being the market leader.

Inside Housing -Three-quarters of cladding systems on new medium-rise buildings use combustible materials, data shows (archived)

Kingspan claim they have since successfully tested K15 to Class C and hope to resume selling it shortly. The OPSS say enforcement action is ongoing.

 

[Lurdan]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 62: ‘Did it ever occur to you that this act of collaboration was, in one sense, corrupting?’

The week was largely taken up with more evidence from the National House Building Council, (which is the UK's largest private building control company, and also issues warranties for the majority of newly built homes). I think it's fair to say they were questioned robustly about their role in signing off buildings with combustible insulation, promoting the use of 'desktop studies' to justify this and in drawing up guidance which would have made this even easier.

Yesterday the Inquiry heard that Brian Martin, the civil servant responsible for Building Regulations Guidance, had emailed the NHBC on the 16th June 2017.

Rebuttal of Times Article:
Apologies in advance for asking but;
I’ve been asked to prepare a rebuttal of the assertion that PE cored ACM panels comply with the guidance in ADB.
I’ve also been asked if an independent expert would be willing to say this (or something similar) in public?
Can you consider the attached and let me know please.
Brian.

The NHBC declined and referred him to the Building Control Alliance (BCA). The disclosure of this email has not gone down well.

The fire at Grenfell began after midnight on June 14th 2017. It was not brought under control until 24 hours later on the 15th, and for some hours after that firefighters were still dealing with pockets of fire and beginning the operations to recover bodies. Fingers were pointed at the role of the cladding in fire spread from the start. The make of the cladding panels used was soon established from the planning documents for the refurbishment.

At midnight on the 15th the Times published two articles on it's website which then appeared in the next morning's paper.
Grenfell Tower: fire-resistant cladding is just £5,000 more expensive and US banned cladding that was used on Grenfell Tower. They stated "The PE panels used in Grenfell conformed to British regulations" and "The PE panels conform to UK standards but are rated as “flammable” in Germany."

By early afternoon Brian Martin was looking for 'independent experts' who would publicly confirm the Government's line that polyethylene-cored cladding panels did not comply with Building Regulation Guidance.

Link to twitter thread. (The article it links to is linked to in the Grenfell Diary).

Link to tweet.

Mr Martin will be giving evidence later in this module.

 

[Lurdan]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 63: ‘It came after the general move towards deregulation. So more regulation was not welcome’

Working links to the daily reports at the bottom of that page.
(As with other pages archived at archive.vn you will find that links to YouTube videos don't play on the page but the 'watch on YouTube' option works).

Evidence from the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) about their monitoring of the Building Research Establishment, from the Centre for Window and Cladding Technology (CWCT) which issued influential guidance to the cladding industry, and from the first of a number of witnesses from the Building Research Establishment.

The Inquiry has previously looked at the BRE's role in large-scale fire testing and its misuse by product manufacturers. This week was about it's role in investigating and monitoring fires on behalf of the Government, and it's failure to flag up that Building Regulations did not adequately address the issue of combustible materials used in cladding systems.

Aside from looking at failings by these specific organisations, this is laying the groundwork for the evidence to be taken from civil servants in the MCLG (as it was then known) and from politicians later in this module.

 

[Lurdan]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 64: ‘I didn’t think ACM would be suitable for use in any high-rise buildings. I don’t think anyone did’

The daily reports for those who want them

Spoiler: Links

Mon/Tue - Government failed to warn of ACM cladding dangers despite 2002 test showing ‘catastrophic’ fire
Wed - BRE scientist did not clarify guidance on Grenfell-style cladding despite request
Thu - BRE described as ‘buckpassing incompetents’ after inaction on cladding warning

(You may find that accessing links to pages at archive.vn you are required to complete an "are you a human being" Cloudflare captcha. These links should be working, There might, however, be issues with older ones in this thread).

More evidence this week from senior staff at the Building Research Establishment. The Inquiry had previously heard that, despite believing that Building Regulations Guidance prohibited the use of combustible cladding panels on buildings above 18 metres high, the BRE had failed to help produce interim guidance which made this clear, after saying that it would. This failure was explored at length.

More evidence from the BRE next week followed by the first witness from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

 

[Lurdan]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 65: ‘Unless the government does something now about ACM panels, people will die’

There are working links to the daily reports at the bottom of the page.

(The Cloudflare issues with Archive.vn links I mentioned last week seem to have been sorted out. However if you do have any problems accessing pages I'd be grateful if you could let me know).

One of the issues that has come up over the last few weeks, and will continue to do so now the Inquiry has begun taking evidence from civil servants and the politicians in charge of them, concerns the meaning of the terms 'limited combustibility ' and 'Class 0' used in Building Regulation Guidance. Peter Apps posted a useful short twitter thread explaining this here. It's archived as a web page here.

Much of the week was taken up with evidence from Debbie Smith, a former Managing Director of the Building Research Establishment. It went over the range of issues BRE witnesses have been questioned about in previous weeks :- the consequences of the privatization of the BRE. The nature of the relationship between the BRE and Government, and between the BRE and the companies it carried out material and large-scale fire testing for. The BRE's role in developing the regime of large-scale fire testing, which was supposed to determine whether combustible products used on the outside of buildings complied with Building Regulations. The adequacy of the information the BRE gave Government about the results of it's testing work and it's investigations of fires. And whether the way that information was presented was affected by the commercial relationships with manufacturers or by pressure from Government.

There were some interesting moments. Right at the end of her evidence Debbie Smith was asked some blunt questions about whether the access Phil Clark, a former BRE employee, had been given to BRE records in order to prepare his evidence to the Inquiry back in Module 2, had anything to do with the fact that some key documents have not been located. She was also questioned robustly about why, in the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell fire, the BRE had not drawn the Government's attention to the fact that ACM panels had completely failed a large-scale fire test commissioned by the Government and conducted by the BRE back in 2001. (This only emerged at all last year after a document was leaked to the BBC). Or to the fact that prior to ambiguously-worded amendments to Building Regulation Guidance in 2006 the use of combustible cladding materials had been permitted. Or that those ambiguously-worded amendments had then created confusion about whether such materials were permitted or not. BRE witnesses have insisted they were unaware that both before and after those amendments combustible cladding materials were being widely used in practise. They have admitted they had significant concerns about the activities of insulation manufacturers. In both cases the adequacy of the information they gave Government about these issues was challenged.

On Thursday afternoon the first civil servant began giving evidence. He is back on Monday and the Inquiry will then hear from others.

 

[DaveCinzano]

...On Thursday afternoon the first civil servant began giving evidence. He is back on Monday and the Inquiry will then hear from others.

Report in the Graun:

A senior official has admitted the government knew 15 years before the Grenfell Tower disaster that plastic-filled cladding panels – which fuelled the fatal fire – burned “fast and fierce” and he believed they should not be used on tall buildings.

But the results of tests were not published, and on Monday Anthony Burd, the principal fire safety professional and later head of technical policy in the government’s building regulations division from 2000 to 2013, denied there was a cover-up.

...Burd said the results should have been published but denied that this did not happen because the government feared it would trigger “an immediate cladding crisis”...He told the inquiry that the damning results had instead “fallen down between the department and Building Research Establishment”, which the government commissioned to test 14 cladding systems in large-scale fires, including five with rainscreen panels, all of which failed.

Fire safety official admits tests showed cladding danger 15 years before Grenfell

In evidence to inquiry, Anthony Burd denies there was a cover-up of the results of taxpayer-funded tests

www.theguardian.com

 

[BCBlues]

Report in the Graun:

Fire safety official admits tests showed cladding danger 15 years before Grenfell

In evidence to inquiry, Anthony Burd denies there was a cover-up of the results of taxpayer-funded tests

www.theguardian.com

Shocking stuff. Its easy under our parliamentary system to kick problems down the road and let someone else take the flack later on, even if it's the same ruling party. I think this is a prime example of that.
(Then I look at Russia right now and see the damage having someone like Putin in control for too long can cause).

 

[Lurdan]

Lunchtime Inside Housing report about this morning's evidence
Former official ‘can see why people would think’ government covered up risk of dangerous cladding for 16 years

Anthony Burd, the former DCLG civil servant who has been giving evidence, was originally scheduled for Friday and today, but they only got as far as events in 2004 and he is now back tomorrow. He was in post until 2013 so, amongst other things, I imagine this may include the first evidence from DCLG staff about the response to the coroner's recommendations after the Lakanal House fire.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Jesus none of these people will be punished for any of these long lists of failures and ignoring issues.

 

[Chilli.s]

Jesus none of these people will be punished for any of these long lists of failures and ignoring issues.

Absolutely, what a poor cover up, drag it out till it's so long ago, lessons will be learned. The same old shit.

 

[Lurdan]

Inside Housing report of today's hearing
Fire minister warned of 'significant reputational harm' to government from deregulation in 2011

Anthony Burd was questioned about degregulation, the Department's response to the Lakanal House fire and the ambiguous rewording of Building Regulation Guidance.

Tomorrow another civil servant, Bob Ledsome, who was deputy director of the Building Regulations Division, of what was then called the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Bereaved, Survivors and Relatives Team 2 discussed him in their written opening submission (PDF) for this module of the Inquiry.

98. The Deputy Director of the Building Regulations Division was Bob Ledsome from 2011. The Department dealt with complex Building Regulations and Building Control systems. Two major pressures were to be countenanced; the Red Tape Challenge from 2012 and the Housing Implementation Task Force in 2015, whose remit was to deregulate the building industry.

99. The flow of regulation was controlled by a measure already described - one-in-two-out, and, by 2016, three-out. This was reflected in the 2011-2013 review of the Building Regulations. Building control processes were 'simplified' by removing prescribed inspections with a move towards a risk-based approach. It allowed spurious products to be marketed under a 'green' banner. In the background was a serious depletion of resources and capacity. The Department was reorganised, and the number of staff shrunk by a third. Additionally, there was a high turnover of Directors.

100. This was compounded by unsatisfactory overview. For example: "there was no specific mechanism to monitor changes in building design, construction practice, and use of materials. " This was not considered to be the function of the Department. The Approved Documents provided the guidance, and it was left to industry to get on with it. Quite why the Department thought this is unclear, but undoubtedly it was principally driven by Government preferential treatment of business enterprise. The repercussions have been exposed in earlier modules, and create a non-interventionist fire-led environment, in which deaths are risked, dependent on BRE research on 'fires of special interest', rather than a proactive approach to Building Control approvals.

101. Mr Ledsome was experienced; he had been at the Department for many years, had knowledge of Garnock Court, BR 135 and Lakanal, and had awareness of numerous warnings about compliance failure and risks from cladding. Given this, we ask straightforward questions: Why not simply decide that combustible cladding must be banned? Was this discussed? Was there anyone else with the equivalent level of understanding and appreciation?

 

[Lurdan]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 66: ‘Was there a cover up?’

Monday and Tuesday's daily reports were posted above. Here are the other two.

Spoiler: Daily Reports

Government considered scrapping building control entirely as part of red tape review

Senior official branded government's response to fire safety concerns 'appalling' in post-Grenfell review

After the evidence from Anthony Burd on Monday and Tuesday, which dealt with some the technical issues involved (how the process of switching from UK to European fire performance standards stalled with both then run in parallel; how, despite knowledge of the serious problems with the UK Class 0 standard, Building Regulation Guidance was only rewritten in a way which arguably made it less clear whether combustible cladding panels were permitted, and so on), his former boss Bob Ledsome gave evidence.

Burd, and other civil servants who will be giving evidence, were specifically recruited because of their professional background and technical knowledge. Ledsome by contrast was a senior generalist civil servant responsible for overseeing Building Regulation and Building Control regulation and implementing Government policy. A Sir Humphrey if you will. And that was exactly how he came across except there was nothing at all funny about it.

Obviously in the 'merry-go-round of buck-passing’, which was referred to at the opening of phase 2, Government ministers will be blaming the civil servants. But IMO it's impossible to feel the slightest sympathy given what we've heard. After the Lakanal House inquest, then minister Eric Pickles gave an undertaking to the Coroner to rewrite Building Regulation Guidance by 2017. The deregulation agenda of the Coalition and Tory Governments, and repeated changes of ministers, created serious challenges to delivering this. But it became clear as Ledsome was taken through the minutiae of departmental procedure, that the failure to do this lay squarely with the civil servants. And included a failure to adequately acknowledge the fire safety issues involved.

Ledsome is scheduled to return on Wednesday next week. On Monday and Tuesday evidence from Richard Harral who replaced Anthony Burd. After Ledsome evidence from Ken Knight, chief fire and rescue advisor to the Home Office and then Dennis Davis of the Fire Sector Federation. However as we have seen over the last couple of weeks the timetable is subject to slippage.

 

[Lurdan]

This weeks Inside Housing Grenfell Diary (archived):
Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 67: ‘When exposed to a fire, the aluminium melts away and exposes the polyethylene. Whoosh!’
(Links to the daily reports at the bottom of that page).

Some very interesting evidence sessions IMO, particularly Richard Harral on Tuesday. It doesn't really come over in the Diary but in marked contrast to the defensiveness shown by his boss Bob Ledsome, Harral was very clear in his account of the Department's failings and his view of the reasons for them.

Next week Louise Upton (Home Office) and Melanie Dawes (former Permanent Secretary at the DCLG from 2015). Scheduled to begin giving evidence on Thursday, Brian Martin, who was DCLG policy lead for a number of parts of the Building Regulations and associated guidance, including Part B (Fire Safety). His name has come up repeatedly during the Inquiry and parts of the questioning. particularly over the last couple of weeks, have been directly about him. It's fair to say there is very great interest in his evidence which will clearly take some days.