Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Council ‘bears considerable responsibility’ for dangerous conditions which led to fire

Grenfell Tower Inquiry, chaired by Sir Martin Moore-Bick, said the West London council’s own building control department failed to make sure a 2014 refurbishment of the tower complied with regulations.

The panel said the council lacked trained staff and had limited knowledge of the risks associated with using highly flammable aluminium composite panels. 

The panel, which wrapped up Phase 2 of the public inquiry on Wednesday, September 4, also laid considerable blame for the fire on the construction industry and the government for its botched handling of building regulations and called for the establishment of a national body to regulate the industry.

It also called on a national council to handle the training of firefighters and set tighter standards for fire safety assessors. The panel also called for a review of the UK’s fire advisory bodies like the British Board of Agrément and United Kingdom Accreditation Service following accusations they prioritised client interests over public safety.

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But some of the most stinging criticism was levelled at Kensington and Chelsea Council (RBKC) and the Tenant Management Organisation (TMO), which ran the building at the time, which the panel accused of showing a ‘persistent indifference’ to fire safety and the safety of vulnerable people. 

It said the council took little to no account of a 2009 independent and highly critical review into fire safety at Grenfell Tower and were unaware of another report four years later because the TMO had failed to disclose it to the council.

The report read: “The TMO must also take a share of the blame for the disaster. As the client it failed to take sufficient care in its choice of architect and paid insufficient attention to matters affecting fire safety, including the work of the fire engineer.” 

The inquiry also slammed the council’s building control department, writing: “[It] failed to perform its function of ensuring that the design of the refurbishment compiled with the Building Regulations. It therefore bears considerable responsibility for the dangerous condition of the building immediately on completion of the work.”

RBKC leadership ‘wholly inadequate’

The panel was critical of RBKC’s response saying the lack of trained staff and proper disaster preparedness planning meant the response was ‘muddled, slow, indecisive and piecemeal”. 

The panel wrote: “RBKC was not able to provide an effective response to the emergency situation because it had not made adequate arrangements for staffing the emergency communication centre, had not made adequate provision for humanitarian assistance, including the provision of accommodation and financial support, and did not have the ability to keep accurate records of those who needed help and no effective system for communicating with the public.

“All those shortcomings could and should be avoided in the future.” It also said the council failed to properly communicate with those in need or those seeking loved ones in the fire and described its response as ‘lack[ing] respect for human decency and dignity’. The report read: 

“One important aspect of humanitarian assistance that was absent following the Grenfell Tower fire was regular communication between those providing assistance and those in need of it.

“For example, too many people who had been found [in] temporary accommodation felt that they had then been left on their own, not knowing for how long they were expected to remain or on what terms and without anyone to turn to to provide that information. That gave rise to a sense of isolation and powerlessness.” It said the council had for years let its response to major emergencies decline and had no plans in place to deal with the displacement of a large number of people.

The panel was particularly critical of the council’s failure to collect victims’ details. The panel wrote: “As a consequence, RBKC lacked the people it needed to respond to the fire effectively, both for the purposes of staffing the borough emergency communications centre and to deal with those who needed help. It was therefore ill-equipped to deal with a serious emergency. None of that was due to any lack of financial resources”

The inquiry singled out RBKC’s then chief executive Nicholas Holgate describing him as incapable of taking effective control of the situation and failing to pass on management of the crisis to a senior government official earlier. The report read: “He had no clear plan and did not receive all the information he needed.

“He was not well suited to dealing with the crisis that was unfolding in front of him and lacked a strong group of officers to whom he could delegate responsibility for some aspects of the response. He was reluctant to take advice from those with greater experience and was unduly concerned for RBKC’s reputation.”

In response, the panel has called on the council to improve staff training and its preparedness for major emergencies. It also called on legislation to change to allow the Government to step in more easily when a local authority is failing in a crisis.

The panel praised the local community and said even members of the TMO threw themselves into the response. They wrote: “Those who emerge from the event with the greatest credit, and whose contribution only emphasised the inadequacies of the official response, are the members of the local community. With the support of local volunteer organisations, they provided support in the hours immediately following the fire when the authorities were conspicuous by their absence.

“Indeed, one of RBKC’s failures was to make too little use of the local voluntary organisations and to have adequate standing arrangements to enable them to be called on in the event of a major emergency.”

Cllr Elizabeth Campbell, Leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, said: “This Council should have done more to listen to our residents and keep them safe before the fire, and to care for them in the aftermath. The Council has been proactively honest and open about its own failings throughout the Inquiry process, in line with our commitments to candour, as set out in the Hillsborough Charter.

“We know the report will be a hugely significant moment for the bereaved, survivors and the community. I will make sure that it is a hugely significant moment for this Council too. We will look hard at the recommendations, redouble our efforts to listen to our communities and continue to strive to become a better organisation as a lasting legacy from the tragedy.”