Shock and shame: the Grenfell report has exposed construction’s deadly failures

Like millions of other people, I watched in horror and disbelief as a raging inferno gripped the Grenfell tower block in West London on that balmy night in June 2017. I kept asking myself, how on earth could this have happened, in 21^st century Britain, a country with one of the most respected and professional construction industries in the world? What has gone wrong?

Seven years later, when Sir Martin Moore-Bick published his 1,700-page report, the second part of his painstaking inquiry, we finally got the answer.

No one who listened to the testaments of the 300-plus witnesses was expecting the inquiry’s chair to pull any punches. But it still didn’t soften the sickening blow when Sir Martin delivered his verdict this week. Or lessen the gut-wrenching grief of survivors and relatives of the 72 people who perished in the 24-storey block.

How unimaginably painful for them to hear that those deaths were totally avoidable while knowing no one had yet been brought to justice. And how shaming for the construction industry, government and manufacturers to be told it was a tragedy of their own making.

Professional standards debased in a “race to the bottom”; barely existent quality controls; a disillusioned architectural profession, sick of being overridden by contractors worshipping at the altar of value engineering. All these charges have been common refrains in the industry for years.

Exposed for all to see is an industry riven with incompetence, unaccountability and complacency. An industry that had forgotten to ask the most basic questions about fire safety

But it has taken this inquiry to publicly reveal just how broken the construction process has become. Exposed for all to see is an industry riven with incompetence, unaccountability and complacency. An industry that had forgotten to ask the most basic questions about fire safety, or even know what questions to ask.

Many of us will still have been shocked by the report’s depiction of the scale of the “systematic dishonesty” of companies that manufactured cladding and insulation for the tower block’s recent refurbishment. This behaviour contributed to the use of highly combustible materials on Grenfell Tower, significantly contributing to the fire’s deadly outcome.

Shockingly, unforgivably, this dishonesty had been aided by regulators, the report said, who had put commercial interests above building safety and had been complicit in allowing manufacturers to manipulate fire testing data.

A final deadly strand exposed by the inquiry was the “decades of failure ” by government ministers and officials, who blithely ignored a series of warnings over the risk of cladding-related fires.

The Department for Communities and Local Government - as it was in 2010 - was always known as something of a Cinderella ministry, operating with a skeleton civil service. I recall distinctly being agog when someone in Whitehall told me they had been asked by a senior cabinet minister - during the infamous “one in three out” regulations purge by the 2016 Cameron government - whether we really needed the building regulations. It illustrated starkly how the deranged the pervasive mantra of shrinking the state through deregulation had become.

As one could see at the time, the privatisation of building control years earlier had been leading to unsustainably low fee competition. The sell-off of the Building Research Establishment was helping to chip away at the impartially and rigour of those maintaining standards.

We now know how it happened. The next question is, could it happen again? Is the industry sufficiently chastened and determined to change the prevailing culture?

Dismissive statements released by the named product manufacturers as the report landed, absolving themselves from any responsibility, inspire little confidence of a sea change.

But that shocking brazenness aside, there are some positive aspects to the industry’s response since the tragedy. Trade leaders have worked closely with politicians and officials to tackle widespread failings. Combustible cladding is no longer used. A new building safety act should ensure those in the sector are more accountable and responsible. Much is going on behind the scenes to raise levels of competence and skill-up everyone from installers to designers, building managers and procurers.

Much still remains to be done, and those striving to make the new necessary reforms are finding their proceedings slow and labyrinthine

Progress, yes, but much still remains to be done, and those striving to make the new necessary reforms are finding their proceedings slow and labyrinthine. Matters are not helped when the new building safety regulator is still finding its feet and is stretched thinly. Its chief, Philip White, forged an excellent reputation heading up construction oversight at the HSE. But he cannot work miracles. Nor will we know how effective the new measures and regulations will prove in practice. That awaits being tested in the courts.

So, it is hard to feel confident the measures put in place will be enough – especially as nothing has happened yet on the product testing side - though we are promised by Sir Kier Starmer that it will. The fear is, therefore, that another Grenfell is by no means out of the question. Only a few days before the inquiry report was published, residents fled for their lives from a fire in a Dagenham tower block still being remeditated to remove combustible cladding.

The inquiry report made 58 recommendations including a single construction regulator, which would add product oversight to the duties of the Building Safety Regulator. The inquiry clearly feels more should be done to restore independence and integrity. There are concerns such a body may prove too complex and cumbersome to implement - we must wait and see.

But there are recommendations that could be ushered in immediately. Appointing a new chief construction adviser is an obvious step. If someone of the quality and experience of a Paul Morrell could step forward - someone comfortable with telling ministers and construction folk what they don’t want to hear - that would be a substantive and confidence-boosting step.

Epidemic levels of cut-price procurement over years seem to have left too many practitioners sucked dry of the confidence to challenge unacceptable demands

At the launch of the inquiry, panel member and architect Thouria Istephan poignantly explained why greater scrutiny is being recommended: “I make no apologies for that. Put simply, if you work in the construction industry and you do not feel the weight of the responsibility you have for keeping people safe - you are in the wrong job.”

I would imagine 99% of those in the sector asked this question would answer that they truly have the public’s interest at heart. Of course, no industry is without dishonesty and greed. But blood on their hands is the last thing any member of the sector wants.

Yet, the uncomfortable truth we must face is that despite our myriad professional organisations, trade bodies, committees, summits and so forth, that are geared to upholding standards, too many have forgotten what this responsibility truly means. Epidemic levels of cut-price procurement over years seem to have left too many practitioners sucked dry of the confidence to challenge unacceptable demands.

There is much to reflect on, but if ever there was a wake-up call, this is it. Whatever happens next, and whatever the cost, we need mechanisms that provide clear distance between the regulators and the regulated. Only that way can the shame felt by the industry today be purged. Only that way can Grenfell prove a catalyst for lasting beneficial change.

Denise Chevin is a writer and policy advisor in the built environment, utilities and technology. She is the former editor of Building and Housing Today