Former UK chief construction adviser Paul Morrell says the number of candidates fit for the new role recommended by the Grenfell Inquiry is “very limited”.
Morrell, who was the government’s first chief construction adviser between 2009 and 2012, told CM that although there is no lack of qualified contenders in the industry with the required knowledge and leadership skills, their commercial interests could be problematic.
“Few of those will be able to rid themselves of any commercial relationships during their period of tenure, which I did (and would) regard as entirely necessary for the avoidance of actual or perceived conflicts of interest,” he said. “And those used to the ‘make it so’ style of leadership in some organisations in the private sector will struggle to settle in.”
One of the recommendations of the Grenfell Inquiry calls on the government to appoint a chief construction adviser with enough budget and staff to provide advice “on all matters affecting the industry”.
These would include monitoring the government’s work concerning the building regulations and statutory guidance and providing advice to the secretary of state on request. It would also involve flagging any issues affecting building regulations and guidance on matters affecting the construction industry more generally of which the government should be aware.
Not the same job that briefly existed
A chief construction adviser role existed between 2009 and 2015, when it was scrapped as part of the Conservative government’s austerity measures. However, Morrell, who held this post from its creation until 2012, said the position recommended by the Grenfell Inquiry is very different from that he once held.
“The role as described in the Inquiry’s final report sounds much more like that previously carried out by the Building Regulations Advisory Committee [BRAC] (most recently well chaired by Dr Hywel Davies),” he said. “Government has three relationships with the construction industry: it is, by a considerable margin, its principal client; it is its sponsor; and it is its regulator.
“The regulatory function is very different and needs to operate at arm’s length from the other two functions. My time was therefore spent principally on the government’s sponsorship and client roles, and although I did participate in some strategic discussions (including, ironically, in view of subsequent events, meetings in 2011-2012 about the problem of non-compliance with the building regulations), I was careful not to get involved in regulatory matters at an operational level.”
Will Morrell stand for the role?
BRAC was a statutory advisory body that provided the government with expert advice on building regulations. It was abolished when the Building Safety Regulator was established as a result of the Building Safety Act 2022, which included a requirement to set up the Building Advisory Committee (BAC) to provide advice and information to the Building Safety Regulator.
Morrell says that when BRAC was wound up by the Conservative government in 2022 and replaced by BAC, it lost “a source of direct independent advice” to ministers.
“In another irony, I had argued for the retention of BRAC during the ‘bonfire of the quangos’ on the grounds that it met the primary criterion for a necessary institution, which is that if it did not exist one would need to reinvent it and, if it were not a voluntary quango, then it would also be necessary to pay for it,” he added.
“That will indeed be the position if the Grenfell Inquiry recommendation is followed, and it is not clear how it would relate to the new statutory committee.”
Morrell confirmed to CM that he won’t be applying for the role: “At my age, I wouldn’t be dusting off my CV anyway, but as it happens the job described is a very different one from the chief construction adviser role as it (briefly) existed previously.”
