The companies involved in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, completed the year before the fire that killed 72 people, have ignored an invitation not to indulge in “a merry-go-round of buck-passing”.
That’s according to counsel to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Richard Millett QC, who opened the second phase of the investigation yesterday with a strongly worded statement criticising the likes of main contractor Rydon, subcontractor Harley Façades, architect Studio E, all three of which made their opening statements yesterday (see summary below).
Millett said: “With the sole exception of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), not a single core participant involved in the primary refurbishment of Grenfell Tower has felt able to make any unqualified admission against its own interests.
"One finds in these detailed and carefully crafted statements no trace of any acceptance of any responsibility for what happened at Grenfell Tower, not from the architects , the contract managers, the main contractors, the specialist cladding subcontractors, the fire safety engineers, or the tenant management organisation (TMO).
"Nor, with the exception of Celotex, who have made certain limited admissions which they assert were not causative, do we find any admission of any kind from those who made and sold the products used in the cladding.”
Millett contended that any member of the public reading the firms’ statements and taking them at face value “would be forced to conclude that everyone involved in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower did what they were supposed to do and nobody made any serious or causative mistakes.”
"Someone else’s fault"
He added: “In my opening address at Phase 1 of this Inquiry, on 4 June 2018, I invited the core participants not to indulge in a merry-go-round of buck-passing. Regrettably , that invitation has not been accepted.
"Save for RBKC, who have made clear and welcome admissions of numerous failings of its Building Control officers, and to a lesser extent Celotex, each core participant who played a material part in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower has laid out a detailed case for how it relied on the work of others, and how in no way was the work it did either substandard or non-compliant.
"In every case, what happened was, as each of them would have it, someone else’s fault.”
He also pointed out that the Inquiry is not a “dress rehearsal for civil claims or any criminal proceedings” and that chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick is forbidden from ruling on or making any determination of any person’s liability, whether civil or criminal but rather to find the facts and to make recommendations. “It is from the findings of fact , based on the evidence, that accountability follows,” he said.
And he concluded: “If lessons are to be learned from what went wrong at Grenfell Tower, and the necessary changes to the construction industry are to be made, it is important that all those who give evidence at Module 1, and indeed all witnesses who are called throughout Phase 2, provide a truthful and a candid account of what happened during the primary refurbishment.”
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As Richard Millet concluded, facts will in the end be the determinants of responsibility. The opinions expressed in the opening statements are just that. No one should be surprised or concerned. Truth will out. Accountability will be established.
Nothing new here. The waters have been muddied for years.
Consultants can be asked to draw up cheaply -a performance spec (often a word processed antique version) OR
a possibly also antique fully specified one- with options to submit alternatives for approval!
Design and build contractors usually outsource -for a design to meet the performance demanded.
Clients pay for the first stage, the buck then passes…
The risk passed to the contractor.They engage BCO or quasi BCO to offer money saving changes.
Alternatives are not vetted by design performance consultant and that’s because it has to reach – probably later when work is well under way, the signing off by the relevant BCO.
Ultimately building control ( or its replacement from private cos) must be the arbiter but BCOs rely too much on what has been done before -so the duckpond is there but impenetrable.
I’m surprised that anyone is surprised.
This is the Building Industry, and nobody is going to take the blame if they don’t have to. Each of them has probably convinced themselves that it is not their fault.
Is this not a reflection of what is wrong with the industry? In other manufacturing industries a party takes full responsibility for managing the design and delivery of a product. This is usually the manufacturer and the product is usually fully developed (and tested etc.) before final manufacture. If something goes wrong with the product, it is clear where the buck-stops. In building delivery (something that effects more people’s safety than most products), there are a myriad of parties involved in the design and delivery of what is an extremely complex one-off product where design continues throughout the product manufacture. This should be the reason for a very clear management structure. Not one where no one has taken that responsibility and things inevitably fall between cracks. When something goes wrong, there should be no question of trying to fathom out who was responsible for the bits that went wrong. The ultimate responsible party should be able to clearly demonstrate they have properly allocated roles and ensured that there are no gaps. When a problem arises, if the aspect has not been properly allocated, that is where responsibility lies. Where it has been properly allocated, it should be a clear matter of investigating why the party or parties with sub-responsibility, failed. If the problem falls between the stools, that is not proper allocation – then it is back to the ultimate responsible party for allowing this to happen. In many cases the developer/ manufacturer may not have the expertise in house to do the micro-allocating but in those cases, he should be obliged to appoint a party with the expertise and full willingness to take on that responsibility. Someone with whom the role-allocation buck will stop.