Angela Rayner’s lunchtime announcement to the House of Commons, giving details of the government’s response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s final report, was a week earlier than the Prime Minister’s commitment to respond to the Inquiry within six months of its publication on 4 September 2024. Frankly, it’s the only deadline that has been met in the sorry saga that has taken almost eight years to bring the Inquiry’s business to a conclusion.
Sir Martin Moore-Bick made 58 recommendations, 37 of which were directed at government, with the remainder directed at other bodies and institutions. A dozen recommendations are aimed at one or other of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, the National Fire Chiefs’ Council, the London Fire Brigade, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the British Standards Institution, the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architects Registration Board, and the government response indicates that all have been accepted by the relevant authority. Other recommendations have been made to local authorities and the government has ‘supported’ those recommendations.
All recommendations aimed at the government itself have been accepted, but that does not necessarily mean that they will be carried out. Nine have been accepted only ‘in principle’ and the machinery of government will require appropriate consultation and legislation to bring about, for example, the proposed ‘super-regulator’ for construction, statutory registration of fire engineers and fire risk assessors, enacting a new ‘Hillsborough Law’ to compel public authorities to ensure transparency in major incidents, and holding those responsible for failures to account. There are several other areas that will require new legislation (look out for the Grenfell Bill) or the amendment of existing law. The implementation of each of these recommendations will require to undergo the vagaries of public consultation and the parliamentary process.
Given the intense pressure on the public purse – made even more acute by yesterday’s announcements about the uplift on defence spending – it will also be challenging to see how the total cost of these initiatives will be affordable amongst the government’s own budgetary pressures and how increased regulation will sit alongside an ambitious growth strategy.
There are two fundamental issues that will need to be addressed by those charged with bringing the government’s Grenfell commitment to fruition.
First, make sure the new agencies have the resources – in terms of people and money – to do the job properly. The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) is doing the best of all possible jobs under the effective leadership of Phillip White. However, there have been significant delays in dealing with applications for approval under the Gateway process laid down by the Building Safety Act and it seems clear that some of that delay has been due to insufficient resourcing of the Regulator, which in turn leads to a lack of capacity to assess applications in an appropriate time (delays are also due to the inability of construction firms to grasp the requirements of the new regime). The problem in all of this is uncertainty. Developers don’t know if it will take weeks or months to approve their schemes and this lack of clarity has led to many projects being shelved, any continuation of which is not good for the government’s growth agenda.
Second, ensure that there is sufficient time to prepare so that the major changes are implemented as smoothly as possible. The government has acknowledged this, setting out a timescale to 2028 in the first instance. It doesn’t seem long enough. It has taken three years and several teething problems to get the BSR largely operational. The new ‘super-regulator’ will have a much bigger remit, and it will require – I would suggest – at least five years for it to operate in any effective way. Another issue here is the unintended consequences of such a monolithic regulator, especially in terms of diminishing current specialisms when they are thrown into one big box.
Some of the recommendations can be implemented almost immediately such as appointing a Chief Construction Adviser (incidentally there was one up until 2016 when the post was abolished by government). A panel to oversee changes in the building control profession is also a quick win, as is reviewing the Approved Documents. Initiatives that have been developed since the Grenfell disaster, such as the Building A Safer Future accreditation for companies and the significant work on improving competences across the industry need to be pursued with renewed vigour. Reform of the Construction Products sector is long overdue and the simultaneous publication of a Green Paper to tackle this is welcome.
Mark Reynolds, chairman of MACE and co-chair of the Construction Leadership Council, has welcomed the government’s response stating that ‘there must be continued collective responsibility to drive a meaningful and permanent cultural change and enhance the levels of competence in the construction sector.’ His views are echoed throughout the industry, which must work together with government to make sure of a safer built environment.
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