The public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire has continued to reveal a series of questionable behaviours by key participants in the refurbishment project which ultimately resulted in 72 people losing their lives.
Actions by a number of staff at the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) have come under sharp focus, as the hearings have revealed:
- Cost cutting negotiations were started with Rydon’s ‘in a secret meeting’ before they had been awarded the contract, in contravention of legal advice obtained by the KCTMO;
- Tenants were excluded from discussions over cuts to the project’s budget;
- Opportunities to appoint experienced project managers and fire safety experts were missed;
- The impact of swapping zinc cladding for combustible aluminium composite panels was not understood by any of the decision makers in awarding the works contract;
- KCTMO staff focussed on the cost and appearance of the ACM cladding, rather than on its fire safety qualities;
- Tenants who raised complaints about the standard of work, such as faulty fire doors or poorly fitted windows, were labelled as ‘antagonists’ and ‘rebel residents’; and
- Notebooks and diaries kept by key staff during the refurbishment project were either thrown away, or their existence was not disclosed to the Police or inquiry staff.
There have been many occasions during the inquiry when the atmosphere was very tense with legal representatives of the inquiry reacting with incredulity and sometimes frustration and anger at the evidence being given by former staff of the KCTMO.
Previously the inquiry heard that Kensington and Chelsea Council had driven the cuts to the project’s budget without giving sufficient thought to the consequences.
The council had also made swingeing cuts to it’s building control department, while the inspector in charge of the Grenfell project was covering three roles on his own, with 130 projects on the go at once. He also had no experience of the type of works undertaken at the Grenfell Tower and his training was not sufficient to fill his knowledge gaps.
By Patrick Mooney, Editor