Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 2 Report

“Each and every one of the deaths that occurred in Grenfell Tower…was avoidable.”

Coupled with the 9/11 attacks, the Grenfell fire was one of the JFK moments of my generation. I remember where I was standing and what was going through my mind when I saw the live feed on the TV. I just could not understand, even as a QS with basic building safety knowledge, how fire could spread so quickly and dangerously, how there were insufficient fire suppression measures, and why people had no means of escape. The thought of people being trapped inside that burning building was truly horrific.

The recent ‘Report of the Public Enquiry into the Fire at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017’ has, quite rightly, raised the profile of avoidable tragedy back into the public consciousness.

There is a lot that could be said, and is being said, about the failure chain, which is the focus of the report. For the most part, there are others in a better position than me to comment. However, a crucial part of the failure chain is the design, procurement, and construction of the refurbishment works, which shine the spotlight on some appalling practices in the construction industry.

Unfortunately, whether we like to hear it or not, those practices are not isolated to Grenfell: they are widespread. This is the focus of my article because, quite simply, we must use this opportunity to do better and take a stand against these practices.

Procurement Practices

There was a particular passage of the report that made me shudder. See what you think:

The procurement of the architectural services was manipulated to avoid putting it out to public tender.

The tender price submitted by the principal contractor exceeded the budget by a significant margin.

Discussions were held with the principal contractor before the procurement process was concluded, in which it was agreed that the project would be awarded to the principal contractor if it reduced its price to an acceptable level.

An aluminium composite material (ACM), Reynobond 55 PE, was chosen largely on the grounds of cost.

The principal contractor offered a substantial saving on that product because of its relationship with the intended cladding subcontractor.

I did more than make me shudder: it made me angry. How can regulated professionals managing a regulated procurement process cut corners in this way? Why did nobody in the process put their foot on the ball and challenge the extent to which scope was being slashed to achieve the budget? How was this allowed to happen?

This corner cutting led to the introduction of an ACM, which was the reason so many lives were lost. Just let that soak in for a minute; that ‘value engineering’ decision was the reason 72 people lost their lives.

What really horrifies me though is the reflection that this is not the only construction project in the UK where, under the pressure of a design and build contract with a tight price, unsafe and irresponsible decisions may have been made.

The question is, are you going to continue turning a blind eye because it is more important to deliver the project’s cost within the price and achieve a suitable margin for your employer? Will you push back and acknowledge the loss because that is a lower risk option to taking a procurement decision that is not fully informed?

This is serious stuff, and more of us need to take a stand against this if we want change.

Design Responsibility

Who holds responsibility for fire safety?

That should be simple, or should it? Do you refer to the design responsibility matrix that often creates more questions about who is responsible than it answers? The one that, when tested, leads you round a ‘merry-go-round of buck passing' in which everyone has some responsibility but it’s not quite clear who has ‘the’ responsibility?

The report found that the architect, the principal contract, and the cladding subcontractor:

“Took a casual approach to contractual relations.”

“They did not properly understand the nature and scope of the obligations they had to undertake or, if they did, paid scant attention to them.”

“They failed to identify their own responsibilities for important aspects of the design and in each case assumed someone else was responsible for matters affecting fire safety.”

Sound familiar? This used to be simple because designers were responsible for design and contractors were responsible for construction (workmanship). Then along came the design and build boom, and the lines became blurred to the extent that you wonder whether designers are responsible for design anymore.

Surely this tragedy should force us to reverse a trend that seems to have become the norm, and we start to see more designers taking responsibility for design? Unfortunately, given the nature of professional indemnity insurance and its importance to design consultants, the situation will get worse. Surely, this needs to be the focus of regulatory change?

Supplier “Systematic Dishonesty”

This part of the report shocked me the most, both because of the veracity of it but also because it completely blindsided me:

Suppliers deliberately and deceptively misled those in the construction industry about the fire performance of their products.

They exploited weak regulatory regimes to push products that did not perform the way they claimed.

They held back information from, and put undue pressure on, the private certification company to get the certificate to say what they needed it to say.

And for what? Business growth and profit? Deadlines, board expectations, share price pressure? This isn’t a minor discrepancy in the product literature - these suppliers made representations that a product would save lives when, in fact, the opposite was true.

I have tested myself on this one. When I procured cladding packages as a project QS, was the cladding I procured really what we thought it was? The product was specified by the architect, installed by the cladding subcontractor, and supplied to that supplier by the product supplier. Did anybody dig into and test the technical detail? I don’t recall that we did, but then I have wrestled with whether, given the level of deception, we would have detected an issue.

I’m not aware that there were any issues arising from the projects I worked on, but it has led me to wonder what can be done to get under the skin of these issues at the procurement stage or earlier? Is there more we can do?

Final reflections

“The fire at Grenfell Tower was the culmination of decades of failure by central government and other bodies in positions of responsibility in the construction industry to look carefully into the danger of incorporating combustible materials into the external walls of high-rise residential buildings and to act on the information available to them.”

The findings of this report cannot be put on a shelf to gather dust. They need to be woven into the fabric of education and training in the construction industry so current and future generations see the full extent of the risk when corners are cut in design, procurement or construction.

Those who occupy the buildings we construct trust us with their life; we should not take that responsibility lightly.

Having given this some thought, the next mini-series of these articles will be focused on design matters, in which I will offer some practical guidance from a quantity surveying / commercial management perspective.

Keep an eye out for that and, in the meantime, enjoy the rest of your week

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