Decades of central government failure led to Grenfell tragedy, says inquiry

The fire at Grenfell Tower in 2017 was in part caused by “decades of failure” in central government to act on information available to them.

According to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s phase 2 report published this morning, the government had “many opportunities” to identify the risks posed by combustible cladding panels and insulation between the fire at Knowsley Heights in 1991 and disaster at Grenfell.

Despite strikingly concerning test results, advised changes from a parliamentary select committee, and a series of major cladding fires abroad, it failed to act in order to clarify the guidance in Approved Document B on the construction of external walls.

One of the major causes of these failures, according to the inquiry, was the fact that the responsible department, then known as the Department for Communities and Local Government, was itself “poorly run”.

The role of Brian Martin, the civil servant and fire safety expert who admitted to being “a single point of failure” during his inquiry testimony, was criticised specifically.

The inquiry said it was “not clear” how he was chosen to be the official with day-to-day responsibility for the building Regulations and Approved Document B, or “why he was allowed to remain in that position for so long” and “allowed to wield so much influence over the department’s response to developments”.

He “was allowed too much freedom of action without adequate oversight” and “failed to bring to the attention of more senior officials the serious risks of which he had become aware”.

“It was a serious failure to allow such an important area of activity to remain in the hands of one relatively junior official,” the inquiry said.

However, the report also said that more senior officials - including Martin’s line manager Anthony Burd, and the deputy director Bob Ledsome - should also take responsibility for systemic failings in the department.

According to the inquiry, the department had a “defensive and dismissive attitude” when concerns over fire safety were raised, while the government’s deregulatory agenda in the years after the Lakanal House fire “dominated the department’s thinking to such an extent that even matts affecting the safety of life were ignored, delayed or disregarded”.

During that period the government “determinedly resisted” calls from across the fire sector to regulate fire risk assessors and to amend the Fire Safety Order to make its application clearer.

It also said that through the privatisation of the BRE in 1997, the department had “deprived itself of the full benefit” of the organisation’s advice and experience.

In the BRE itself, the inquiry found fire safety testing work was “marred by unprofessional conduct, inadequate practices, a lack of effective oversight, poor reporting and a lack of scientific rigour”.

It failed to draw to the government’s attention important findings relating to the safety of external wall systems and produced reports on major fires which were “far from comprehensive”.