Melanie Dawes (former DCLG Permanent Secretary) gives evidence on central government's response coordination in the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell fire, discussing resource constraints and the balance between local and central control.
00:00:25 uh would you ask dave melanie to come back in please thank you
00:00:33 [Music]
00:00:39 all right then melanie ready to carry on yes thank you yes mr thank you mr chairman
00:00:44 chairman 3 30 15th of june ministerial cross whitehall meeting second of its kind uh now um you didn't attend did you no uh but your colleagues helen mcnamara
00:00:55 uh but your colleagues helen mcnamara and cathery catherine richardson did i think yes
00:00:59 think yes and is it right that helen mcnamara spoke to you after the meeting to relay the concerns that it emerged yes do you remember the conversation not particularly but i do remember
00:01:11 not particularly but i do remember in general terms discussing with helen that afternoon all of the various different worries that were beginning to come through and that had crystallized in the meeting as i was saying earlier right now let's go to clg
00:01:22 saying earlier right now let's go to clg three zeros three zero four four zero which is helen mcnamara's first witness statement
00:01:29 statement play page five please paragraph twenty eight
00:01:35 uh and i just want to show you paragraphs twenty eight and twenty nine on page five she says immediately following the meeting this is paragraph 28 whilst i remained in the meeting room i spoke to
00:01:46 remained in the meeting room i spoke to lorna gratton the prime minister's private secretary she explained that there were ministerial concerns about the organization of the local relief effort and that the prime minister herself was concerned i discussed these concerns with melanie dawes and
00:01:58 concerns with melanie dawes and explained my view that the department needed to put greater pressure on our bkc to accept offers of support i understand that catherine richardson who was present during my discussion with lorna gratton discussed it with joe
00:02:09 with lorna gratton discussed it with joe farah i also emailed joe farah directly in the knowledge that she was due to accompany sajid javid and alok sharma on a ministerial visit on the friday morning
00:02:19 morning now so far as that is an account of her conversation with you uh does it accord with your recollection yes
00:02:28 yes now um if if we look at catherine richard's statements statement that's at clg 3030412
00:02:36 i'll show you the first page to identify the document this is her witness statement to the inquiry of the 15th of march 2019 and if we go please to page 21 paragraph 77
00:02:50 we go please to page 21 paragraph 77 she says this uh
00:02:54 uh i attended the cross ministerial meeting at 15 30
00:02:57 at 15 30 on the thursday nick holgate rbkc chief executive was not able to answer detailed questions about the situation on the ground and appeared quite defensive trying to assure ministers that no additional help was required
00:03:09 that no additional help was required in my opinion he was not reassuring and my sense was that others in the meeting agreed it seems strange to me given the scale and complexity of the incident that the council were not asking for central
00:03:21 council were not asking for central government support did she
00:03:24 did she that is catherine richardson relay that to you her impression to you
00:03:31 to you no not directly as i recall she might have done i might have seen her when she came back to the department but i remember the conversation with helen specifically but i think we were all basically
00:03:42 basically having conversations about the same things at this point did helen mcnamara express to you her view that the department needed to put more pressure on our bkc to accept offers of support yes and what did you do about that um
00:03:55 yes and what did you do about that um well i i thought that was right i mean i hadn't been at the meeting myself but i was aware of the various concerns that had been raised during the day and um we were getting increasingly worried
00:04:06 um we were getting increasingly worried and at some point i spoke to joe farah that afternoon or early evening and we agreed that she should go with the secretary of state and alex sharma the following day
00:04:17 and alex sharma the following day and see what was going on can we go to clg 408227 please
00:04:28 now um this is an email of the following morning 16th of june 2017 the friday and if you go to uh the top of the page please you can see there's an email on
00:04:39 please you can see there's an email on that morning at 8 23 from helen mcnamara to francis cohen uh within the dclg forwarding an email below from catherine richardson to robert mason
00:04:51 richardson to robert mason and the ministers uh and it says i mentioned to melanie yesterday we need to really get onto this actual pm is concerned and this will run away from us if we haven't done something concrete today don't think politely waiting for
00:05:03 today don't think politely waiting for nick h to ask is the right tactic we are basically being told to grip now was it your approach to wait for nicholas holgate to ask for
00:05:14 to wait for nicholas holgate to ask for help
00:05:15 help politely or otherwise um well no we'd offered help um many times
00:05:22 times and uh by this stage we were getting pretty worried um that
00:05:29 that they weren't responding to those offers but actually also that the evidence was that the situation on the ground was deteriorating or had already deteriorated quite significantly so by this point on friday morning
00:05:41 this point on friday morning in my mind i was turning my thoughts to what we needed to do to intervene in the council not necessarily in a formal sense but how we needed to put people in alongside them to support
00:05:54 put people in alongside them to support the recovery efforts now um
00:05:58 now um looking at the conversation that she refers to yesterday did helen mcnamara make it clear to you uh that there was in any way some kind of implicit
00:06:09 in any way some kind of implicit criticism from the prime minister that uh waiting for nick holgate to ask was the wrong tactic and that you should be getting more of a grip as a department i didn't really take it as criticism i
00:06:21 i didn't really take it as criticism i mean i think it's quite common in these situations for the centre of government to express of you quite forcibly um and i think if you're sensitive in the department you can see that as criticism but
00:06:33 you can see that as criticism but sometimes you're just being told something very clearly and you just have to hear it so
00:06:38 so um you know they were right we did need to change our approach our central government and we did that that morning and as i was saying earlier i think and as i said in my witness statement i think the question is is what we could have done sooner but by this stage i
00:06:51 have done sooner but by this stage i don't there was any disagreement going on amongst us that we needed to somehow to find a way to change what was going on
00:06:59 on on the ground right we didn't quite know what was going on or what needed to be changed but joe went there and i think immediately got onto the issues and began to come up with solutions now just sticking with the morning of
00:07:10 now just sticking with the morning of the 16th of june for the moment we've jumped ahead in the chronology and we will come back to the 15th very shortly but just sticking with early morning on the 16th of friday can we go to clg 40s 3272
00:07:23 we go to clg 40s 3272 and look at the second email on the page
00:07:29 and it's an email from lorna gratton in number 10 at 07 41 on the 16th of june
00:07:38 june hello i spoke to helen mack yesterday after the cross government meeting there are still concerns here about how well organized the response effort is for those in receipt of it on the ground would it be helpful for
00:07:49 on the ground would it be helpful for them to have more support from clg e.g a small team of people seconded similar to the victim support unit could you let me know what you think and if you go then up to the first email
00:08:01 and if you go then up to the first email in the first line on that page um you can see that um sajid javid responds
00:08:07 responds and i should have pointed out to you that lorna gratton's email was to his office and he responds to you i'll send some email to you and helen mcnamara morning all i just discussed briefly with francis i believe
00:08:19 discussed briefly with francis i believe that md's view and i think md is you yes is that we can be more helpful in other ways i it would be able it would be able to get a couple of lines we could use to go back to number 10 this morning on what we think the
00:08:31 10 this morning on what we think the best way forward is i know there's a lot on so sorry to add another item to the pile thanks tom and that came from tom hitchcliff who was sergeant javid's private secretary do you know what that's referring to
00:08:42 do you know what that's referring to that conversation or all the the belief that you had um
00:08:51 so i was of the view and francis cohen was my private secretary uh and ran my office and uh so she will have accurately understood my views and i was of the view that sending in
00:09:03 and i was of the view that sending in teams of civil servants was not what the council needed what the council needed was well i didn't know what they needed at that stage to be honest at any level of detail but i didn't think that sending whitehall officials in was
00:09:15 sending whitehall officials in was likely to be the solution simply because most civil servants have absolutely no experience of emergency responses like this and could have made the situation worse rather than better so ministers
00:09:26 worse rather than better so ministers throughout these days were quite keen to send officials in and i felt that it was quite important to push back on that and i did think we could be helpful in other ways i explained some of this i
00:09:37 other ways i explained some of this i think in my second witness statement but through particularly through finance which we did um through liaison which we did um and in fact what john that was what john baradel asked for uh later on on
00:09:49 john baradel asked for uh later on on friday
00:09:50 friday and uh also through the victim support unit supporting access into central government services did you um you you told us about a discussion you'd had with sanji javid on the morning of the 15th at 9 30. but was
00:10:02 the morning of the 15th at 9 30. but was there a later discussion you had with him during that day uh which you expressed the view attributed to to you here
00:10:08 here uh
00:10:10 uh i don't know whether i expressed that due to sadger javid um
00:10:14 um on the thursday or the friday um but i think francis is conveying my view to sajid's private secretary here rather than me
00:10:25 private secretary here rather than me talking to um sajid directly he was at this point must have been on his way to kensington and chelsea so i don't think i saw him on the friday morning coming back then to the thursday the
00:10:36 coming back then to the thursday the 15th of june in the evening it's right i think according to joe farah's statement that she saw contact with nicholas holgate that afternoon or evening at about five o'clock 5 p.m yes
00:10:49 evening at about five o'clock 5 p.m yes are you aware of that she left him a message i think uh in the afternoon on the thursday in indeed yes exactly she sought to contact him yes she did and i could show you the message
00:11:01 she did and i could show you the message let's have it up just for the sake of the evidence clg403203
00:11:08 it's a an email confirming that she had left him a message
00:11:18 at top of the email i've left a message with the cex he will come back if he needs to but i've told him you are working with his team um was the was this part of a strategy perhaps to apply a bit of pressure to
00:11:29 perhaps to apply a bit of pressure to nicholas nicholas holger to accept your support at this point well yes i think we were clear that we needed to apply some pressure or else it wouldn't be accepted the offer that we were making and so
00:11:41 were making and so definitely we would have been thinking at that point that we needed to be quite forceful yes now on the afternoon of the 15th i think you and joe farah came together to discuss the council's response
00:11:53 response um we know that from the statements but it was was that before or after her attempt to contact him at five o'clock do you know do you remember um
00:12:01 um it was after the ministerial meeting i think
00:12:04 think um so that would date it to later in the afternoon and uh i don't know whether she contacted him after she and i had spoken or whether it was just before i just can't
00:12:15 whether it was just before i just can't remember
00:12:17 remember right if we go to your statement your first statement please at page 16 paragraph 51
00:12:32 you say there that you discuss the response with joe farah some of the officers working in the council's housing teams were well known to people in the department and our general view at that time was that in responding to
00:12:43 at that time was that in responding to the housing challenge rbkc was capable and had significant expertise and experience and did they express their views of the council's staff expertise and experience to you
00:12:55 to you not directly no but laura johnson in particular was known to i believe fiona derby and lizzie clifford because they both worked in local government housing
00:13:07 local government housing and they knew her to be an experienced housing director and i think that was what they meant and i think to be honest we probably rather over relied on that sense that this was a person who was capable because
00:13:16 because in the end that was just one person and i think we overrelied on that rather than on any broader sense of their capabilities or the wider leadership of the gold effort in kensington and chelsea yes thank you and i think the
00:13:27 chelsea yes thank you and i think the decision was then made that joe farah should visit the council the next day with ministers to assess the situation yes yes
00:13:33 yes yes why was it decided that dr farah should be the one to attend well um helen mcnamara had a rest day on the friday um and then worked over the weekend
00:13:44 weekend and she wasn't available but in any event jo was the right person in my opinion because she had run two councils and led emergency responses so she she had all the right experience to
00:13:55 had all the right experience to you know really know what was going on and know what might be needed and we'll come to that meeting with the housing minister i think shortly but before we do can we uh turn first to events on the morning of the 16th of june which we've covered a
00:14:07 16th of june which we've covered a little bit already but coming back to that
00:14:09 that uh
00:14:10 uh clg408289
00:14:14 this uh is if you look at the first email
00:14:18 email in the string an email from lorna gratton
00:14:21 gratton uh to you or your office copied to the office of and also to the office of sergey javid copy to alistar whitehead at number 10. at
00:14:31 at 1106 in the morning following a discussion between the two of you and louise morgan yes yes thank you very much for the useful conversation just now to confirm for the meeting below and for the pm to confirm publicly this
00:14:43 the pm to confirm publicly this afternoon we would like clg to be able to commit to and then there's a long list of bullet points
00:14:49 points uh and i don't want to read them all out to you but um you can see them there a date by which all residents would have been rehoused ideally within two weeks details what checks are taking place on buildings
00:15:00 buildings we know where all buildings with similar cladding are fire brigade inspections offer to further support offer stroke impose further support for our bkc in the form of additional coordination
00:15:11 the form of additional coordination support seconded staff immediate review of the relevant building regulations and then you say you thought all this sounded doable please let me know if any of that changes louise question grateful for a
00:15:22 changes louise question grateful for a heads up before the meeting if you can on exactly what the offer will be on each
00:15:26 each a copy of sajid's briefing if that is the easiest way to do it or to do would be fine [Music]
00:15:34 [Music] and then there's a something about the victims of terrorism unit as well now in if we i show you that if we go to your first statement uh please at page 17 having my having
00:15:46 uh please at page 17 having my having shown you that contemporaneous email paragraph 56 you say under the heading 16th of june 2017 it had become increasingly clear overnight
00:15:58 had become increasingly clear overnight that there were problems with the response in north kensington london gratton the prime minister's private secretary had emailed the secretary of state's office at 6 30 expressing concerns about how well organized the response effort was and suggesting that
00:16:09 response effort was and suggesting that more support from the department was needed and i think we've seen that email i spoke to lawler to discuss the situation and agreed we would quickly provide more information to number 10 on rehousing and the support that was being
00:16:20 rehousing and the support that was being provided by central government as well as the latest on building safety checks now was you refer to the conversation there
00:16:30 there first do you remember when even roughly during the morning that took place i think it was quite early and when i saw the various emails that you were um
00:16:41 saw the various emails that you were um displaying earlier um
00:16:43 um i thought it was sensible for me to just have a chat with lorna i knew her and i can't remember who instigated it but
00:16:50 but i was very glad to speak to her and just try to cut through a little bit what was going on
00:16:54 going on um
00:16:55 um and
00:16:56 and i think it was probably at about 8 30. um it may have been a little bit later but of that sort of broad time right and was that as recorded here the full extent of your conversation or was
00:17:08 extent of your conversation or was anything else discussed well i'm not sure i've seen lorna's contemporary contemporaneous note recently my apologies if i i have referred to it in my statements before but
00:17:19 but um
00:17:21 um i think this is about right i mean clearly there's quite a lot of building safety checks that we were discussing you can see that from her record i won't uh go on about that um
00:17:29 um i do remember the the rehousing target as it became being discussed and you can see in lorna's email that she says there were nuances and i think i will have said yes there really were nuances i think it was the first time
00:17:41 nuances i think it was the first time that morning that a time scale was being suggested the previous day it had been just about a commitment to rehouse in the local area and so putting a time scale on it was clearly going to be more difficult and i
00:17:52 clearly going to be more difficult and i think i will have i know i did explain some of that and the briefing that went in from the department into the meeting later that day the cross ministerial meeting didn't include a time scale it's as early as
00:18:04 include a time scale it's as early as possible or something like that so we had a discussion about that but it was quite clear number 10 wanted a time and she put that in her email which i think was important that she did because that was what ministers wanted
00:18:15 was what ministers wanted um
00:18:16 um what's not in my witness statement is the reference to the emergency coordinator that part i don't know whether there's a reference to that over the page
00:18:26 the page but that was also part of the conversation and i recall talking to her about whether or not a team of civil servants would be useful in explaining to her
00:18:34 to her as i was just doing now why i thought that wasn't going to be the right answer so her her account is a bit more detailed than is in my witness statement but it is consistent yes we discussed
00:18:45 but it is consistent yes we discussed the full range of issues um
00:18:48 um if we then go to clg four zeros three three four five
00:18:54 we can see in the last email on the page
00:18:59 an email at 1105
00:19:04 entitled md lorna chat
00:19:08 and it says melanie has just spoken to lorna and has agreed by 1pm
00:19:15 uh and then it goes over the page we will provide lines for the pm100 rehousing people in the local area we will look to do this within two weeks and we would need to define what we mean by permanent and local area and ensure
00:19:27 by permanent and local area and ensure both speed and quality which may need to be a bit longer joe to work with the la to set out what is possible and then
00:19:35 and then there are other things as well and
00:19:41 you can see what they are we understand it says at the end that the pm will chair a meeting at 1 30 and we'll be visiting the site today again plus we will be making an announcement in the early afternoon now first why was it deemed necessary
00:19:53 now first why was it deemed necessary for this information to be provided to the pm by 1 pm that day
00:19:58 um there's particular information about rehousing
00:20:02 rehousing and within two weeks well clearly ministers wanted to make a commitment about re-housing um and when i spoke to lorna i don't know whether she said the prime minister's
00:20:13 whether she said the prime minister's going to chair a meeting later on she might not have known that by net by then um
00:20:20 um but clearly they wanted to make an announcement um there was a very big challenge in the media about re-housing and lots of allegations that actually weren't true about people being placed
00:20:31 weren't true about people being placed in cities far away from london um but i think ministers felt they needed to get something out there quite quickly to supplement what they'd said the day before
00:20:39 before and so that's why the urgency in the end i don't know whether we provided information for the prime minister prior to the meeting or whether we all just went along to the meeting and discussed it then did um did you
00:20:52 and discussed it then did um did you look into how realistic it was to rehouse everyone in the local area within two weeks i didn't look into it but i didn't think it was going to be deliverable and
00:21:03 it was going to be deliverable and when it says here in this account we will look to do this within two weeks i don't think that was us volunteering that from dclg or me volunteering that i think it is more as lorna actually says
00:21:14 think it is more as lorna actually says in her account of the discussion that the prime minister ministers wanted to do it in two weeks and she understood that there were nuances and i will have explained those one of the nuances being it wasn't it just wasn't going to be possible um i
00:21:26 just wasn't going to be possible um i mean to be fair i didn't think we knew quite how impossible it would be because i don't think we had the experience of quite how difficult it is to take you know bereaved and traumatized families through the decision making and the
00:21:39 through the decision making and the that they need to make when they're thinking about longer-term housing options and i don't think my ministers had that in their minds that morning really now moving forward into the morning clg 3030-638
00:21:52 into the morning clg 3030-638 we've already referred to the visit by joe farah
00:21:55 joe farah that day
00:21:56 that day and here is an email at 10 30.
00:22:00 at 10 30. i'm sorry i have a text actually at 10 30.
00:22:03 30. um great
00:22:07 uh
00:22:10 um no hold on the timing's not quite right with this but um so i think it's 1321 actually uh and it says um personally great we'll report back
00:22:21 um personally great we'll report back personally worried the council are out of their depth have said we will give some housing officers we'll also sort out commerce i think it should be comms comms support with lga
00:22:32 comms comms support with lga and then i think your response feel free to make big judgment call if we need to make massive whitehall offer or demand lga one part of what we need to do is keep leaping ahead of the immediate situation
00:22:43 situation and what did you what did you mean there by a massive whitehall offer um i think by the way that this exchange was earlier in the morning because as i think you're hinting by 1321 john
00:22:55 as i think you're hinting by 1321 john brown i was already in place and the meeting was about to start um in the cobra meeting rooms um
00:23:02 um i
00:23:04 i didn't precisely know i was leaving it to joe's judgment and i trusted her judgment but the sort of things i was thinking about were
00:23:13 were previous situations i've been involved in when
00:23:17 in when a significant off significant injection of local government expertise had been provided to councils that were failing or were struggling to deliver
00:23:28 failing or were struggling to deliver core parts of their duties and obviously sometimes that had been done through interventions and formal interventions and commissioners but sometimes it could be done through voluntary panels
00:23:37 panels or task forces and those things have been organized and orchestrated by the local government association so i just wanted joe to feel free to
00:23:48 i just wanted joe to feel free to offer whatever she thought was needed and i think you then spoke to her and agreed it would be beneficial for john baradel who was already on site to take over his gold command yes yes and jim do you know what else was discussed in that
00:24:00 you know what else was discussed in that call
00:24:01 call you remember no i'm sure joe will have told me about how worried she was i i doubt we spoke for very long because there's a lot going on but um
00:24:10 um she she will have i think she was the person who told me that john barrow or john browdell had been mobilized in right
00:24:18 right now if we go to clg four zeroes through eight three one three
00:24:28 and uh let me show you page one at the start to show that you're at the top of this email chain it comes through to you you see that or at least your office my office yes
00:24:40 or at least your office my office yes yes now if we go then to the bottom of page two
00:24:44 page two the start of the email i want to show you
00:24:47 you uh
00:24:48 uh is uh
00:24:50 is uh at
00:24:51 at 0
00:24:52 0 25 so after midnight on the um
00:24:57 on the um on the 16th of june uh and it's from charlie parker at westminster to a number of others so it filters its way through to you the next morning but
00:25:08 way through to you the next morning but if you go to the final paragraph on page three let's look at that together um he says that i've offered nh that's nicholas holgate total wcc support
00:25:20 nicholas holgate total wcc support however i don't believe he quite understands the magnitude of the problem and the implications of a government-led inquiry i will be offering him a lot of personal support and we'll see him tomorrow however i fear a lot of turmoil
00:25:31 tomorrow however i fear a lot of turmoil stroke uncertainty as to his and leading members future maybe on the horizon this will be exacerbated by the constant updating of fatality numbers uh now when you've got that email um
00:25:43 uh now when you've got that email um did you you could see is this right that that at least the chief executive of westminster council uh thought that the chief executive of rbkc did not understand the magnitude of
00:25:54 rbkc did not understand the magnitude of the of the problem yes yes what was your reaction to learning of that in the email when you saw it uh the next day by the time i saw this email i think john baradel was already uh in his new
00:26:07 john baradel was already uh in his new role or at least it had been agreed that he would be in the new role and i remember thinking that this we were in exactly the same place as charlie parker had been and i remember thinking i wish you'd send that email to
00:26:18 thinking i wish you'd send that email to me as well last night that might have been helpful right i see and was this before when you saw this it's 11 47 was this before or after joe farah had had a conversation
00:26:29 conversation with
00:26:30 with uh
00:26:31 uh nicholas holgate about him stepping back um
00:26:36 um i'm not quite sure but i am pretty confident that i did not see this email and neither did joe until after she had spoken to john baradel i don't think this email influenced the decision-making i think it corroborated
00:26:48 decision-making i think it corroborated the decision that we'd made or that joe had agreed with john and john o'brien rather than actually being part of what made them decide it so did it corroborate the concerns that had been raised with
00:27:00 the concerns that had been raised with you by joe farah from her visit yes and also what we knew from thursday about how we were finding the council to deal with then let's go to clg through 403399 this takes us into the mid afternoon of
00:27:12 this takes us into the mid afternoon of that day
00:27:15 email from robert mason of red to you
00:27:19 to you and sadie javid well i said your jabbed copy to you and to the office of joe farah
00:27:24 farah and um so this comes up to you at 1447 as you can see and what is important about this is the email below it which is in the string it
00:27:36 email below it which is in the string it starts at the bottom of your screen if we can scroll up please we can see the heard of it it comes from philip james who's the resilience advisor in the in red and um he says catherine rob ahead of
00:27:47 and um he says catherine rob ahead of the scg i spoke to the police gold commander neil jerome in a conversation in a confidential conversation he raised his concern regarding rbkc local authority the main points he made are
00:27:59 points he made are first bullet the la are way out of their depth
00:28:02 depth second nick holgate did not come across well yesterday at the cross government ministerial meeting there is a lot of anger from the residents directed towards the la he said it is not acceptable that people have now spent two nights in a rest
00:28:14 have now spent two nights in a rest center police are happy for there to be a meeting with the residents which includes all of the appropriate key agencies for the multi-agency seg to talk to residents and address some of their concerns where possible la are not
00:28:25 their concerns where possible la are not keen on this idea and it goes on a little bit further now um
00:28:31 um do you remember did you do anything on receipt of that email at 1447.
00:28:37 at 1447. at that time i was in the ministerial meeting
00:28:40 meeting so i can't say exactly when i saw this email
00:28:43 email but it's very consistent with everything that was being discussed by that point so all of those issues um uh
00:28:51 uh are
00:28:52 are we we were well aware of and indeed quite worried about right but by that point john barrow had taken over yeah i see now then moving further into the day on the 16th friday cab 4-0 is 5727
00:29:14 email from lorna gratton 1937 to you and louise morgan further support to our bkc louise melanie as you know the pm met local residents from grenfell this afternoon and left with the overwhelming message
00:29:25 and left with the overwhelming message that the council don't have a grip i know you know this and that's why you've set up gold command but in particular she's king we make a further offer to rbkc stroke gold command of the
00:29:36 offer to rbkc stroke gold command of the kind that they find very hard to refuse in particular pull together what additional results you quickly put into the council and have it ready to go make contact with gold command in order to go
00:29:47 contact with gold command in order to go around k and c and identify where we could immediately and helpfully place people i understand you're kindly putting together a short email for us on what clg will be offering so we can put it in front of
00:29:58 offering so we can put it in front of the pm
00:30:01 the pm now um i i don't know whether there's a response to that email that you sent to lorna grafton can you help um
00:30:09 help um no i'm afraid i don't recall i mean at about the same time i emailed in to mark sedwell giving my assessment of where things were following the meeting
00:30:21 were following the meeting but i don't recall that and it looks as though it came directly into my own personal email box so i would have seen it i didn't leave the office until quite late that night i don't i just don't remember if i responded
00:30:34 i mean did you know what was involved in making an and
00:30:39 an and corleone-esque offer of this nature
00:30:44 um well from this point on once john baradel had been put in place as i said in my email to mark said well later that afternoon which we may come on to although the underlying problems clearly
00:30:56 although the underlying problems clearly weren't solved i felt that finally we had leadership in place that had identified the right issues he was drawing people around him to be able to get things done with the right expertise
00:31:07 get things done with the right expertise and there was just a sense of palpable grip and determination now i think it took gold command several days to recover the problems created by those early days and the mistakes
00:31:19 those early days and the mistakes but my view from this point on was that we had to put what effort we had in central government into supporting gold command
00:31:26 command so what i read this email as saying now is that ministers were still quite uncomfortable and wanted us to do more directly from central government but there was another meeting the following morning which i believe the
00:31:37 following morning which i believe the prime minister chaired and so i think
00:31:40 i think that was another conversation we went around the same questions of should we do more but ultimately concluded we should support gold command but we did also we'd already agreed to see by this evening actually to put together the
00:31:51 evening actually to put together the victims unit well yes and we may touch on that shortly but let me just show you an email sent a little bit later the same evening clg four zeroes
00:32:02 later the same evening clg four zeroes five two one nine
00:32:07 at 1954 on the 16th of june alastair whitehead second email down to peter hill at number 10 and others it looks as if
00:32:18 at number 10 and others it looks as if this is an internal number 10 communication or the prime minister called the leader of kensington and chelsea council this evening here with a readout
00:32:30 and there are six bullet points uh pm reported that from her visit the overwhelming message from those affected was that there had been no communication from the council and people didn't feel the council was coordinating things properly
00:32:41 properly leader reported there had been a big response from the voluntary sector and the council officers were engaged there had been some confusion and the council is not held in the highest regard
00:32:50 regard uh pm emphasized the issues that have been raised with her and that the financial aid must get through dclg will be in contact with rbkc to ensure that proper processes are in place
00:33:01 place and then it continues leader committed to having all people rendered homeless by in housing by the end of the day but noted a few times the difficulty of getting permanent re-housing in knc the pm said it was important to have the
00:33:12 pm said it was important to have the numbers involved so we can monitor progress on the commitment and to be sure of where all the people are leader said that rbkc needed help to free up housing the pm said the dclg will be able to help identify housing in other
00:33:24 able to help identify housing in other boroughs
00:33:25 boroughs pm sought an assurance that someone from the council will be in touch this evening with every one of the support centers the leader agreed this now that that's a
00:33:35 that's a that's a readout from a discussion they had were you aware of the detail of that discussion or the particulars of this email on that evening i don't think so no
00:33:45 no and you say in your first witness statement to paragraph 10 there's no need to go to it that one of the dclg's long-standing functions is to provide what you call a link between central government and local responders when it comes to
00:33:56 and local responders when it comes to responding to emergencies do you know why it took the prime minister personally visiting the scene for those issues to be fully aired and then action taken
00:34:07 um well i think all these issues were already on the table um you know
00:34:15 you know we'd had a meeting earlier that day chaired by the prime minister with john baradel and nicholas holgate on the line and many of these issues had been discussed including the need to sort out housing and i think when the
00:34:27 sort out housing and i think when the prime minister says that dclg for example and talking about the penultimate bullet will be able to help identify housing in other boroughs that wasn't new i mean she was saying what we'd already discussed and aired in ministerial meetings not just
00:34:39 aired in ministerial meetings not just on friday but i think in previous days the
00:34:42 the permanent rehousing work had started some days before um
00:34:46 um so i i think the issues around financial aid getting through um
00:34:53 um i don't know whether that was discussed on the friday afternoon that may have been a new issue that emerged in the evening
00:35:00 but i see this as a continuation of a conversation and
00:35:07 and i'm not surprised that every time anyone visited there was a slightly new issue that needed to be sent back but the point was that it should be sent back and i i presume that at some level number 10 did communicate some of this back into
00:35:18 back into dclg uh i don't know i assume they did i would have expected them to have done wait my question really is is there anything
00:35:26 anything in this email this conversation which is email reflect which hadn't been discussed and brought to light in the earlier meeting that day at the 1330. i don't think so no right
00:35:37 at the 1330. i don't think so no right except possibly the financial aid issue being very difficult operationally that may have come through slightly later i follow now let's go to cab30s12015
00:35:49 this takes us a little bit earlier in the afternoon and this is an email on the friday afternoon from mark sedwill to catherine hammond catherine well done with today's meeting and i
00:36:00 well done with today's meeting and i think that's the 1330 meeting which we're going to come to perhaps backwards but never mind um it was clear that knc are completely out of their debt so we should probably have prompted a dc lg intervention earlier but all that can come out of our lessons
00:36:12 but all that can come out of our lessons learned sir idc in due course shall i follow up with melanie on london stroke hmg support for k and c or do you think all of that is in hand
00:36:22 in hand [Music]
00:36:23 [Music] first do you agree with mark saidwill's assessment that
00:36:28 that we as in central government or the end um the ns the uh the ccs should probably have prompted a dclg intervention earlier
00:36:40 a dclg intervention earlier um
00:36:41 um i think as i was saying to you this morning that
00:36:46 joe and i should have thought on wednesday and thursday about whether or not london resilience was being mobilized in support of the council and that that would have been the right intervention
00:36:57 intervention and indeed turned out to be the right intervention although it was a bigger one
00:37:00 one than usual and
00:37:03 and so
00:37:05 so yes i think central government collectively should have thought about that more on wednesday and thursday i've always believed and still do believe that it's about the london gold support being provided earlier rather than a team of civil servants going on the
00:37:16 team of civil servants going on the ground to somehow take over more support was it your view though that that the incident should also perhaps have prompted an earlier interventional coordination by the
00:37:27 coordination by the cabinet office the ccs well um
00:37:32 well um i would have hoped that we would have got there before them but there were two meetings on wednesday and thursday when certainly it's true that there was no challenge from the center that we should be intervening and and in fact almost no
00:37:43 be intervening and and in fact almost no mention including in this email about the importance of the london gold arrangements and the london resilience arrangements and this is where i think the cabinet office perhaps you know and everybody at the center was thinking in terms of what central
00:37:55 thinking in terms of what central government should do rather than about activating the existing resilience arrangement adequately for the task in hand so i think they were slightly on the wrong place on some of this um i also think that the fact that there
00:38:07 um i also think that the fact that there was nobody there from the local area apart from from the mayor's office at the wednesday meeting didn't help because one of the big factors that alerted us to the problems on thursday was just the way that nick colgate wasn't able to handle the
00:38:19 colgate wasn't able to handle the questions he was asked and he wasn't there on wednesday and i know that was an administrative oversight i believe but it just seems quite odd to me that nobody was there and somehow nobody scrabbled around when they realized that in the meeting and went and found
00:38:31 in the meeting and went and found somebody so again that was a gap in the intelligence that was brought to bear in the ccs meetings now um
00:38:38 now um last thing on this he asks shall i follow up with melanie on london hmg support for knc did he did mark said well no i don't think so
00:38:49 did mark said well no i don't think so now we know that the meeting took place across government i'm sorry the task force meeting took place at 13 30 on the 16th of june chaired by the prime minister and we've covered that and the documents with other witnesses
00:39:00 documents with other witnesses um
00:39:02 you attended that meeting didn't you with alex sharma and others on friday on friday yes i did i'm not recorded as having attended in the minutes but i was there yes
00:39:13 the minutes but i was there yes yes according to your statement of paragraph 65 i think but also john baradar was there wasn't he he was on the phone
00:39:19 the phone he was on the yes he dialed in yeah uh do you remember did john bernadel say anything at the meeting yes he said a lot did he um
00:39:28 did he um did he
00:39:29 did he articulate any difficulties that he had encountered um
00:39:35 um i think you'd have to go back to the minutes but what i recall is that um he gave a sense of the challenge he thought was he was facing the things that needed to be done um i had spoken to him before the
00:39:48 um i had spoken to him before the meeting i'd never met him before but we spoke briefly before the meeting and he had told me to expect that it might be a bit odd because as to who would speak compared to him or nicholas holgate but in the end he took over pretty much and i don't think nicholas holgate really
00:39:59 i don't think nicholas holgate really said very much at all it's my recollection and was it your clear understanding at the time that john berndal had taken over as opposed to
00:40:10 as opposed to standing alongside supporting nicholas holgate yes and did you have any understanding of what the what the basis for that takeover was
00:40:22 no not at a level of detail but i understood that he was now the gold commander for the recovery effort was i think what it was called they were the recovery task force but we were clearly in response mode as
00:40:34 but we were clearly in response mode as well at that point now having got to the end of the 26th uh the 16th of june 2017 and discussed your concerns
00:40:44 concerns uh it it
00:40:45 uh it it am i right in thinking that it was it was clear to you at the end of that day that the situation in our bkc was still very challenging notwithstanding that john varadel had been in charge since
00:40:56 john varadel had been in charge since earlier that day yes it was so very challenging and can we can you enumerate those challenges in particular including protests challenges faced by some of the families
00:41:07 challenges faced by some of the families uh the situation at the rest centers reports of unrest chaos on the streets yes
00:41:14 yes were you aware that john baradel had had a call with the secretary of state that evening at about 7 p.m yes you were i think i probably suggested it and
00:41:24 and you probably were you on that call no no uh were you aware that john baradel had
00:41:31 had told the secretary of state that he had made significant progress such that he secretary of state could be assured that the situation was coming under proper control um i i
00:41:43 um i i can't recall exactly how i became aware of what they discussed but that sounds perfectly plausible to me that that would have been what he said now let's um then move into the evening of the 16th
00:41:55 of the 16th clg one triple zero nine seven six seven
00:42:07 um
00:42:10 9767
00:42:22 clg one triple zero nine seven six seven yes there it is thank you uh now um what we see here a second email down is an email from you to mark saidwill
00:42:33 saidwill 2026
00:42:37 uh and
00:42:40 if you look at the third line down you say
00:42:44 say as i said in the margins of cobra john baradel took over at lunchtime as gold command for the whole recovery and he has just rung me with an update he has clearly made very significant progress this afternoon and i think we
00:42:55 progress this afternoon and i think we can now be assured that the situation is coming under proper control the key points and then you set them all out um can i just ask you whether it was your impression that he made
00:43:06 it was your impression that he made significant progress or something that he told you
00:43:11 um well it was mainly what he'd told me i hadn't been there myself on the ground but i had heard him describing what he was doing in the meeting earlier on and i had no reason to doubt
00:43:22 i had no reason to doubt that uh the things he was telling me were true i was particularly assured by the way that he was bringing in leadership around him and that we had at that point three serving chief executives i think by the end of the
00:43:33 executives i think by the end of the weekend it was another two yeah um and it was really his overall understanding of what needed to be done that i found persuasive i knew it was going to take a long time to get those
00:43:45 going to take a long time to get those things done now
00:43:47 now we've seen the bullet points with others
00:43:51 in their evidence particularly catherine hammond i don't need to reread them to you particularly since they're your own record but can we take it that that is an accurate record of the gist of the points in the call
00:44:02 call yes i i stand by by this record completely this is what john said but it's also how i expressed it to mark sedwell was uh what i believed to be true at the time indeed now then
00:44:13 true at the time indeed now then you go on to say after the list of bullet points on the on knc itself john is clear that they are in a bad way at official level the gold structure manages this risk for the time being it has basically taken
00:44:25 the time being it has basically taken over at political level other london councils are coming in with support after the immediate crisis is over we will clearly need to consider a long-term solution
00:44:36 long-term solution now what did you mean by at political level what did you think he meant by at political level other councils are coming in with support um
00:44:48 um i don't particularly remember the political
00:44:52 political element of this at the time but what i think
00:44:56 think i must have been referring to is that other councillors i.e elected politicians so at a political level we're coming in to support the elected leadership of the council as well
00:45:08 council as well uh i can't quite remember um with this distance what that support was because i was mainly concerned with the official arrangements but i think that's must there must have been something going on to support nick padgett brown and
00:45:19 to support nick padgett brown and that must have been what i was referring to is my best guess now um
00:45:24 now um the statement k and c itself john is clear that they are in a bad way um what did you understand him well sorry let me let me rephrase the question was that your impression of
00:45:36 question was that your impression of what he was telling you or did he say to you
00:45:40 you they are in a bad way
00:45:44 um i can't remember exactly what the language was that he used but i could easily have used that language myself so i think
00:45:52 i think he was probably telling me that nicholas holgate and his team were really struggling um hadn't had any sleep hadn't had any rest must have been feeling terrible that
00:46:04 must have been feeling terrible that their jobs had been taken over and that essentially they had failed to manage the immediate response um
00:46:11 um so i could easily use that language myself and it may be my interpretation of what he said but we were in the same place when we had that conversation now you go on in the next paragraph to say we have embedded red response and
00:46:23 say we have embedded red response and housing liaison into the local effort this afternoon as well as helping on the ground this will also ensure we get to start we start to get the information we need on rehousing etc is that right yeah we've done that yes
00:46:34 is that right yeah we've done that yes we had so is it right that by the time you sent that email to mark saidwill you were of the view the response had significantly improved well i was aware that the leadership and the capabilities
00:46:45 that the leadership and the capabilities had significantly improved now we have i'm sorry but i wasn't i think really passing any judgment on the situation on the ground i see so your impression was that things
00:46:57 i see so your impression was that things had been done by john immediately but the results had not yet started to filter through yes i don't think i was saying they hadn't filtered through yet but i wasn't assuming they had and i don't think there's anything in there in
00:47:08 don't think there's anything in there in my email that says that it was you know significantly improved for the survivors and those who had lost loved ones or those affected by the fire but i was i was clear that their leadership and
00:47:21 was clear that their leadership and capability was significantly better than it had been in the morning now this email goes to mark sadwell at 2026. if we go to cab 404653
00:47:32 404653 we can see that he responds the same evening at 22 27 at least he comes to you at that time it is a response and he asks
00:47:45 it is a response and he asks jeremy hayward asks uh
00:47:48 uh what is the actual position on the displaced tenants are they all being housed lately in hotels i assume none are literally having to sleep on the streets question mark exclamation mark and you respond
00:47:59 and you respond three minutes later at 20 to 2 30 that evening none on the streets all in hotels or in some cases still in rest center if that's their preference they are tricky families to rehouse
00:48:10 they are tricky families to rehouse especially in these terrible circumstances but it's happening this will be a key set of stats being reported into cobra regularly aloc is all over this and the tower block checks
00:48:25 uh now my question is where did you get the information to answer jeremy hayward's question that none were on the streets all were in hotels or in some cases
00:48:36 all were in hotels or in some cases still in the rest center i must have i must have known that that was the case particularly given that i responded so quickly or at least i must have been told that that was the case
00:48:47 have been told that that was the case you know he was saying are they literally having to sleep on the streets which implies a level of being forced to sleep on the streets because there was no alternative and i replied well well no they have hotels or in some cases
00:48:59 no they have hotels or in some cases they're in the rest centers and i'd i think by this hour i had already spoken to the secretary of state about the family he was particularly concerned about
00:49:08 about for whom efforts had been made during that day to find a solution but they just hadn't worked and that family had decided to stay in the rest center so i knew there were still some people in the rest center right clg40 is 9897 please page two
00:49:30 there's an email from sally randall second email down there to um
00:49:36 to um ellen reach copy to fiona derby lizzie clifford and rory mcbride rough sleeping ellen i passed on your feedback that the outreach teams had found no grenfell victim sleeping rough however sos said that eleanor kelly had reported that
00:49:48 that eleanor kelly had reported that there were grenfell victims sleeping in cars and parks and asked us if we could reconcile the two bits of information it's not super urgent i don't need an answer today and the date of that email is the 22nd of
00:50:00 the date of that email is the 22nd of uh june 2017 so that would be the
00:50:05 the thursday
00:50:06 thursday week after the fire um but is it the case that in fact even by then there had been or by then there were findings that some grenfell victims had
00:50:17 findings that some grenfell victims had been sleeping in cars and parks i don't know i've not seen these emails before so i wasn't aware of it and if we gave them to clg three zeroes four zeros eight seven seven nine please
00:50:41 uh if we go please to page two at the bottom of the page first
00:50:48 first to establish the uh date this is the this night this is now the saturday 17th of june 2017 at 11 47 from mark said will to you copied two people at the cabinet office
00:51:00 copied two people at the cabinet office including catherine hammond hi melanie over the page please page three
00:51:07 hi melanie thanks i was on the phone at today's cobra a viewpoint struck me and then halfway down the email john b's sense of grip was palpable so i hope the situation on the ground will now gain
00:51:18 situation on the ground will now gain and demonstrate some momentum but do we need a gold for whitehall on all the wider issues or maybe a gold plus gold minister e.g joe farah plus greg hans they would have to drop everything
00:51:29 hans they would have to drop everything else i fear this will become on your limbs otherwise mark and first what did you understand mark said will's reference to new orleans to mean here
00:51:39 mean here um to be honest i didn't really know he and i discussed this the following day um but
00:51:45 um but uh
00:51:47 uh i was guessing you know a humanitarian crisis
00:51:51 crisis on a very large scale did you consider the suggestion that there be a gold for whitehall or a gold plus gold minister
00:51:59 minister yes we discussed it at some length on sunday morning and it was a very constructive conversation actually and mark and i were trying to work through what the various different elements of the work were he knew i only had three
00:52:11 the work were he knew i only had three directors general to lead on this uh i had already agreed with jeremy hayward that i would have a fourth to lead on building safety we were in the i spent much of sunday trying to find that person talking to different people
00:52:22 person talking to different people but we were trying to work out what helen's role could be what joe's role could be what my role could be and the outcome of our conversation is summarized in my email to him which maps what we had discussed and in the end
00:52:34 the end he agreed with me that my ministers sajid
00:52:37 sajid javid and alok sharma should remain the overall lead but also that nick heard should play the role of specific support for the community which he which he did for a very long time
00:52:48 very long time so we sort of agreed it then this was really i think the moment where we were thinking about the recovery phase yes and
00:52:56 and um
00:52:57 um this was probably the turning point we shifted a bit more into that mode and thought about the structures and accountabilities that were going to be needed
00:53:04 needed let's then turn into the 17th of june a bit more closely the saturday i think you recall there was a grenfell recovery task force meeting at 11 o'clock that morning yes yes and you attended that
00:53:15 morning yes yes and you attended that with alex sharma and catherine richardson i think yes and the secretary of state
00:53:20 of state and the secretary of state indeed how would you describe the mood of that meeting
00:53:25 meeting um it was very sober all those meetings were very sober um because of the nature of the events but it was constructive um i thought it was a good meeting and i think it's right isn't it as he
00:53:36 and i think it's right isn't it as he and summarizing your statement at paragraph 78 there were a number of key actions uh identified for your department including more visible presence at grenfell to
00:53:47 visible presence at grenfell to facilitate access to support services yes yes
00:53:51 yes yes providing additional financial help for the victims yes and monitoring progress on the through well i think that had been by then become the three-week announced target for rehousing yes
00:54:03 announced target for rehousing yes yes and then after that meeting you went i is this right to the secretary to portland house with the secretary of state yes i did yes why did you do that well at this point i hadn't actually
00:54:15 well at this point i hadn't actually been to the local area and i i thought it was quite important that i get an understanding of what was going on but we weren't able to do that because of the
00:54:26 do that because of the public order issues we went instead to the gold command headquarters at portland house and um and actually later that day
00:54:33 that day um we were asked by john baradel that there'd be no further whitehall visits and so we respected that right now i think when you got there you saw several london chief executives working full-time in gold command is that right
00:54:46 full-time in gold command is that right yes well they've just arrived i think but they were i think to be deployed full-time at least for a few weeks right and i think they included is this right eleanor kelly from select carolyn downes uh and paul nazarek as
00:54:59 carolyn downes uh and paul nazarek as well
00:55:00 well i remember and
00:55:02 and did you
00:55:03 did you did you gain the impression that they were well enough resourced they were starting and certainly when i saw those individuals i was very impressed
00:55:14 those individuals i was very impressed these were some of the really heavyweight london chief executives
00:55:19 now if you get your first statement you say paragraph 80 on page 26
00:55:30 uh of this meeting
00:55:35 that in the second second half of the paragraph you say i asked john what more we could do to help he said there was a significant obstacle in that housing was not fully under the gold command structure and this was needed to manage
00:55:47 structure and this was needed to manage the relief effort fully he asked me to persuade nicholas holgate to pass the responsibility for re-housing from our bkc to gold command i had a long conversation with nicholas he agreed to my request and john later told me the
00:55:59 my request and john later told me the transfer of responsibilities had taken place
00:56:05 now
00:56:07 why had the
00:56:10 had the element of the response or perhaps recovery relating to housing remained with nicholas holgate and not brought under the gold arrangements well on the friday evening i thought it had moved across that was in my email to
00:56:22 had moved across that was in my email to mark saidwell that it had moved across and so i was a bit surprised to hear that this was still a sticking point on the saturday um
00:56:32 um my understanding is that in the end these were very unusual arrangements for john effectively to take over
00:56:38 take over in the role of chief executive of the council in his gold role and uh it was one that was done by mutual agreement with nicholas holgate and i assume that nicholas holgate hadn't
00:56:50 i assume that nicholas holgate hadn't wanted to move the housing work across and that's the impression i got from john on saturday so you're to be clear your impression from
00:57:00 from john baradel was that nicholas holgate had been reluctant to surrender control of the housing or re-housing effort yes and did he give you a sense of why
00:57:11 and did he give you a sense of why why nicholas holgate was so reluctant no not really um all i remember is that without them having that responsibility they really weren't effectively able to communicate with the residents or
00:57:23 communicate with the residents or do most of the things that were needed for the recovery did john beradill ask for any further help from the department yes he asked me to go and persuade nicholas to move the housing
00:57:34 nicholas to move the housing element across to gold and that's what i did and other than that no i mean he'd already asked for liaison which was provided by jill mcmanus
00:57:45 provided by jill mcmanus um he asked for a few things over that weekend i can't remember exactly what when but this is the one i remember from saturday afternoon
00:57:53 afternoon and i think there was also communications assistance with simon wren moving from the home office to the dclg to help the new direct old act as the new director of communications is that yes that was a decision that i
00:58:05 that yes that was a decision that i made and was seeking support on it wasn't anything to do with the gold command so that was entirely a government decision we did place farooq muller with gold as a communications specialist i think that
00:58:16 communications specialist i think that had happened uh by saturday morning though and that was probably agreed the day before and was that organized by dclg or by the home office or by dclg freak was one of our staff and
00:58:27 by dclg freak was one of our staff and did that resolve the concerns that you'd had reported to you in the early hours of
00:58:31 of the 16th of june which we've seen which was that um
00:58:38 the department wasn't completely on top of the communications um
00:58:45 yes i mean the communications from the department's perspective so now we're we've come back to two martian street away from portland house i think um the the
00:58:54 the the the conversation the the concern i had on thursday afternoon and friday was that as i explained in my witness statements we had a very small communications team it had been quite significantly cut and our deputy director was also very new and this was
00:59:06 director was also very new and this was an absolutely massive national media story
00:59:09 story and i needed somebody with the expertise to be able to answer calls from the daily mail and all the broadcasters and so on and that was what i asked alex aiken for help in
00:59:20 was what i asked alex aiken for help in securing and simon wren came across on saturday morning to help and yes it did resolve things because he was just able to manage that kind of media story and also to liaise very
00:59:31 story and also to liaise very effectively with number 10 and other government departments which was important
00:59:36 important now continuing on the theme of resources i think you spoke to the cabinet office a number of times to secure additional uh people with experience of managing and coordinating
00:59:47 and coordinating internal departmental responses to a crisis yes why did you make those requests
00:59:55 because we didn't really have the expertise i mean overall there was definitely an issue with numbers in the department we had we were about 50 of the size that we had been in 2010 at this point in 2017
01:00:08 been in 2010 at this point in 2017 but
01:00:09 but um
01:00:09 um [Music]
01:00:11 [Music] the the the the problem that worried me most was that we had a few gaps in capability and one of them was as i was describing this morning was just the ability to actually set up and run a
01:00:22 ability to actually set up and run a response cell inside the department to coordinate coordinate all the work that we were doing in the crisis and that needed to sit alongside red in the role that they had in feeding uh
01:00:33 in the role that they had in feeding uh the ccs machinery and liaising directly with the local area so we we had a go at setting that up on friday but it was a bit too like what red do so it was a bit too much just
01:00:44 red do so it was a bit too much just about inflammation flows i think there's an email from rob mason where he describes being very pleased that we called on their expertise and we were calling on their expertise but it wasn't quite enough because it wasn't really about decision
01:00:55 because it wasn't really about decision making and so i i was desperately keen to get somebody from ccs to help us with that and eventually in whitehouse came across and did that for us but it wasn't until the following week and it was a bit late to be honest yes
01:01:07 bit late to be honest yes um just picking this up at clg one triple zero nine seven five seven page two
01:01:30 uh
01:01:32 this is part um of an email which starts on page one just to pick up the timing of this email please and who it was from it's um
01:01:44 please and who it was from it's um it's from
01:01:45 it's from uh you to jeremy hayward yes yes
01:01:50 yes yes uh and at the very top of the chain it filters its way
01:01:55 well there's a response i think to you from sue gray uh
01:02:01 uh thank you so much as you know jeremy doesn't have a clue what i get up to so really appreciate you sending this email did you have a discussion with sue gray
01:02:12 sue gray before you sent this email um
01:02:15 um the conversation with sue gray will have been about the public inquiry because that's what she was doing uh through these days i don't recall when i spoke to her but we will have spoken frequently i think right now uh the email itself says
01:02:28 right now uh the email itself says jeremy just to let you know the main things we've done today and then if we go please to paige uh
01:02:34 uh 2
01:02:43 you
01:02:47 say in the last paragraph under finally it's not really the last paragraph but it's the last big one you should know that we are doing a lot to talk to and comfort dclg staff involved in this policy area and in the regulators some of whom are very upset
01:02:58 of whom are very upset we also have at least one member of staff a new apprentice with a close friend in hospital and the father missing our part of the 2ms building will be surrounded by a protest tomorrow evening so we're going to be advising
01:03:09 evening so we're going to be advising our staff to go home at 5pm as i said to you on the phone last night at some point we may need to reflect on the impact of cuts to the civil service dclg will be less than 50 of its 2010 size by 2020 on some of our deep expert policy
01:03:22 2020 on some of our deep expert policy functions the expertise is still there and it's excellent but it is sparse and overloaded now i i i
01:03:30 now i i i put that to you was there a wider problem here regarding resourcing at dclg
01:03:36 dclg and red or perhaps all red which was manifesting itself in the response at government level by this point um
01:03:45 um i don't think it was manifesting itself at government level no i think we we
01:03:52 we you know i'm very proud of what we did in these days it was um immensely challenging and it wasn't perfect and we didn't get everything right but
01:04:00 right but given the completely unprecedented nature of what we were dealing with we achieved an enormous amount but there's no question that we were doing it on various vast resources and in some cases
01:04:11 various vast resources and in some cases the capability just wasn't there in the way that i was just describing for the coordination and in some cases as on the communications it just this wasn't enough of it and it wasn't senior enough
01:04:24 wasn't senior enough so
01:04:26 so you know
01:04:29 you know it was harder because we didn't have very many people um but morale was strong and people were extremely collaborative and they worked you know very effectively and i think that spoke to a very positive culture in
01:04:41 that spoke to a very positive culture in the department actually but the resourcing questions were um
01:04:47 um you know very difficult to manage through this period and i had a lot of support from my fellow permanent secretaries but i had to spend quite a lot of my time getting it and asking for it it was quite a lot of what i did in these early days
01:05:01 now moving into the 18th of june i think we just can continue that theme i think on that day the sunday there was of course we know the further task force meeting but is it right that you made some decisions allocating
01:05:12 some decisions allocating responsibilities among which of among those of which was to decide that helen mcnamara and you would continue to lead the overall coordination yes and that joe farah would play a
01:05:24 yes and that joe farah would play a significant role in supporting gold command yes and lead on possible intervention in rbkc
01:05:32 rbkc now on that day also which is 18th june sunday but is it right john baradel appointed paul nejarek is that how you pronounce it um i i'm not quite sure but that's that's to
01:05:43 not quite sure but that's that's to coordinate the humanitarian assistance under gold command i think yes yes yes and and eleanor kelly to lead on engagement with the community yes yes did was that your idea or was
01:05:55 yes yes did was that your idea or was that something that came from john baradel it came from john baradel okay and he knew eleanor kelly from southwark yes i think she was there on saturday but she was appointed to that role on sunday do things improve as a result of those decisions you made
01:06:08 those decisions you made i didn't make the decisions uh uh
01:06:11 uh in gold command or are you referring to the decisions i made in the department in the department yes i think it clarified things as we went into the into the following week um and it was quite important for me to be
01:06:22 and it was quite important for me to be clear with the whole department who was doing what as well so i sent a wider email explaining some of that
01:06:28 that but it did make a difference now i think the central government didn't provide further communication support at that time why is that well i think on saturday and sunday there was quite a lot of concern in
01:06:39 there was quite a lot of concern in central government that um
01:06:43 um there needed to be a stronger face of the response in kensington and chelsea that the council weren't providing that and i recall that john baradel himself was very reluctant to be that personal
01:06:55 was very reluctant to be that personal face i think he wanted to be the person who was orchestrating behind the scenes and that's why he appointed eleanor to be that person that's my recollection i think that was a good decision actually and so we would
01:07:06 and so we would we were teaching on maybe finding somebody who could go and represent the victims and be their advocate on the ground but in the end when eleanor was appointed i think there was a sense that certainly the recovery
01:07:18 was a sense that certainly the recovery was being properly represented on the ground ministers did though still go themselves a lot to
01:07:25 a lot to the area to speak to people to speak to families they themselves were also quite present in those following days now i want to turn next briefly to the tmo
01:07:35 tmo you've been asked about rbkc and the pan london arrangements but looking at the tmo do you remember that on the 20th of june which was the tuesday after the fire john baradel raised with
01:07:46 after the fire john baradel raised with you concerns about the tmo yes i recall that they were raised on the monday actually on the monday and do you remember that the concerns included problems with
01:07:57 included problems with uh heating and hot water uh in the finger blocks the the walkways and other uh buildings around granville tower
01:08:05 tower and problems with with with leadership as well yes remember that can we go to clg four zeros five eight one three
01:08:17 and look at the second email down on that page please 20th of june 1910 from camilla sheldon to a cast of recipients including you and helen mcnamara
01:08:30 including you and helen mcnamara a quick readout from cobra main actions for us in bold melanie jillian please shout if i've missed anything
01:08:37 anything and then if you look at um the
01:08:40 the second main heading down met the met police and then there's a third main heading support for those affected stroke gold command number seven says tmo is not reliable
01:08:53 number seven says tmo is not reliable issues around hot water in particular and then in bold which is for you solution is to get the right people in place dclg will provide update on next steps of pm cobra kerry
01:09:07 yes now kerry i think is a reference to kerry kerry mchale not david kerry just to be clear that's correct uh
01:09:16 the reference to tmo is not reliable what what did you understand that was a reference to so my understanding is that the leadership of the tmo
01:09:27 the leadership of the tmo just wasn't working and somehow wasn't managing to communicate with residents it wasn't present on the ground and
01:09:37 and that underlying that problem was the fact that they still reported into the council
01:09:42 council and reported therefore in through nicholas holgate and that this was becoming a real blockage on monday because we had various we had teams of people that we thought by the homes communities
01:09:54 that we thought by the homes communities agency and the housing regulator that we could
01:09:57 could we could send in to support but um from other um other areas but that offer wasn't going to be received until the leadership changed
01:10:08 until the leadership changed so
01:10:08 so i recall john baradel um i think rigging me up about this he said this needs resolving you have to resolve it this is about the council not being prepared to take the steps they need to take he was quite forthright
01:10:20 quite forthright and
01:10:21 and in parallel i think
01:10:24 i think you know discussions were going on about nicholas holgate's position and so in the end what happened was that the leader asked nicholas holgate to resign and
01:10:35 resign and he stepped aside from his role and barry quirk who came and took over acted on the tmo issues as some of the first steps he took on the wednesday when he arrived i think it took a while for him properly to resolve them because
01:10:47 for him properly to resolve them because he wasn't fully in the role until a couple of weeks later but but these issues all were being worked on together and and they were quite sensitive and that's why uh this this particular reference in
01:10:58 uh this this particular reference in this email there was quite a lot more going on behind the scenes and um was consideration given within the department taking over the tmo in the same way that john baradel had taken over our bkc
01:11:11 taken over our bkc um
01:11:12 um i don't think we would ever have taken it over from the department but we were certainly giving consideration as to how we could
01:11:19 we could you know orchestrate a change of leadership in the tmo which we understood to be quite a problem at that point
01:11:25 point but more generally we were thinking about the council and about whether or not a formal intervention was necessary would that whether that could be done in time whether it was appropriate joe and i had a lot of conversations
01:11:36 joe and i had a lot of conversations about that over the weekend i was more in the camp of surely we're going to have to intervene and joe was i think quite rightly saying well no actually the gold command is dealing with the immediate problem and in the end i don't
01:11:47 immediate problem and in the end i don't think we did need to intervene i think jay was right we did put in the task force a bit later down the line mr chairman can i just finish this topic off yesterday's short document that's right um clg four zero three five four
01:11:59 right um clg four zero three five four four
01:12:00 four this is an email string of the 19th of june so the
01:12:06 monday uh and uh it is from alex powell at dclg uh to a number of people within the department copy to you and to the office of the secretary of state
01:12:17 secretary of state and helena mcnamara kerry thanks for the quick chat just now as agreed it feels right or not focuses on the kc tma and the powers of the regulator uh rather than expanding the note to include our best
01:12:28 expanding the note to include our best value powers to expect and the wider approach to kc k and c let me know and below that as we see it comes to you but that is an email from at the foot of the screen you go down to the bottom of the page page
01:12:40 go down to the bottom of the page page one from kerry mchale the same day 19th of june in 1640
01:12:47 in 1640 um
01:12:48 um alec taylor can hold the ring on this advice he's already looked at the social housing regulators powers relating to la's
01:12:53 la's given the timing on this will be really high level options we'll be able to discuss
01:12:57 discuss able to explore further and what this is really about emerges on page two
01:13:04 page two the second paragraph
01:13:08 paragraph uh or on the first main paragraph at today's sos meeting sally picked up an action to explore options for taking over the management of the kensington and chelsea tenet management organization and then the rest of it is about advice
01:13:19 and then the rest of it is about advice and creative options things like that and
01:13:23 and did you get to the bottom of whether it was actually possible to take over the tmo it will take over management of the tama so far at least as this crisis was concerned um
01:13:36 i'm not sure whether we got to the bottom of that my understanding is that the powers of the regulator are quite limited now they were changed um some years before grenfell so that it's not very hard for the
01:13:47 so that it's not very hard for the regulator to act in anticipation of a problem um rather than once it's already happened
01:13:53 happened um so i think there were there were issues with the threshold that wouldn't have been reached or would have been difficult to prove and so in the end as lyzan's email which i think is entirely correct says the big
01:14:04 think is entirely correct says the big difficulty was that the council would normally intervene and they they were under a lot of pressure so solving that problem was in the end the right answer which is what happened on the tuesday and the council took that decision themselves but it was what was needed to
01:14:17 themselves but it was what was needed to unlock the particular issue with the tmo right and did did anybody in the department did you make any steps to speak to the tma robert black the chief executive or i didn't but i don't know whether others
01:14:29 didn't but i don't know whether others did right this is that convenience well i just like your help on this what exactly was it that the tmo should have been doing that it wasn't doing um well my understanding
01:14:41 um well my understanding from my conversations with john baradel was that
01:14:44 was that people had left the finger blocks um
01:14:48 um but they were beginning to return and so that was um you know revealing a problem that they weren't that they weren't fit to be habited part of that was because the boiler was
01:14:59 of that was because the boiler was underneath the tower itself i i think but part of it was that they'd been damaged um and so there were other issues and there was just no sense that the count that the tmo was present on the ground or
01:15:11 the tmo was present on the ground or actually gripping those issues now that was the impression that i was getting from john bardell it was also coming in through multiple other sources by this point
01:15:19 point but it was really a leadership a leader i asked the question because we know as you say that the boilers weren't working because they were in the basement of the tower
01:15:28 tower we know that the gas for the whole area had been cut off so i think the walkways didn't have gas or hot water but that's not a problem that you can simply
01:15:39 simply solve overnight is it no but what is it that tmo were failing to do
01:15:46 to do there was as i understand it and i'm i'm recalling this now after five years as i understand it there just wasn't any leadership from the tmo as perceived by those who would have expected them to be on the end of the phone
01:15:58 on the end of the phone uh coming forward with a plan knowing where their tenants were communicating with those tenants and explaining what the situation was and as a result
01:16:06 a result people just didn't know what was going on and it was leading to quite a lot of concern and you know
01:16:11 you know complaint
01:16:12 complaint and a a lot of distress i'm sure as well yeah
01:16:18 yeah what was the source of your information about those matters it was john baridale but uh was part of it he rang me to
01:16:27 to you know ask us to do something about it um
01:16:32 um and
01:16:33 and but it wasn't just john baradar we were picking this up
01:16:37 up i can't remember exactly where from it may have been coming in through red channels uh but there was definitely an issue about people from those blocks feeling let down um and becoming quite
01:16:49 feeling let down um and becoming quite vocal about that and you know clearly not feeling that they were being communicated with adequately and uh did john beridell give you any indication whether he'd
01:17:00 give you any indication whether he'd spoken to robert black or anyone else at the tmo
01:17:04 the tmo i don't recall whether he did or not i mean i would have expected him to have spoken to them but um
01:17:13 but um i don't know all right thank you is that a convenient moment now yes it is right well we'll take the break for the afternoon at that point we'll come we'll stop there
01:17:24 we'll stop there we'll come back at 20 to four and uh as before please don't discuss your evidence
01:17:29 evidence all right thank you very much
01:17:40 thank you mr millet 24 please
01:36:29 would you ask a millionaire to come back in please
01:36:42 all right on we go yes thank you yes yes yes can we please next go to clg 408750
01:36:55 and this isn't a letter it will
01:37:03 no it is an email and if you uh look please at the top it's an email sent from louise morgan to sergio javid's office
01:37:15 sergio javid's office and the important point is the attachment pps gt letter in case you want to pick and if we look at the letter we can see
01:37:26 and if we look at the letter we can see uh
01:37:27 uh it that it is at clg405363
01:37:32 yes um and it's a letter addressed to
01:37:40 uh robert and john the john is barrydel and it comes from kenny bowie who is pps to the home secretary and it refers to an official visit to
01:37:52 and it refers to an official visit to the west way conducted by the home secretary and nick heard mp now just looking at the front page it's dated the 17th of june 2017 so this saturday were you aware of this letter did you see it at the time no i've not
01:38:04 did you see it at the time no i've not seen it before you've never seen it before you've never seen it before now no right
01:38:11 in which case i think there's nothing i think i need to ask you about it but were you aware at the time of
01:38:18 of problems at the west way yes
01:38:22 yes and can you tell us what kind of problems you were aware of um
01:38:28 so what i was hearing uh was um
01:38:34 um it's a little bit difficult to be honest having read so much about it since to know what i knew then and what i know now but what uh i was hearing at the time was that it was badly organized that it wasn't clear who was from the
01:38:45 that it wasn't clear who was from the council
01:38:46 council that
01:38:48 that it just wasn't well set up and didn't provide the kind of private spaces that you would have expected for people to have quite difficult and traumatic conversations about what they needed that people didn't feel they had access
01:38:59 that people didn't feel they had access to local services that was clear or indeed to central government services so just that it wasn't set up properly and wasn't proving to be supportive to people
01:39:09 people we did you get the um
01:39:13 um did you hear that there had been a feeling that people in hotels were out of sight out of mind and had been ignored by the council having been put in hotels was that something that came through to you i certainly remember
01:39:26 i certainly remember particularly as we went into the following week that people in hotels felt that they hadn't had any contact from the council and that
01:39:35 and that they weren't quite sure who to go to for support
01:39:40 and did that improve at any point um
01:39:44 um i remember it being a problem for quite some time and i also remember some weeks after the fire there being an issue with people's um with the deal that had been struck with a hotel for them to stay in those rooms suddenly coming to an end
01:39:55 those rooms suddenly coming to an end and there being uncertainty about whether they were able to stay so the question of of the hotels and whether they were really working for the families and the fact that they weren't working for many of the families was was an issue for some time
01:40:07 some time now um let's turn to a different topic perhaps scrolling back in time a little bit to the friday the 16th of june and that's the victim support unit um can we start with your first statement please paragraph 66 at page
01:40:19 statement please paragraph 66 at page 21.
01:40:22 and if we look at the penultimate bullet point on that page it says to form a new integrated support service for grenfell victims and that was
01:40:33 and that was what had been agreed at the grenfell recovery task force meeting at 1 30 on that day yes yes so let's read it together to form a new integrated support service for the grenfell victims
01:40:45 support service for the grenfell victims providing a single point of access into central government services for those who needed it this action was assigned to jillian k following a discussion with the home office about which department should take charge by the end of the day a 20-strong team
01:40:57 by the end of the day a 20-strong team of operational staff from hmrc have been identified to form a new victims unit led by suzanne kochinovsky and arrangements have been made for them to start their work on saturday morning
01:41:08 start their work on saturday morning um no um
01:41:10 um no um is it right that jillian k and suzanne kochinovsky in the event did lead on that initiative yes and indeed they led the victims unit for several years between them right and julian k in her
01:41:23 between them right and julian k in her statement uh page 9 paragraph 38 says that they had a meeting with the civil contingency secretariat to discuss that initiative at five o'clock in the evening of the 16th of june is that something you know about yes i'm aware
01:41:36 something you know about yes i'm aware that that took place right you weren't there no right now did you know that at the meeting it was agreed that the victims unit would be a single integrated service modeled on the victims of terrorism unit yes yes and would provide a single point
01:41:48 yes yes and would provide a single point of contact to enable those affected by a major incident to access government services directly yes and is it right also that there were representatives from the victims of
01:42:00 representatives from the victims of terrorism unit on the caller at the meeting to explain how it worked yes and then i think hmrc provided 20 members of staff as part of their surge team yes i think that's how it was
01:42:12 team yes i think that's how it was staffed was it that's right initially one saturday morning they arrived right why why hmrc well um some years earlier um surge arrangements have been put in
01:42:23 surge arrangements have been put in place in the civil service in order to support departments who had a sudden need for administrative staff that they couldn't cater for and
01:42:32 and hmrc have a lot of administrative staff and the sort of flexibility that can allow them to support events for you know weeks or days and this was this was felt to be
01:42:44 and this was this was felt to be something that they could help with so uh
01:42:47 uh this was across civil service resource that was being mobilized by hmrc i see now can we go to clg three zero three zero five two nine
01:43:02 this is a paper uh drafted i think by julian k as she says in her statement about the scope and the purpose of the victims support unit or victims unit grenfell tower
01:43:13 unit or victims unit grenfell tower and it says uh
01:43:16 uh that the
01:43:18 that the unit
01:43:19 unit would be as it says creating a paragraph one a single integrated support service following the model of the victims of terrorism unit to coordinate cross-government activity and provide those affected by the grenfell tower
01:43:30 those affected by the grenfell tower fire with a single point of access into central government and then it goes on with some details did you have any input into this paper no
01:43:39 no did you see it at the time i don't think so no if you go to paragraph five you can see the objectives under the heading terms of reference and there are three of them
01:43:50 and there are three of them ensure effective comprehensive and coordinated hmg support to victims of the grenfell tower fire engendered public confidence including key interested parties in hmg's support for victims
01:44:01 for victims ensure effective working alongside local authority and third sector response and then under key deliverables it says a single point of access to hmg support through a dedicated phone line
01:44:13 through a dedicated phone line victim-centred caseworking team with access to expertise from key government departments dwp home office dfe moj hmrc and th
01:44:26 was this as you understood it in other words the objectives and the key deliverables yes i think on the friday afternoon there wasn't complete clarity about exactly how it would work and in the end
01:44:37 exactly how it would work and in the end um
01:44:38 um the
01:44:39 the there were layers of support that were provided is the way i would describe it there was a decision taken by gold command i think on sunday that they needed case workers as part of gold for all of the families
01:44:50 all of the families and those affected and so at that point i think it became clearer that the central government victim support should be via those case workers rather than direct to families is my understanding and that seems to me
01:45:02 is my understanding and that seems to me quite sensible but everyone was piecing together the different pieces of the jigsaw on saturday and sunday the other layer that was put in was that departments were also asked by the
01:45:13 departments were also asked by the covenant office i understand to send people directly to the west way which they did i believe from monday so actually they were able to field quite a lot of the inquiries directly themselves i'm not sure that worked terribly well for the first few days but
01:45:24 terribly well for the first few days but they did actually field quite a few inquiries so there was less need in the end for the victim support unit um with the hmrc volunteers well you cut perhaps to the chase with
01:45:35 well you cut perhaps to the chase with that i was leading up more gently to it um but in the end i i i think it's right isn't there that there there wasn't first of all a specific practice
01:45:46 wasn't first of all a specific practice emergency plan is setting up a victims support unit you have to borrow from the terrorist experience yes that's right yes
01:45:53 yes uh and
01:45:55 uh and i think it's also right um that the usefulness of the unit became eroded into something of a sweeper function according to some of the later emails yes is that how you understood it i'm
01:46:06 yes is that how you understood it i'm not sure i've described it as a sweeper function but it was for i think they were able to field some inquiries particularly where they couldn't be resolved easily on the ground and somebody needed to go back into the department and liaise
01:46:18 department and liaise um but i agree with you i don't think there was a clear plan and it's not clear to me which department should have been responsible for holding that preparation either because this was in the end a home office unit from which as you say we borrowed and i
01:46:29 from which as you say we borrowed and i think to be honest that was very effective that that meeting was called so quickly on friday afternoon so that the learning could be had and they could discuss
01:46:35 discuss what worked but in an ideal world you would have a bit more of a menu of different options that was pre-prepared and then you could think about what was going to be useful in the circumstances yes do you also recall that there was a
01:46:47 yes do you also recall that there was a confusion among departments and agencies about
01:46:50 about what the victim support unit would do and what the red cross phone line would do remember that um i don't particularly remember the confusion with the red cross no
01:46:59 cross no i remember the confusion between the victims unit and the people at the west way right
01:47:05 way right well um
01:47:13 let's go then to dc let's go to clg three zeros two zero six one zero
01:47:20 just up just to pick up on that point this is an internal dclg email of the 18th of june of 1511
01:47:30 311 uh from
01:47:33 uh from i don't know what is it possible to find it um but it is uh from the office of sajid javid to his own office copied to lots of people uh including alok
01:47:44 lots of people uh including alok sharma's office uh your office red and others uh and it says in the first bold in yellow first and foremost sofs said a huge thank you to all those involved in
01:47:55 huge thank you to all those involved in this effort he's incredibly grateful for all the work being done in the department then then if you go to page two please the particular point to pick up at page two is on
01:48:06 up at page two is on um
01:48:08 um is in the second third paragraph down on the ground support secretary of state wants there to be better coordination e.g one number for people on the ground to phone for support catherine m advises that red cross is providing this service
01:48:20 that red cross is providing this service gold command will be announcing this today
01:48:23 today action please connect sfs get an update on this
01:48:26 on this uh
01:48:28 uh the the question i have is is this
01:48:31 this it was the red cross first of all providing that service a phone line service
01:48:36 service um i believe they were um but that was a decision that was for gold command and i believe they were yes um i think there was some confusion about the phone number as well but right but this was evolving and if i can just comment on
01:48:49 evolving and if i can just comment on this i think you can see here that i think the secretary of state and the prime minister and and others were very keen for there to be civil service visible support on the ground with tabards and lanyards and so on
01:49:01 with tabards and lanyards and so on and
01:49:03 and those who were experienced in emergency response including john baradel and others and also joe farah were very clear that that would not be a very good idea that civil servants don't really have the expertise to engage directly
01:49:15 have the expertise to engage directly with people in these sorts of circumstances that they could easily get things wrong and
01:49:20 and they simply weren't trained to do it and that instead making sure the administrative support was there behind the scenes to respond to events ideally through a caseworker system which wasn't in place until early in the
01:49:33 which wasn't in place until early in the following week that that was the right solution but we we were muddling through a bit during these days i think with some difference in what ministers wanted to happen and what i think in the
01:49:45 wanted to happen and what i think in the end turned out to be exactly the right thing to happen so you can see that i can see that in this in this email that tension that we eventually worked through but i think you know more advanced preparation would
01:49:56 you know more advanced preparation would have made it easier for ministers to make choices and understand exactly what it was that they were choosing yes
01:50:04 yes yes thank you
01:50:14 now
01:50:18 finally on the question of the victim support unit uh
01:50:21 uh i think you would agree that in the end the unit provided very little benefit to the overall response um
01:50:29 um i don't know i'm not sure what it did in the rest of that following week because i haven't looked at any of the documents be on the tuesday on this that's tuesday the 20th um but
01:50:40 but in the end it seems to me that quite a lot of the inquiries that people had were
01:50:44 were were resolved relatively straightforwardly um there were things like driving licenses and so on some of the issues around benefits and immigration status and so on took longer but again needed more specialist support that a more generic victims union wasn't
01:50:56 that a more generic victims union wasn't really able to help with anyway so yes i'm not sure it turned out to be quite the right
01:51:01 the right fit but i
01:51:03 fit but i you know i would say in a crisis like this better to start and to try and to have a go
01:51:08 have a go and then adapt it as you go along than to spend a really long time working out a perfect solution that then isn't implemented so
01:51:15 so you know suzanne and jillian had to go put something in place and then it needed to be adapted can i then turn to change your since the fire and to pick this up at page 37 of your first
01:51:27 this up at page 37 of your first statement paragraph one two two
01:51:32 did you say there since the fire improvements have been made to london local government resilience arrangements following a peer challenge which reported in early 2018 this recommended
01:51:43 reported in early 2018 this recommended that london council strengthen the gold command resolution to quote make triggers and the escalation process clearer so that there is a clear mandated process in the extreme circumstances that demand it close
01:51:54 circumstances that demand it close quotation marks this greater transparency of process and expectation seems to me to be a key conclusion in the light of grenfell an important role for central government is to work with
01:52:05 for central government is to work with and support all local areas to ensure that these arrangements are in place what were the improvements made to the london local government resilience arrangements that are referred to here by you following the grenfell tower of
01:52:17 by you following the grenfell tower of fire
01:52:19 fire they they are the ones that were set out in the report by tom reardon and mary nay uh
01:52:25 nay uh and
01:52:26 and um my understanding is that the key thing was to improve the trigger through which wider resilience support is provided to an individual council and to reduce the reliance on
01:52:38 to reduce the reliance on the
01:52:39 the council themselves asking for help but i'll be honest with you i i looked back at that report as part of my preparations for this hearing and i i couldn't quite myself see the clarity of recommendation but that's my
01:52:51 recommendation but that's my understanding of of what's been done indeed
01:52:55 indeed um what i wanted just to ask you about with a little bit more focus is when you say is this when you say this greater transparency of process and expectation seems to me to be a key conclusion in the light of grenfell what
01:53:07 conclusion in the light of grenfell what did you mean by that well
01:53:13 i think the key problem
01:53:16 problem on the wednesday morning is that the council didn't seek to mobilize the support it could have had from other boroughs across london through the london resilience arrangements and
01:53:29 so that for me raises questions of process and expectation and trigger points and decision points and i i don't quite know what the right answer is here i think it's very difficult because
01:53:41 difficult because of what i say in the end of the previous paragraph actually that you don't want central government or indeed really anyone else to cut across local command structures but when those structures are not working
01:53:52 working you have to know who
01:53:55 who acts the basis on which they act the information they gather in order to act and whose responsibility it is to check so
01:54:03 so that's the piece that was missing and
01:54:07 and i think it was left to the council alone we were all relying on that it didn't happen and we were all and not just central government or dclg by the way i think also london resilience needs to to understand you know what they could
01:54:19 to understand you know what they could have done more they didn't ring us either
01:54:22 either in that on that wednesday and thursday so i feel that there is a collective sense in which somehow the system needs to mobilize to act in a situation like that that didn't happen after grandfather but i don't think this is
01:54:33 but i don't think this is straightforward because you could go in and be too overbearing of a council that was actually doing a good job and that could create problems well i'm going to ask you is it your understanding that the
01:54:44 understanding that the improvements to which you to which you refer in paragraph one two two do give someone some overriding power to act without the consent of the local authority
01:54:55 authority i'm not sure they do go that far not to act without the consent and indeed there was consent by the local authority for the arrangements that were put in place after grenfell no right thank you
01:55:07 right thank you but whether you need something without their consent or whether in the end enough pressure can be put to bear you know
01:55:16 you know amongst officers and elected councillors together for them to realize they need to do something differently that was in the end it was enough here but i
01:55:27 but i you know will it always be enough now in that last answer but one you referred to london resilience needing to understand that they could have done more
01:55:38 to whom are you referring when you say london resilience um well i mean the the london the london gold um arrangement so i'm i'm sorry my my recollection of this
01:55:51 i'm i'm sorry my my recollection of this is
01:55:52 is is a bit rusty anyway but but you know what could have happened on the day is that a rotating gold structure could have been put in place and
01:56:02 the individuals ironically were actually there supporting nicholas holgate it's just that they weren't operating in that way and that and that that system of a rotating set of chief executives
01:56:13 rotating set of chief executives actually leading gold the system was there and indeed some of the capabilities such as humanitarian support were there and quite well rehearsed and they weren't called upon so you mean the duty of the duty goals
01:56:25 so you mean the duty of the duty goals the duty goals yes hopefully that's what i mean thank you um dave melanie you'll be pleased to know that i've come to the end of my my questions that i wanted to ask you um but there may be others that i haven't
01:56:36 but there may be others that i haven't which are in my notes and there may be others
01:56:38 others which others think i should ask you so what i'm going to do is ask the chairman to take the usual break at this stage and see if there are such questions yes well as you know from your previous
01:56:50 yes well as you know from your previous experience with us we have a break at this stage to see whether there are more questions we ought to ask you so we'll stop now um you think 10 minutes is enough mr village
01:57:00 village uh i do
01:57:02 uh i do um well if i say 10 past then you can always tell us if you need more time that would be helpful thank you we'll say 10 past four it might be a bit longer but we'll try and get you back as soon as we can thank you very much
01:57:25 thank you mr ten past four unless you tell us that you need more time thank you very much thank you very much
02:06:38 would you ask dave miller need to come back in please
02:06:51 all right well we'll see if there's any more questions yes mr villain yes mr chairman uh just one or two um now you told us this morning
02:07:00 morning that
02:07:01 that you i think it had past experience that local authorities had as you say be pretty good at dealing with temporary crises that was your experience now can i show you a document hom three
02:07:13 now can i show you a document hom three zeros four nine sorry four two nine nine eight please hom three zero is four two nine nine eight
02:07:28 uh now this is a document entitled civil contingencies role of the local tear you see that
02:07:36 is it a document you've ever seen before uh
02:07:40 uh i don't believe so no
02:07:44 but i can see that it's dated january 2015
02:07:50 2015 yes and just before i came to dclg so i may not have seen it when i arrived it is
02:07:57 is uh and is it um if you go to um
02:08:02 um page
02:08:04 page two
02:08:06 two and look at c on page
02:08:09 c on page two
02:08:12 uh it says changes to service models whether through budget pressures or policy decisions may also lead to reduced resilience of specific services which may also become a burden
02:08:24 which may also become a burden uh for government uh for example provision of home-based social care through private providers etc and then d at a reduction in local authority and responder organization resilience and emergency capacity may
02:08:37 resilience and emergency capacity may create a significant additional financial cost for the government for example local emergencies are likely to trigger the overwhelmed subsidiarity criteria prompting central government intervention sooner causing a greater
02:08:49 intervention sooner causing a greater proportion of the cost of responding to local emergencies to be transferred to central government is that something that you were aware of when you came in to the
02:09:00 when you came in to the department i was certainly aware of the reduction in local authority resourcing um i think it was about 25 in real terms over the preceding five years before i arrived
02:09:11 preceding five years before i arrived and that had an impact no question um
02:09:14 um i
02:09:15 i wasn't aware of this particular document pointing to the risks that could create for
02:09:20 for resilience and emergency capacity and if you go please to page four there's a question at the top is the current model fit for purpose out to 2020 and believe that is a spider's web
02:09:32 2020 and believe that is a spider's web perhaps unsurprisingly of what it's supposed to look like um and it's a figure illustrating the decline as it said in local tier emergency planning and response that will take place if the
02:09:43 and response that will take place if the current model is not adapted and it goes on to say out to 2020 the current model may not be fit for purpose and a failure to adapt to the 2020 context may degrade the ability of the local tier to conduct emergency planning
02:09:55 local tier to conduct emergency planning and response the model this model can continue to be relied upon to deliver outputs but the additional risk that will be accepted as a result must be articulated and understood
02:10:06 articulated and understood uh is that is that a problem or a question or topic which you were aware of
02:10:12 of at any time after january 2015 and particularly when you joined the department in 2016. no i wasn't um and i wasn't aware of this document i think it's very
02:10:23 this document i think it's very interesting document of course we didn't have any role in dclg in overseeing whether or not that local resilience and emergencies planning
02:10:34 emergencies planning was actually adequate we didn't have an assurance role and i think that's changed i think it was a gap in the system
02:10:40 system um
02:10:43 um but um
02:10:44 but um you know i can see here being identified quite a lot of potential risks um
02:10:51 um when you say we didn't have an assurance role do you mean dclg dclg didn't know through red is what i mean i see yeah but central government did through the cabinet office or the ccs or is that not
02:11:02 cabinet office or the ccs or is that not right uh i don't believe that they had a role or that anyone had a role from central government in assuring individual plans and making sure that they were adequate that's what i meant when i said assurance but did anyone in central
02:11:14 assurance but did anyone in central government have some kind of assurance or oversight role about the structure and fit fitness for purpose of the contingency framework the national contingency framework of the national contingency very well that
02:11:25 the national contingency very well that would have been the cabinet office yes thank you um well that that's thank you very much for that so that leads me to one final question which is a question i know you've been asked before
02:11:36 question i know you've been asked before in a different context in a different module
02:11:38 module um but it's this looking back on the events of the period immediately following the grenfell tower fire on and from the 14th of june 2017 and looking in particular
02:11:50 of june 2017 and looking in particular at all the material the disparate range of material we've covered during the course of your evidence today and your own particular role is there anything looking back on it that you would have done differently
02:12:03 would have done differently um well i'd just like to say i you know i
02:12:07 i i just deeply regret the fact that you know families residents and a local community who had experienced such a devastating fire and the impact of that then did not
02:12:20 fire and the impact of that then did not get the support that they needed and should have deserved did deserve straight after the fire and i think the mistakes that were made in the way that the response was
02:12:31 in the way that the response was organized particularly the way the humanitarian response was available in the first hours after the fire took too long for us all to realize um
02:12:42 took too long for us all to realize um and then
02:12:43 and then once we had realized that the problems were there it inevitably i think took quite a long time to sort out and correct through the gold command structures so
02:12:52 so when i look back and think about what we could have done differently as i've said a number of times today i wish that joe farrow and i in particular had thought to check that the london gold
02:13:03 thought to check that the london gold arrangements were there and that they were operating in the way that i think it was obvious was going to be needed at the beginning um
02:13:11 um and that we just assumed um were there and i wish we'd checked that because that might have had an impact in accelerating the improvement that came later but too late
02:13:22 late so that's my first reflection um but i would like to say that i do believe it's incredibly important that the principle of a locally led response is preserved here when i read
02:13:34 response is preserved here when i read all the witness statements and particularly those from rugby portobello and the clement danes center i was just struck once again about how local relationships and understanding of the community need to be very very
02:13:46 the community need to be very very central
02:13:47 central and it was the failure to brigade those that is such a shame because it was there
02:13:52 there um and actually was effective but just was never quite harnessed and led and used by the council in the way that it could have been so i do believe locally led responses are right and i think central government should be very very
02:14:03 central government should be very very careful about stepping in to things it doesn't have the experience of or really know how to sort out my second reflection is when we touched on this morning i don't think that the
02:14:16 i don't think that the distinction between response and recovery and the planning in particular for recovery helped us in the response to grenfell tower
02:14:25 tower the home office was the lead government department but i think we assumed that mantle very quickly from dclg for response and recovery i think the distinction between the response and recovery issues
02:14:37 response and recovery issues wasn't really there it was just a question of time and
02:14:42 and um
02:14:43 um i
02:14:45 i feel that
02:14:46 feel that um you know if we had done more preparation as a department but actually also if it had been clearer in the way that the central government systems and decisions operated that we would have
02:14:58 decisions operated that we would have been put in that place more obviously more quickly i think we could have improved the way that we gripped all this
02:15:03 this and
02:15:04 and in addition i still stand by the comment i made in my first witness statement that i think a cabinet level meeting on that first day would also have accelerated the sense of urgency and grip and everybody coming together
02:15:15 grip and everybody coming together that was achieved later in the week so i think there are a number of reflections there really for the overall resilience and emergency planning structures and the way that they're organized in the roles of departments that i think we were sort of
02:15:26 departments that i think we were sort of working around to the best of our ability but um slightly with one arm behind our back and then my final reflection is that i think
02:15:37 i think and again i think this is something for the cabinet office to lead i think it would help central government to be clearer about the offers that it makes in scenarios like this to be clearer about the types of victim
02:15:49 clearer about the types of victim support that can be useful in different scenarios
02:15:52 scenarios to map more comprehensively the sorts of things that central government departments might or might not be asked to do
02:15:58 to do so that there is a clearer sense of what is available to ministers which i think would speed up their decisions as i was saying just before the last break i think there was some confusion about what the victims
02:16:10 some confusion about what the victims union was what ministers had asked for what ultimately was appropriate to deliver
02:16:14 deliver and again i think those things slowed us down and were confusing there was i think it was irritating and confusing for ministers and i think it was quite hard for
02:16:21 hard for officials to act on things um in that slight vacuum of of understanding of what is there to be done so i think the cabinet office has
02:16:32 cabinet office has actually done quite a lot of work on this they did a big review in the autumn of 2017 but i'm not clear myself exactly what was actioned and those are the two things that i would particularly flag um
02:16:43 things that i would particularly flag um that i think um could uh be deserving of further investigation uh well dame melanie thank you very much for that answer and indeed for all all of your evidence we're extremely
02:16:55 of your evidence we're extremely grateful to you for coming here to the inquiry for the second time and assisting us with our investigations so it only remains for me to say thank you very much thank you thank you very much and it also remains of course for me to thank you very much
02:17:07 of course for me to thank you very much on behalf of the panel there aren't all that many people who come more than once to give evidence the inquiry and we're particularly grateful to you for giving up the time to come for a second time um i need to hardly say that we've learned
02:17:18 i need to hardly say that we've learned a lot from hearing your evidence and we're very grateful to you for being here so thank you very much and of course you're now free to go thank you thank you very much
02:17:37 yes just a minute no that concludes the oral evidence for this module yes there are further witness statements which we need to read into the inquiry's record yes those are
02:17:50 into the inquiry's record yes those are to be found in two parts um there are first
02:17:54 first idx idx-0933 which is a reference under which
02:17:59 which the witness statements from government and other like organizations will be found including rbkc there is a second and separate module 4 list which is the bsr statements and those are to be found
02:18:12 bsr statements and those are to be found compendiously under idx0932
02:18:16 there are large numbers of statements in both groups and each of them has their own iws number or um
02:18:25 or um number cab or uh rbk as the case may be and they can be read there so they are to be taken now as in the record in public and publicly available thank you very much and and mr chairman and that
02:18:37 very much and and mr chairman and that brings us then formally to the end of the factual evidence uh at indeed all the evidence for module four thank you um
02:18:48 thank you um well at that point uh we shall break off the hearings we are not going to sit next week there will be no hearings next week but on the 6th of june we shall embark on
02:18:59 on the 6th of june we shall embark on module 7
02:19:01 module 7 and module 7 will involve hearing expert evidence from a variety of witnesses relating to matters that will have already been touched on in the course of the inquiry but uh on
02:19:12 in the course of the inquiry but uh on which we have not had the benefit of their views yet so um
02:19:17 so um we adjourn that and we resume at 10 o'clock on the 6th of june yes thank you mr chairman thank you very much [Music]
02:19:37 you