Melanie Dawes (then Permanent Secretary at MHCLG, now DLUHC) gives evidence about the department's response to Grenfell and failures in building regulations oversight.
00:00:27 would you ask dave melanie to come back in please
00:00:41 all right dave melanie ready to carry on i hope yes well done thank you very much yes mr screen yes thank you yes good afternoon um so when you prepared your witness statement for the inquiry you were asked some questions about an
00:00:52 were asked some questions about an action log dated the 22nd of june 2017 which was prepared by ztlg after the fire the grenfell fire if we could go to clg409955
00:01:04 we can see a copy of that action log
00:01:10 and you told us in your witness statement that you didn't know who drafted or contributed to this action log does that remain the position yes uh my guess is that it was drafted
00:01:21 yes uh my guess is that it was drafted by a member of the team that we by then had in place that was managing these regular update meetings but i don't know i don't know who it was yes now page two if we look at page two of this log and the third line down we see a box
00:01:34 and the third line down we see a box which reads provide one version of the truth for policy timeline since lacking house
00:01:41 house previous copies to be removed and updated with single version and that's by someone called arena on the 23rd of june 2017
00:01:49 june 2017 and
00:01:50 and you tell us if we now go to your third statement again page 18 and look at paragraph 47
00:02:02 you say this you say that picking it up in the first line you say the phrase single version of the truth is commonly used in the civil service when attempts are being made to
00:02:13 service when attempts are being made to collect factual information and or data and everyone involved needs to be working from the same set of documents on this occasion i recall helen mcnamara rightly being concerned that there were multiple versions of the documents from
00:02:24 multiple versions of the documents from 2013 onwards being collated each organized slightly differently this was leading to confusion she commissioned work to produce a single comprehensive library
00:02:36 comprehensive library in speech marks that everyone could rely on
00:02:39 on now when you say that there were multiple versions of the documents from 2013 onwards being collated can we just be clear exactly what you mean by that do you mean multiple versions as in
00:02:50 do you mean multiple versions as in multiple drafts of documents being collated
00:02:54 collated uh no i mean multiple
00:02:56 multiple uh collections in the sense that lots of different people had gone back and tried to pull out the documents and some people had all the submissions some people had some of them and it was just yeah there wasn't a
00:03:08 and it was just yeah there wasn't a consistency i see um just going back to the table and looking again at page two of it clg four zeros nine nine five five when the timeline states previous copies
00:03:20 when the timeline states previous copies to be removed and updated with single version copies of what can you help us um
00:03:27 um i would imagine that at some point there was an index uh that needed to be authoritative and as near final as it could possibly be and
00:03:37 and containing everything um
00:03:40 um and that that was the sort of thing that you wouldn't want lots of versions of that or people would start to get very confused i don't think it was about drafts of particular documents and different versions of draft i think it
00:03:51 different versions of draft i think it was more about as i say more the index of the information right and what happened to the previous copies when they had been removed um well i don't i don't think it was a
00:04:03 um well i don't i don't think it was a question of deleting actual historic documents like submissions or anything like that i really don't think that um i think this was just about making sure that people didn't carry on working from
00:04:15 carry on working from an old version um because you can see the the cause for confusion i mean i suspect that the version that was produced that week remained incomplete you know
00:04:26 incomplete you know not quite right for some time because there was an awful lot to collect and the inquiry in the end has been the process through which the department's done the really authoritative stuff but yeah all right thank you i mean you you tell us in your statement
00:04:38 i mean you you tell us in your statement um i don't think we need to turn it up paragraph 48 page 18 that in this context the word the truth was used to mean an accurate comprehensive record as opposed to an accurate incomplete one and not truthful
00:04:52 accurate incomplete one and not truthful is that right is that your understanding yes but can you explain how it was appropriate uh for an instruction to be given in those terms wasn't that a pretty misguided instruction what one version
00:05:03 misguided instruction what one version of the truth yes well no that's a very common phrase and i think people will have known what that meant because a single version of the truth or one version of the truth is a phrase really that that's used
00:05:15 is a phrase really that that's used precisely to capture this kind of scenario where it's not about interpreting the truth or about deleting things and kind of be 100 clear that right from the very beginning we were clear that we knew
00:05:27 beginning we were clear that we knew that the inquiry was going to want to see everything and there was an instruction within hours that nothing should be deleted yes but um i i i think this this is actually really helpful i think most people in the civil service will have
00:05:38 people in the civil service will have known exactly what it meant well i mean helen mcnamara tells us in her statement that what it was meant to read was provide one accurate comprehensive
00:05:49 provide one accurate comprehensive version of the policy timeline that's what it meant exactly but can you see how they might not be read as the same thing that providing one version of the truth
00:06:00 that providing one version of the truth and providing one accurate comprehensive version may be read very differently by different readers um
00:06:10 i i find it a little bit difficult to see that just because i'm so immersed in what that means in the civil service i i don't i mean like maybe you'll tell me that some found that confusing i don't know i mean i wasn't involved in that
00:06:21 know i mean i wasn't involved in that meeting or in that language but i think it's a shorthand but a reasonably well understood one i can well see that perhaps to out to the outside it might look like this a hidden meaning in there but
00:06:32 meaning in there but i can assure you that that i don't think there was it has certainly how can you be absolutely sure that across the civil service that phrase would have been considered in that way to mean accurate
00:06:44 considered in that way to mean accurate comprehensive as opposed to well there might be different versions of the truth by different people how can you be sure that it had a single
00:06:55 how can you be sure that it had a single well understood meaning um
00:07:00 um well i mean i i wasn't in involved in this specifically but i i mean rina who was quite a senior person who joined us on succumb from the treasury was clearly charged with making sure that happened i
00:07:12 charged with making sure that happened i would hope that in the meeting she was under no illusions about what it meant and she was clearly tasked with going and chasing that up and making sure it happened uh as i said in parallel and i don't
00:07:23 uh as i said in parallel and i don't quite remember when this was done but there wasn't an instruction that nothing should be deleted and indeed you couldn't have deleted it by then because we froze the departmental records anyway um
00:07:33 um so
00:07:35 so i would imagine there was a discussion in the meeting about the need for this out of which this action flowed and that that was reasonably clear so i i don't myself see any particular confusion about this language but
00:07:47 confusion about this language but perhaps if you're not versed in the way the civil service describes these these things this is just one of those shorthands that uh
00:07:54 uh i've never seen as particularly
00:07:58 difficult to interpret but you know my apologies if that's not clear to others yes well what i'm getting is whether some people might have read this and understood that it was potentially meaning that there might be
00:08:10 potentially meaning that there might be different versions of the truth the actual accuracy and what you wanted was a version which was not necessarily the truth but was one you were all going to
00:08:21 truth but was one you were all going to stick to
00:08:22 stick to couldn't someone have read it that way well i mean i mean clearly in the context of the inquiry perhaps you and others may have read it that way and i can only say i
00:08:33 i the audience for this was intended to be those acting on it and i i would be very worried if any of them didn't share the interpretation that i gave you my witness statement
00:08:44 witness statement um
00:08:45 um i would be quite surprised if anyone thought that this was somehow supposed to be an instruction to create some narrative because that just wasn't the way that we were behaving about this it just wasn't
00:08:57 were behaving about this it just wasn't and
00:08:59 and you know the public inquiry had already been established and i and helen and tamara and and and everyone really was was
00:09:08 was you know really at pains to get to the bottom of this and not to cover anything up or delete anything it just wasn't how we were okay thank you now i wanted to ask you some questions now about the briefings that you had
00:09:19 now about the briefings that you had about the building regulations after the fire you've already touched on this in your evidence so you've told us a little bit already but if we can look at paragraph 13 on page four of your third
00:09:30 paragraph 13 on page four of your third witness statement
00:09:34 you you say in in paragraph 13 you say um in that discussion so you're talking about discussions with helen mcnamara and sally randall on the day of the fire i recall that we were very troubled by
00:09:46 i recall that we were very troubled by the implications of the events at grenfell tower and how a fire could spread with such devastating speed on a residential building it raised questions about whether the building regulations were sufficient and or clear enough and or
00:09:59 sufficient and or clear enough and or whether the building itself was non-compliant at this stage we had very little information and did not know whether grenfell tower was a one-off or part of a wider systemic failure but it was already clear there could be wider
00:10:11 already clear there could be wider implications for public safety these underlying questions about the building safety system and what had gone wrong were a significant preoccupation for me in the following weeks as i described below
00:10:22 below and it looks like you asked for a briefing on the building regulations is that right
00:10:29 um i certainly had a briefing on the building regulations i believe the following tuesday so nearly a week later um
00:10:38 um yes if we can look well that's there's a couple of i don't know i don't recall when i asked for that i don't think it was that afternoon but it might have been let's look at a few emails that might help prompt a recollection if we go to clg 402935
00:10:54 and we look at the second email down on page one
00:10:58 page one we can see there's an email dated the 14th of june 2015 1319 from your office to the office of joe farah and to helen mcnamara copying others in
00:11:10 mcnamara copying others in and if you look at the fourth bullet down on fourth point down it says md melanie dawes would like to have a briefing on the building reg situation when she is back into the
00:11:21 situation when she is back into the office
00:11:22 office helen slash joe i've put a hold in your diary for 3 30. do you see that yes do you remember receiving that briefing so this is very early on on the day of the fire i i think what ellie meant by that
00:11:34 fire i i think what ellie meant by that was that i wanted to have a meeting on the whole question of the approved documents and what had happened and what was or wasn't compliant and that meeting was the 3 30 meeting i
00:11:46 and that meeting was the 3 30 meeting i think is what i interpret that bullet to me and it wasn't it wasn't a briefing on the building regulations and the approved documents in any level of detail that took place the following week right but who attended that 3 30 meeting did
00:11:59 but who attended that 3 30 meeting did people from the building regulations division attend no i don't think so uh i believe that it was uh helen mcnamara and sally randall and my office will have been there as well
00:12:10 my office will have been there as well and i don't think anyone else was there but i i don't recall that so did you go into any details in that meeting about the building regulations what the provisions were within them the fact
00:12:22 provisions were within them the fact they contained functional requirements the approved documents any of that um
00:12:30 no i mean it was a stock take on the situation as it was that afternoon the crisis that we were in with this terrible fire and not knowing as i said in my witness statement what
00:12:41 as i said in my witness statement what on earth it could possibly mean yeah whether it was a one-off and so on so um
00:12:47 um i was out for you know a good couple of hours
00:12:51 hours um and i think i will have said to ellie as i went into that meeting you know can you make sure that i have a briefing with with with helen i probably will have said i don't know why she invited joe as well but it may have been we were interested in the
00:13:02 interested in the the the issues at grenfell tower itself which joe was leading on but i don't think so i think it was more just about you know what's happened to these documents what does it mean
00:13:13 to these documents what does it mean um
00:13:14 um and i think i've described in my witness statement the sort of things we we discussed yes now if we look up the email chain we can see that sally randall
00:13:23 randall then sends an email um to helen mcnamara later that day and she says the following she says my immediate thoughts in terms of the speed of government response we need to look
00:13:34 of government response we need to look at both the original decision to wrap this up into a wider review of building regs which was always scheduled to take four years was that the right call on something with safety implications
00:13:45 something with safety implications question mark and then the delay in meeting that timetable which i'm sure will have been accrued over the period and not just relate to ministerial pressures in the last few months and she says also to be absolutely clear
00:13:56 and she says also to be absolutely clear given the pressure on steve q and bob today
00:14:00 today building regs was part of my team for a significant chunk of this from end of june 2014 to may 2016. yes yes now with those topics discussed
00:14:11 yes now with those topics discussed during the briefing that you had then later in the day just in general terms
00:14:23 i don't know um
00:14:27 i mean
00:14:32 i'm pausing because um i mean i should say i think this is a really good example of sally just owning what had happened and accepting responsibility for the fact that she'd been leading this work for for some time
00:14:44 been leading this work for for some time and
00:14:45 and you know she didn't want it all to fall on steve carter maine and bob ledson um and she wanted us to know that she had been part of this and i i just think that you know sally was like that always
00:14:56 that you know sally was like that always and very constructive and um always owned
00:14:59 owned her own role in these things and so she's raising here two really important issues yeah i don't know whether we which i don't you know agree with them they were two really important questions i don't know whether we got them that afternoon
00:15:10 afternoon i i think i recall that that quite quickly we were moving on to just is this a one-off yeah there were people out there in the media people telling us
00:15:22 out there in the media people telling us it must be a one-off it must be a one-off and there were others saying well it won't be because there's actually combustible cladding everywhere and this has been a problem for some time and so the following morning we'd set up the the testing program and the checks and i think that very quickly
00:15:35 checks and i think that very quickly became our focus where else could this have happened rather than going over in detail why it was that we hadn't met the deadline because that was a fact
00:15:46 and i don't i think if sally had thought that the regulations were part of the immediate solution she would have said so and you know as you know the following week the secretary of state decided not to go ahead with the publication of the draft document that
00:15:58 publication of the draft document that had been prepared um so we quite quickly moved on from the regulations which isn't to say that we weren't aware of the failure but we were dealing with the crisis and it didn't feel like an important part of
00:16:09 didn't feel like an important part of what we needed to be addressing right then yes
00:16:12 then yes and that phrase in the last sentence given the pressure on steve q and bob today was that the particular pressure of the grenfell tower fire yeah they were in the firing line because you know they were accountable
00:16:23 because you know they were accountable for the work yeah and for the delay and she was just saying i was involved in this too yeah now it also appears and again you've alluded to it before that you had a meeting with brian martin later in june
00:16:34 meeting with brian martin later in june 2017 is that right yes now let's look at an email relevant to that is that clg 406578
00:16:48 and if we look at the second email down here on page one we can see that on the 23rd of june 2017 brian martin emails your office
00:16:59 emails your office and the subject is scottish report on failures in construction industry yes
00:17:06 yes and
00:17:07 and it reads
00:17:09 it reads hi when melanie popped down to speak to the building regs team she asked about failures in the construction industry i mentioned a report on failures in scotland that she was interested to see
00:17:20 scotland that she was interested to see this bbc report summarizes the report i haven't found the report online i'm sure it's there somewhere and he attaches a link to an architect's journal article
00:17:31 article uh about poor construction and lack of scrutiny caused by scottish schools defects do you see that yes i do and then at the top email in the parents we can see that mr martin states further to
00:17:43 can see that mr martin states further to my earlier email i've now found a copy of the cole report melanie will wish to see this brian do you see that yes i do now taking this in stages first of all had
00:17:54 taking this in stages first of all had you ever met brian martin before this time and in your role as permanent secretary
00:18:01 secretary um i can't say for sure but i don't think so no what was your understanding when you met him about the nature of his role so
00:18:12 so to the best of my recollection the first time i met him and other members of the building regulations team was on the thursday morning just after the fire because i went down to see them i didn't
00:18:24 because i went down to see them i didn't go down to have a meeting with them but um i just went down to say hello really and my prime purpose was just to give them a bit of support and
00:18:35 give them a bit of support and um
00:18:38 um just check they were okay because obviously what they were going through
00:18:42 through i mean can't compare remotely with those that were experiencing the effects of the fire but i knew they were having a really tough time because they've been involved in this work for some time and i thought
00:18:52 i thought i thought that just to go down and say hello was quite important so we had a brief chat i remember it quite well we were standing up it was probably for about 10 minutes and brian must have been one of those i don't particularly remember actually but there were about
00:19:04 remember actually but there were about five or six people and we just had a quick huddle and a quick chat and it may and i think that's probably the meeting that brian's referring to uh the popping down because that was that would be a good description of what
00:19:15 that would be a good description of what i did i popped down right but was there a separate meeting with mr martin and his team when you received more detail from them yes so
00:19:26 more detail from them yes so i believe that meeting took place on the tuesday after the fire i don't quite know why i'm so clear that it was the tuesday but i'm pretty certain it was and
00:19:37 and that was a meeting specifically to go through the building regulations yeah um we were being told that the regulations didn't allow combustible cutting of the type one grenfell tower but i and the
00:19:48 type one grenfell tower but i and the secretary of state both felt we wanted to delve into that and to understand it and to read the document ourselves and always see it but sit between the eyes if you know what i mean and so um sajid javid sent his
00:20:01 um sajid javid sent his private sec his special advisor nick king and nick and i and a couple of others i think maybe tomorrow finkelstein had already joined us by then in fact sat down with brian the lawyers i don't
00:20:13 sat down with brian the lawyers i don't think there were many others i'm not sure bob was there actually richard harrell was he there i can't remember yeah um brian was the main person and he took us through
00:20:24 he took us through those paragraphs paragraph 12.5 onwards that was the main and i think he also explained to me how the system worked 1984 act etc etc functional requirements and the whole way it was supposed to
00:20:36 and the whole way it was supposed to work okay
00:20:38 work okay um
00:20:39 um by whom had you been told before that tuesday meeting that the regulations did not allow combustible cladding um
00:20:52 i can't recall a moment when i heard it directly but it was one of the very first questions that was being asked and my
00:21:00 my guess is that it was asked at the 8 30 meeting on the wednesday the 14th with sajid javid and he and others and uh if it wasn't asked then then it will have been asked later on and it almost certainly was was
00:21:12 later on and it almost certainly was was one of the things that we discussed at the 3 30 meeting that afternoon um in terms of this tuesday sorry i apologize in terms of this tuesday meeting are there any notes of the meeting did
00:21:23 there any notes of the meeting did anybody take any notes or minutes i
00:21:27 i don't know i'm not i'm aware of if there were any minutes that's the sort of thing we would have disclosed to the inquiry and can you remember how long it lasted
00:21:35 lasted that meeting to talk about the building regulations and the approved documents probably closer to an hour than half an hour uh so 45 minutes to an hour is my guess i mean it was it was quite
00:21:46 guess i mean it was it was quite detailed and quite thorough and there weren't very many of us so yeah you know we
00:21:50 we i took the opportunity to ask a lot of questions and so did nick king yeah and where physically did that meeting take place it took place in my office yeah and mr martin says in his email that you
00:22:01 and mr martin says in his email that you asked about failures in the construction industry that might not be at the same time that might have been earlier but is it right that at some point you'd been asking about failures in the construction industry yeah so i i hadn't seen this email
00:22:12 yeah so i i hadn't seen this email before and i i may or may not have been shown the report by my private office i may not have they may not have sort of had time to read it i don't know but when i went when i popped down to see
00:22:24 when i went when i popped down to see them on that thursday morning i remember asking them what they thought had happened and they said to me that they thought that um products had been substituted on
00:22:35 that um products had been substituted on the site and that was the only way they could explain it because it was so clear i think i don't recall them specifically saying this but i think they probably did that those materials shouldn't have been used at grenfell tower right and
00:22:47 been used at grenfell tower right and looking at this now for the first time it's probable that we had a bit of a discussion about the construction industry and failures because that would have been consistent with what they were saying they thought had happened
00:22:59 saying they thought had happened and that maybe that may be um
00:23:03 um is why we talked about the scottish report i can't quite remember but that seems probable to me that that might have been
00:23:09 have been what happened yes and at the tuesday meeting did you actually have copies of the approved document in front of you yes
00:23:17 yes so you were looking at section 12 on external walls yes and did you discuss in detail the clarity of that guidance in terms of um now did you look at it from the point
00:23:28 um now did you look at it from the point of view of the insulation as well as the external wall panels did you go into that level of detail yes we did and um
00:23:39 we challenged quite hard because um
00:23:42 um we had already heard um from
00:23:47 from a lot of people in the industry by then i mean i'm thinking particularly of lord porter gary porter who was chairman of the local government association and was at many of the cobra meetings at the very beginning on all the aspects of the
00:23:58 very beginning on all the aspects of the response to the fire and gary porter was a builder he knows about these issues and he was very clear that the regulations were confusing and um
00:24:09 the regulations were confusing and um so
00:24:10 so we'd heard from him and from a number of people that there were issues and what we were trying to do is what i would often do actually as permanent secretary was you know kick the tires really yeah on
00:24:21 on on the department's narrative and go but but surely this and what people are saying is that and we went through it line by line and talked about fillers and
00:24:28 and insulation and without having the document in front of me i can't quite quite uh but you you know the issues um were you told that paragraph 12.7 and the reference to filler was an important
00:24:40 the reference to filler was an important part of the guidance relevant to whether these materials should have been used so what i remember on that day was that brian acknowledged that
00:24:52 brian acknowledged that um
00:24:54 um without seeing the document in front of me i can't quite pin this down but he acknowledged that um
00:25:01 um is it because it referred to insulation it might not be clear that it also applied to other materials he acknowledged that lack of clarity did he yes i would rather be
00:25:12 he yes i would rather be be confirming this with the document in front of me if it's at all possible to see and then i can be sure which bit of language was but i remember him saying that that that there was that we were going to
00:25:24 that we were going to that we should clarify that yeah and i remember asking is that what we had planned in the document that we're about to publish and the answer was i believe no yes and um
00:25:34 um we looked at each other and you know
00:25:38 you know um
00:25:40 um nick king was pretty robust in in challenging on all of this as well i mean in a very constructive and kind of fair way but you know on par for the secretary of state and i was left with the feeling that
00:25:52 i was left with the feeling that the wording wasn't actually a reason for not complying with what i didn't think that the wording was so confusing that you could think that the cladding of the type used at grenfell tower should have been put
00:26:03 at grenfell tower should have been put on that tower in the way that we were describing earlier yes but i did leave the impress leave with the impression that perhaps the team hadn't quite got on top of what any confusion might
00:26:14 got on top of what any confusion might be i know there was going to be more work that needed to be done on this right that's interesting if we go to clg 50224
00:26:22 50224 and i think it's page 96
00:26:34 yeah that's clause 12.7 so i think what you said is it was recognized that the heading to this clause that's right slightly misleading yes that's that's right and who said that was that mr
00:26:45 right and who said that was that mr martin we asked i think um you know i remember um
00:26:53 um you know that was one of the that was one of the claims was that the heading was misleading um and
00:27:04 i don't want to over interpret my my memory of this and to tell you more than i actually recall but i think that
00:27:12 that brian said well that's what filler material that phrase was designed to achieve
00:27:17 achieve um and we challenged and said yes but the whole paragraph is about insulation materials is that is products part of insulation or is it something different and
00:27:29 i i do remember specifically asking were we going to change that language and the answer i believe was no i think so i mean i i would want brian to answer
00:27:40 so i mean i i would want brian to answer that question for himself as to what he said but i i believe he said no and we had as i described the moment when we kind of went oh okay well you know clearly there's there's more to do here and i can't
00:27:51 there's more to do here and i can't actually i can't i can't remember whether it was the heading or
00:27:55 or the content of the paragraph that would have been the thing that you would have yeah if you you know if you could have done your time again would have changed did anybody at the meeting point out that filler material is not defined
00:28:06 that filler material is not defined anywhere in the approved document was that noticed i don't recall that no were you told that in fact there'd never been any consultation on the the use of
00:28:17 been any consultation on the the use of the phrase filler material when i wasn't told that inserted i mean we didn't get into that level of detail but i wasn't aware of that until you just mentioned it
00:28:25 it but that would have been a relevant thing to tell you wouldn't it that they'd never consulted on what the meaning of filler material was as understood by the construction industry
00:28:38 yes ideally i think it probably would have come up that that in that discussion um i mean we quite quickly the secretary of state concluded
00:28:49 state concluded and i can't remember exactly where it was in relation to the timeline but i think it was pretty much that day or the day after the secretary of state concluded rightly in my opinion that we shouldn't go ahead with the consultation document because
00:29:00 document because there were just too many unanswered questions as to whether it was adequate to the task that we knew now that we were facing yeah so it may be that that was after this meeting in fact i think it possibly was is that correct and that
00:29:11 it possibly was is that correct and that nick king's in my understanding of this fed into that decision right yes did you look at any detail at the clause before this
00:29:19 this uh which is 12.6 and diagram 40 and the requirements of 12.6 in diagram 40 for external walls perhaps if we can go
00:29:28 go two pages earlier
00:29:32 sorry one page earlier
00:29:36 there we can see 12.6 begins at the very bottom right hand side the external surfaces of walls should meet then if we go over the page it says the provisions in diagram 40 and then
00:29:49 provisions in diagram 40 and then diagram 40 is on the next page page 97 if we go to that did anybody um talk you through how clause 12.6 related to clause 12.7
00:30:01 how clause 12.6 related to clause 12.7 and what was covered by one covered by the other yes i do remember we had a bit of a discussion of this diagram and if i'm honest i remember getting slightly lost at this point yeah
00:30:12 slightly lost at this point yeah did anybody talk to you about national class naught and the fact that you can see in the bottom right hand diagram
00:30:20 diagram any dimension over 18 meters has got to be either class nor national class or class b
00:30:26 class b do you remember being anything being said about national class naught to you yes i do remember that because that was one of the things that we were being told was confusing as i've mentioned in my witness statement and that was one of the things that laurel porter was
00:30:37 the things that laurel porter was talking about specifically in fact and did
00:30:39 did yeah did you ask about whether they'd only been in any confusion about the requirement for national class nord
00:30:46 nord uh yes and um
00:30:49 um i can't quite remember how uh
00:30:53 uh how brian and others responded to that but i remember being told that class naught was about the surface of the material and not about its its content um
00:31:04 um and that it was therefore different and i remember reading that bit of the document again and kind of sort of
00:31:11 sort of being able to see that and being able to see the references to cladding right at the beginning of that section of the approved document and yeah piecing my way through being able to understand how it was supposed to all fit together yes
00:31:23 fit together yes and by this time we know that you were aware that grenfell tower had been clad in acm panels with a pe core you tell us that in paragraph 17 of your third statement on page six that that
00:31:35 third statement on page six that that you worked that out pretty quickly that it was acmpe materials yes yes because we set the tests up to look for more of it so we asked we must have known that right at the beginning yeah yes now i'm
00:31:46 right at the beginning yeah yes now i'm going to put to you a series of pieces of information which we know mr martin was aware of and i want to know from you whether they were raised by him at this meeting with you
00:31:58 raised by him at this meeting with you okay so did mr martin tell you that he had been involved in a project including large-scale testing in 2001 at the bre involving acmpe panels and which showed
00:32:11 involving acmpe panels and which showed that such panels caused a raging inferno during an external war fire no i don't recall that were you told that in 1999 a
00:32:22 were you told that in 1999 a parliamentary select committee had recommended a change to the relevant guidance such that all external wall materials should be entirely non-combustible or be proven through full-scale testing
00:32:34 or be proven through full-scale testing not to pose an unacceptable level of risk in terms of fire spread were you told about that no
00:32:40 no were you told that that recommendation had never been accepted and followed by the government no we didn't go into that level of history on what had happened in that meeting it was a narrower focused
00:32:51 that meeting it was a narrower focused discussion than that were you told that there'd been long-standing concerns about the adequacy of the national classifications including national class naught as a measure of fire performance
00:33:03 measure of fire performance no
00:33:04 no were you told that there had been a number of warnings delivered to the department about cladding fires abroad including in the uae which had involved acm pe panels and had caused rapid
00:33:17 acm pe panels and had caused rapid external fire spread i was aware of those other fires quite early on i don't recall it being discussed in that specific meeting but i think i was aware of those fires
00:33:29 think i was aware of those fires probably by the time of that meeting yes but my question is were you aware that your department had received a number of warnings
00:33:37 warnings about those fires no
00:33:41 no and and that they had asked themselves the question were these panels precluded or not were you aware of that no
00:33:50 no were you made aware that mr martin had been involved in several meetings and exchanges in the period 2013 to 2017 during which important industry figures
00:34:01 during which important industry figures including the bre the nhbc the cwct the curtin walling and cladding technology group
00:34:08 group and others had explained that the guidance in adb was not clear about whether these acm pe panels were permitted or not on high-rise buildings no i wasn't aware of that at the time
00:34:22 did he tell you mr martin that he had been asked to clarify the very section 12.7
00:34:29 12.7 of the guidance which apparently were important in restricting the use of acmpe on high-rise buildings
00:34:38 i think i think he may well have mentioned that in the meeting yes because it was part of the discussion we had about that section that i was describing earlier that people had challenged it and had said that it wasn't clear i think i
00:34:50 said that it wasn't clear i think i think i was aware of that i think he mentioned those concerns about the clarity but did he tell you that on numerous occasions over that period 2013 to 2017
00:35:02 occasions over that period 2013 to 2017 he'd been informed by industry that they didn't think it was clear enough about whether these acm pe panels were permitted or not in high-rise buildings did he tell you that no no
00:35:15 no no and you said you had a recollection that he might have said that people had challenged it and said it wasn't clear were those people challenging it after the grenfell fire and saying it wasn't clear or people challenging it before
00:35:26 clear or people challenging it before the grenfell fire before the fire right if i'm right that he did mention it in that meeting then that's that's what i believe i'm recalling did anybody in that meeting ask for more information
00:35:37 that meeting ask for more information about what challenges there had been by industry to the clarity of this guidance
00:35:44 guidance yes we we were going through the guidance line by line and we were seeking to understand you know which were the sections the phrases the sentences that people weren't clear about so that was specifically what we
00:35:55 about so that was specifically what we were trying to bring into the room we didn't ask exactly who was making each of the claims um because we were very focused on on the document that was the main
00:36:07 on the document that was the main purpose of the discussion was to understand it and for me and nick king to form some kind of understanding ourselves of you know
00:36:18 how clear it was what role it might have played that would help in particular work out what to do with the consultation document but also kind of understand the wider system issues absolutely i understand you had a narrow
00:36:29 absolutely i understand you had a narrow focus on the document but surely it was highly pertinent to what you were discussing to know that key industry figures had been raising concerns about these clauses for some time yes and i
00:36:40 these clauses for some time yes and i think those concerns were part of the discussion yes they weren't um were you informed by mr martin that he had been told in early 2016 by a reputable cladding consultant that acmpe
00:36:53 reputable cladding consultant that acmpe panels were on many high-rise buildings in the uk
00:36:57 in the uk and that the current situation was of grave concern were you told that no i wasn't you should have been told that shouldn't you i think so yes because by that stage we were testing for cladding
00:37:08 that stage we were testing for cladding on multiple buildings and we were surprised not surprised perhaps but we were not prepared for the results when they came through which were a hundred percent of the tests
00:37:18 tests uh had found acm pe cladding yes and i don't think therefore that i kind of been told
00:37:25 been told the point that you just made yes um were you given any estimate by mr martin or his colleagues about how many other buildings might have acmpe on it
00:37:36 other buildings might have acmpe on it at that point at the early stage after the fire did they do they say well we don't expect to find it elsewhere or did they say no we already know it's on hundreds of buildings what was said to you about that
00:37:48 you about that um
00:37:50 um i can't really remember asking that question um
00:37:57 um specifically of mr martin i mean it was a question that we were asking sort of all the time you know how bad could this be how many could there be [Music]
00:38:05 [Music] um
00:38:07 um so i don't particularly recall asking mr martin that question in that meeting or in any other meeting to be honest but just to be clear you would have expected to be told had he been warned
00:38:19 expected to be told had he been warned clearly in writing that there were many high-rise buildings in the uk with acm pe panels on them well
00:38:28 well yes ideally yes but i suppose the context is that this was a meeting the first proper meeting that brian had had with his permanent secretary i think um also with the special adviser
00:38:39 also with the special adviser um
00:38:40 um [Music]
00:38:41 [Music] it was for a very specific purpose of giving us a teach-in and you know having a robust kind of discussion about the particular document so
00:38:51 so um
00:38:53 um i don't remember if bob ledson was there but i think he wasn't um i think it was just brian possibly with one other and as i say the lawyers were there as
00:39:04 and as i say the lawyers were there as well but
00:39:05 well but i think it would have been asking a lot of brian for him to have brought all of those issues out in that meeting
00:39:11 meeting um
00:39:13 um you know but i think some of the things that you've mentioned it seemed quite odd not to have mentioned them in that meeting given the nature of the discussion we were having well i'm going to be suggesting to you that all of these matters ought to have
00:39:25 that all of these matters ought to have been
00:39:26 been laid on the table and you made aware of them at this early stage particularly those ones that were in recent time like the warning about many buildings having acmpe surely that
00:39:38 many buildings having acmpe surely that was something that any candid civil servant would be telling you immediately certainly i agree with you on on that on that one yes that's so relevant to the discussion yes yes and what was also
00:39:50 discussion yes yes and what was also relevant wasn't it was that mr martin himself had undertaken in march 2016 to change a relevant clause in the guidance i 12.7
00:40:01 guidance i 12.7 which was relevant to the use of these panels and which had been described as poorly worded open to misinterpretation and misleading he should have told you that as well shouldn't he
00:40:13 that as well shouldn't he um
00:40:14 um that he had made the commitment to to change it well i think he i think he may have said that we were that the team was considering changing it but they had concluded not to and that was the discussion i was referring to earlier
00:40:25 discussion i was referring to earlier we i think we did we did get to that section and talk about how it didn't look completely clear
00:40:32 clear and
00:40:34 and brian acknowledging that but then it emerged that actually the draft of the document that was about to be consulted on didn't in fact change that language i believe that's what i recall anyway
00:40:46 recall anyway so i think we did we did have that discussion a bit shouldn't even told you that he was sat in a meeting with senior industry figures in march 2016 at which time he accepted to change this poorly worded
00:41:00 accepted to change this poorly worded clause which was misleading
00:41:04 yes i mean whether he mentioned a specific meeting or not i don't i i should have mentioned a specific meeting or not but i certainly think that the issue of the confusion should have been raised and it and it was in in part in that discussion but
00:41:16 that discussion but so
00:41:17 so yeah i mean i i think we have to be i don't think we could sort of say brian should have mentioned every single one of these things in a reasonably short meeting where i was asking a lot of questions and nick king was asking a lot
00:41:28 questions and nick king was asking a lot of questions but that general sense of informing us quite the degree of concern in the various different ways you've you've brought forward there was
00:41:39 you've you've brought forward there was out there yes some of that should have been brought into the meeting more than it was i do agree but even if not at that meeting surely shortly thereafter you should have been told all of the
00:41:50 you should have been told all of the things i've just gone through right back to the testing in 2001 on acmpe what the parliamentary select committee had said the number of warnings about acmp cladding fires the number of
00:42:02 acmp cladding fires the number of industry figures that had raised concerns about the clarity of the guidance the fact you knew the acmp was on many buildings surely that was highly relevant information for you and others
00:42:13 relevant information for you and others around you at that time helen mcnamara and others to be told very soon after the grenfell tower fire yes i think it was and and some of that i was aware of because i'd read the
00:42:24 i was aware of because i'd read the the early version of the of the record that simon ridley had commented on the previous week so i was aware for example of the apbg correspondence and some of the other
00:42:34 the other aspects but i wasn't aware of what the team had been told we didn't know that until a lot later yes when did you know a lot later all the warnings that the team had been told and what meetings
00:42:45 team had been told and what meetings they've been involved in the warnings about this clause in particular when were you told that um
00:42:51 um [Music]
00:42:54 [Music] i i think i've i've learned about the full history as i've prepared for today's hearing and read everybody's witness statements and read the the you know chapter and verse on what everybody says happened during those
00:43:06 everybody says happened during those years richard carroll and bob let some and brian
00:43:08 and brian so in preparation for this inquiry yes yes but we didn't seek to to investigate that i i didn't launch an investigation into what had happened perhaps i should have done at the time
00:43:19 perhaps i should have done at the time but we were concerned to try to fix the problem
00:43:22 problem and set up the building safety problem program to look at what was going on out there on buildings across the country and
00:43:30 and that together with the hackett review together with the public inquiry um
00:43:35 um felt like quite a lot of investigations that were already going on so we didn't we didn't look into the department's handling of this no i i thought that was where the inquiry would
00:43:46 thought that was where the inquiry would actually most help us if i'm honest as well no i appreciate that but it didn't need an investigation did it for those that had been involved to make sure that you were aware of those matters
00:43:57 those matters i think given that there were incredibly important issues of public safety that were by then absolutely clear it would have been helpful to know sooner the extent of the
00:44:10 sooner the extent of the concerns that have been expressed to the team about how much acm cladding was out there because as i say we were we were not really expecting quite the scale of what we found yes now you say that a decision had been
00:44:21 now you say that a decision had been taken
00:44:22 taken or he explained not to change that language did mr martin explain why that decision had been taken not to change that language no i don't think so right because this
00:44:34 no i don't think so right because this is the first we've heard of a decision not to change it um so
00:44:41 um so um
00:44:42 um kind of interested in what you can tell us about let me be really clear about about what i remember in that case so
00:44:51 would you mind just confirming that the consultation document didn't change the language the version of it there was nothing about it to be published yes that's right there's nothing in the discussion document so that's what i
00:45:03 discussion document so that's what i recall is that is that we talked about that section and brian acknowledged that this was an area that
00:45:12 area that was a bit confusing and that they had had some concerns about it and i asked were we going to change it then and the answer was no and as i said
00:45:21 as i said i think with a little bit of a pause because it was clear that wasn't okay and
00:45:26 and um
00:45:30 i don't recall asking him why and i don't recall him answering or giving me an answer as to why yeah
00:45:39 yeah um
00:45:40 um what was your reaction when you were made aware of the number of warnings the department had received about these matters before the fire about acmpe acmp being on buildings in
00:45:51 about acmpe acmp being on buildings in the uk about that clause being unclear or the guidance in adb being unclear what was your reaction when you realized that
00:46:08 well it's my reaction is with a number of different layers i
00:46:15 i you know at the heart of this i think is
00:46:18 is what i was describing this morning is a complete failure throughout the preceding decades for the department at any level to see that there was a system oversight role that needed to be
00:46:30 system oversight role that needed to be played let alone the department was accountable for playing it
00:46:36 and
00:46:40 so the team were never given any instructions uh
00:46:45 uh that they their role was anything more than maintaining the documents and
00:46:51 and so
00:46:52 so to that extent i think that when i when i looked at um when i read the witness statements of um departmental officials and also others who involve the nhvc bre
00:47:03 and also others who involve the nhvc bre and so on
00:47:04 and so on um
00:47:05 um what i draw from that is that there just wasn't a system for any of this to go to there wasn't a place for it to go to there wasn't a there wasn't any sense of people who
00:47:16 there wasn't any sense of people who were listening or a log or a risk register or a data collection system or anything like that and in fact the department's overall operating framework was one where the industry
00:47:28 framework was one where the industry were doing the detail and local government were doing the inspect the oversight the approvals and the enforcement so i think that made it difficult for
00:47:39 so i think that made it difficult for the team probably to know quite what to do
00:47:42 do um
00:47:43 um having said that um these were issues of public safety and
00:47:48 and there was technical confusion and some of that was about the documents themselves which was the core responsibility of the department and understood as such and so i i read that narrative and see
00:48:01 and so i i read that narrative and see um you know quite a lot of missed opportunities within the team as well as the enormous missed opportunity by the department as a whole over a number of decades yeah i mean
00:48:12 mean i think you've got the point but can we agree that it's one thing not having a system and that is a problem and a failing but some of this surely was common sense in terms of the need to
00:48:24 common sense in terms of the need to escalate these matters to seniors and the need to do more than just sit on the problem yes can we agree that it was common sense that you couldn't just do nothing
00:48:37 just do nothing yeah yes i i agree and i think the department did have um the right kinds of cultures and uh
00:48:45 uh certainly you know reasonable processes by which these things could have been escalated it wasn't an enormous department people saw each other they bumped into each other i think it wasn't
00:48:57 bumped into each other i think it wasn't a place where conversations weren't possible to have yes when did you first learn about the 2001 test on acm pe when were you first made aware of that
00:49:08 when were you first made aware of that um
00:49:08 um [Music]
00:49:11 [Music] it's possible that i was aware of it in the months uh after the fire in 2017 and 2018 when we were putting in place the building safety program because
00:49:23 safety program because um
00:49:24 um i went to the bre at one point and looked at videos of various tests had a long conversation about the large-scale tests and how they were conducted
00:49:33 conducted which one of them done actually live and
00:49:36 live and so it's possible that at that stage i was told of some of the history but i don't specifically recall and the moment when i particularly pieced all this
00:49:48 particularly pieced all this timeline together in my own mind was more recently when i prepared for today's hearing yes i mean looking back on that meeting can we agree that you were not given full and frank assistance by mr martin
00:50:02 and frank assistance by mr martin in terms of the candor that he ought to have have been displaying at that meeting given the number of things that were important that you should have been told there and then or very shortly thereafter
00:50:14 i didn't feel at the time that brian was lacking in candor or
00:50:19 or honesty about this he gave a very practical and detailed and clear account of the regulations and how they were supposed to work so i and he did you know explain
00:50:32 i and he did you know explain albeit that it led to quite an awkward conversation to him that there had been concerns about that bit of the document that they'd thought about addressing them and then weren't going to in the document was
00:50:43 weren't going to in the document was about to be published so i didn't leave that meeting think that brian was like thinking that brian was lacking in canada and honesty with hindsight now knowing what i know i i think it's surprising that he or
00:50:56 i i think it's surprising that he or others in the team didn't didn't raise some of those issues yes i do but i guess that was that that was part of a pattern that had been going on for a number of years so the habits were not there to be raising
00:51:07 the habits were not there to be raising these things yes but 72 people had died by that point there'd been a major major disaster
00:51:14 disaster can we agree that looking at it now you can reasonably expected more candor from your team in terms of those matters in the days after the fire yes
00:51:26 yes by the time of this meeting with mr martin um were you aware of any international cladding fires involving acmpe
00:51:38 i
00:51:42 can't quite remember exactly when i was aware of the fires in dubai and france uh in particular but i believe it was quite soon after the far because it was because it was part of the conversation about how it had happened elsewhere yes
00:51:54 about how it had happened elsewhere yes i mean we know that those fires there was a spate of them in the uae in 2012 2013 and then there was a further space during your time as permanent secretary in 2015-2016
00:52:05 in 2015-2016 um
00:52:06 um some of those were reported in the mainstream news including in the bbc um is it the case that nobody brought those fires to your attention as permanent secretary yes i don't remember them at the time
00:52:18 them at the time would you have expected um people within your department in that building regulations division to have brought those fires to your attention and to explain to you the extent to
00:52:29 and to explain to you the extent to which the regulatory regime here either did or did not deal with those i certainly would yes um and it was a system we put in place after the fire it took quite a lot of pushing i have to
00:52:40 took quite a lot of pushing i have to say because um there were there were fires you know quite frequently after grenfell tower and
00:52:48 and every single time i and my ministers were
00:52:52 were incredibly keen to know immediately what had gone on was it related to cladding was it related to any other combustible materials know how the fire started i mean obviously we wanted to know what had happened and whether people were okay but then immediately
00:53:04 okay but then immediately what what had caused the fire was it relevant to what we were looking at on building safety did it did it did it raise other issues new issues that we needed to be worried about given that the scale of the problem was opening up in front of our eyes all the time anyway
00:53:17 in front of our eyes all the time anyway and it was it was quite tough to get the department to be able to answer those questions and it took took several goes before we got to a stage where we were getting hourly updates i i think in the end we had to
00:53:28 updates i i think in the end we had to put it into the red team who were used to that kind of situation reporting yeah and that was partly because i think the fire teams had gone to the home office and the the the the links weren't quite as strong as they had previously been so
00:53:40 as strong as they had previously been so um the difficulties i had putting in place that system you know for me sort of illustrated quite what hadn't been there before as well yes i understand can we just look
00:53:52 well yes i understand can we just look at your witness statement again a third statement page six paragraph 18
00:54:01 you tell us there so you say um over the following weeks i inquired into these questions and by that i think you mean questions about system failures across the construction industry to observe
00:54:12 the construction industry to observe fire safety standards which is what you've been discussing previously and you say you did that by reading the background documents including some of the transcripts of the lack of house inquest and reports of previous fires
00:54:24 inquest and reports of previous fires over the past 20 years i also spoke to people in the fire service and the industry yes [Music]
00:54:34 [Music] now which reports of previous virus did you read did you read for example the 1999 select committee report following the garnet court fire in irving in scotland
00:54:47 i think i might have done yes i can't recall now exactly which documents i read it was the submissions um the appg correspondence it was some of that that library of documents that we've been
00:54:59 library of documents that we've been discussing so far but it was and then it was also some of the external documents as well yes and which people did you speak to in the fire service and industry can you just briefly help us with that um
00:55:11 with that um i spoke to roy wilshire and sir ken knight with whom you were already working i believe i also spoke to peter bonfield i spoke to
00:55:21 spoke to a number of housing association chief executives david montagu i believe
00:55:29 i believe and
00:55:30 and others
00:55:32 i was also uh by the time we got to about a fortnight after the fire i was talking to local authority chief executives as well particularly those who had already discovered acm clan buildings
00:55:43 discovered acm clan buildings so
00:55:44 so i i didn't speak to sort of lots and lots of people i i just spoke to a few and i just was was asking questions yeah did
00:55:55 i just was was asking questions yeah did it occur to you anytime at this point to do any form of peer review to look more broadly at the advice you were getting for example from your building regulations division about the clarity
00:56:07 regulations division about the clarity of the building regulations and approved document b not at that stage no because we were so focused on what had gone on in the industry and
00:56:18 what had gone on in the industry and what it might mean for what was still there and needed to be found and acted upon
00:56:22 upon so we were focused outwards rather than inwards at that stage yeah if we look over the page page seven at paragraph 19. you tell us you also asked for briefings
00:56:33 you tell us you also asked for briefings on the building regulations themselves although i was not an expert given the wording of a pre-document b the building regulations and the 1984 act i thought it was fairly clear that combustible clouding systems that did not adequately
00:56:45 clouding systems that did not adequately resist the spread of fire over the walls and from one building to another were not permitted on tall residential buildings now are those the briefings that you've already described to us yes was there anything else other than what
00:56:57 was there anything else other than what you've just described in terms of briefings on the building regulations and the approved documents no i don't think so we also had legal advice on the building regulations but no further briefings that i remember
00:57:08 no further briefings that i remember anyway
00:57:12 and did you come away from those briefings with the impression that the guidance was clear or not
00:57:19 or not well
00:57:20 well i was a layperson coming to this for the very first time um i was persuaded including on the basis of the legal advice that
00:57:31 on the basis of the legal advice that those approved documents didn't give grounds for anyone thinking that it was acceptable to put up acm cladding on
00:57:41 on at all residential building and be consistent with the building regulations so
00:57:45 so i
00:57:46 i that's what i've said in in that second sentence
00:57:49 sentence that i didn't think that cladding systems that did not adequately resist the thread and spread it far over the walls and form buildings into another were permitted i thought that much was clear from the reading of the documents
00:58:00 reading of the documents and the as i said earlier you would have to work extremely hard to be able to put together an argument that that this was allowed um
00:58:12 so but i was a i was a lay person and i i was not forming a technical view i was just looking at it you know as a reasonably well informed um
00:58:23 as a reasonably well informed um newcomer yeah the document yeah picking that paragraph up again five lines down looking in the middle of the line there's a line beginning i also you say
00:58:34 there's a line beginning i also you say i also formed the view that the sincere belief of the department's building regulations and energy performance team was that the building regulations and the approved documents were already clear
00:58:44 clear the coroner's recommendation to revise approved document b following the lack of house fire was interpreted by the department as a desire for plain english
00:58:54 english rather than a need for a fundamental clarification or change ministers had been advised accordingly in 2013 this fitted with the fact that the work on the approved document had not been raised with me during my first two years
00:59:05 raised with me during my first two years in the department it was seen as a fairly narrow technical exercise yes now
00:59:13 now you say you came to understand that the sincere belief of the department's team was that the approved documents were already clear was that what they told you themselves
00:59:24 you themselves yes i mean there's a lot going on in in the second half of that paragraph and
00:59:32 and you know
00:59:35 i did form that view that that was their belief that that particular bit of the document and in particular whether or not acm cladding was permitted in order to meet the requirements of the building regulations i did form the view that
00:59:47 regulations i did form the view that i thought it was reasonably clear clear enough perhaps and that that they did as well
00:59:56 however i now know and i suppose i knew a bit at the time that they also knew that others didn't think it was clear and
01:00:05 and you know although in the end i i believe that you know the the failure of the industry not to comply with this system was its own decision and its own
01:00:16 its own decision and its own accountability the department's role in creating and overseeing and maintaining the documents that were supporting those activities was was very clear and and
01:00:27 activities was was very clear and and you know clearly there were there were failures by the department on this so i'm sorry i'm going on at some length here now but um
01:00:36 um i'm still of the view that they believed that these bits of the regulations were clear enough
01:00:43 did you hear any alternative views about why others had found the provisions to be so confusing
01:00:52 well i was hearing and reading because there was a lot of commentary in the media and people writing articles and so on all the time about the why's and wherefores of why it was confusing but
01:01:04 confusing but you know at the same time it
01:01:08 it it wasn't it wasn't easy to hear people from the industry going oh this was all the fault of the building regulations when 72 people had died or were about to die
01:01:20 72 people had died or were about to die and
01:01:21 and um
01:01:23 um it was quite clear that cladding should not have been on that building so there was a resistance from the industry during those weeks as well which was pretty hard to to hear and to engage with and
01:01:36 to hear and to engage with and so all discussions about the clarity of the building regulations were colored a little bit like that i think people were positioning themselves outside and that may have
01:01:46 may have you know with hindsight led to a certain resistance inside the department but it wasn't a it wasn't a degree of resistance that i believe led us not to acknowledge that there were issues with these regulations that
01:01:58 were issues with these regulations that needed to be addressed i think we did get quite quickly to the point that we could not go ahead with that consultation document and that we needed to
01:02:06 needed to set up a much much wider review of the whole system yeah were you ever made aware that brian martin had been one of the authors of that particular part of approved document b were you aware of that when
01:02:17 document b were you aware of that when you were discussing it with him um yes i think i probably was i think i i knew that he had written it yes now you tell us if we can look
01:02:28 now you tell us if we can look at page 22 of this third statement paragraph 52 that you tell us that um you became aware this is picking up in the middle of the first line you became
01:02:39 the middle of the first line you became aware in the weeks after the grenfell tower fire that there was some confusion about the rules surrounding the national classification class north now how did you become aware of that
01:02:50 now how did you become aware of that um
01:02:52 um through people from the industry including as i was saying earlier particularly lord porter raising it really very frequently um
01:03:02 i mean lord porter raised it in cobra meetings he he
01:03:08 he clearly felt very strongly that uh class naught and the confusion around class naught was one of the reasons why people might have thought it was acceptable to potassium planting on on a building like
01:03:19 potassium planting on on a building like that yeah
01:03:21 that yeah were you made aware that there was confusion between the concepts of national class nau and something called limited combustibility was that ever discussed with you yes in that meeting
01:03:32 yes in that meeting uh that i've described on the tuesday after the fire we did go into class naught and what it meant and limited combustibility and i remember either then or maybe thereafter being taken through the
01:03:44 thereafter being taken through the different eu definitions of limited combustibility and what was covered by eu law and what was covered by uk law because it was a i think a fairly confusing table somewhere in the approved documents which attempts to map
01:03:56 approved documents which attempts to map all of that and describe different types of of cladding and i remember engaging with that and being shown it yes did mr martin tell you that he was aware of confusion within the industry
01:04:07 of confusion within the industry between the concept of national class naught and that of limited combustibility yes yes and we talked about that in the meeting
01:04:17 meeting when you say you talked about that um what what was said about that confusion so as i was describing earlier what we did was go through the documents line by
01:04:29 was go through the documents line by line and
01:04:30 line and i and nicking um you know put the challenge in the room you know but some people are saying this and how does that fit with this and surely that isn't clear and these you know annexes are you have to
01:04:41 these you know annexes are you have to go to two or three annexes and then come back in it isn't very easy to use is it we were laying all those challenges in the room albeit as laypeople coming at it for the first time and
01:04:52 it for the first time and brian was responding i thought pretty constructively and honestly about about things but he was also you know making the points that the points that needed to be made
01:05:03 that the points that needed to be made actually and yet which was that albeit that maybe some of the bits of the document should have been more clearly drafted they weren't a reason why you should put acm cladding on a tall residential building so i
01:05:15 on a tall residential building so i think
01:05:16 think that was always the background to this um
01:05:21 um but we did discuss those issues in some depth yeah yeah um
01:05:26 um did you take a look yourself at any stage at the coroner's recommendations that she made following the lachenal inquest
01:05:35 inquest um i read them uh those recommendations and the coroner's letter um a day or two after the fire when i read the historic folder that simon ridley had
01:05:46 historic folder that simon ridley had looked at yes such as it was at the time because it wasn't complete but i read what we what we had yes can we just look at those coroner's recommendations and the rule 43 letter that she sent to the department it's a clg-401870
01:06:04 now the recommendation so here we have it it's 28th of march 2013 to the right honourable eric pickles mp and it's on page three that we find the uh recommendations that were relevant to
01:06:16 uh recommendations that were relevant to the building regulations and the approved document and she tells us there during these inquests we examined approved document b i'm aware that adb has subsequently been amended and believed that a further
01:06:27 amended and believed that a further amendment is due to be published soon the introduction to adb states that it is intended to provide guidance for some of the more common building situations and then she says this however adb is a
01:06:39 and then she says this however adb is a most difficult document to use further it is necessary to refer to additional documents in order to find an answer to relatively straightforward questions concerning the fire protection properties of materials to be
01:06:50 properties of materials to be incorporated into the fabric of a building
01:06:53 building and then she says it's recommended that your department review adb to ensure that it and there's three points first of all provides clear guidance in relation to regulation b4 of the
01:07:04 relation to regulation b4 of the building regulations with particular regard to the spread of fire over the external envelope of the building and the circumstances in which attention should be paid to whether proposed work
01:07:15 should be paid to whether proposed work might reduce existing fire protection two is expressed in words and adopts a format which are intelligible to the wide range of people and bodies engaged in construction maintenance and
01:07:26 in construction maintenance and refurbishment of buildings and not just to professionals who may already have an in-depth knowledge a depth of knowledge of building regulations and building control matters and three provides guidance which is of
01:07:37 and three provides guidance which is of assistance to those involved in maintenance or refurbishment of older housing stock and not only those engaged in design and construction of new buildings
01:07:47 buildings so can we agree that this rule 43 letter specifically refers to the need to provide
01:07:53 provide clear guidance regarding external fire spread
01:07:57 spread yes
01:07:59 yes how had you come to understand that the coroner's recommendation was interpreted by the department as a desire for plain english rather than a need for a fundamental clarification or change
01:08:17 well i think looking at this now the department focused on the second bullet and
01:08:22 and intelligibility for a wider range of people
01:08:26 people which they interpreted as plain english and didn't pay enough attention to the first bullet that
01:08:32 that adb needed to provide clear guidance and
01:08:37 and in particular with regard to spread of far over the external envelope of the building and
01:08:43 and [Music]
01:08:45 [Music] i don't know why that's the case um i i think my understanding is from what i've been told and also from what i've read is that the department thought that
01:08:58 the department thought that the there was a lot of confusion at the inquest about the various versions of the document and that the improvements they had made subsequently had been overlooked a bit by the inquest i think
01:09:09 overlooked a bit by the inquest i think that's what they thought but i am supposing what was in their minds now because
01:09:13 because i wasn't there at the time but you know i think those first three words in the first bullet provides clear guidance were not really fully internalized or heard and the department went to a sort of clarification and
01:09:24 went to a sort of clarification and simplification perhaps because that was what they thought was needed rather than anything more fundamental yes did you come to appreciate that there was no proper record keeping relating to the latin linq quest on the department's
01:09:35 the latin linq quest on the department's part including no proper record of which recommendations had been accepted and which rejected
01:09:47 yes i mean i wasn't there at the time but um
01:09:51 but um i
01:09:52 i so i'm not very aware of exactly what records were taken were there at the time but i've seen the submissions and if that's all there is then it's not a very detailed record no i mean that's that's all we've seen i think and i
01:10:04 that's all we've seen i think and i would just repeat what i said you know this morning which is that i i also think that there was no tracking mechanism put in place it's something that i think i think was extremely important and there should have been and you know because you've
01:10:15 have been and you know because you've always got to have general elections changes of ministers that sort of disruption is normal in a civil service department so you need systems to make sure that things get carried through and continue to get attention
01:10:26 through and continue to get attention yes but as well as a tracking system shouldn't there have been a very clear record within the department about what was accepted what was rejected and what work they knew they
01:10:37 rejected and what work they knew they needed to do that i mean i appreciate it before your time but that should have been there shouldn't it yes i suspect the department thought at the time in fact i i i'm pretty sure i know they did that
01:10:48 i'm pretty sure i know they did that that the submissions were the record and that that advice to ministers on what should be done and what already had been done in response to some of the recommendations was sufficient
01:10:59 was sufficient um
01:11:02 can you help us understand the procedure now ms grange if you're about to come to this tell me no no carry on and then i'll go back but i'm just curious to know how things work in the department when a letter is
01:11:13 in the department when a letter is written to the secretary of state um it's addressed to him personally drops through the letterbox it's open presumably or by the post room or whatever is that how it works and then what happens to it
01:11:27 it works and then what happens to it so um
01:11:28 so um [Music]
01:11:29 [Music] it would find its way pretty sharpish to the private office to his private his private office and is he at that point informed that it's come in um
01:11:43 probably on something of this scale yes maybe not immediately that afternoon but what i would expect to happen was that the private office would then action it
01:11:54 the private office would then action it and they would make sure that uh it was clear he was the accountable director and deputy director that was going to take forward the work for something of this scale if it was just correspondence for an mp it might go straight into the
01:12:06 for an mp it might go straight into the team
01:12:06 team but this sort of thing would would need a greater level of seniority and i would expect that that evening or the next day certainly pretty soon they would inform the
01:12:17 pretty soon they would inform the secretary of state that this is coming and that it's been actioned and that they'll get the response within the letters
01:12:23 letters um
01:12:24 um yes probably shouldn't shouldn't he see yes he probably should yes yeah something like this yes and does he take an interest in as it were where it goes for um
01:12:35 um action english response well in my experience of working with eric pickles he took a very keen interest in the details of how the department worked he took
01:12:44 took he knew who all the directors were and he made sure he talked to them regularly and
01:12:51 and i suspect he would have wanted to know who this had all been actioned to but he would also have expected his junior ministers to be overseeing this he wouldn't expect this to come direct to him i mean something
01:13:02 to come direct to him i mean something of this importance would need all of the ministerial team focused on it with uh on depending on their particular briefs and the particular areas of responsibility they had and that that is what happened and i suspect that um the
01:13:14 what happened and i suspect that um the former secretary of state would have been very clear that it should have happened but eventually it does come back to him for a response doesn't it yes it does so i i would hope that he took some sort of interest in who was handling it and
01:13:26 of interest in who was handling it and how they proposed to deal with it yes and i'm i'm sure you did
01:13:34 did right thank you very much yes now i want to look now at what was known about systemic failures across the construction industry and housing industry before grenfell and can
01:13:45 housing industry before grenfell and can we look at an email that helen mcnamara sends to you
01:13:49 you on the 20th of june 2017. it's at cab404662
01:14:02 and i'm looking at the second email down on the page we can see it's there it's to the office of melanie dawes from helen mcnamara and she says this she says melanie i
01:14:13 and she says this she says melanie i promise to download my thoughts on the wider questions beyond immediate response this is far from polished but gives you a sense and then she basically downloads to you a number of kind of
01:14:24 downloads to you a number of kind of thoughts she's got about the systems and system failure and i want to pick it up at paragraph three and read three four and five she says at three if we go down the page
01:14:35 she says at three if we go down the page there could be a very i think it means big bill
01:14:39 big bill we are going to have her a row about insufficient funding for councils to properly house vulnerable people we know housing benefit doesn't pay for housing costs in large parts of the country we will be knowingly devolved
01:14:51 we will be knowingly devolved responsibilities to councils and cut funding so can't argue that we expected the regulatory function to continue rbkc chose a contractor that bid 6 million pounds for a job when everyone
01:15:03 million pounds for a job when everyone else said 18 million pounds how much did we incentivize that question mark then she goes on at four one of the messages that's come through loud and clear in the last week is that these 60s and 70s tower blocks are a real problem
01:15:16 and 70s tower blocks are a real problem i mentioned what i'd been told about electrical overload given the number of people slash phone charges and flats that were designed for 1970s living we should argue for a
01:15:27 1970s living we should argue for a proper program of estate regeneration and then at five she says and on building standards there's a risk that we end up narrowing the question too much yes we probably have a problem with
01:15:38 much yes we probably have a problem with cladding but we should be asking ourselves about building safety in general one of the open secrets in the building industry is the inconsistent standards
01:15:47 standards and tolerance of shoddy work how much of a wider quality problem is there question mark now just a few questions about this just going back to paragraph three if we go
01:15:58 going back to paragraph three if we go back
01:15:59 back and look at that prior to the grenfell tower fire were you aware of the view that there was insufficient funding to house vulnerable people
01:16:07 people to properly house vulnerable people was that something that had hit your radar yes absolutely right and and were there initiatives in place to be dealing with that so
01:16:18 so um
01:16:20 um we were really concerned about homelessness in particular and also about the lack of availability of social housing particularly in parts of the country where rents were very high um like london
01:16:31 um like london which just meant that people had nowhere to live that they could afford with even quite averagely paid jobs so we were we were very concerned about that the the government had some
01:16:42 that the the government had some proposals to tackle that they had a rough sleepers program but one of my real concerns in 2015 and 2016 was the wider homelessness problem because local authorities were beginning
01:16:54 because local authorities were beginning to fail in their statutory duties to house people right the relevant time periods and do you think that's what she's referring to there in this paragraph
01:17:03 paragraph yes probably now also at paragraph three she says at the end of that paragraph rb casey chose a contractor that bid 6 million pounds for a job when everyone else said 18 million pounds how much did we
01:17:15 million pounds how much did we incentivize that now how might you have been incentivizing that what was she meaning by that
01:17:22 by that yes i apologize i haven't seen this email for
01:17:26 email for for five years uh nearly so i'm just digesting it a bit
01:17:42 so reading that whole paragraph she's talking about the cuts to local council funding which will have affected their ability to carry out their regulatory functions and that that could have led people to
01:17:54 and that that could have led people to cut corners i think that's probably part of what she was referring to um
01:18:01 i mean just the wider cuts to councils i think is mainly what she's saying in this paragraph and how everyone was how the budgets for housing were very
01:18:12 how the budgets for housing were very tight indeed um
01:18:18 and you know the department did actually have estate regeneration programs already at this point although they were mostly based on loan funding rather than investment funding and we knew that they were therefore going to have a fairly limited impact right
01:18:29 limited impact right and then looking at paragraph four the beginning of that had it come to your attention prior to this fire that 1960s and 70s tower blocks had become a real problem and what do you think she meant
01:18:41 problem and what do you think she meant by that
01:18:43 by that um
01:18:43 um [Music]
01:18:45 [Music] i don't think that
01:18:48 i had it on my radar all that people had expressed it as a real problem in the sense of a sort of systemic problem or a very wide scale problem but we were very aware that there were a lot of 60s and 70s blocks
01:19:01 there were a lot of 60s and 70s blocks that were coming to the end of their lives or needed very significant refurbishment refurbishment and this was extremely expensive and just simply couldn't be afforded within councils normal budgets particularly in cities
01:19:12 normal budgets particularly in cities where the costs are so high and that there were some parts of london such as
01:19:17 such as elephant and castle where the regeneration could take place on a commercial balance sheet but for the most part that was not going to be remotely possible and it was going
01:19:28 to be remotely possible and it was going to need government funding central government funding grant funding and not loan funding or equity loans or anything like that so um
01:19:37 um i was certainly aware of that and i went and visited quite a lot of those sites you know quite early on in my time as permanent secretary it was one of the big issues we we had on our radar but we were also very concerned just about
01:19:48 were also very concerned just about general funding for any form of social housing investment which had been stopped in the first year of the government following 2015 although it was reinstated later when gavin barwell and sajid javid did their
01:20:00 gavin barwell and sajid javid did their housing work in 2016 but we were worried about that as well because that was just simply to keep house building going in the social sector and then we were also worried about homelessness which was more about revenue funding it was more
01:20:11 more about revenue funding it was more about benefit payments for individuals to cover their costs right there were layers of problems on the funding side yeah looking at paragraph five then over the page
01:20:22 page um were you aware of this open secret that she refers to in the third line of paragraph five in the building industry being the inconsistent standards and tolerance of shoddy work
01:20:37 were you aware yes i think i was and i can't quite remember when it was and whether it was before the fire or not but there were quite a lot of issues about just small
01:20:48 small homes being built um in the private sector at the time and problems with the sewage failing and guarantees not really working and so on so just we were certainly aware that there were there
01:20:59 certainly aware that there were there were shoddy standards yes were you aware of inconsistent standards and tolerance of shoddy work by building control authorities before the grenfell tower fire well i i can't remember when these
01:21:11 fire well i i can't remember when these issues began to come to my attention but there were a lot of articles in the press about some of this at a certain point and i just can't remember quite when whether it was before or after
01:21:22 when whether it was before or after it
01:21:26 i instinctively think it was very shortly before um that those those stories were being were being told and i remember um
01:21:36 um i remember i remember a particular development and a very sort of household name
01:21:41 name builder one of the big the big name builders i can't remember which one now um coming forward and taking responsibility and saying they were having to address some issues and they apologized and so on to the residents so there was a story it was addressed by
01:21:52 there was a story it was addressed by the developer but it clearly raised questions as to how to got signed off by building control and that was the part of the problem as well and i i i recall all of those issues being aired and discussed do you remember having
01:22:03 discussed do you remember having meetings with the building regulations division
01:22:06 division um about that or with the building control
01:22:10 control department about that because i think there's no i don't remember having meetings with with the team i remember it being a discussion with my own team um possibly with some of the directors involved i don't know okay thank you mr
01:22:21 involved i don't know okay thank you mr chairman i think that's a good moment for our afternoon break if that's okay yes um
01:22:27 yes um just give us a little bit of encouragement how you're getting on no i'm getting on fine for time um [Music]
01:22:33 [Music] perhaps if we could start again at 25 too
01:22:37 too um that's possibly a bit tight go on then 22. that's fine i'll i'll make it well anyway you're on course too yes i'm on course to finish today we may go slightly after 4 30 with the final questions but yeah of course no we might
01:22:50 questions but yeah of course no we might have to overrun slightly but i think um some reassurance that we're on course to finish the day is probably welcome yes anyway we'll have a break now we'll come back please at 20 to 4 and uh again please don't discuss your
01:23:02 and uh again please don't discuss your evidence within one go out of the room all right thank you very much
01:23:17 thank you very much 20 to 4 please
01:41:44 well yes would you ask a melanie to come back
01:42:00 right ready to carry on yes good thank you very much yes was great yes thank you yes before we broke off we were on the topic of what was known uh by the department about systemic failings
01:42:11 department about systemic failings within the building and housing industry can we look at another email please it's clg 403996
01:42:26 now this is an email that was sent to um jeremy haywood you can see that at the top of the page on the 25th of june uh 2017
01:42:37 on the 25th of june uh 2017 by you we see your name in the box at the top so it's sent to jeremy hayward and others within the cabin office subject grenfell inquiries commissions investigations etc
01:42:49 investigations etc and you say jeremy as we discussed i'd be very keen to have a meeting tomorrow and in the next paragraph you say it's quite clear particularly in the light of the 100 test failure that there are
01:43:00 the 100 test failure that there are systemic issues to address across the whole system of fire and building safety regulations from the framework itself through to the behavior of the construction industry across the supply chain the way local
01:43:12 across the supply chain the way local authorities slash rsls commission and manage building work the way fire and building inspections work and possibly the role and voice of tenants do you see that yes now did rsl
01:43:25 tenants do you see that yes now did rsl stand for registered social landlords yes and just help us jeremy hayward what was his role within the cabinet office at this point he was the covenant secretary and head of the home civil service yes
01:43:37 service yes now did you discuss with others in your department how it had allowed these problems to remain unaddressed particularly following the lack of house fire and inquest did you have that
01:43:48 fire and inquest did you have that discussion with them
01:43:53 yes i had the conversation with um
01:43:57 um helen mcnamara tamara um finkelstein who was by then leading the building safety program with directors including um sally randall and and others it was a it was a very
01:44:09 and and others it was a it was a very active conversation in in the weeks leading up to the launch of the hackett review in particular and and just in short form what conclusions did you reach about the reasons the department had allowed such
01:44:21 reasons the department had allowed such problems to persist for so long going unaddressed can you just summarize what you felt the reasons were at the time what i thought um
01:44:37 i i mean i was con i was my main concern was to was to name the issues and get a proper urgent review of them rather than to try to ask the whys and wherefores of of why we've got to where
01:44:49 wherefores of of why we've got to where we've got to um what i think now is that we just there was a failure of overall system oversight by the department over many decades
01:44:59 decades i think i must have thought that at the time as well
01:45:04 i had i had read by this point you know a lot of the historic documents and i'd concluded that the department had failed to respond to an awful lot of warning signals right back to the 1999
01:45:15 warning signals right back to the 1999 select committee through the responses to various files along the way and i didn't know at the time some of the things that you were asking me about earlier this afternoon that the team knew yes so
01:45:28 but above all i knew by this point that the construction industry had failed to follow the building regulations yes in quite a major way yes did you conclude that the department's deregulatory agenda had had any impact
01:45:41 deregulatory agenda had had any impact in allowing these matters to go unaddressed for so long
01:45:46 um i'm sure that was in my mind at the time but it wasn't really what i was trying to achieve at this point i was trying to get this review uh set up and we had to argue for this pretty seriously yeah so i said this email on
01:45:57 seriously yeah so i said this email on the sunday and uh we followed it up helen and tamara and i went to a meeting at the cabinet office and um the cabinet office and number 10 were not at all keen to set up the hackett review and we had to be honest
01:46:09 review and we had to be honest one of the toughest arguments i remember ever having with jeremy hayward about it they felt that the public inquiry would be able to cover these issues but we thought it was was too urgent for that with the greatest respect to what the
01:46:21 with the greatest respect to what the inquiry is seeking to achieve yeah yeah
01:46:25 yeah we can see that after the grenfell tower fire your office requested a copy of the the bre seven work stream reports the research reports um that had been done by the bre and i
01:46:36 um that had been done by the bre and i think had been commissioned in fact before the coroners recommendations following the lack of fire if we just look at clg 406269
01:46:46 it's an email dated the 22nd of june 2017.
01:46:51 there we have it it says the subject is fire compartmentation reports completed for publication 2015 and it says as requested it probably refers to these reports from bre and we
01:47:04 refers to these reports from bre and we believe you were sent those reports do you remember ever reading those seven work stream reports uh
01:47:11 uh i can't recall whether i did or not do you remember ever appreciating that they raised wide-ranging and fundamental issues particularly regarding fire spread and means of escape for the disabled
01:47:24 i i can't recall reading them so i can't say that i was aware of that they included right um those points no so you can't help us as to whether there had been a deliberate desire not to proceed
01:47:35 been a deliberate desire not to proceed with the review of adb and to to sit on these reports perhaps because they showed
01:47:41 showed how fundamentally flawed the guidance was that had been put out already
01:47:48 no um i i can't really help with that but i
01:47:54 it's never been my impression that the department deliberately sat on reports and delayed the work in order to prevent difficult things from getting out that's never been my impression my impression is that
01:48:05 been my impression my impression is that the delays of which there are many were
01:48:09 were the result of poor work for project management difficulties in getting work progressed did you ever get the impression that the delays might have been caused because the work was seen as simply too
01:48:20 the work was seen as simply too difficult
01:48:21 difficult too complex too hard they were too far behind the curve there was too much to do
01:48:27 do did you ever get that impression so i wasn't aware of of the work at the time of course so i can't give you any impression of of what it was like for them prior to the grenfell tower fire
01:48:38 them prior to the grenfell tower fire but it wouldn't surprise me if given the situation that they were in and how far behind they were [Music]
01:48:45 [Music] and how difficult it was genuinely particularly when you put alongside that the
01:48:51 the the the knowledge that they had about what was going on out there in the industry and the risks that were being taken it wouldn't surprise me if it was overwhelming and you know almost
01:49:03 it was overwhelming and you know almost impossible to put one foot in front of the other for for some or all of the team members at different points yes yes now we know that um well you tell us in your witness statement that you convened
01:49:14 your witness statement that you convened a panel of experts after the fire and on the 18th of june a letter was sent in your name to all housing providers giving guidance on what to do if they were concerned about their cladding on
01:49:25 were concerned about their cladding on their buildings let's just briefly look at that letter that's at clg 403534 [Music]
01:49:39 here's the letter 18th of june it goes to local authority chief executives and housing association chief executives and it provides guidance on on what to do and public concern and you can see in
01:49:50 do and public concern and you can see in paragraph
01:49:51 paragraph two the second paragraph that it's referring to the particular type of cladding aluminium composite material etc now can you remember who drafted this letter to housing providers
01:50:02 this letter to housing providers uh
01:50:05 no i can't remember who drafted it but at the time i was aware it was draft being drafted and i took the decision that i wasn't going to oversee it myself it was going to be
01:50:16 to oversee it myself it was going to be signed off by others because there were so many people who wanted to have a look at it including all the various ministers involved and i was confident that i could delegate this to um i believe helen mcnamara and probably
01:50:27 um i believe helen mcnamara and probably neil o'connor the director general and director who were
01:50:31 were who were
01:50:32 who were right in the middle of all of this on that sunday yeah and he was providing the technical advice about the acm panels at this point was that the building regulations division yes but there had been a meeting which i didn't
01:50:43 there had been a meeting which i didn't convene myself but was convened by the department on the saturday morning of experts to talk about these issues and i
01:50:51 and i recall that that was about what sorts of tests should be done what were the issues that should be looked for etc yeah and so that advice was also feeding into the guidance that was attached so i
01:51:02 into the guidance that was attached so i was aware of that overall process what was going on in the conversations that were being had yeah now shortly after this there was another letter sent out in your name if we can go to that rbk3015952
01:51:27 here we've got um another letter 22nd of june so just a few days later headed again to local authority chief executives and housing association chief executives about safety checks following
01:51:39 executives about safety checks following the grenfell tower fire and if we look at annex a to the letter which begins on page two we can see that it states in the first paragraph if
01:51:51 that it states in the first paragraph if it is determined that the insulation within aluminium composite material and then there's a footnote which we'll go to in a moment is unlikely to be compliant with the requirements of the current building regulations guidance it
01:52:02 current building regulations guidance it is essential that you immediately implement the following interim mitigating measures to ensure the safety of residents pending replacement of the cladding
01:52:10 cladding and then if we can look at the foot of that page to footnote one we can see the footnote reads this for the avoidance of doubt the core and then in parenthesis filler
01:52:21 and then in parenthesis filler within an aluminium composite material acm is an insulation material slash product
01:52:28 product insulation product and or filler material as referred to in paragraph 12.7
01:52:33 12.7 insulation materials products in section 12 construction of external walls of approved document b fire safety volume 2 buildings other than dwelling houses the important point to note is that
01:52:44 the important point to note is that paragraph 12.7 does not just apply to thermal insulation within the wall construction but applies to any element of the cladding system including therefore the core of the acm
01:52:55 therefore the core of the acm now when this letter went out in your name did you understand that that was a new position being taken by the department or was that a reflection of the position it had always taken
01:53:06 it had always taken um
01:53:08 um i don't particularly recall this letter there were quite a lot of letters going out and i was comfortable for them to go out in my name it was it was clear that the permanent secretary needed to send them in order for them to get the right priority
01:53:19 for them to get the right priority but i wasn't dr i wasn't checking every single bit of drafting um so
01:53:27 um so my understanding of this now and at the time is that this is the department attempting to clarify that bit of the document that we were discussing earlier yeah um paragraph 12.7 yes and to make
01:53:40 yeah um paragraph 12.7 yes and to make it absolutely clear that
01:53:43 that filler
01:53:46 the the the you know particularly that last sentence in brackets that paragraph 12.7 doesn't just apply to thermal insulation but it applies to any element of the cladding system including
01:53:57 element of the cladding system including therefore the core of the acm yeah and so it's the department's attempting to to clarify what it knew had been disputed and i suspect that was because people were saying we don't know what you mean you know the regulations aren't
01:54:08 you mean you know the regulations aren't clear and so this was an attempt to clarify that yes and did you appreciate that the department hadn't previously made this interpretation publicly known in any guidance
01:54:19 guidance faq
01:54:21 faq uh response or circular letter did you realize that at the time when this was going out no i didn't but th this description is what i understood to be the department's position before the grantful tower fire even if they hadn't
01:54:33 grantful tower fire even if they hadn't communicated it at this level of detail i thought this was i thought this was this was what the department believed to be the case yes and had it been explained to you you said that it
01:54:44 explained to you you said that it it was meant to intend that all elements of the system had to be of limited combustibility had that been explained to you that that was the intention of clause 12.7
01:55:00 well there were some exemptions weren't there in paragraph 12.7 is that correct there are sealers and gaskets and and so on so it says excluding excluding those um
01:55:11 um so i don't know whether that applies to any element is removing those exclusions or not um i'm not sure so that looks like it might be a change if that was the case yeah um
01:55:23 a change if that was the case yeah um but
01:55:24 but i i didn't particularly look at this at the time i was trusting others to be preparing this kind of technical material you know on behalf of the department we were
01:55:35 on behalf of the department we were managing an enormous amount of work so i was relying on others to to to take care of this yeah and by this stage we had tamara finkelstein neil o'connor and others you know heavily engaged um simon
01:55:47 others you know heavily engaged um simon gallagher had taken over the oversight of the building regulations work specifically and what to do with the approved documents so i i knew that we were relying on quite a a large number of of
01:55:58 on quite a a large number of of extremely able directors yeah did you think that that sprang naturally and obviously from the parts of the approved document that you'd by now studied line by line
01:56:11 i can't comment on what i did think at the time because i don't recall particularly dwelling on the footnote i'm sure somebody would have told me that we were trying to clarify it and i
01:56:22 that we were trying to clarify it and i would have thought that was a good thing what
01:56:26 what i didn't seek to do despite having gone through the documents in some detail was to line by line check this footnote and make sure that it wasn't in some way going beyond what what what
01:56:37 in some way going beyond what what what we should do in in any way so i i don't really remember remember dwelling on this basically okay were you aware that it had been suggested including at a meeting in july 2014 that
01:56:49 including at a meeting in july 2014 that mr martin attended that the lack of clarity within 12.7 could be addressed at least in the shorter term by an faq a frequently asked question being published on the department's
01:57:00 being published on the department's website were you made aware of that
01:57:04 no i wasn't made aware of that when was the first time you were aware that this faq route had been raised with the department many years before the grenfell tower fire
01:57:15 grenfell tower fire um i'm not sure that i was aware of the faq route right um
01:57:21 um can we look at another email now clg clg409421
01:57:35 this is an email chain dated the 19th of june 2017. if we start with the email at the bottom of the page it's from sophie broadfield
01:57:46 to simon gallagher on the 19th of june copying in helen mcnamara and the grenfell tower team for action building regulations consultation
01:57:58 regulations consultation now just help us um who was sophie broadfield sophie broadfield was one of our deputy directors who had been moved across after the fire to
01:58:09 moved across after the fire to one of the coordination roles that we established and simon gallagher simon was the director of planning policy yes now we can see from the first paragraph it she says simon apologies if you've
01:58:21 it she says simon apologies if you've already received this message from another route in discussion with melanie and helen today it was suggested that you might urgently take forward a work stream following on from the grenfell tower fire can you please let and there's an email address
01:58:33 there's an email address i think it means no who will lead this work if you're happy to pick it up and then she goes on specifically it was agreed that someone needs to pull together the work relating to the building regulations consultation that
01:58:44 building regulations consultation that was due to be published as i understand it this summer so that that's what sophie brought here was asking simon gallagher and then uh if we look at the response to this
01:58:55 uh if we look at the response to this email at the top of of page one
01:58:59 we can see there's a response from steve quartermaine to helen mcnamara just between those two and mr quartermaine says this not sure what's going on here as director i i
01:59:11 what's going on here as director i i already led on this piece of work and have everything under control i have a sub ready a revamped one from the march edition and i've already spoken to aloc about it this was on my list to raise tomorrow at the next catch up
01:59:24 tomorrow at the next catch up uh w e s
01:59:26 uh w e s stand ready to publish something by july 20th if ministers agree in terms of the building reg response to the grenfell tower event we are absolutely on top of it
01:59:37 absolutely on top of it we've sorted the labs we've sorted the tests we've written to the social landlords we are putting in place resources to not only deal with the technical issues but also the business as usual work it was only after my my
01:59:49 as usual work it was only after my my appointment as director in charge of the building regulations and energy performance division that i recognize the delay in this area and i can evidence how i got a grip and pushed this forward
02:00:01 this forward i even had a one-to-one with gavin to tell him to pay more attention to the building regulations and energy performance subs i am concerned this is another example of melanie undermining my position
02:00:14 of melanie undermining my position i'm sorry to say this but i've discussed this with you in the past i've kept a record of previous examples i do not want to pursue this through some sort of grievance procedure as lord knows we have enough on but as one of you scs a
02:00:26 have enough on but as one of you scs a male i do feel that the work i do is not being appreciated and i'm being discriminated against i can see no grounds to suggest that simon takes this on i should be judged on what i achieved not whether i move my laptop laptop onto
02:00:37 not whether i move my laptop laptop onto the fourth floor i suggest we discuss first thing in the morning
02:00:42 morning so it's a fairly strong response from mr quartermaine now um have you ever seen this email before
02:00:49 before yes i have i didn't see it at the time but i saw it um because you the inquiry asked me about it in the list of questions you sent me um
02:00:58 um can you explain sorry had you seen it before that before it was in your home request so helen mcnamara hadn't discussed it with you at the time no can you explain why you wanted simon gallagher to take forward the work on
02:01:09 gallagher to take forward the work on the building's regulations consultation at this time and not steve quartermaine's team yes well there were a number of reasons for that um and
02:01:19 and you know should perhaps just if i can explain a little bit that would change the structure in 2016 because um
02:01:29 um previously steve quartermaine's role as chief planner was graded at deputy director and reported into the director for planning but in the autumn of 2015 and through to the
02:01:40 the autumn of 2015 and through to the spring of 2016 steve went to run the planning inspector for us which was incredibly good of him because it was really really challenging because it was in bristol and he lived in london and so on and when he came back from that
02:01:52 on and when he came back from that um because it was a temporary period then we made a permanent appointment we i decided to promote him make him a director
02:01:58 director to acknowledge really his seniority and you know also partly as a thank you for what he'd gone through and he had a few more years to retirement and so it was at that point that he
02:02:09 and so it was at that point that he became a director sitting alongside simon gallagher who would otherwise have been his line manager simon was actually quite new in post so he hadn't previously been manager and they worked together and worked very closely together and simon
02:02:20 worked very closely together and simon was a more general policy official capable of picking up a brief and and working through it and by then quite experienced on planning steve was a fully qualified planning um professional
02:02:33 fully qualified planning um professional and was head of you know the national planning system so why did you want simon gallagher to take forward this work yeah rather so so my apologies for giving you the background but um
02:02:45 background but um what we were faced with was you know
02:02:48 you know a huge amount of additional work kicking off across the department and i moved a lot of directors around over that weekend
02:02:54 weekend and steve was the chief planner and nobody else could do the job that he did as chief planner we couldn't move him off that because there was no one else to do it and it's a really big and important role and
02:03:05 important role and you know if you mess up your planning decisions then you end up in all sorts of trouble so um
02:03:12 um i didn't think and i'm not even sure i made this decision i think it was in helen's area and i think it was
02:03:18 was her call
02:03:19 her call didn't think that steve had the capacity to pick up this huge burning set of issues on the building regs alongside his existing role and so simon was already closely related to that and we asked him to step in right
02:03:30 that and we asked him to step in right and i had no idea steve was so cross about it or indeed about the wider issues he raised he raises um either which i was very disappointed to read about did you also want more objectivity
02:03:41 about did you also want more objectivity in that review so you said it was about yeah well that was but that was part of it um although we didn't sort of particularly doubt steve's judgment but he wasn't an expert
02:03:53 steve's judgment but he wasn't an expert in the building regulations area he'd only picked it up the previous year yes um
02:03:57 um if i'm honest i think this email does show that and i said this in my witness team and i don't think we were absolutely on top of it because although we had done the things that
02:04:07 that steve mentions what we what we what we weren't really doing and needed to do was to stop and actually pause and think about all the issues around the building regulations that we've been discussing
02:04:18 regulations that we've been discussing about the clarity of the document etc and
02:04:22 and it wasn't going to be appropriate to just publish where we'd got to before the fire and so
02:04:30 i think it was the right thing to put stephen to put simon on to that and you know
02:04:35 you know it's a bit yeah there's much more i can say really is it fair to say therefore that you did have some concerns about failings on the part of mr quartermaine and his department below him in dealing with the
02:04:47 department below him in dealing with the building regulations and that was part of why you wanted uh mr gallagher to come in as someone more objective it was certainly going to be good to get a fresh pair of eyes on this this we
02:04:58 a fresh pair of eyes on this this we thought but i was you know being really clear not to kind of assign blame or or
02:05:04 or or start to have any kind of witch hunt in the department about who had failed i thought that that would be extremely counterproductive at this stage and quite unfair
02:05:17 stage and quite unfair um and in particular steve had only been doing this for a year and um
02:05:22 um it is clearly the the failures have been going on a lot longer than that um but but help me with this was this response of mr quartermaine typical of that part of your department
02:05:36 typical of that part of your department what was that department looking back on it
02:05:38 it defensive about the work that it was doing resistant to other people's suggestions is that something that was a problem
02:05:50 well i didn't i didn't know the the brett team particularly as i was saying earlier i don't think i met the members of the team until after the fire
02:05:58 the fire um
02:06:00 um so i can't really say for sure but i think
02:06:03 think you know
02:06:05 you know as technical professionals and i think some of this probably applied to steve himself as a as a planner as well they they they may have felt you know undervalued
02:06:17 undervalued in the department and um
02:06:21 um you know that can then lead to a certain defensiveness so i'm not sure that steve's email particularly tells us anything about the brep team i think i think they were somewhat different and they'd only
02:06:32 somewhat different and they'd only recently started working within steve's overall
02:06:35 overall area but but perhaps there is something about what happens in a government department which has you know technical professionals who have spent their careers on certain issues and how
02:06:46 careers on certain issues and how sometimes they can feel in a department that's
02:06:49 that's trying to get things done for the government of the day yes now my final topic that i want to come on to relates in more detail to some of the evidence we've heard from richard harrell and bob
02:07:00 we've heard from richard harrell and bob ledson who have given evidence the inquiry in the last two weeks and i want to ask you some questions about a number of matters arising from their evidence given your role as head of that department
02:07:11 department now both gentlemen spoke candidly about a number of failings within the department and i want to ask you what you knew about this what you did about it if you did know or if you didn't know whether you should have been made aware
02:07:22 whether you should have been made aware of these issues now we probably need to keep your answers a little bit shorter going into this final section because we otherwise we won't finish today and i'm keen for that to happen now um first of all lack of resources
02:07:33 now um first of all lack of resources and problems with recruitment now we've touched on some of these issues already but were you aware that the building regulations division had been experiencing acute problems with the recruitment of senior professional
02:07:45 recruitment of senior professional technical officers such that the roles had been phased out over time was that something that came to your attention no i was not aware of that i was aware of the general resourcing challenges for the department and that we were going to have to make
02:07:56 and that we were going to have to make further cuts but not the specific pressures on those teams right did you know that the department was struggling to recruit people with the right skill sets and depth and breadth of knowledge at the salary levels being
02:08:08 of knowledge at the salary levels being offered
02:08:09 offered no that wasn't brought to my attention were you ever informed about recruitment problems within the building regulations division
02:08:18 division no
02:08:20 no if there were such problems should if not you but more senior personnel have been informed that they were struggling to recruit people with the right skills at the right levels and at the
02:08:31 right levels and at the with the salary levels being offered should that have been escalated yeah so let me just give you a slightly longer answer here what i tried to do was to do was to invest a lot in much more
02:08:43 was to invest a lot in much more strategic workforce planning when i arrived in the department and
02:08:47 and we had good hr teams actually but um the department had been very static for a number of years they've been big cuts
02:08:54 cuts hardly anyone had then left and this had been very few vacancies and so what i sought to do was to lift our eyes a little bit to what we needed and that included making sure that we
02:09:05 and that included making sure that we had succession plans in place for our more technical areas i wasn't aware of this one specifically but i was aware of some others including local government finance which has a lot of the same issues very hard to get people i don't feel valued in the department although i
02:09:16 feel valued in the department although i think it's probably slightly easier on local government fines but things like local government pensions planning um also commercial skills so i did instigate quite a lot of new work in that area and this sort of problem
02:09:28 that area and this sort of problem should have then formed part of that but i suspect all that came a bit later on more in 2016 2017 so um by the time of the fire it wouldn't have had an impact on the teams and i
02:09:40 have had an impact on the teams and i wasn't aware of their specific issues at the time yeah so that was just too that piece of work was just really too late for this department yes
02:09:49 were you aware that the building regulations division was working on a less than bare bones capacity that's how mr harrell explained it to us well i wasn't aware of their specific
02:10:00 well i wasn't aware of their specific pressures but i knew that the department was really tight on resources and that was true everywhere um and we had to take another 25 cut to our overall admin budget in the spending
02:10:11 our overall admin budget in the spending review in 2015 and that was on top of a 40 cut in the previous parliament and
02:10:19 and um there wasn't really a plan for that the treasury um you know did it to everybody and we were quite lucky that we didn't get 40 which some did because we'd had it before um
02:10:29 um and that's why i did the business planning exercise in that winter to make sure that we could flush out where there were real pressures and that that's where those pressures should have come through so again i'm confident that there were systems and processes in
02:10:41 there were systems and processes in place for these things to be raised and i'm sure it was quite challenging but this team would not cut as much as the overall departmental average in fact over this period i think mr ledson mentioned that in his witness statement
02:10:52 mentioned that in his witness statement and he's he's correct were you aware that
02:10:57 that resources were so stretched that there was no proper record keeping no filing system or index used by the building regulation division
02:11:06 division for example to keep pace of changes to the approved documents which are being suggested by industry although mr harold accepted that would be a good thing he said there was just no time to do anything like that did you
02:11:18 no time to do anything like that did you have any awareness that they were so stretched and that their record-keeping therefore was so poor no i wasn't aware of of that at the time no
02:11:26 no was that a matter in your experience which was replicated across the whole department or do you think now it was peculiar to this building regulations division
02:11:36 division i don't think it was replicated across the whole department no we had a lot of discussions in the summer of 2015 we knew we were going to have to take more cuts and
02:11:46 cuts and um
02:11:48 um you know i discussed this at length with my directors and my senior team how are we going to manage and what were the issues and the the view of pretty much all my directors was that because the
02:11:59 directors was that because the department had been so static for quite a while we had quite a lot of people for whom to be honest it was it was time for them to move on and we had quite a lot of people who just lost their motivation and where performance was becoming quite
02:12:10 and where performance was becoming quite an issue and that if we could actually manage
02:12:13 manage a dignified exit scheme then that would actually release some of the pressures in teams because it would improve the overall quality of what we were able to do and that that despite
02:12:24 were able to do and that that despite being a cut in resources would actually help us and so that's what we did we we 200 people left the department by the spring of 2016 under a voluntary exit program that we ran
02:12:35 program that we ran that was quite heavily based on on on performance issues uh it included a number of members of the senior civil service and that allowed us to backfill some of those posts and continue
02:12:46 some of those posts and continue uh in tandem with the business planning exercise and that's where we were in 2016 at the time of the brexit referendum so that that was the overview and
02:12:55 and that conversation was certainly a tough one was really tough and at times we had to have recruitment freezes and so on but
02:13:03 but i wasn't aware that the pressures were such that the basic functions of teams were not being carried out in the way that you've described yes because i mean according to richard harrell that um
02:13:15 according to richard harrell that um the the situation in this building regulations division was so bad that the department actually didn't have the ability or the capacity to fulfill what they needed to do under the statutory scheme i.e to issue
02:13:27 the statutory scheme i.e to issue practical guidance that was fit for purpose they were so deficient that they couldn't do that they couldn't fulfill those basic functions now whose responsibility was it to flag
02:13:38 now whose responsibility was it to flag that to people more senior so that maybe you or those around you were aware i would have expected all that to come up through the business planning process in the early months of 2016 and to come up
02:13:49 the early months of 2016 and to come up via bob to sally randall as the director and to be to be put into our thinking yeah because we did have the capacity to make adjustments i set up some new teams for example to oversee local government finance at a system level because i was
02:14:02 finance at a system level because i was really worried about that so we did have flexibility yeah it was that for uh bob ledson as the deputy director to be escalating that to more seniors well yes he would have
02:14:13 to more seniors well yes he would have been the one who was responsible overall for understanding the resourcing pressures in his team yeah richard howard also told us that the building regulation system had become completely outmoded and outpaced by industry did
02:14:26 outmoded and outpaced by industry did you have any awareness of that not at the time no and again was that mr ledson's responsibility that he ought to have made sure
02:14:35 made sure that if people felt that way it was escalated up yes i would have expected that sort of thinking to be reflected in the submissions about what to do about the building regulations and it's the sort
02:14:46 building regulations and it's the sort of
02:14:47 of it's the sort of thing that would have resonated i think with ministers because they would have understood that technology was moving a lot they would have understood the modern methods of product of construction issues that i was talking about this
02:14:58 issues that i was talking about this morning they would they would have got that and i think it would have persuaded them that a more fundamental review was you know
02:15:06 you know actually uh justified and potentially quite exciting given the the scale of change that it would have been trying to address now we know that brian martin was the
02:15:18 now we know that brian martin was the technical policy lead on fire safety in the department and we also know now that pretty much anything relating to fire safety would go to him during the time he was fire
02:15:29 go to him during the time he was fire safety policy lead which for a very long time
02:15:32 time and that effectively we also know there was no one in the department who was able to challenge him on fire safety matters
02:15:39 matters now if those things are all right that was consistent with the fact that the technical policy leads had always had a very large degree of autonomy in the department now were you aware of
02:15:50 the department now were you aware of that when you were permanent secretary um
02:15:55 um i wasn't aware of that specific team in a brand specific role as i've explained earlier today but i i was certainly aware that in the department generally we had some extremely
02:16:05 extremely small
02:16:07 small pockets of resource expertise that were in one or two people and that was a risk for us as a department and that was one of the reasons why i set in place of strategic workforce planning
02:16:19 place of strategic workforce planning that i was describing earlier because you know even if it was right to only have one or two people you you had then had to have succession plans and you had to think really clearly about where you might be drawing
02:16:30 clearly about where you might be drawing on resource and support from outside because you can manage these things with quite small teams inside a government department as long as you know where you're going for the additional technical advice whether that was brac or the bre or wherever yeah
02:16:43 or the bre or wherever yeah do you agree with this that having a single person within the department who was regarded as technically competent and he was unassailable was positively dangerous especially if that person effectively had ownership
02:16:56 that person effectively had ownership of the relevant guidance documents regarding it i mean he said in his own words that he regarded it as his third child can we agree looking back now that that was a pretty dangerous thing to
02:17:07 that was a pretty dangerous thing to have is just this all falling on one man's shoulders yes i do i think it's a single point of failure that had been allowed to be created can we can you explain how such an important life safety policy area
02:17:20 important life safety policy area ended up solely within the purview of one grade seven officer can you explain how that could happen well
02:17:31 i think it reflects a lot of the things we've been talking about i'll try to be brief but it it reflects first the lack of appreciation by the department that there was a system oversight role to play let alone that it
02:17:43 oversight role to play let alone that it was accountable for playing that role um
02:17:48 i think added to that you had the red tape challenge which meant that regulation was not seen as something valuable it was seen as something that created costs and burdens you then add to that um the very strong
02:18:01 you then add to that um the very strong localism agenda which meant that the department was you know positively discouraged in a number of areas from finding out facts about how local government was doing in delivering services in a way that it would
02:18:13 services in a way that it would previously have gathered information before and the demise of the audit commission was part of that and i think alongside that you then have the cuts which meant that some teams became um
02:18:25 which meant that some teams became um under-resourced this wasn't the only one where those were issues so i think when you put all that together
02:18:32 together um
02:18:33 um you
02:18:34 you you know you can i can see how the conditions were in place for
02:18:40 for the team's life to be made really quite difficult
02:18:44 difficult and i would say above all because actually what was obviously becoming evident through those years was that the system was failing they were spotting signs of that but
02:18:54 but there was nobody to talk to about it and that must have been extremely difficult and extremely stressful for them whether it was conscious in their minds or not but one of the things that might be said
02:19:07 but one of the things that might be said is that mr martin was in fact receiving a huge amount of important information he was going to important meetings he was getting the right feedback but it was going nowhere it wasn't being
02:19:18 was going nowhere it wasn't being communicated and we went through with mr ledson and mr harold whether they knew about some of the things mr martin had been told and they simply didn't know now can you account for how that can happen that you get this pocket
02:19:30 happen that you get this pocket of a person with a life safety portfolio who is effectively not being properly challenged monitored people don't realize that they are in possession of warnings that should be
02:19:43 possession of warnings that should be being escalated can you explain how that can come about i mean only really as a team that wasn't functioning properly and collaborating within itself and and
02:19:54 and you know yes it was there were not very many resources but you can find ways around that by explicitly putting in place systems to have updates and
02:20:05 have updates and and share things with each other by saying earlier talking to people outside you can
02:20:10 you can you know to some extent systems and processes can can counter the fact that you haven't got people who are doing all the work all the time inside the department and and i would have expected that to be some of what was being
02:20:21 that to be some of what was being discussed
02:20:22 discussed you know
02:20:23 you know by bob with his team members um and also actually for the directors to be checking that those sorts of systems and conversations were in place yes
02:20:33 yes i mean can you explain how the department found itself to be completely unequipped to deal with serious public safety issues being raised with it for example in july 2014 it was warned
02:20:45 for example in july 2014 it was warned about the use of combustible insulation on high-rise buildings including failures in building control which had led to that situation occurring now mr harrell and mr ledson didn't know about that
02:20:57 didn't know about that but they've admitted well certainly mr harrell has admitted that the department they were completely unequipped to deal with those warnings again can you explain how that can have come about
02:21:09 come about i can only really just refer back to what i've just i've just said but can i just add one additional point yes um the other thing that was going on at the time was that many people ministers bob kozlaker's permanent secretary and also
02:21:21 kozlaker's permanent secretary and also as head of the homes communities agency peter schofield as the director general will have been out there in the industry all the time finding out what was going on and talking to people and this was not as far as i can tell a conversation
02:21:32 not as far as i can tell a conversation that was being had by people in the industry who were chief executives or or heads of development in the major companies so i think there was a separation in the industry as well between those who were
02:21:45 industry as well between those who were dealing with the technical issues and those who were running the companies and that that juxtaposition i find quite you know weird and and and difficult to explain as well because the signals
02:21:56 explain as well because the signals weren't as far as i can tell coming in via bob and peter or anyone else from the conversations they were having and they were having very extensive conversations all the time yes when these serious public safety
02:22:09 yes when these serious public safety issues were raised with the building regulations division there appears to have been no attempt talking about this specific one in july 14 with combustible insulation no attempt to contact the manufacturer of
02:22:20 attempt to contact the manufacturer of the combustible insulation no attempt to contact all of the relevant building control bodies involved including the local authority building control no attempt to contact advertising standards authority or trading standards
02:22:33 authority or trading standards now can you help us as to how that state of affairs could have come about i appreciate it didn't regard itself as a regulator or even think about the fact it might have any kind of regulatory
02:22:44 it might have any kind of regulatory responsibility but how does it not even put up red flags to organizations that clearly need to know about these problems
02:22:55 well i mean clearly the the team just wasn't at some level able to cope with that information and know what to do with it and i think you know i i can't judge myself
02:23:06 i i can't judge myself you know whose fault that was i wasn't i wasn't aware of the issues at the time and you're talking about on this one about about things that happened before i arrived in the department but i i can't say any more i think that i
02:23:18 i i can't say any more i think that i than i already have about some of the the issues that i think made it very difficult for the team but in the end i i can't explain why they made certain decisions yes mr harrell said they'd become very siloed in their thinking and
02:23:30 become very siloed in their thinking and non-reactive because in his words doing anything was hard do you recognize that as a problem within at least some quarters of the department during your time there
02:23:42 department during your time there well it does feel to me like there was
02:23:46 there was the the team particularly perhaps mr harrell were under a huge amount of stress and i mentioned earlier that i thought the department was you know one of the most well definitely the most collaborative
02:23:58 well definitely the most collaborative and supportive environments i worked in and actually had an awful lot of support on offer for people suffering from mental health um problems or stresses and strains and um
02:24:09 um for me some of what was going on in the team
02:24:12 team ought to have been um considered a welfare issue actually and taken through a route that would have provided support for some of the individuals in the team um and
02:24:23 um and in my experience the department was better at that than pretty much any other i've ever worked in particularly in those days so
02:24:31 so um
02:24:32 um i mean that's the other thing i think should have happened is some sense of understanding how everybody was feeling particularly perhaps richard richard carol who's described that very clearly yes
02:24:43 clearly yes i mean that sense of frustration they felt they felt that they were a low priority in the department and they were always at the back of the queue at the back of the key for ministerial briefings at the back of the queue in terms of ministerial time and priorities
02:24:56 terms of ministerial time and priorities did you appreciate at the time if you've been asked that that division was at the back of the queue would you have known that i wouldn't describe it as a cue i really wouldn't i would say that it was
02:25:08 really wouldn't i would say that it was you know when you work in areas like that that are technical uh and are not particularly of interest to ministers but unnecessary then the benefit you have is that you get to run your own show a bit more and you don't
02:25:19 your own show a bit more and you don't have to cope with some of the challenges that other civil servants face of working in more ministerially central areas where you're it's really hard to get work done and you're constantly working with other
02:25:31 and you're constantly working with other departments and so on you have a different set of pressures on you so i think there are swings and roundabouts here
02:25:37 here and
02:25:38 and they weren't back of the queue in the sense of resourcing because they were not cut by as much as some of the other teams in the department they were never going to be the first
02:25:50 the first team that met a brand new minister arriving that that was just a fact um but it didn't mean that they were somehow
02:25:59 somehow you know less important than others they just
02:26:02 just you know they were trusted to get on with their work and able to get on with their work to a greater extent than some others although that's clearly not how it felt no to them at the time i mean mr harrell said in his evidence that his engagement with director level civil
02:26:14 engagement with director level civil servants were sporadic because they were so busy
02:26:17 so busy were you aware of that that they were just not getting the access they needed to direct a level because i was certainly very aware oh my apologies i was certainly very aware that my
02:26:28 was certainly very aware that my directors were very stretched i mean sally randall's portfolio was huge and she was
02:26:33 she was she was the lead person on the housing and planning act and the the pretty difficult policies we were thinking through on the voluntary right to buy the sale of local authority social housing pay to stay and so on
02:26:45 social housing pay to stay and so on homelessness rough sleeping so so my directors were busy yes they were and they they needed their deputy directors and their teams to be getting on with
02:26:56 and their teams to be getting on with the work and i think this team was trusted to do that and i guess what i would have expected is a proper two-way conversation particularly between bob and sally less so perhaps between the team members and sally so that those pressures were were
02:27:09 sally so that those pressures were were fully understood yeah can we so can we agree that there were failings both at director uh deputy director level and higher than that because higher than that they should have been
02:27:20 higher than that they should have been making sure they were aware that these people felt that they were at the back of the queue and shouldn't have let them be at the back of the queue and should have at times made sure they were prioritized more can we agree that yes i
02:27:31 prioritized more can we agree that yes i think i think we can i don't think we can um say that this is um just the fault of the team in any in any way no yes and in terms of anxiety and frustration were you ever made aware
02:27:44 and frustration were you ever made aware that the the sense of anxiety and frustration was actually making people ill was that ever brought to your attention i wasn't aware of that no no now
02:27:53 now we talked about the fact there was no system for tracking coroner's recommendations um
02:28:01 um and you've said that was a failing can you help us as to why there was no such system isn't that a very obvious thing that that anybody should have made sure was in place um whether you your
02:28:13 was in place um whether you your predecessor how how did that failing come about can you help us with that well i've not come across such a system in any department i've worked in i mean there may have been systems but i wasn't aware of them so i don't think this is
02:28:25 aware of them so i don't think this is routine it's it's something that's done for public accounts committee recommendations because the treasury coordinates it and they write a treasury minute every quarter or so on behalf of the whole of government
02:28:36 the whole of government so there's a white tall wide process but
02:28:41 but there are very few rules across the civil service or even best practice on how this sort of system and process management should be done and what sorts of things should be
02:28:52 done and what sorts of things should be in place and i think this is a gap i think to some extent the civil service over the last couple of decades has lost some of its historic understanding of how you
02:29:03 how you you put in place some of these systems and
02:29:06 and i you know i do believe that this was not about this department being uniquely unable to track that kind of thing i really don't believe that um i i think that
02:29:18 i i think that um this is something that could have happened in any department i'm afraid yeah
02:29:23 yeah finally what about ministers and their responsibilities were you ever concerned that ministers themselves had allowed serious safety failure to occur by reason of inattention
02:29:37 um i don't think there was an attention by ministers during the two years that um i was in the department before the fire and
02:29:45 fire and i mean obviously that'll be a question for them to to to answer to but i i think you know collectively for ministers over these few decades
02:29:56 these few decades um
02:29:57 um there was an enthusiasm for better regulation on all sides of the political spectrum actually
02:30:03 actually that slightly lost the point about what regulation is for and why we need it and that it's there to help industries manage their risks better than they can do if everybody acts on their own and that that isn't just good for
02:30:15 that that isn't just good for public safety or whatever else it is that the regulation is there for it's also good for the industry because as we know from grenfell tower when these risks crystallize it's appalling for the industry
02:30:27 industry um
02:30:28 um and and very costly so um
02:30:32 um i
02:30:32 i i
02:30:34 i you know i think there is something here about
02:30:39 why it is that that that maybe ministers aren't able aren't supported or or given information sufficiently on if you like some of the basic functions
02:30:51 if you like some of the basic functions of government or of the state such as regulation what it's for how it works why you needed independent regulators in what circumstances you need independent regulators why that's the case and how
02:31:03 regulators why that's the case and how to then
02:31:04 to then make decisions in light of that i mean if we look back at the email that's still on on the screen or at least it's still on my screen we can see at the end of the first paragraph there that long paragraph
02:31:15 paragraph that steve quartermaine says to helen mcnamara on the 19th of june he says
02:31:20 he says i even had a one-to-one with gavin i think he needs gavin barwell to tell him to pay more attention to the building regulations and energy performance subs do you see that
02:31:31 performance subs do you see that now were you aware that mr quartermaine had had to have a word with mr barwell to tell him to pay more attention to those building regulations submissions
02:31:42 regulations submissions no i wasn't um i mean because of steve's role as chief planner he probably had more one-to-ones with ministers than any other official in the department including me so
02:31:53 so there was a lot of planning case work and he was he was always going to see gavin and other ministers about that so he had a lot of opportunity to be raising other issues as part of those meetings and i
02:32:05 issues as part of those meetings and i can see why therefore he might have been able to raise the issues with the building regulations with with gavin um
02:32:16 there was something else i was going to mention which i've temporarily forgotten i mean did you take any steps after the fire to look into whether some of the delays for example
02:32:27 whether some of the delays for example with lack of house had actually been due to ministers and their special advisers not getting back to people in relation to
02:32:36 to submissions did you actually look at that question i didn't particularly look into this but um for me it's fairly clear that there were a lot of bottlenecks on this work
02:32:47 were a lot of bottlenecks on this work that was something that was a problem for everybody because um particularly on anything that was to be published and that would have included the research yes the process you had to go through was to get a slot and agreement from
02:32:59 was to get a slot and agreement from number ten so it had to go all the way to the center of government to the communications special advisors in number 10 for sign off and that required support from your own special advisors your own communications team it was very very was and is because this is the
02:33:12 very was and is because this is the system today quite challenging and
02:33:16 and i would never have expected bob and his team to be managing that themselves they had a lot of support elsewhere in the department to do it but we did frequently um
02:33:26 um you know have sweeps of things that were stuck with spads things that were stuck with junior ministers and in fact there are some where the building regulations were put on that list not because those ministers and spads were doing their jobs properly but
02:33:39 were doing their jobs properly but also weren't doing their jobs probably but just because they had a huge weight of work to get through and it was necessary to just run a system like that every now and then and just flush it out and then we would work out what to do with it and in some cases
02:33:50 out what to do with it and in some cases it would be me going to talk to the secretary of state and going look you've been sitting on this for a while we really need to do something about it or in other cases it would be talking to the special adviser about about you know what the issues were in
02:34:02 about you know what the issues were in number 10 sometimes i could go to jeremy haywood and unblock things so we had lots of ways that we could deal with stuff that was blocked and we had processes to to try to generate those lists and then
02:34:14 to try to generate those lists and then to work through them okay thank you so chairman i've come to the end of my pre-prepared questions perhaps you could have the usual break for me we'll do that sweep up questions yes well then as you probably know when
02:34:26 yes well then as you probably know when council gets the end of her questions we have a short break to give her a chance to check she's not left anything out and also to allow other people who are following the proceedings but not from
02:34:37 following the proceedings but not from here
02:34:38 here to suggest questions that perhaps we ought to put to you so we'll we'll break now um we'll come back at course to five sorry we're going to run slightly later than usual but i don't think you'll
02:34:49 think you'll be too inconvenienced for that that's fine um
02:34:52 fine um and we'll see it quarter to five were there any more questions all right thank you thank you very much
02:35:07 right thank you questions
02:49:41 yes would you ask dave melanie to come back in please okay
02:49:56 all right dave melanie we'll see if there any more questions thank you yes ms cringe yes thank you yes just a few short questions about um building control and in particular the approved inspector scheme um
02:50:07 um can we go to a document this is clg1307216
02:50:19 so this is a paper prepared within dclg in 2015 it's headed the building control system in england issues and options do you see that yes
02:50:31 options do you see that yes and
02:50:32 and it addresses we can see in the executive summary three questions about current building control system is building control
02:50:39 control building work checked adequately what's the impact of having competition between local authority and private sector building control bodies and is the legislation fit for purpose and if we go on to look at page six in
02:50:51 and if we go on to look at page six in this document
02:50:54 paragraphs 22 and 23 we can see at 22 it says
02:50:59 says under the heading what is the impact of having competition between local authority and private sector building control bodies it says this is so far as we are aware the only regulatory regime in england
02:51:10 the only regulatory regime in england that is subject to competition the impact on local authority resources on the extent to which building work is checked have already been discussed above
02:51:19 above and then in the beginning of the next paragraph 23 it says it is also competition that is not on a completely level playing field unlike approved inspectors local authorities have additional
02:51:30 authorities have additional responsibilities relating to dangerous structures demolition and enforcement etcetera they're also constrained in their charging arrangements now do you agree with this that permitting the private sector to compete
02:51:43 permitting the private sector to compete with the public sector in the sphere of building control was unprecedented in terms of regulation um i haven't seen this document before
02:51:54 um i haven't seen this document before by the way at least i don't think i have it looks very interesting um
02:51:59 but um
02:52:01 um i mean it's clearly unprecedented if the document is correct is that there's no if it's if it's only in england that this happens so so yes yes which is my understanding before yes were you aware that by 2015 the
02:52:13 were you aware that by 2015 the government had introduced regulations requiring local authority building control
02:52:17 control functions to be cost neutral no i wasn't aware of those
02:52:24 do you accept that there was a risk that by introducing a competitive element to building control building control bodies and approved inspectors would join in a race to the bottom
02:52:34 bottom trying to keep work by reducing costs
02:52:38 um i don't think i can really comment on that um
02:52:42 that um [Music]
02:52:43 [Music] i'm just not sufficiently first in the way the system was operating at the time to be able to to say right
02:52:49 right can we agree this that the government should at the very least have been keeping a very close eye on whether these novel arrangements were having a positive or negative impact on the system and thus on building safety
02:53:03 system and thus on building safety uh yes i think this is just the sort of thing that proper system oversight would have kept regularly under review particularly given how unusual it was yes thank you now my final question we've been through
02:53:14 now my final question we've been through quite a lot actually only in one day um which has been a bit of a stretch but um just thinking back what would you do differently if you had the chance again and knowing what you know now
02:53:27 um well i mean i just first wanted to take the opportunity to uh because i haven't really been able to do this yet today is just to express my condolences to all those affected by the fire
02:53:39 fire in north kensington um that night um you know it's it's something which all of us who've worked on this over the last five years will always have in our hearts
02:53:52 will always have in our hearts and
02:53:53 and today has been an opportunity for me to um
02:53:57 um you know go through and really you know see once more the extent to which the department failed in a number of its duties over that period and i can only say as as the most senior
02:54:09 i can only say as as the most senior official i think who you're hearing from in in any of the modules that um i'm i deeply regret those failures on behalf of the civil service and of ministers over a number of years
02:54:22 over a number of years and
02:54:23 and i was very proud to be a civil servant for 30 years but there's an awful lot about these episodes which i feel extremely
02:54:32 extremely saddened by and that it's just not the standards i would have expected of of government departments um
02:54:40 um so i won't rehearse again what those failures were but i i think we've gone through them in some detail today um including some of the things that happened on my watch and i you know i wish that i had managed to go
02:54:52 you know i wish that i had managed to go through even more of the department's back doors when i arrived and to have seen
02:54:57 seen you know more of this work and to have have asked questions about it because um i might have been able to help at the margin if i'd done that and i where i did go into some of those back doors on
02:55:08 did go into some of those back doors on local government finance i put in place system oversight that has actually been extremely beneficial and helpful in subsequent years so i i regret that although
02:55:18 although i can't say that i think that there were very many opportunities where those
02:55:24 those possibilities were presented to me um but i can only regret that that i didn't um i didn't uh see more of this work
02:55:32 work i think
02:55:34 i think the wider point though that i just really passionately believe in and i believe this um as the chief executive of a regulator now which i'm incredibly proud to be
02:55:45 proud to be is that
02:55:46 is that um
02:55:47 um clearly the big failure here for me was the 20 or more year uh failure perhaps right back to the mid-1980s of the department in any of its incarnations
02:55:58 incarnations to
02:55:59 to not just act on risks as the department sets out in its witness statement but to my mind something bigger than the department sets out in its witness statement which is to fail to recognize that there was such a thing as system
02:56:10 that there was such a thing as system stewardship and a failure to realize that the department was accountable for that whether that was set out in law or not
02:56:18 not so i don't view this as a legal issue i view that as it is a responsibility as a as a
02:56:23 as a as a policy responsibility and oversight responsibility i don't think that that kind of thing is well understood in government and i have concluded over the last few years that
02:56:37 it is extremely difficult for government departments to manage on the one hand serving ministers and helping them take forward their democratically elected commitments the commitments for which
02:56:48 commitments the commitments for which they've been democratically elected and all of the system management and political management and external engagement that that requires it's very difficult to sit that alongside the kind of long-term
02:56:59 of long-term risk-based technical
02:57:03 technical deep engagement with the industry activities that you need to do effective system stewardship and ultimately regulation and i think there is still a tendency not just in this department but
02:57:14 tendency not just in this department but in all departments to view regulation as something where you set the rules and then you worry about who's enforcing them and not to think about the kinds of things that judith hackett set out in her review about the whole
02:57:26 set out in her review about the whole system
02:57:27 system about who's actually accountable how are they informed that they're accountable how are they trained who are they advised by etc all those issues across the system i don't think that ministerial departments today have very good a very
02:57:40 departments today have very good a very good understanding of those things despite the number of episodes we've had in the past and the failures we've all had to learn from and i i believe all government departments should look again and i tried to encourage my colleagues to do this when
02:57:51 encourage my colleagues to do this when i was still in the civil service and check that they don't have a building safety sitting in their departmental responsibilities that they have not attended to and if it's not with a regulator and not
02:58:02 and if it's not with a regulator and not being properly overseen from a system perspective then i would ask that department why they have the rules in the first place if the rules matter they should be properly overseen doesn't have to be bureaucratic it doesn't have to be
02:58:13 to be bureaucratic it doesn't have to be onerous but somebody has to be thinking about that system reviewing it gathering data and so on
02:58:21 and so on so that's my big lesson um really from this
02:58:27 this from this this very difficult
02:58:31 difficult set of failures yes well thank you very much and that just comes to me and the term will thank you in a moment but thank you so much for coming and for being so candid in your evidence today it's really really appreciated thank you thank you
02:58:44 appreciated thank you thank you yes
02:58:45 yes i'd like to thank you very much on behalf of all three of us on the panels for giving us a lot of your time and for answering questions so candidly i think i can say we've all found it very interesting and very helpful to
02:58:57 very interesting and very helpful to hear what you were able to tell us and it'll be very valuable to us when we come to
02:59:03 come to consider matters for our report so thank you very much indeed and and now of course you're free to go thank you very much i'm glad it was helpful thank you
02:59:22 thank you ms grange well that's it for the day yes and um we have another witness tomorrow another government witness tomorrow yes right so um break there and we resume please at 10 o'clock tomorrow thank you thank you
02:59:33 o'clock tomorrow thank you thank you very much