Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation Evidence - Thursday 29th April 2021 (1/2)

Full transcript

00:00:18 [Music]

00:00:24 good morning everyone welcome to today's hearing today we're going to continue hearing evidence from mr peter madison of the tmo so would you ask mr madison to come back in please thank you

00:00:48 good morning mr medicine good morning right ready to carry on yes thank you thank you yes good morning mr chairman good morning members of the panel good morning mr madison good morning now yesterday we were

00:00:59 good morning now yesterday we were exploring together fra actions and the various meetings that you'd had from 2013 through to 2015 so far to examine those can i take a backwards

00:01:11 to examine those can i take a backwards or perhaps sideways step and look look back at some of the other evidence

00:01:16 evidence just to see if i can reposition ourselves can i start by showing you janice ray's supplemental witness statement please this is at tmo tm00873629

00:01:33 it's dated 19th june 2020 which you can't see from this first page if we go to page 15 in it please let's look together at paragraphs 64 and then over the page to 65.

00:01:45 64 and then over the page to 65. at 64 under the heading fra tracker queries she says this i've been asked what prompted the generation of an fra action spreadsheet the tr the tmo had approximately 650

00:01:57 the tr the tmo had approximately 650 blocks with communal areas that required an fra

00:02:01 an fra following the introduction of the regulatory reform fire safety order in 2005. it was my view that a spreadsheet was the most effective way of tracking the progress of actions arising

00:02:12 arising from karl stokesy's fra significant findings and actions plan in that it allowed me to clearly see what was complete partially complete and incomplete against the specified time frame

00:02:23 against the specified time frame the spreadsheet also allowed me to in more recent years run reports and present high-level information at the health and safety committee meetings about the numbers of outstanding actions and which teams were responsible

00:02:35 and which teams were responsible for progressing them and then she goes on to say this at paragraph 65 additionally the fra action spreadsheet allowed me to send an extracted report to each team that had been allocated

00:02:47 to each team that had been allocated actions

00:02:48 actions on at least by monthly basis by email additionally teams could run their own reports producing their own spreadsheet from the workflow on w2 or crm whilst everyone could update

00:02:59 or crm whilst everyone could update their own spreadsheet only cyril morris and i could close down actions

00:03:03 actions and only when sufficient evidence had been provided to confirm completion adrian bowman did not close down actions and there's more information about this in paragraph 67

00:03:14 in paragraph 67 and 68. now janice ray says as you can see that she sent spreadsheets to each team on at least a bi-monthly basis by email

00:03:25 on at least a bi-monthly basis by email did you receive spreadsheets or extracted reports relevant to your team by email from janice ray no but i was aware that my team did receive reports

00:03:36 my team did receive reports and so the reports that i talked we were talking about yesterday were the high-level reporter presented to the health and safety committee but my team had had more detailed

00:03:47 but my team had had more detailed reports

00:03:48 reports and when i had occasion to delve into more detail i would review those reports with my team so you say you didn't but your team did receive spreadsheets or extracted reports showing required actions

00:03:59 reports showing required actions to the best of my recollections right with the say would that apply to your project management team yes and to your contract management team yes now can we look at

00:04:10 look at one of these fra action documents tmo one triple zero two two eight eight

00:04:21 this is an fra action plan item asset and regeneration building services and it dates from february 2013 we can see that from various

00:04:32 various entries within the document just for the record for example at page 102 for cecil house or page 107 for fulham road

00:04:41 road and we know that it was created from doc properties the file name on the 27th of february 2013 by alex only

00:04:51 only oni now this isn't a spreadsheet it is a word document and it sets out as you can see various actions arising from the fra

00:05:02 actions arising from the fra and if you go down the screen you can see

00:05:05 see immediately on page one there are two which are high this is trellic tower june 2012 and if we just scroll down very gently onto page two you can see uh further

00:05:17 onto page two you can see uh further uh high red priority fra actions in fact on page two for grenfell tower itself arising out of the november 2012 uh fra

00:05:29 arising out of the november 2012 uh fra for that building just looking at this um was this the master list that was produced as a consequence of the 27th of february 2013 fire risk

00:05:41 of the 27th of february 2013 fire risk compliance meeting that we looked at yesterday

00:05:45 i don't know you don't know we were you sent this document as far as you can recall i don't think i would have been now you don't think you would have been do you recall ever seeing this document

00:05:57 you recall ever seeing this document no never i don't recall seeing this document i mean i right i haven't had sight of the reports that were

00:06:06 that were we were reviewing at the health and safety committee that we discussed yesterday

00:06:11 yesterday i would i would have imagined it was more of a hype that would be more of the high level report which would give the number of actions at a high level by team rather than this which is the um the

00:06:22 rather than this which is the um the granular detail which would be the reports that janus ray is referring to that would be presented to the heads of the heads of service

00:06:30 service responsible for those areas can we go to

00:06:35 tm00869725 please

00:06:40 eight six nine seven two five this is an email run from early march 2013. can we go in that please to page four

00:06:53 now at the very bottom of that you can see on page four that there is an email from janice ray on the 4th of march 2013 to you

00:07:06 on the 4th of march 2013 to you and to john bora subject fra medium risk action plan items and are surveying february 2013. and if we then scroll up please uh to

00:07:19 and if we then scroll up please uh to the next page page three we can see that there is an email at the bottom of page three from john bora

00:07:28 a few minutes later on the fourth of march to david gibson copied to peter madison and john borrow was the other recipient of janice ray's email

00:07:39 other recipient of janice ray's email that i just showed you on page four john borra sends it on to david gibson copied to you and janice ray subject fra medium risk action plan items

00:07:50 items a and r surveying february 2013

00:07:56 and he says hi david following my email last friday in closing the heart the fra high risk items please find attached the fra medium risk surveying items

00:08:07 surveying items which were allocated to abi acosta a former capital program project manager who left the organization last year now if we look at the attachment to that that is at tmo

00:08:18 that is at tmo double zero eight six nine seven two six

00:08:32 [Music]

00:08:38 now this appears to be an excerpt from the master list document that we looked at before

00:08:43 at before do you think that's correct

00:08:48 um i have no reason to believe it isn't do you agree that it shows actions prioritized by the color coding set out in the fras

00:09:01 set out in the fras it appears to yes yes did you see this document when it was set or did you open this document when it was sent to you on the 4th of march by john bora

00:09:13 on the 4th of march by john bora i don't recall it specifically but um i think that from the previous email he showed me i think that it would appear that the review of the fire risk assessment

00:09:24 the review of the fire risk assessment action

00:09:24 action process that um that i instigated when i first arrived at the tmo this was part of this understanding what the backlog actions were and making sure that they

00:09:36 sure that they the actions were allocated to the correct teams and that they were being progressed so i think this is part of that

00:09:41 that yes i mean we can see from the email i've just shown you because this is the attachment to it that you did in fact receive this doctor okay

00:09:49 okay you would would you accept that yes i would take that face out yes yes and having received it can we also proceed on the basis that you would have opened the attachment and read this document um

00:10:01 document um possibly but it may have been that i mean from the dialogue that was happening it would appear that um the the purpose of this was to get

00:10:13 the the purpose of this was to get the actions to the right team so that's why it was allocated to david gibson so david's team would have been looking at the specific actions there yes but you were

00:10:23 were looped into that say that this document went through your hands it didn't bypass you yes i'm not but i wouldn't necessarily have looked at the microscopic detail of it but in terms of understanding that there are a set of actions that were needed

00:10:35 a set of actions that were needed and needed to be communicated to the right person who was handling those so that was my role in that i think yes right so can we proceed on the basis that at least in respect of this document at this stage in the process

00:10:47 document at this stage in the process early on after the request for the master list you received and saw at the very least the extract from the master list which related to your teams

00:11:00 which related to your teams um in this case yes in this case yes can we then look at uh sorry and you would also therefore have understood from this document pretty

00:11:11 understood from this document pretty shortly after your tenure at the tmo after the start of your tenure at the tma that how it was that um fri fra actions were prioritized namely with red amber and green yes yes

00:11:24 namely with red amber and green yes yes can we go to tmo zero four two nine four two please

00:11:45 now this is a spreadsheet from the file name we know that it is entitled copy of fra actions breakdown for contract management

00:11:56 for contract management as at 17th june 2014. you can't see it on the document but it is called that in the file just looking at it is this a document

00:12:07 just looking at it is this a document you recall seeing before um no

00:12:13 can you help me whether to say whether it was generated from w-2 possibly you may not have seen this precise one

00:12:24 precise one before but do you recognize it as an example of the spreadsheets that janice ray

00:12:28 ray was emailing um i don't specifically but it would look like um a summary of actions with responsible team and the lead on there

00:12:40 responsible team and the lead on there given that it was to do with fra actions for contract management there's no reason is there why janice ray wouldn't have sent this to you

00:12:52 wouldn't have sent this to you even if for your information only i don't no that wasn't the process that there was so the actions were allocated directly to the contract management the head of service

00:13:04 management the head of service and so the team that was allocated within the contract is in the team and that they'll be communicated by the head of service in this case alex bosman back to janus the reports that i

00:13:16 back to janus the reports that i looked at and received on a regular basis were the more high level overview reports of the number of actions by age right so you is this right your evidence is that you never saw the spreadsheets

00:13:28 is that you never saw the spreadsheets like this

00:13:29 like this but you did see word document action plan items such as the one we saw a moment ago um not such as the one we

00:13:40 um not such as the one we we saw earlier the sort of high level report which would be presented to the health and safety committee which gave an overview of the whole team's allocated

00:13:54 team's allocated actions so this was a level of detail that would be dealt with between janus and the head of service well let's just be clear about this can we go back then to the previous document tm00869726

00:14:09 this is the one from february

00:14:14 2013 emailed to you on the 4th of march 2013 by john bora is the email from john boro to you on

00:14:25 is the email from john boro to you on that date of this document the only instance when you receive documents such as this

00:14:30 as this or whether other occasions when you receive documents such as this i don't remember whether this was the only there may have been other examples when we were when i was asking for specific details of a

00:14:41 asking for specific details of a specific issue where this sort of level of detail would be given but this wouldn't be routinely copied to me this this sort of detail that will be copied to the head of service responsible for the

00:14:52 the head of service responsible for the actions

00:14:52 actions but would you not want to see these documents on a regular basis clearly janice ray and john bora thought you

00:14:59 you would have done so that you could keep on top of

00:15:04 on top of some of the detail if not every single piece of detail of the outstanding fra actions across the tmo stock so in this instance there was clearly had been an issue it appears that there

00:15:15 had been an issue it appears that there were

00:15:16 were actions that have been allocated to a project manager who was no longer in the organization and that may have been an issue so this appears that i had been involved in this trying to resolve something that

00:15:27 resolve something that wasn't working in the system but um in the system that was established from from this point was that this sort of level of detail would go to directly to the teams responsible

00:15:38 directly to the teams responsible and i would be looking at a level of detail higher than this which would give a summary

00:15:43 a summary of the age profile of actions rather than this level of detail i mean i this was a part of my portfolio i didn't have

00:15:54 was a part of my portfolio i didn't have the

00:15:55 the the um the skills or the ability to manage this sort of level of detail i needed my teams to take responsibility when you

00:16:03 when you looked at or got documents showing a level of detail higher than this giving a summary of the age profile what documents were those they were reported to the reports that

00:16:15 they were reported to the reports that were

00:16:15 were sent to the corporate health and safety committee

00:16:19 committee that i was part of and did those show red amber and green priority levels i don't remember that they did i think that they just gave at the aging profile and from but what i would um

00:16:33 and from but what i would um what i would discuss with my team would be the the more detailed progress of actions right but you knew is this fair from march 2013

00:16:45 is this fair from march 2013 very shortly after the discussion about the master list at the 27th of february 2013 meeting that there were documents being generated by the health and safety team and

00:16:54 and sent out to the relevant teams including yours

00:16:58 yours which did have a red amber and green prioritization system in them yes and there was nothing stopping you asking for those at any time if you if you hadn't received any and wanted to see them that's right so

00:17:09 and wanted to see them that's right so there would be nothing is this right to stop you putting the high level document you got uh together with documents such as this that we can see on the screen because you knew they existed

00:17:20 you knew they existed that's that's yes yes and sometimes that would happen in in my conversations with my team about how we progressed some of these issues did you ever have calls to ask

00:17:32 did you ever have calls to ask um john bora or perhaps alex bosman as a better example for the granular spreadsheets that janis ray was sending him directly um i wouldn't say the granular

00:17:43 directly um i wouldn't say the granular spreadsheets but we would discuss issues that arose from those spreadsheets so if there was particular issues we would look at the review the detail and understand what some of the issues that

00:17:54 understand what some of the issues that we need to be addressed were so you did know that spreadsheets such as the excel spreadsheet i've just shown you not this document the one previous existed yes i see so you could call for

00:18:05 existed yes i see so you could call for those at any time if you needed yes but i wasn't

00:18:08 i wasn't i didn't have i wasn't copied into them routinely

00:18:11 routinely no i understand um would you say that you knew of the existence of those excel spreadsheets with their color coding in them by june 2014 which was the date of the

00:18:24 by june 2014 which was the date of the spreadsheet i showed you i can't remember right can we look then again at what you asked at the uh health and safety operational meeting on the 20th of june 2014 at tm01

00:18:36 meeting on the 20th of june 2014 at tm01 one triple zero nine seven eight four tmo one triple zero nine seven eight four

00:18:45 four we looked at this yesterday together mr madison i'd like to go to page two in that minute

00:18:54 under fra statistics and you can see in the second paragraph that you said pm asked jw to clarify which of the actions could be defined as absolute requirements and which were best practice

00:19:05 practice jw to clarify how many of the actions are reds

00:19:09 are reds priorities i asked you about that yesterday

00:19:13 yesterday and uh let me show you what you said day 122 please at page 200. i just want to

00:19:26 200. i just want to look and see what you said yesterday

00:19:35 at line 18 i asked you the question why did you need clarification about what actions were reds and you said at line 20 um i think i was looking it sounds like i'm looking to prioritize the work

00:19:47 prioritize the work so we can make as much headway as we possibly can here question surely this was just a matter of looking at the fra itself and seeing the color

00:19:55 the color answer um i'm looking i mean i'm looking i was and if we turn the page looking for a summary so i could manage you know rather than delving into the detail of every fire risk assessment i was looking for some higher level

00:20:06 i was looking for some higher level information that i could help manage my team

00:20:09 team and my process now given that by 20th of june 2014 you had seen

00:20:16 seen first the 20th of sorry 27th of february 2013 word document which showed the color coding prioritizations and secondly you knew of the existence at

00:20:28 secondly you knew of the existence at least

00:20:29 least and had seen examples of the excel spreadsheet which also had red amber and green prioritization levels

00:20:37 levels in it the question is what clarification did you need about what actions could be defined as absolute requirements and what best practice as as i said

00:20:48 and what best practice as as i said yesterday i don't understand the minute but i don't understand that question because

00:20:53 because you'd already had enough information or knew you could get enough information from your team or from janice ray which would set out precisely the color coding

00:21:05 coding yes yes and perhap but i can speculate that

00:21:09 that you know i don't know what information we were reviewing at that meeting but maybe that maybe what i was asking for was this breakdown by of the age bands by the color coding is a summary level so you can understand

00:21:21 is a summary level so you can understand by

00:21:21 by how many actions were read that were um were in date or out of date and i but i i don't remember the context of that conversation without a minute right my suggestion to you is that given that

00:21:34 my suggestion to you is that given that you had the information about the priorities uh that you were in fact seeking to reprioritize or sub-prioritize the actions so that you could get on top of the most urgent ones

00:21:46 could get on top of the most urgent ones um i'd certainly not re-prioritize i think it was about working out how we could reduce the um the backlog that there clearly

00:21:57 the um the backlog that there clearly was

00:21:57 was that as quickly as effectively as possible can we go to tm0100 is is it possible that you think that you were trying to uh identify which of the reds were if i

00:22:10 uh identify which of the reds were if i could put it in this term the reddest possibly well can you remember it's just i can't remember i'm afraid i can't remember this conversation at all i can't remember the meeting um so i just have no recollection of it

00:22:21 um so i just have no recollection of it but i think that um but that you know i think what you're suggesting might be what i was doing or trying to find out how we could

00:22:29 could make the most progress most effectively right

00:22:32 right thank you can we please go to tm01043024

00:22:48 now this is another example of a an excel spreadsheet this time an excel spreadsheet which appears from its file name to be dated the 16th of february 2015 so some seven days or

00:23:00 of february 2015 so some seven days or so

00:23:00 so before the 20th of february 2015 meeting we looked at yesterday afternoon is this generator from w-2 do you think i think so but i can't be sure do you

00:23:11 i think so but i can't be sure do you recognize it as an example of the the spreadsheets that janice ray would have emailed at least to your team if not to you directly yes i think it is can we look at column n

00:23:22 n please uh under which you can see the heading team and various descriptions of that down the co well down the page a and our project management that's one of your

00:23:33 project management that's one of your teams isn't it it is does that tell us that you would have seen this spreadsheet no and who within your team would have received that so the project management team

00:23:46 um so the project management team would be david gibson's team if we look down to item 18 we can see there that we're dealing here with grenfell tower

00:23:59 we're dealing here with grenfell tower and our project management claire williams and same under the next item down also claire williams because it's grenfell uh you would would you have seen it

00:24:11 uh you would would you have seen it because it was grenfell related specifically no it was a project within your portfolio after all all of the actions in this would be under my portfolio can we look at column i please

00:24:23 can we look at column i please column i uh sets out the priority there and red is high do you agree that that shows the nature of each outstanding item

00:24:36 in risk terms yes and also the priority levels for each action yes yes and just you can note that one of those is for grenfell tower yeah hi

00:24:48 of those is for grenfell tower yeah hi yes uh now go back we can please the tmo double zero eight six nine four seven nine this is the minute of the health and safety operational meeting of the 23rd

00:25:00 safety operational meeting of the 23rd of february 2015 we looked at yesterday together

00:25:04 together can we go to the foot of page one

00:25:15 can we go to the foot of page one that's tm00869479

00:25:25 thank you and if we go to the bottom of page one again fra stats uh and at the very foot of the page you you see that you are recorded as saying pm suggested that it would be useful to have more

00:25:37 that it would be useful to have more information in relation to the priority levels and nature of each outstanding fra

00:25:41 fra pm and jw to discuss at a later stage jw confirmed that the team are managing and prioritizing the fras and that there will be always some outstanding fras due to the nature of the assessments

00:25:53 the assessments jw to split the outstanding fras into high medium and low categories with targets

00:25:59 targets now we asked we we looked yesterday together about that and uh let me just show you what you said there can we go to the transcript for yesterday please

00:26:12 page 206 that's day 122 at page 206. picking it up at line 16 uh my question at line 17 is by this

00:26:25 uh my question at line 17 is by this stage did you not have a document whether it was the original fras or whether it was a spreadsheet which reflected the priorities according to the actions by the fire risk assessor and you say it would appear not because that's what

00:26:37 it would appear not because that's what i'm asking for i mean obviously there would be the fire risk assessment report itself available but that is there are 10 000 properties and that's a lot of work i was over the page looking for something which would give an overview

00:26:49 something which would give an overview that would help me steer and direct the compliance in this field it's right it appears now doesn't it that by the time of the meeting on the 23rd of february 2015

00:27:00 meeting on the 23rd of february 2015 uh that they were available to you from your team documents or spreadsheets which showed you how many actions were marked read

00:27:11 marked read which actions were high medium or low and with

00:27:14 and with a significant amount of detail in them to my team yes so the heads of service had a

00:27:19 had a report that detailed the specific actions that were required in their team what i think i was asking for at this stage

00:27:26 stage was an overview a summary overview of that so by team how many actions are there by age and by priority

00:27:34 priority i think that's what i was looking for but um

00:27:38 but um but you were asking for more information in relation to the priority levels why didn't you simply ask janice ray to have the document or work

00:27:49 to have the document or work in the word form that you'd received on the 4th of march 2013 at the very start of the process which did set out the traffic light system in relation to each um outstanding fra item i think this

00:28:00 um outstanding fra item i think this traffic light system was clear i think that um what i was after here was

00:28:05 was something that was a bit more of a dashboard indicator as to how the the direction of progress that was happening here

00:28:16 progress that was happening here well the note says that you're you're after more information in relation to the priority levels and nature of each outstanding fra what were you after that the word document i showed you that

00:28:28 that the word document i showed you that you got on the 4th of march 2013 didn't give you i think i was after a summary

00:28:34 a summary of by age and by priority an overview summary

00:28:38 summary as a dashboard indicator but why couldn't you use the word document that you'd received i hadn't received that word document because that went to the heads of service no we've seen that you did receive it okay so well that that

00:28:51 okay so well that that was i only saw an extract was that for all of the actions for the whole it was an extract it was an extract for surveying that is certainly the case but you knew that that had come to you you must have

00:29:02 that that had come to you you must have realized there were others available in respect of other areas under your management why not simply say to janice ray well please can i have a file full or even a sample of the word documents

00:29:14 or even a sample of the word documents you sent me in march last year two years ago

00:29:20 i don't know i mean it was clear that there was information there i was just looking for a summary that would be useful

00:29:26 useful for my purposes and we've seen we've seen the the word document we've seen

00:29:32 seen the excel spreadsheets that by june 2014 you knew were available at least to your team if they even if they weren't coming to you directly [Music]

00:29:43 [Music] why not simply ask your team to use those documents to produce a summary of the outstanding items by reference to priority

00:29:56 um i could have done that but i'd asked janice to do this why because she was managing the data so i thought if she could give me a summary then that would be helpful to my to give

00:30:08 then that would be helpful to my to give me clarity on the priorities and the actions required

00:30:13 required why was it necessary to have janice ray split outstanding fras into high medium and low categories with targets given that that is what her work and her team's work over the last two years had already done

00:30:25 years had already done it had done that on a on the whole borough

00:30:28 borough a whole organization basis and have done that by team which was provided to the heads of service because i wanted a higher level report that's all well she's also done it in relation to your specific teams because your teams and

00:30:39 specific teams because your teams and you on occasions have had extracts so i'm just under a valid response from janus might have been to say go away and do it yourself these are the spreadsheets but i don't remember what the outcome of

00:30:50 but i don't remember what the outcome of this dialogue was but i was just asking for some clarification at a high level

00:30:58 were you asking for clarification or or were you just asking for a form of document a different form of document

00:31:10 i was asking for a summary i was asking for a summary of the work that was required at a high level so that i could have a view as to whether things were progressing in the way that they ought

00:31:21 progressing in the way that they ought to

00:31:22 to and where my team and to ensure that my team were doing what they needed to do with the granular detail so just to understand your evidence are you asking for just a different format for presenting

00:31:34 just a different format for presenting information that you knew you already had about priorities or are you actually asking for a fresh analysis

00:31:41 analysis about which outstanding fras should be divided into high those into medium and those into low categories i'm not asking for a re-prioritization i'm asking for

00:31:52 i'm asking for a summary of the current actions by priority and by time scale doesn't quite answer my question were you after a different format for presenting information that you already had or could get

00:32:03 had or could get or were you asking for a new analysis of the prioritization so i'm not sure i understand that question well

00:32:12 there's a difference isn't there between asking for asking for a different format in which to have information presented to you

00:32:18 to you on the one hand and on the other a new analysis of the underlying information do you understand that distinction no i don't sorry i'm no you yeah i'm a bit confused here were you after

00:32:30 i'm a bit confused here were you after let me try one more time were you after a new

00:32:32 a new document setting out information in a different way

00:32:37 being information you already had or were you after a fresh analysis of priorities no i was asking for a summary of all of the data that the high level summary so i could see

00:32:48 summary so i could see by age band and by priority mr madison that answer i'm afraid blurs the distinction that i'm trying to draw with you i'm sorry i'm not understanding what the distinction is you're asking me to could you rephrase

00:33:00 you're asking me to could you rephrase the question perhaps well i have done i've rephrased it three to four times i'm not going to try again i think can i just suggest to you um that what you were actually asking for was a a re-prioritization

00:33:13 was a a re-prioritization because you already had the prioritization in the documents that you either had seen or available to you no i specifically was not asking for categories to be re-prioritized i specifically was not asking for that

00:33:25 specifically was not asking for that i was asking for a summary of the of the actions that were prioritized by color code and by age profile if that is the case can you please can we go back to the minute then

00:33:37 please can we go back to the minute then at tmo double zero eight six nine four seven nine and go back to the foot of page one uh top of page two again let's keep it at the top of page two if all you were after was a summary a

00:33:50 if all you were after was a summary a high level summary of existing information could you please explain to us why you were asking for this is foot of page one i'm sorry uh more information in relation to the

00:34:03 uh more information in relation to the priority levels and the nature of each outstanding fra on the face of it that doesn't look like

00:34:09 like a request for a summary of existing information it looks like a request for more detailed information do you accept that so can i see the the bottom of the previous page

00:34:21 bottom of the previous page yes pm suggested that it would be useful to have more information in relation to the priority over the page

00:34:28 page levels and nature of each outstanding fra

00:34:33 and then at the end of that you could see in bold jw to split out now the first of those is not a request for a summary is it

00:34:44 is not a request for a summary is it it's a request for more information and and and detail about the nature of each outstanding fra that's not a request for a summary well the detail in nature is the age

00:34:55 the detail in nature is the age that i was looking for is the age profile

00:34:59 profile and the priority by color code yes it's not a summary though is it do you want more information not less um

00:35:11 i don't i don't think that's the case right and i've suggested again that the reality here is that you were actually unable to get on top of the compliance uh problems in the time scale set out in

00:35:22 uh problems in the time scale set out in each fra and for that reason you wanted to

00:35:25 to or trying to alter the priority levels and have them redone that's categorically not right right

00:35:35 now let's go to the the minutes of the operational health and safety group meeting on the 31st of july 2015.

00:35:46 this is a tma-12009039

00:35:53 you were present as you can see mr madison

00:35:56 madison let's look at page four paragraph 3.1 under fire risk assessments

00:36:06 that's still looking at about 45 percent of actions not progressed have been working with rd to improve this

00:36:16 this and then it goes on rd have reviewed all of the fras and health and safety actions currently waiting for rd to program that work and will then raise the orders for the blocks bm asked to see the key things and the timing for it

00:36:27 things and the timing for it pm asked for a breakdown by priority and age to make it clear where the risks are there needs to be an ongoing breakdown of the list pm suggested a meeting to discuss

00:36:37 discuss interface between rd and aby's team cm to organize meeting etc

00:36:44 now would you agree that 45 of fra actions was a very substantial proportion yes do you know why 45 of fra actions were still outstanding

00:36:56 45 of fra actions were still outstanding at that point this is july 2015. the next part is that we've been working with rd repairs direct to improve this so this wasn't in my area of the service i can't comment on that are you saying

00:37:10 i can't comment on that are you saying that

00:37:11 that the entirety of the 45 percent was down to rd

00:37:14 to rd or i don't have details of the the figures that we were looking at of the specifics it's up behind that minute but that seems to be talking about actions with repairs direct right but you're reading this off the

00:37:25 right but you're reading this off the minute you're not telling me what you're telling me from an independent recollection is that right i don't remember the specifics of this

00:37:31 this thing now in general can you help us did they did these uh did this 45 percent of actions not progress relate to the 2014 fras or earlier fras i don't know you

00:37:42 fras or earlier fras i don't know you don't

00:37:47 can we go please a little bit

00:37:53 uh yes can we look at paragraph 3.2 which i've read to you we can see in the third line bm asked to see the key things and the timing for it pm asked for a breakdown by priority and

00:38:05 pm asked for a breakdown by priority and age to make it clear where the risks are i've read that to you there needs to be an ongoing breakdown of the list now this instance 31st july 2015

00:38:16 now this instance 31st july 2015 appears to be the third time when you had sought further clarification about janice ray's reports on outstanding fra actions because we've seen it before repeatedly

00:38:27 because we've seen it before repeatedly by this time had you not seen a breakdown prior by priority and age i can't remember whether i had i probably had um there may have been a

00:38:39 probably had um there may have been a com

00:38:40 com i certainly would be having conversations with janice and with with my

00:38:43 my heads of service and maybe i'd find a different way of of looking at the data with my team to make sure that things are being progressed um so the fact that

00:38:54 um so the fact that um so that i'm asking for information doesn't mean that things haven't been progressed or reviewed in the meantime no looking back then at the history we've seen

00:39:06 then at the history we've seen that the the master list was going to be produced and indeed was produced in late february early march we saw an extract from that we saw you asking for a prioritization

00:39:17 we saw you asking for a prioritization in

00:39:18 in june 2014 we've seen you asking for the same again effectively in february 2015 and now we're at july 2015.

00:39:26 2015. can you explain why it was that you were still asking for a breakdown by priority and age to make it clear where the risks are i think it's clear that it isn't a

00:39:38 i think it's clear that it isn't a standard report that comes to meetings and i think from my perspective it probably would have been a useful part of the dashboard that the the team was looking at

00:39:48 at however there was the detail information being communicated to my teams and my teams were actioning and communicating back to janus rey's team on those completions um so

00:40:00 on those completions um so and there would be dialogue going on between the various parties in between these meetings these were very much summary meetings i did feel that that high level breakdown would have helped

00:40:11 clarity and transparency about what was happening

00:40:15 happening but that's not to say that the information that was flowing wasn't wasn't useful in its own right right what prompted you to ask for a breakdown by priority and age

00:40:27 age um at this distance without remembering the context the full context of what was happening at this particular time and seeing the information that was being reviewed at this meeting i really have no recollection but in general the way i would look at

00:40:40 but in general the way i would look at it would be to try you know i would be looking for an overall summary so that i could understand the performance and the trends and to establish

00:40:49 establish where i needed to intervene and take action if necessary i mean can you help to this extent was this a new request for something different that you hadn't asked for before or was this to stay a further instance of you asking

00:41:00 stay a further instance of you asking for a breakdown of outstanding fra actions by priority and age i don't remember i don't recall right barbara matthews

00:41:11 barbara matthews bm she was responsible was she by this time for fra actions yes she is responsible she is the executive team responsible for health and safety including fire risk assessment yes right

00:41:24 and why are you taking responsibility or asking about that at this stage

00:41:32 um i think i'm trying to understand the current situation and understand what actions are required at this point had there actually been

00:41:43 this point had there actually been any focus on a breakdown by priority i don't recall or age certainly by age i think there was a

00:41:54 certainly by age i think there was a i've seen minutes of health safety committee meetings where a summary report of outstanding actions by age is is reported on a regular basis

00:42:06 reported on a regular basis when you said or when the minute records you are saying that you needed to make it clear where the risks are uh what were the risks that

00:42:17 uh what were the risks that you had in mind well the risk of non-compliance and so the risk of you know so ensuring actions are completed within time right and where there's a risk that that won't be completed in time and whether

00:42:29 won't be completed in time and whether there's anything we can do to address that

00:42:36 can we look please at tmo one triple zero nine six five two

00:42:52 this is a a document entitled fra outstanding actions for w-2 workflow between first august 13 and 28 july 15

00:43:06 and if at the bottom of the screen you can see that it says numbers in brackets show position on 10th june 2015. do you remember this document being presented

00:43:17 document being presented to the meeting of the operational health and safety committee on the 31st of july the minutes of which we've just been looking at

00:43:25 at i don't remember it specifically now but it might have been the sort of information that will be projected let's just scroll gently down it to see if it uh triggers a recollection

00:43:36 if it uh triggers a recollection uh we can see there on page two breakdown of fra actions by team and there are the teams they are and our contract management project management those are yours aren't they yes and uh

00:43:48 yes and uh you can see the figures total fully complete partially complete outstanding and then to page three you just look at the

00:43:57 the the final page there breakdown of neighborhood management fra actions and there are the uh locations lancaster west is the third out of interest uh and we can see

00:44:09 out of interest uh and we can see uh that there were none outstanding at least there uh given that you that that information well let me let me put it to you this way

00:44:20 let me put it to you this way do you actually have a specific recollection of this information being presented that that at that meeting no is this the kind of information that you recall in general was presented

00:44:31 that you recall in general was presented at meetings such as these at that time yes

00:44:33 yes yes given that this sort of information was presented at these sorts of meetings at that time why did you ask for a breakdown by priority and age to make it

00:44:44 breakdown by priority and age to make it clear where the risks were did this document not give you enough information on that no i don't think it did so could we go back to the page which has got my teams on it

00:44:56 got my teams on it yes go back to page two please

00:45:02 so from that it doesn't give a breakdown by age

00:45:05 by age so those acts so those complete and outstanding those outstanding may all be in time scale for example and i assume that they weren't but um

00:45:16 i assume that they weren't but um but if they were all in time scale then things may be not a problem because actually if you see it by uh by priority and by whether they're in time scale or

00:45:27 and by whether they're in time scale or out of time scale then that gives a clear indication as to whether things are working and what action needs to be taken to address it now by this point of course you know you knew i'd suggest to you that

00:45:38 knew i'd suggest to you that documents did exist showing the traffic light system and the age

00:45:44 the the aged outstandings uh why wasn't it as simple as as putting that document or those documents

00:45:51 documents with this document and synthesizing them i agree

00:45:55 i agree so but it would for a dashboard this isn't very helpful to me because it doesn't tell me whether we're on target or whether we're not right so really what i might what i felt was would be more useful was to develop this

00:46:07 would be more useful was to develop this into something that gave me a clearer dashboard of what was in priority what wasn't and so we could direct the actions accordingly do you remember when this kind of document started being produced and presented to

00:46:18 started being produced and presented to the uh the operational health and safety committee um

00:46:23 um i don't but it i seem to remember that the

00:46:28 the the operation well i don't know that it was the operational health and safety committee but certainly when barbara matthews reinvigorated the corporate health and safety committee that was where the focus of this sort of

00:46:40 that was where the focus of this sort of information came and the level of detail developed going forward it did and we'll come to that shortly later in the year

00:46:51 did you get an immediate answer to your request

00:46:55 request for a breakdown by priority and age i don't remember right can we go then to uh tm0100-44175

00:47:09 this is a tmo health and safety committee

00:47:14 committee uh meeting and this is the minute of it on the 29th of september 2015 and you can see that you were present this appears to be your first recorded attendance at a tmo health and safety

00:47:25 attendance at a tmo health and safety committee meeting properly so called as opposed to the operations committee is that right um i don't remember but certainly barbara mathews

00:47:38 but certainly barbara mathews gave a new focus to the to this meeting and um

00:47:41 and um my team my heads of service would normally have attended this meeting prior to in previously uh but barbara brought a new focus to it and i was much more engaged in that

00:47:52 and i was much more engaged in that in these in these meetings why had you not

00:47:55 not attended a health and safety committee meeting before september 2015. before that i had been attending the departmental health and safety committee but um this was a and my heads of

00:48:07 but um this was a and my heads of service would be attending this corporate meeting but going forward with the new focus i attended these meetings with barbara sharing

00:48:18 sharing was your role on the tmo health and safety committee different in any way to your from your role at the operational health and safety meetings that we'd seen before no not really if we go down please

00:48:30 no not really if we go down please uh to page two we can see paragraph 3.1 of the minutes at the foot of that page fire safety and risk assessment

00:48:41 and then we see it says there have been an additional 200 completed actions since july pm added that the age profile needs to be monitored carefully going forward

00:48:52 be monitored carefully going forward what prompted you to raise that point do you remember that a key part of this was about priorities and making sure that actions were completed within their age profile within the within their time

00:49:04 profile within the within their time scale so this is about me focusing on the actions that need to be done within those time scales were you suggesting that fra actions were taking too long to be closed down

00:49:16 were taking too long to be closed down certainly i was flagging up that we needed to be aware of the risk of not closing them down effectively because that would mean that we wouldn't be complying with the priorities in the fra

00:49:29 uh and when you refer to age profile did you think that the age profile was being too generous

00:49:38 no i was keen to ensure that actions were completed within the priority time scale

00:49:44 scale so when it says the age profile needs to be monitored carefully was that suggesting that uh each outstanding fra action had to be monitored to ensure that it was completed within the existing

00:49:55 completed within the existing time frame within the allocated time frame within the fra yes yes by whom did you expect the age profile to be monitored

00:50:07 the age profile to be monitored um and the overall program management monitoring would be with janice ray the health and safety team so she had the overview she allocated the actions to teams

00:50:19 actions to teams and recorded them as being complete when they were complete and also so she overviewed she had an overview of the program and the individual heads of service

00:50:30 the individual heads of service would be responsible for ensuring the actions that were within their team were completed within the targets and how are they being monitored up to that point

00:50:40 point i assume on the same basis i see so you were asking the same people monitor more carefully than they had

00:50:52 been um

00:50:57 i don't know if i could put it that way but i mean i was maybe i was emphasizing that that was we need to be ensure that the uh the progress in reducing the number of actions

00:51:08 of actions we continued and we needed to make sure that uh

00:51:11 that uh actions weren't slipping out of priority yes

00:51:14 yes i mean on the face of it your addition that the age profile needs to be monitored carefully going forward it carries an implicit criticism do you accept that up to that point it hadn't been

00:51:25 up to that point it hadn't been monitored as carefully as you thought was appropriate yeah yeah can we go to tmo10010066 please

00:51:34 please this is the paper two circulated for that meeting

00:51:41 can we look at the first page of paper two

00:51:44 two uh item one fra outstanding actions for w2 workflow between 1st august 13th and 28th september 2015. so this is a development of the document we saw at the end of july

00:51:57 saw at the end of july and it covers it as you can see a two-year

00:52:01 two-year period uh in the outstanding row it looks as if there are 812 outstanding actions as at the 28th of september 2015. yes yes and there are there had

00:52:13 2015. yes yes and there are there had been 814

00:52:15 been 814 as at the 28th of july 2015. yes yeah and if we add in the 109 partially completed

00:52:22 completed uh as at the 28th of september 2015 though

00:52:25 though that meant that there were two there were 921

00:52:30 were 921 uh outstanding actions that needed to be completed yeah so is this right that in the period of 26 months

00:52:37 26 months some 40 remained outstanding just as a matter of arithmetic

00:52:49 um it will appear so yes yes this document doesn't indicate how long those 921

00:52:57 those 921 had been outstanding had been incomplete for outstanding for does it no so does this tell us that you still didn't have your synthesis document which which identified um

00:53:08 which identified um priority and length of period outstanding by this time unless it's detailed later in this report

00:53:15 report but i don't i don't have i don't recall nor does it tell you what the category of risk that those incompleted actions posed no it's not in this report

00:53:26 actions posed no it's not in this report can we look at the next page then please which is breakdown of fra actions by team

00:53:34 team uh you can see in the left-hand column again

00:53:37 again and it's the same format as the one we saw from july a and our contract management and ar project management your teams uh those were the teams with the most

00:53:48 those were the teams with the most outstanding actions yes um

00:53:54 yes um sorry which teams did you say let me well let me just be a bit clearer if you look at uh and our contract management the first team

00:54:04 team you've got an outstanding set of 393 against a total of 649 yes and if you look also at uh

00:54:17 and if you look also at uh responsive repairs you've got 287 over 476 but i think you say that responsive repairs isn't in your team that's correct and our project management is yes yes

00:54:29 and our project management is yes yes and you've got 13 outstanding over 67.

00:54:37 again we can't tell from that page the age profile of those actions or indeed anywhere else in the document let's go to the fourth page and look at the contract management team

00:54:47 team specifically page four uh this is at the foot of the page contract management team outstanding action breakdown here we do have high priority target 21

00:55:00 here we do have high priority target 21 days

00:55:04 327 so it's not in the overall figures at the top but we do find it buried away here on page four

00:55:13 so it looks as if of the outstanding actions 393 327 our contract management now did you have any input into creating

00:55:24 did you have any input into creating this

00:55:25 this part of this paper no do you know who did

00:55:29 did i assume it was the health and safety team i see did you receive this document before this meeting um i assume it would have been circulated before the meeting you

00:55:40 been circulated before the meeting you know who presented this document to that meeting

00:55:42 meeting it would have been janice ray jonas ray now you can see across the page there high priority target 21 days medium 60 days

00:55:50 days low 180 days info only no time frames that's no color do you know who was who determined those priorities uh or time frames uh when compiling this document

00:56:04 um i'm assuming that these this information is pulled directly from the fra and from the summary documents so that would be janus so i think janice ray would have

00:56:15 so i think janice ray would have produced this document

00:56:20 did you have any discussion with janice ray before she produced this document um i think this is the level of detail i had been asking for right but now did you have any

00:56:32 right but now did you have any discussion with janice ray when she was producing this document so that she would be satisfied that you were satisfied that you were now at last getting the information that you'd been asking for not specifically now right but um i

00:56:44 not specifically now right but um i think it had been discussed that health and safety committee at the corporate health and safety committee meetings right

00:56:54 you you still can't i think see how which particular actions have particular uh particular outstanding actions have particular longevity can you

00:57:05 particular longevity can you no well it's no it doesn't it doesn't but it's um it gives a summary by priority and so in

00:57:18 it gives a summary by priority and so in tandem with that if we had an age profile of each that would be the information that was after yeah were you aware of the consequential risk to residents if for example high

00:57:30 to residents if for example high priority actions were not completed within the 21 day period yes or what if anything

00:57:43 what would happen if high priority actions were not completed within the set

00:57:47 set time frames yes and it's broader than that too because it's not just about the fire risk assessment is a process of checking

00:57:54 checking but there's a whole broader piece in terms of the all the compliance of all of the

00:57:57 of the assets in the borough and that was where our focus was was trying to ensure that there was broad compliance across the whole stock and the fire risk assessment was a

00:58:08 and the fire risk assessment was a checking process on that as well and we see if we go to page uh five and page six

00:58:13 page six um we could probably put those side by side actually if we put those side by side you could see that there is a breakdown of outstanding fra actions but with with annual dates

00:58:26 but with with annual dates with months in them okay so you need to look into to that and put those together

00:58:37 those together now this relates only to contract management actions doesn't it not all fras no

00:58:44 and when you said that the age profile needs to be monitored going forward did you mean all actions or any of those with which you were concerned in your teams

00:58:55 teams my priority was what was happening in my team

00:59:02 right so what about the rest sorry what about the rest what about the other teams so the the other teams um

00:59:16 so the same principle would apply so barbara matthews had the overview and managed this through the corporate the corporate health and safety team um all teams were represented at that meeting and

00:59:27 meeting and performance of each team was was reported at a summary level and those heads of service and directors would be responsible for their areas as well

00:59:38 well i mean obviously there were some areas of crossover between teams and that was something that was discussed at these meetings right did you see any breakdown of outstanding fra

00:59:49 see any breakdown of outstanding fra actions in relation to anything other than contract management i don't recall

00:59:54 recall right do you know whether they existed i don't

01:00:04 uh let's go back to the minutes of the meeting please tm01 double zero four four one seven five

01:00:16 uh you can see on page three if we go to page three in that document please we can see on that page paragraph 3.2 at the top a b

01:00:27 paragraph 3.2 at the top a b uh has been going through the list of actions and allocating them to the appropriate contractor

01:00:36 pm confirmed that the data will be cleansed

01:00:39 cleansed in a meeting tomorrow pm also met with jw to discuss streamlining the process jw anxious to get as many of the actions completed as possible in advance of the imminent health and safety audit

01:00:50 of the imminent health and safety audit pm confirmed all actions to be completed by end of november what did you mean there that the data will be cleansed i think that uh what what emerged as we

01:01:01 i think that uh what what emerged as we as we started to tell get greater clarity of what data was was was um available um was that there was some old data in there things that had been actioned that hadn't been closed down effectively

01:01:13 hadn't been closed down effectively and it was about understanding what the true position was and so it was about making sure that we made sure that everything was up to date and clear and correct

01:01:25 and correct could you remind me of the date of this meeting yeah this is the um 29th of september

01:01:33 uh 2015.

01:01:50 so what would be cleansed what would be removed by way of cleansing can we be clear

01:01:56 clear um

01:01:59 i can't remember the detail of of the conversation but i think it was just making sure that actions that were closed were closed or things that were weren't relevant it wasn't about closing

01:02:10 weren't relevant it wasn't about closing things that hadn't been completed it was certainly about making sure that the information that we had was correct

01:02:21 had was correct yeah the word cleansed doesn't really give the impression of ensuring correct it it rather gives the impression that it would be manipulated in some way so as to emit

01:02:32 manipulated in some way so as to emit things that somebody perhaps didn't want somebody else to see i don't agree you don't agree now we know that there was an imminent health and safety audit was this cleansing

01:02:46 audit was this cleansing in view of this imminent audit um it certainly gave a focus to it but um the

01:02:56 um the a new set of information had a new new level of

01:02:59 level of clarity of information was was it was being presented here and there appeared to be some actions in there

01:03:07 there that needed to be resolved so [Music]

01:03:12 [Music] i think that's what it's saying yeah it was about

01:03:15 was about separating out what so yeah so for example

01:03:20 example um removing assets that were no longer to be serviced for example or in making sure that

01:03:27 sure that things were were addressed the suggestion is here that you would meet with janice ray to discuss streamlining the process did you meet her with that purpose in

01:03:38 did you meet her with that purpose in mind well

01:03:40 mind well streamlining the process was i think my recollection of that conversation was that

01:03:46 that a large number of the actions that were allocated to the contracts management team in particular were to investigate or to um was to consider rather than to do

01:03:58 was to consider rather than to do so i felt that the wording of the fras needs to be more precise and specific so that we can actually action them and turn them instantly into a form of words

01:04:09 turn them instantly into a form of words for a works order rather than sending one of my team to go and investigate particularly if that's something that isn't in their area of expertise because that was what

01:04:20 that was what i understood the fire risk assessor's expertise was in so i think that was about

01:04:25 about that process in addition to that i felt that

01:04:28 that some of the actions would come to say things like confirm that this ice room has been serviced whereas actually we had records that could be viewed before visiting site and rather than

01:04:40 before visiting site and rather than create an action in a bureaucracy having the fire risk assessor check some of those actions before going on the site before and making the action unnecessary so it's about trying to streamline the process

01:04:51 about trying to streamline the process so we didn't end up with a black backlog of actions now your notes of that meeting are at tm0087972 at page 34. should we look at those

01:05:06 at page 34. should we look at those together

01:05:10 uh we can see this is from your day book number seven uh in the top right hand corner

01:05:21 you can see

01:05:29 uh it says h committee 29th september 15. and then in the second line update for next meeting

01:05:40 next meeting proposal or proposed for alternative approach to fras see that yes and then underneath that it says

01:05:49 says tell me if this is wrong mr madison specific actions raised as jobs not as w-2 actions have i read that right yes

01:06:00 actions have i read that right yes what did you mean by an alternative approach to fras i felt that we could streamline the process as described in the minutes i felt that one of the ways we could

01:06:11 i felt that one of the ways we could have done that so one of them was the issue i've just raised about specific actions so rather than go and investigate this issue go and do this

01:06:20 this work that's that's what i wanted the i wanted the language of the fire risk assessments to be more precise because they were the ex the fire risk assessor is the expert here and i thought that rather than create

01:06:32 and i thought that rather than create actions through a w-2 process we could just issue jobs so rather than allocate a task to a team to raise a job why not

01:06:43 task to a team to raise a job why not just raise the job and streamline that process so that was the so that i was looking at ways in which we could remove some of the bureaucracy and improve the efficiency of

01:06:55 improve the efficiency of progressing these actions so to be clear [Music]

01:06:58 [Music] were you suggesting that the fras the fire risk assessors would write a different kind of report which would identify not only what the risks are

01:07:08 risks are and the priorities but also identify with precision the cure where possible i think that yes because a lot some of the actions would be to

01:07:19 would be to for example to check that this is check this is a fire door for example whereas actually the fire risk assessor is there at the door why not check and confirm

01:07:30 at the door why not check and confirm it's a fire door so rather than give an action to another team member who's then got to go and carry out that assessment why not do it there and then that was the kind of streamlining that i

01:07:41 that was the kind of streamlining that i was looking at did you have any discussions with any of tma's fire risk assessors about that proposal um ultimately we i did i mean initially i spoke to janus and spoke to

01:07:54 initially i spoke to janus and spoke to my team because it was really about this was about clarity of information and so there was a dialogue going on between

01:08:03 between my contracts management team and janice about

01:08:06 about that that issue i think there was a meeting and i only met carl stokes maybe two or three times in my time at the tmo but um i do remember there being a

01:08:17 but um i do remember there being a meeting to try and resolve some of these issues and make the process more focused and streamlined now we've seen reference in the minute to an imminent health and safety audit

01:08:28 to an imminent health and safety audit that was to take place i showed you that in paragraph 3.2 on page 3. that was an audit wasn't it carried out by rbkc assume so yes do you know i don't you

01:08:40 assume so yes do you know i don't you know

01:08:40 know um well let's just uh look at the audit report

01:08:45 report it's at rbk50531 please

01:08:54 uh it's dated march 2016 it's the final internal audit report on health and safety just looking at its first page did you see this document at the time do you

01:09:06 see this document at the time do you think

01:09:06 think i don't recall you don't recall

01:09:10 uh were you aware in general of the gist of the findings in this report no no not from memory so can we take it that you didn't see it

01:09:22 so can we take it that you didn't see it and didn't read it i don't think i saw it i

01:09:24 it i wouldn't necessarily have seen it right let me see if i can just show you something that might trigger a recollection can we go to page four please

01:09:41 uh and on page four you can see uh the summary of findings

01:09:50 and at the top of the page under executive summary paragraph 2.1 assurance opinion audit opinion and you get a substantial

01:10:04 audit opinion and you get a substantial assurance

01:10:05 assurance did you do you know were you aware that that was

01:10:09 that was the outcome of the audit i heard yes i heard that but i didn't don't think i saw this report right did you see it in draft do you think no right

01:10:20 think no right can we look at rbk50313 please

01:10:31 can we look at rbk50313 please is this a document you've seen before

01:10:36 the reason i ask you is you'll see that you're on the circulation list yes i don't remember the exact report um right we could see or on the circulation list

01:10:46 list do you remember receiving it i don't you don't

01:10:54 right let's look anyway to see well let's look at the final version perhaps it's the best to see what it says about fras can we go back please to the previous document

01:11:06 back please to the previous document rbk50531 but page six and at page six uh you uh can see there at the very foot of the page last

01:11:18 there at the very foot of the page last bullet point over to page seven it says this the fire risk assessments fra are carried out by a third party specialist consultant and the fra reviews are undertaken by the tmo assistant safety advisor during

01:11:29 the tmo assistant safety advisor during routine inspections of properties to ensure that any significant findings and action plan items identified by the fra are progressed in a timely manner as per their stated priority checks on

01:11:41 as per their stated priority checks on keystone for tennis dates confirmed these were up to date and all fire equipment had been inspected within the past

01:11:47 past 12 month period now this is march 2016 the impression given by this audit and what i particularly read to you just now

01:11:59 what i particularly read to you just now was that fra actions were progressed in a timely manner was that really true given the significant backlog that we've seen at least as a end of september 2015.

01:12:11 september 2015. um i think things were progressing at speed here really the um i think that um

01:12:20 maybe 2016. so certainly um a lot of the a lot of the challenges had been around the procurement um in the delivery certainly in the in

01:12:31 um in the delivery certainly in the in my area around the the servicing contracts

01:12:34 contracts and getting them into place and keystone was

01:12:37 was taken in an enormous amount of focus and effort

01:12:41 effort and it was through that that really we felt that

01:12:44 felt that that's how it was the route to achieving significant compliance rather than reactive compliance which i think it had been the case before before

01:12:55 before so i think that focus had been on ensuring that those contracts were delivering and i think by this stage they were and i think we were seeing the benefits of that

01:13:06 benefits of that did you have any meetings with the rbkc auditors on the subject of fra actions not specifically fra actions um

01:13:20 i mean the auditors had audited each of the

01:13:23 the contracts and the the contract areas that we had procured and each of them had been given substantial assurance and that was done by ensuring that we were looking at live data on our keystone system

01:13:35 live data on our keystone system and having a much greater level of scrutiny on that the the fire risk assessment aspect of this

01:13:44 this had been recently procured at around about this time um so there was a new contract that was mobilizing around about 2016. yeah but the audit of course had started uh

01:13:56 but the audit of course had started uh in

01:13:57 in around late september early october 2015 which is why it was described in the minute we've just seen as imminent is that right i didn't know if this was the same audit i didn't i don't

01:14:08 this was the same audit i didn't i don't think i had any direct involvement in the order i didn't meet the auditor well i was going to ask you during the period between the end of september 2015 and the publication of the uh

01:14:19 and the publication of the uh final report did you have any uh involvement in providing the auditors with the

01:14:26 with the sort of information that we've seen in paper 2

01:14:30 paper 2 which identified the outstanding actions and their proportion to the total and the prioritization i didn't have any involvement in the audit at all i didn't meet the orders

01:14:41 audit at all i didn't meet the orders are you able to explain well i say whether the auditors saw documents such as those that we had

01:14:52 saw documents such as those that we had seen

01:14:53 seen presented to the 29th september health and safety committee meeting i had no involvement in the audit at all

01:15:03 let's go back a little bit in time then uh health and safety committee meeting 24th of november 2015 at tm0100-11452

01:15:18 mr jones i'm just noting the time if i can finish this document yes all right carry on we'll just cover this one

01:15:25 this one uh this is another health and safety committee meeting now you're you're there as you can see 24 november 15 can we go to page four please

01:15:33 please look at item 5.6 on that page how do we check actions deriving from deficiency notices are done and monitor how they are escalated if not done within the time frames

01:15:45 not done within the time frames jw will be monitoring the actions depending on what the issue is jw will escalate where necessary through the relevant managers pm would like this in a formal written process deficiency notice is to be

01:15:56 process deficiency notice is to be reported at this meeting

01:15:59 now we can see that the discussion concerned notification of of deficiency notices uh those issued by the lfb

01:16:11 sorry i didn't cut deficiency notices were those the notices i assumed by the lfb yeah do you know why this discussion was being held only now

01:16:23 um how did this come up

01:16:30 i don't remember what was your understanding at the time of the monitoring process in place so far as regards deficiencies notified by the lfb

01:16:42 by the lfb i didn't know that there was a process in place

01:16:48 is it true we'll say the other way around that you knew that there was no process in place no i didn't know we didn't know one way or the other i didn't know whether there was a

01:16:57 was a processor now um right you say in the minute that you would like this in a formal written process what was it specifically that you wanted recorded in or as part of a formal

01:17:09 recorded in or as part of a formal written process and if there was a deficiency notice issued that it was communicated with the correct people in the organization because there's a risk that significant parties may not may not learn of it unless there's a

01:17:21 may not learn of it unless there's a clear protocol right does that indicate to us that you realized that there wasn't such a formal written process at the time otherwise you wouldn't have asked for one i don't remember this conversation but that this would suggest that that was the case

01:17:32 would suggest that that was the case indeed uh

01:17:35 do you know whether a formal written process for actions arriving arising from lfb notices of deficiencies was ever implemented i don't i don't remember

01:17:46 remember now the minute records that deficiency notices were to be recorded or reported at that meeting in other words the health and safety committee meeting or meetings

01:17:58 meeting or meetings were they to be reported at any other meetings

01:18:02 i don't know the groups and who within the

01:18:05 the the tmo to your understanding would be told if a deficiency notice had been received from the lfb i don't know but um i would assume it would go to the company secretary or to

01:18:17 company secretary or to the chief executive right

01:18:22 mr chairman we're going to continue in this line as it's now becoming habitual but this may be an appropriate moment for a break we're going to if it's not too inconvenient as far as you're concerned yeah it's not mr

01:18:33 you're concerned yeah it's not mr madison i think it is time we had a short break usual routine please don't talk to anyone about your evidence please while you're out of the room okay we'll resume at 25 to 12 please

01:18:54 we'll resume at 25 to 12 please thank you 25 to 12 please

01:35:20 would you ask mr madison to come back in

01:35:26 please

01:35:35 all right ready to continue mr madison yes thank you very much yes mr willett yes mr chairman mr madison can i next go please

01:35:42 please with you to tm008404800

01:35:56 with you to tm008404800 now this is a document entitled kctmo procedure

01:36:00 procedure for dealing with lfb deficiency notices and it's paper three which would indicate that it was circulated to a meeting and you can see from the foot of the page if we scroll down to it please

01:36:12 page if we scroll down to it please that it's uh dated january 2016 and signed off by janice ray uh have you seen this document before um i don't remember it but i would if it's been circulated as part of the pack for the operations committee

01:36:24 of the pack for the operations committee meetings i'm sure i would have seen it right do you remember whether this was the procedural process produced by the tmo

01:36:30 tmo to ensure actions from deficiency notices were completed and escalated um i don't remember it but it looks like that right do you remember how it was formalized

01:36:41 formalized i don't you don't i'm assuming it'll be on the record right

01:36:47 do you remember ever asking janice ray why in this document there's no mention of the w-2 monitoring of deficiency notice actions that had been the subject of discussion at the

01:36:58 been the subject of discussion at the meeting we just looked at um

01:37:04 i don't remember that but possibly by this time w2 had been replaced by a different system uh so there was a crm system that replaced

01:37:12 replaced the effectively replaced w2 summarizing what

01:37:15 what what ms ray says in her supplemental witness statement paragraph 36 and that's it and i'll just give the references tmo double zero eight seven

01:37:26 references tmo double zero eight seven three

01:37:26 three nine three four page eighteen there's no need to go to to it she says that the the uh there was no specific workflow on w2 or crm for deficiency notices

01:37:39 on w2 or crm for deficiency notices do you remember that i don't you don't [Applause] were you aware at the time that w2 was not used

01:37:46 not used in order to monitor deficiency notices i think i wasn't i think w2 had probably been

01:37:54 been replaced by um the crm system right i know when that was i don't you don't but i wasn't aware of a process for

01:38:06 but i wasn't aware of a process for signing off deficiency notice actions i think this was more about communicating the deficiency notices

01:38:13 notices were you are you able to tell us how uh completion of actions was going to be monitored if it wasn't on wt

01:38:21 on wt or crm um if the initial deficiency notices are concerned i don't but my assumption would be that any communication would have been through crm system anyway

01:38:33 crm system anyway do you remember what reports the health and safety committee received from the time you were on it about the completion or otherwise of actions identified in lfb deficiency notices

01:38:44 notices i don't remember can we go back to the minute of the health and safety committee meeting of the 29th of september 2015 at tm0100-11191

01:38:59 at tm0100-11191 i'm sorry um that's that's the wrong reference uh but but because we don't need to go to it can i

01:39:06 it can i um well let actually let's go to that sorry let's go to the 29th of september meeting forgive me

01:39:18 it's at tmo 100

01:39:23 at 4417

01:39:31 yes and i just want to show you something in that if i can if you go please to

01:39:39 um page three

01:39:45 we saw this before it's three point two at the top of page three in the last sentence that you confirmed that all actions would be completed by the end of november you see that yes yes now uh

01:40:00 if we then go back please to uh the fra statistics which were produced uh for the november

01:40:11 which were produced uh for the november meeting

01:40:12 meeting this is a tmo one double zero one one one nine one it's the reference i gave a minute ago

01:40:24 and if we look at that this is paper two uh for the 24th of november 2015 meeting showing data as it stood at the previous day with numbers in

01:40:36 at the previous day with numbers in brackets

01:40:38 brackets as of the 28th of september 2015.

01:40:43 would you agree that this table suggests that although there has been some reduction for a and our contract management i think we'll need to see the next page page two you could see a r contract

01:40:56 page two you could see a r contract management although although there's been some reduction from

01:41:01 from 393 down to 285 outstanding items as you can see in the right hand column and our project management has still got 13 actions outstanding as of the 29th of

01:41:14 13 actions outstanding as of the 29th of september

01:41:17 september which was still outstanding as at the 23rd of november

01:41:22 sorry

01:41:25 could you repeat the question yes

01:41:30 although there's been some reduction for a r contract management as you can see from 393 as at the end of september down to 285 that's the different figures in the

01:41:41 that's the different figures in the outstandings column yes yes

01:41:46 yes yes you've still got uh some uh that's um you've still got 13 or so actions outstanding as of the 29th of september which was still

01:41:58 29th of september which was still outstanding as of the 23rd of november the 13 refers to the project management team there's the 285 refers to the contract management yes so you're quite right 2000.

01:42:12 yes so you're quite right 2000. so that so if i understand what you're asking is

01:42:15 asking is do i recognize that there's been a reduction

01:42:18 reduction in the fra actions within the contract management team from 393 down to 285 yes i do recognize and you've got my point is you've got no movement in the although you've got some movement in

01:42:30 the although you've got some movement in the contract management team you've got no movement in the project right okay so well so the likelihood on that i don't know the specifics of those actions but any actions within the project management team are likely to be being

01:42:42 management team are likely to be being procured in the um the capital programme so um it's quite often there'll be a longer lead-in on those so it might be that it's waiting for scaffold to be erected as part of the work so

01:42:54 as part of the work so it's it might not be uncommon that those projects might be they may be low priority issues but waiting for access arrangements or something like that and i suspect that

01:43:05 something like that and i suspect that those

01:43:06 those are one of those did you explore that did you say you suspect is that something you actually into it would have been part of the the discussion that we've been having with my teams about understanding what uh

01:43:17 my teams about understanding what uh what the issues are in terms of those outstanding actions yes it's clear at any event that although some progress had been made as we can see

01:43:24 see you weren't going to meet the deadline at the end of november for clearing all actions were you no no was that disappointing to you yes

01:43:33 were there any consequences for your team missing that deadline well what i discussed with my team i reviewed these actions with my team

01:43:45 i reviewed these actions with my team and looked at what priorities there were and looked at how we could ensure that the matters were addressed as quickly as possible were you asked to explain your progress with actions during the meeting

01:43:56 during the meeting yes there's a discussion and what did you say i don't remember the detail now can we then go to the to the fra review meeting on the 17th of december 2015 which you attended and we can see a

01:44:09 2015 which you attended and we can see a note of that meeting in your notebook at tm0087972 please at page 56.

01:44:30 and if you look at the top left hand corner this is again

01:44:37 again day book seven of eight you can see that there is

01:44:42 there is an entry fra review meeting 17th of december 2015 and underneath that it says you see it says a b to give cs access

01:44:55 you see it says a b to give cs access to certificates portal allied protection that's what it says correct me if i'm wrong about any of this alternatively but provide data

01:45:07 alternatively but provide data or date to cs in advance of inspections

01:45:13 and then on the right-hand side next to the line

01:45:16 the line it says training and then i think standards are dead doors sprinklers is is that correct yes

01:45:27 sprinklers is is that correct yes it's data to call today let's call stokes

01:45:30 stokes right and then to the right of that it says something that looks like training is that right training standards the dare doors sprinklers

01:45:41 can you first help us with the word uh is that is that standards underneath the word training yes what was the detail of the discussions

01:45:52 what was the detail of the discussions about adair doors do you remember um

01:46:02 i think this is so from memory well my memory isn't very clear on on this i had limited involvement in the discussion about the enforcement

01:46:13 enforcement notices that were put in place about adair

01:46:18 adair there was a question about whether the existing doors were compliant and there was discussion about a retro fitting program to install door closers

01:46:31 fitting program to install door closers and i think that was what the discussion was about about what standards were applied

01:46:36 applied uh in the context of the existing doors meeting um writing the building regs at that time

01:46:45 that time whether it was a retrospective requirement to fit door closers and in fact whether that fitting door closes retrospectively on those doors might have caused other problems right and that's in the

01:46:57 other problems right and that's in the aftermath of the fire that had happened in the dare tower in october of 2015. i think so yes what about sprinklers what was that a discussion about that was about um

01:47:08 discussion about that was about um an action so there's a there's one of the the

01:47:11 the the outstanding actions related to it goes back to the conversation we had earlier about call stokes and the actions coming from the fire risk assessments so one of the items on on his assessment

01:47:24 so one of the items on on his assessment would be

01:47:25 would be service sprinkler systems in accordance with the manufacturer's requirements and if you looked at the manufacturer's requirements it would require the ins a weekly inspection these these

01:47:37 a weekly inspection these these sprinklers that we were referring to here were

01:47:39 here were actually in basement flats inside people's homes so it was impractical to go and do a month a weekly inspection in somebody's home because it was impractical so it was trying to understand it was an example where

01:47:51 understand it was an example where we had an action but we couldn't really action it and so it was trying to find a resolution to that now other than the notes we've seen in your notebooks did you take any other notes of this meeting

01:48:01 meeting no we haven't seen any minutes for this meeting can you explain why not

01:48:08 um

01:48:12 i'm assuming this is a meeting with me and alex bosman

01:48:17 why are you assuming that i can't remember what who else was at the meeting i don't know or this may have been the meeting with carl stokes that i was talked about earlier i mean

01:48:29 that i was talked about earlier i mean it's called an f you enter it as an fra review meeting i think so from memory i mean i can't be sure i mean it would be noted in my diary who else might have been at that meeting

01:48:38 meeting but um but um i think this was the meeting where the contracts team carl stokes myself

01:48:49 the contracts team carl stokes myself and janice ray met to try and streamline the process clarify how because there are issue actions that are in the fire risk assessment actions that aren't being actioned because we'd hit

01:49:01 aren't being actioned because we'd hit obstacles such as when we can't service these sprinklers is there a pr is there a practical way in which we could comply with the regulations while um without having to go into that property

01:49:13 without having to go into that property every week for example no it says a b and alex bosman i'm assuming

01:49:18 assuming to give cs access to certificates portal yeah was the certificates portal a database

01:49:24 database which contained the certificates issued in respect of fire safety measures within the tma stock so that would have been

01:49:32 been at that stage i'm struggling to remember the actual time scale on this so this would have been allied protection with the facilities management contractors who are the newly mobilized facilities

01:49:43 are the newly mobilized facilities management contractors responsible for fire safety as well as other

01:49:47 other us because what we'd already done is we'd amalgamated a series of contracts together to try and create get the right contractor in who would have the right sort of commitment to investing in

01:49:59 commitment to investing in infrastructure like portals and uh databases that we we required and so this was this conversation i think was for alex to give col stokes access so he could

01:50:11 to give col stokes access so he could check certification before going to site so rather than giving us

01:50:16 giving us or alex's team an action to confirm that this is certified he carl could know before he's going on site like you could check all of the certification online and verify it on site and that

01:50:28 online and verify it on site and that would remove some of the bureaucracy and speed up the process right the was the certificates portal called or did it form part of the keystone database um so at this stage

01:50:39 keystone database um so at this stage it wasn't integrated with the keystone interface from memory um so allied had science protection had their portal we were in the process of migrating all

01:50:50 we were in the process of migrating all of the information into keystone there was a period from from this point forward where that process of integration was happening ultimately it would have been in keystone all of the other services

01:51:02 in keystone all of the other services um compliance figures were live um and reported on a tv screen in the office so we could see performance on a live basis

01:51:14 performance on a live basis and that was the that was the process we were going through at this stage with allied protection of actually collecting that data and importing it into keystone was carl stokes

01:51:24 stokes given access to the certificates portal i don't know i assume so why wasn't he given access before 17th of december 2015. i'm assuming that

01:51:35 17th of december 2015. i'm assuming that allied

01:51:36 allied hadn't went on board at that time this is about the mobilization period of the contract

01:51:41 contract the other thing to mention i suppose as well is that the allied protection portal was their way of

01:51:48 way of communicating their certification to the tmo

01:51:52 tmo but there was also a quality assurance process before the information was uploaded into keystone so there was a check by an independent expert to make sure that the certification was correct yes did

01:52:04 the certification was correct yes did you take any steps yourself to monitor mr stokes his access or his ability to access

01:52:12 access the certificates portal and then later the keystone database which would have contained that information i didn't have any personal contact with him do you know who who was responsible for

01:52:23 for facilitating mr stakes's access to that information i'd assume that would be between alex and janice i see but you had to be a part of it you know janice was the key point of contact with carl if that's the case can you tell us

01:52:37 carl if that's the case can you tell us why

01:52:37 why it appears janice ray was not at the meeting you were having with alex um alex bosman to ensure that carl stakes had access to the certificate she may have been at the meeting i can't

01:52:48 she may have been at the meeting i can't remember the meeting specifically i would have imagined she would be there can we go to tm00843 588 please uh this is an email i'd like to go to

01:53:00 uh this is an email i'd like to go to page two in that it's an email run into uh on the same day

01:53:04 day and uh if you go to page two you can see that there's an email from alex bosman on the 17th of december 2015 at 12 52 and cop to janice ray barbara matthews

01:53:16 and cop to janice ray barbara matthews you and sasha jefferson subject fra hi all it was really helpful to meet this morning and i feel the new approach to reviewing the fra actions will enable us to progress them in a timely manner

01:53:28 to progress them in a timely manner had he expressed concerns before this about delays in closing out fra actions

01:53:35 yes there'd been a there'd been an ongoing dialogue involving alex and others about how we could make sure the process worked effectively yes

01:53:46 and what were his specific concerns that he had previously raised i don't remember but as i mean but the the ones that we described that

01:53:59 ones that we described that in the meeting we've just reviewed were they were suggestions from alex about how we could streamline some of these processes

01:54:05 processes when he says it was really helpful to meet this morning obviously we can see from your

01:54:09 from your diary that you were there does this tell us that janice ray barbara matthews and sasha jevons were also at the meeting i certainly don't think barbara or sasha

01:54:20 i certainly don't think barbara or sasha would have been there right i think janice probably was right i see um the new approach he refers to there i just read to you what was that new approach to reviewing fra actions the process the approach that we covered

01:54:33 the process the approach that we covered in the meeting from you saw in the minutes right

01:54:39 and did the um the new approach uh enable the tmo to clear the backlog of fra actions that had built up which we've seen from the november meeting notes it was helping and

01:54:51 meeting notes it was helping and certainly the um so i think that would have streamlined that part of the process a key part of this from the tmo's perspective was making sure mobilizing the the

01:55:04 making sure mobilizing the the contract with allied light remedial uh protection rather and making sure that that worked because i think we'd had a we had a period of time where um

01:55:15 had a we had a period of time where um we had rge as the contractor which we looked at in the evidence yesterday and that we we part a company with that contractor and had an interim contract in place

01:55:25 in place with chubb which for for a couple of years and that was really it was an interim emergency procurement to cover a vacancy at that time and this was really this

01:55:38 at that time and this was really this this new contract with allied protection was really the first time that we'd had a

01:55:43 a properly structured procurement of a contractor who would take on all of those aspects was the new approach that he refers to recorded in some kind of

01:55:55 recorded in some kind of policy document or protocol um i think the the new approach is that i think it's it's not a fundamental new

01:56:07 i think it's it's not a fundamental new approach i think what it what he was flagging up is that there's a new approach to getting greater clarity from the way that actions from the fire risk assessments were communicated

01:56:18 assessments were communicated to alex's team in a way that could be actioned effectively it doesn't look like that from the note of the meeting we saw what it looks like from the note of the meeting we saw leaving aside

01:56:29 leaving aside a dare and sprinklers was that carl stokes would be given access to information not that alex bosman would be given access to

01:56:38 access to better information well alex would have access to that information anyway so that

01:56:42 that just the process of checking rather than creating actions to check would help um as would the um access given access to the portal but

01:56:54 access given access to the portal but also there was the disc there was there'd been an ongoing discussion about ensuring that the um the actions the the actions that were being communicated were actions that were

01:57:06 communicated were actions that were able to be actioned through uh through a direct order to a contractor rather than something that some another third party needs to go and investigate so i think they were that was sort of the cultural change that

01:57:18 the cultural change that had come about over over the uh this period

01:57:24 period and to summarize it is the new approach essentially giving carl stokes access to certificates so as to pre-inform him about any particular

01:57:36 pre-inform him about any particular piece of equipment in any particular building

01:57:40 building uh so that it would speed up his work and also make it his work clearer so that he could then direct you as to what needed to be done that was one strand what was it what were the other strands so the other strand was about

01:57:51 strand was about the tone and the the clarity of what actions needed to be taken so fire risk assessment actions were actions not to go and investigate but actions to go and do this piece of work

01:58:02 work so that was the that was the clear that was the most important part of this because actually a significant number up to that point a significant number of actions were for my team who weren't experts to go

01:58:13 for my team who weren't experts to go and investigate something and agree what needed to be done so that meant we would have to

01:58:18 have to get other people to give advice and so it was about it was about streamlining a process and getting clarity about what actually needed to be done as a as a result of those actions but that second strand doesn't appear in

01:58:29 that second strand doesn't appear in your

01:58:30 your manuscript note of the meeting we saw it's been part of the dialogue of all of the discussions that we've been having through these um this morning can we then move into 2016 please uh and

01:58:43 can we then move into 2016 please uh and go

01:58:43 go to the health and safety committee meeting of the 19th of january 2016. i'd like to show you your first witness statement at page 43 please

01:58:55 let's go to paragraph 219 on that page

01:59:01 page 43 of your first witness statement paragraph 219 and you say i attended a health and safety committee meeting on the 19th of january 2015 attended by tma managers and staff during this

01:59:13 tma managers and staff during this meeting

01:59:14 meeting you exhibit the note as recorded at paragraph 3.2 i asked to see a copy of the detail behind the report on the backlog of outstanding actions in relation to fire related deficiencies

01:59:25 in relation to fire related deficiencies indicating my view that the system should be more robust to ensure actions are escalated if they are out of time there was confirmation that the process would be reviewed

01:59:36 now to be clear i think in fact you meant

01:59:40 meant 2016 not 2015 in your statement is that right i'm not sure well let's just look at the document then uh well

01:59:57 let's go to tm01011987 at page three

02:00:19 and if you go to that first page you can see that the minutes certainly say 2015 at the top when you are in attendance

02:00:32 [Applause]

02:00:35 but in fact it's right isn't it that the adair tower enforcement notice that came in december 2015. remember that sorry i'm i'm

02:00:47 remember that sorry i'm i'm looking at i'm confused about the timing what we're trying to establish here i'm trying to establish here that in fact the date of this minute was actually 2016. and as opposed to 2015. these minutes

02:01:00 and as opposed to 2015. these minutes yes your statement and these minutes themselves actually should have known the date 2016 or not 2015. okay i'm not sure i'm not sure i don't think i can and if you go to

02:01:11 i don't think i can and if you go to paragraph

02:01:15 3.6

02:01:20 you can see that there's a reference there

02:01:24 there to the process for deficiency notices relating to paper three in the meeting documents that's what we saw earlier on if you want to get back to that we can do that tmo double zero eight four zero

02:01:35 do that tmo double zero eight four zero four eight zero let's quickly go back to that

02:01:43 and you can see that here is the procedure and it's dated january 2016. it makes sense doesn't it that the reference

02:01:54 reference to this document

02:01:59 which is january 2016 could only be made at a meeting in or after january 2016 and not january 2015.

02:02:10 i'm sorry i'm not really following uh well

02:02:13 well the date of the meeting is january according to the minute is january 2015 there's a reference in the minute to this paper and this paper is dated january 2016. so you're saying you yeah i

02:02:26 so you're saying you yeah i i don't know but right but it's a matter of record

02:02:29 of record let's go to item three on page three of the minute then back to that tmo10011987

02:02:43 and if you go to page three under uh 3.1 w2 workflow fra actions it says jw and bibm

02:02:54 fra actions it says jw and bibm highlighted the main points of the fra summaries pm asked for the detail behind this report pm noted that the system should be more robust to ensure actions are escalated if they are out of time or allocated to staff who are no longer

02:03:06 or allocated to staff who are no longer with the organization gw advised the process will be reviewed to avoid outstanding historic actions now we can see that you asked to see the detail behind the report on the backlog of outstanding actions

02:03:17 of outstanding actions was the report to which you were referring there the fra current progress with completion of actions

02:03:24 actions summary that janice ray had produced if you remember that

02:03:30 i don't remember sorry okay let's uh let's look at that tmo one double zero one one nine one zero

02:03:46 uh

02:03:52 this is a document paper two and h and s current progress with completion of actions fire risk teams summary is is that

02:04:03 summary is is that the report that you are asking to see the detail behind

02:04:13 possibly yes well let's go to page two see if that makes any better sense to you this is fire risk assessments actions progress with completing actions and then there are the teams again set

02:04:24 and then there are the teams again set out contract management project management etc uh with the age profile of outstanding actions yes was that the report um yes i think that was the right that's the sort of report i was looking for

02:04:35 the sort of report i was looking for but now what you say you wanted the detail

02:04:39 detail what information um were you lacking

02:04:44 so what would have helped me would have been if those actions required were broken down by age profile too

02:04:57 um could you just be clear about what you mean okay so for example if in the four to six months schedule in the middle of the column where there are 15 if that broke that down into of those

02:05:11 if that broke that down into of those five or amber five a green five are red i see and that would have allowed me to understand whether they were in date or out of date and therefore where i could focus attention on making sure that those

02:05:23 attention on making sure that those actions were addressed uh well you're told whether they're in data or out of date in this in one sentence aren't you or no because those 15 documents could all

02:05:35 no because those 15 documents could all be

02:05:36 be could all be green and and have a six month time scale

02:05:44 so i see so

02:05:54 you were lacking information that told you one whether these were in date or out of date and to what their risk profile was yeah that's i think what you're telling us

02:06:05 why was that information not something you'd had long before it was available in the in the granule detail that but i felt that as this for the purposes of

02:06:16 i felt that as this for the purposes of this meeting where we're looking at corporate level that everybody should have sight of that not just myself but also other members of the organization right i mean the the risk profile the

02:06:30 right i mean the the risk profile the and the

02:06:31 and the traffic light system is something you knew existed and you'd been asking for for

02:06:35 for by now almost uh well just about three years

02:06:40 years well each action was but each action had a

02:06:43 a priority to it so that was clearly communicated to the head of the head of services but i felt that as a monitoring tool corporately it would have been helpful to have been able to see this

02:06:54 to have been able to see this at this at this level so that why haven't you had that kind of information before that given the previous requests for that

02:07:00 for that kind of data i can't answer them right

02:07:04 was the system simply not picking these actions up no the actions were all picked up they were all progressed this was about having an overview and ensuring that the correct actions were taken

02:07:15 correct actions were taken um and people were held to account if they weren't right and we could see just looking at contract management that there was there were still 69 out of 678 outstanding

02:07:31 69 out of 678 outstanding uh most of which 35 were 12 months plus that must have caused you some concern it did i mean it did i mean

02:07:43 it did i mean it did i mean it was it was good that the figures were much lower than they had been previously so there was a the down the trend was downwards but there were still some issues that needed to be addressed here and some of those things were related to

02:07:55 and some of those things were related to there were some sticky issues in terms of the sprinkler matter that i raised uh earlier so there were some issues so we had to find a way of resolving a practical way of resolving and and

02:08:08 a practical way of resolving and and this

02:08:08 this this and these figures show that significant progress had been made but there was still some way to go this was at the time when we were also mobilizing the the new

02:08:19 mobilizing the the new facilities management contract which we felt was really going to be the piece with that i mean on the face of it what this tells us is this right that whatever was known by those within your team you didn't have a grip

02:08:32 your team you didn't have a grip on the risk profile or the um the age pro the precise age profile whether they were outstanding or not of some 10 percent of outstanding

02:08:44 of some 10 percent of outstanding contract management items so where does the 10 come 69 out of 678 um no that's

02:08:55 um no that's that's not that's not the case there was the process we've described each of the um each of the teams had a full report of all of the actions

02:09:07 had a full report of all of the actions by priority with the detail and the names against them what i was after was a high level summary to help

02:09:18 summary to help help you know the the corporate health and safety committee see the the risk profile and the and the the progress and the trends that were in action here um so that information

02:09:29 in action here um so that information was available i felt that this was a way of strengthening and improving some of that information it wasn't saying that the system wasn't working it just meant that there was i think i felt there was a different way

02:09:41 felt there was a different way of giving greater clarity yeah i i mean by this time this is january 16 it looks as if you had been after

02:09:53 as if you had been after even at high level for your own benefit a a risk profile analysis and an outstanding profile analysis for almost three years did it not

02:10:04 almost three years did it not strike you by this time that you that you still weren't getting that information in your hands yes but the granular detail was available and was being actioned and this

02:10:17 and was being actioned and this information did show that the progress was being made but i felt that this you know would have been helpful to have developed that into so that those each of those numbers could be broken down into

02:10:28 numbers could be broken down into um priority but this is just another request isn't it for the same information that you'd been asking for repeatedly for years yes did it not strike you as problematic that although you had been asking

02:10:40 that although you had been asking for the same information for years you had still not got it it was problematic but it wasn't problematic to the point that i couldn't talk to my team and look at the detail of the granular detail with them right

02:10:59 and that was always the case was it yes and if that was always the case why did you need the information at all because i thought it would be helpful it would be helpful to me and i thought it would be helpful to the organization

02:11:10 would be helpful to the organization i mean the information that you were after could come from one or other of two sources it could either be given to you by janice ray as you were asking

02:11:17 asking or it could be collated for you and presented to you by your teams now did you ask janice ray again for that information um i mean it's on

02:11:28 for that information um i mean it's on record

02:11:28 record what what what's been requested um in effect what i did was go and talk to my teams and look at the the detail with them where necessary but i

02:11:37 i felt that it would be better to have a single source of information to avoid any any corruption potentially right corruption of that data i mean

02:11:53 right corruption of that data i mean if you ask to see the detail behind the report on the backlog of outstanding actions as we can see from the minute my question is why did you ask that question if this was something that you could have got from your team

02:12:06 could have got from your team i think i've explained as much as best i can as to why i felt that it would be good

02:12:10 good for for the organization to see this but why not just ask your team to prepare you a report that's what i did right you say you asked you

02:12:21 right you say you asked you as you can see you asked for detail behind this report why did you have to ask that at this meeting why not simply go to your your team go to alex bosman for example and say can i please see the detail

02:12:32 and say can i please see the detail behind this paper that i have received that's what i would do you did do that yes

02:12:42 and i just wonder why it was necessary to raise it in a formal meeting because i that's feel that this information would be better if it was broken down in that way and maybe somebody should have said no

02:12:53 and maybe somebody should have said no if that wasn't going to happen but it i don't think that did happen

02:13:03 now uh we can see that if we go back to the minute

02:13:10 tmo10011987 page three that at 3.2 on page 3

02:13:20 it says gw that's graham webb isn't it yes and he's repairs direct isn't he he is he advised the process will be reviewed to avoid outstanding historic

02:13:32 reviewed to avoid outstanding historic actions had you by this time met repairs direct in order to discuss the issue of outstanding fra actions no i don't believe it because there were

02:13:44 i don't believe it because there were discrete entities i mean there may have been some crossover in some areas and needed for some discussion but graham webb's

02:13:53 webb's uh team would deal with responsive repairs right can we look at the foot of the page paragraph 3.9 deficiency notices are usually sent to relevant esa manager pm asked for a live summary of what's

02:14:04 pm asked for a live summary of what's being circulated jw to provide sj commented that there's a need to carry out a trend analysis to interrogate the data and check that actions are carried out and escalated appropriately why did you request the live summary

02:14:16 why did you request the live summary there

02:14:19 um i think i wanted to know what was what was being required from from the fire brigade so we could anticipate and act and action these things and was that because you felt that there was insufficient information

02:14:31 that there was insufficient information being circulated uh generally about deficiency notices i can't remember but i think that must have been the issue that maybe some of the

02:14:38 the deficiency notices hadn't been communicated to all sections of the organization um but also sometimes those the deficiency notices sometimes the the approach of the fire

02:14:50 sometimes the the approach of the fire brigade might change for different reasons so they may start enforcing action on things that no previously they hadn't been so it was about understanding what was happening and so we could ensure that we could anticipate that and

02:15:03 ensure that we could anticipate that and address matters before the these issues arose now the next health and safety committee meeting took place on the 12th of april 2016. can we please look at the minutes from that meeting tm00840545

02:15:20 and we can see from page one

02:15:25 that you were in attendance third attendee

02:15:29 attendee down and can we get piece to page three in that and look under the fra section item 4.1 w2 workflow fra actions jw welcomed the significant

02:15:43 fra actions jw welcomed the significant drop in the number of outstanding actions for both fras and h actions bm acknowledged the progress made and advised that the chief executive remained anxious that all actions older than six months should be completed as a matter of urgency

02:15:55 completed as a matter of urgency a boss that's alex bosman added that his team currently has a further 50 plus actions which have been confirmed as complete

02:16:01 complete and will be fully completed on w-2 asap now you can see that there's mention here of a significant drop in fra actions but

02:16:12 drop in fra actions but still a note of concern

02:16:16 by the chief executive robert black there

02:16:19 there that actions all actions older than six months should be completed as a matter of urgency was that a significant matter for everyone

02:16:29 everyone involved in closing out fra actions yes and therefore an urgent priority to correct

02:16:37 correct yes i mean the chief executive was on to you and you needed to be done yes yes but we all we all recognize the priority that this this had yeah now let's then look at the

02:16:48 this had yeah now let's then look at the next health and safety committee meeting in june 14th of june minutes of that are at tm00840607

02:17:03 and again you're in attendance as you can see from the column on the right second

02:17:08 second name down can we please go to page three and look at item four yes fire safety and fire risk assessments fra actions there uh and underneath that at item 4.1 bm

02:17:21 uh and underneath that at item 4.1 bm barbara matthews noted the good progress being made with these however the chief executive is anxious to have all the actions completed as a matter of priority now that would suggest would it not that no or

02:17:33 suggest would it not that no or no sufficient progress had been made on the older six months plus action since the april meeting the minutes of which we just looked at i don't think it says there's no progress but i think it's

02:17:44 it's um it's recognizing that that is still a priority that we need to do does it follow that those issues have not been addressed as an urgent priority as mr black had required i don't know

02:17:56 had required i don't know i don't believe that's the case was it a disappointment to discover that the chief you were letting down the chief executive in his expectation that outstanding matters

02:18:07 matters of six months plus would be cleared off as a matter of urgency we were all working really hard to try and address the issue and make sure that this

02:18:15 this this was um that all actions were within date and um we'd gone through a very thorough and rigorous process to ensure that we had the infrastructure in place to be able

02:18:26 the infrastructure in place to be able to do that and to ensure that we had the systems in place to be able to measure and monitor it

02:18:31 it and that wasn't just the fire risk assessment actions that was about all of the actions which we measured through our keystone system

02:18:39 system and um so it was it was it this was a process that we devoted a significant amount of energy and focus on right i mean robert black's expectations of urgent

02:18:52 robert black's expectations of urgent uh completion of these outstanding free actions realistic um i think they were challenging but i think that that was right to be challenging did anybody go to robert

02:19:04 challenging did anybody go to robert black and say look we've got we have a process in place but it's going to take a little bit more

02:19:08 bit more time than you're pushing us for there was a regular update through and through through this process

02:19:15 process and also through the governance arrangements through operations committee and through the rest of the governments of the organization so there was a narrative on what was happening what actions were being taken what the

02:19:26 actions were being taken what the progress was in each of those areas but it was clear our priority was clear that we wanted to get all of these actions within date now looking at item 4.2 it says pm

02:19:37 now looking at item 4.2 it says pm that's you advised that the three contract management actions which are over 12 months old all relate to the maintenance of sprinklers within dwellings it's accepted that the british standards requirement for weekly inspections is

02:19:48 requirement for weekly inspections is not achievable so either an alternative and less onerous inspection regime that is acceptable to the lfb needs to be agreed or the possibility of removing these investigated jw agreed to query

02:19:59 investigated jw agreed to query inspection regime with the assessor and liaise with pm and a boss to agree a way

02:20:04 way forward uh in fact it's it appears that you or your team had three actions over 12 months old as it's clear from that not just six months but 12 months yes

02:20:16 not just six months but 12 months yes that looks like to be the case and your approach is this right was to to try to reduce the requirements of the british standard inspection regime as opposed to providing the resources to carry out that regime

02:20:28 carry out that regime i don't think it was the british standards regime i think i mean it's inaccurate i think it's um it was the manufacturer's recommendation so the action that came from carl stokes so this is an example of the

02:20:39 carl stokes so this is an example of the sort of actions that couldn't really be actioned in reality so carl stokes action from his fire risk assessment would be service this sprinkler system in accordance with the manufacturer's guidelines

02:20:51 the manufacturer's guidelines and the manufacturer's guidelines would say test this weekly these were sprinkler systems in individual properties and basements of um

02:20:58 um in basements of townhouses and we would mean we would have to get into access into those flats on a weekly basis

02:21:08 basis to to test that those sprinklers were working that was impractical it may have been impractical but it's what the the british standards requirement was wasn't it it was a manufacturer's requirement right and so it wasn't uh something that

02:21:22 right and so it wasn't uh something that we had the ability to do and these these properties were tenanted people would be at work

02:21:27 at work it was whether it was impractical to go into

02:21:31 into people's homes on a weekly basis i could see that you say it was impractical but in fact isn't that just another word for resourcing no i mean if i mean it's a great inconvenience to

02:21:43 i mean it's a great inconvenience to people if they have to be in their house once a week to have their sprinkler service

02:21:48 service or sprinklers tested that they're they're working so it was about understanding a more practical way of ensuring

02:21:56 ensuring that this was done

02:22:02 now the next meeting takes place on the 13th of september 2016 and the minutes are at tma10

02:22:15 and again we can see that you are in attendance at that meeting can we go to page two please

02:22:24 fra actions uh under item four

02:22:30 and you can see in the first line that barbara matthews raises the concern that there was still a volume of actions outstanding and reiterated the need for these to be given priority and completed asap then if you go down

02:22:42 and completed asap then if you go down towards the end of that point

02:22:48 uh she says uh

02:22:57 bm hoped to see substantial improvement on these figures at the next meeting particularly any actions over six months old

02:23:05 old and i've read about five lines up from the bottom there you see that yes so it's clear that even by this time now 13th of september 2016 there was still a

02:23:16 13th of september 2016 there was still a significant volume of actions outstanding do you agree i can't see the figures but i presume there were figures presented in this meeting

02:23:28 uh well she says there is still a volume of actions outstanding and i take it from that that the volume of actions was significant

02:23:39 of actions was significant rather than insignificant i don't have recollection of what those actions were specific was it your impression at this meeting that notwithstanding all the efforts that have been put into this process

02:23:51 have been put into this process over the previous years and months there was still a need for substantial improvement in getting fra actions completed

02:23:57 completed there was there was i mean there was a clear focus on it on that and the the point of the the last point in there was that where alex bosman confirmed that the new facilities management contract was

02:24:08 facilities management contract was due to start later this year and that was a significant part of the last piece of the jigsaw of compliance which was the facilities management contract included um the the work we intended to do with

02:24:22 the the work we intended to do with allied protection and that would have

02:24:27 this there's also a risk at this stage i think that we we've procured that new contract and the outgoing contractor uh there's like there's there's going to be a handover between two contractors

02:24:38 be a handover between two contractors which is always an area where there can be turbulence in terms of performance and you can see that barbara matthews is hoping to see substantial improvement at the next meeting and then she says

02:24:49 at the next meeting and then she says particularly any actions over six months old it looks from that that there was still at least a significant by which i mean meaningful number of actions

02:24:59 actions which were over six months old which was troubling which were troubling miss matthews is that right that looks like that's what that's what's his minister yes why was that a problem

02:25:10 his minister yes why was that a problem that you hadn't been able to get rid of notwithstanding robert black's imperative given to you back in the april

02:25:17 april um i think barbara's comments are on the corporate figures i don't know what the specifics are for my team um and it looks as if she was

02:25:28 um and it looks as if she was on at you effectively to sort out actions over six months old what was the problem

02:25:33 problem this wasn't me particularly this was called one of the group the group yes what was the problem i think that i think the issue at this stage was i think we'd seen significant improvement

02:25:44 think we'd seen significant improvement over time and i think we've reached a point

02:25:46 point where um we're in mobilizing the new facilities management contract there was going to be a bit of turbulence and uh but beyond that there was going to be a significant improvement

02:25:57 a significant improvement and if you want to look at the figures um we can it's a tm they are at tmo10014787 let's look at those just to be [Music]

02:26:07 [Music] clear since you raised the the point um this is paper four address addressed to that meeting and you can see that for a and our

02:26:19 and you can see that for a and our contract management and in our project management there are the figures of fully complete 695 and 59 with 90 outstanding and 14 outstanding

02:26:32 with 90 outstanding and 14 outstanding respectively see that and then if you go to page two we can see the age profile we've still got under contract management

02:26:44 management some 66

02:26:49 some 66 which are four to six months old uh uh none at the seven to twelve range but two over

02:26:55 two over twelve months so presumably the two over twelve months are the sprinklers right because we've had an issue with so if you take those out we we've achieved the target within six

02:27:06 we we've achieved the target within six months within the contract management team and under project management you've got 11 of 12 months plus um how was that about don't remember the details but i think you know my previous answer was that

02:27:18 you know my previous answer was that relating to longer term low priority issues

02:27:22 issues requiring access is typically what would be addressed there can we then go to the health and safety committee meeting of the 19th of january 2017.

02:27:36 that's a tmo10016020

02:27:53 and we can see that you're there third item third individual down can we go to page two please again under fra actions customarily now item four

02:28:06 customarily now item four and look at 4.1 and the minute notes bm raised concerns that there were a large number of actions outstanding that are over 12 months the next meeting each of the teams with outstanding

02:28:18 each of the teams with outstanding actions will need to explain their action plan to clear these down what have happened in the year between january 2016 with the adoption of the improved procedure which we saw in your diary and january

02:28:31 which we saw in your diary and january 2017 that meant that there were still outstanding fra items from before january 2016 that had still not being completed

02:28:40 completed so is this are these minutes the minutes of the following meeting from the report that we've just looked at previously no sorry the next meeting on yes so the previous

02:28:51 the next meeting on yes so the previous meeting was the previous meeting uh was in september 16. and this is january this is january so

02:29:00 so if there were no actions outstanding over six months in my team at the previous quarter there couldn't have been any over 12 months at the following meeting so i'm assuming

02:29:11 at the following meeting so i'm assuming that none of those actions over 12 months

02:29:13 months are with my team unless there's been some change in the data

02:29:19 well my question is a different one can i just perhaps have an answer to it what had happened between 2016 january 2016 and the adoption of the improved procedure

02:29:31 the improved procedure and january 2017 that meant that there were still outstanding fra eight items from before january 2016. but it sounds like the improved procedure had brought the figures down to no items over six months old

02:29:44 to no items over six months old and then three months later there couldn't be any over 12 months old so i'm assuming that this minute doesn't relate to my service

02:29:52 if you well let's look at the statistics for this meeting at tm010015963

02:30:05 for this meeting at tm010015963 these are the stats compiled for this meeting

02:30:09 meeting to which ms matthews is speaking one assumes

02:30:12 assumes uh and it's paper four dated 12th january 2017 and we can see that under a r contract management you've got 95 outstanding

02:30:24 you've got 95 outstanding out of 755 and 12 out of 62 for project and if we go to the age profile on page two now uh you can see uh you've still got two

02:30:35 uh you can see uh you've still got two over 12 months for contract management and 11 over project management [Music]

02:30:41 [Music] for project management so i think the two over 12 months will be the same as the two over 12 months at the previous meeting yeah say so so as as i said

02:30:52 as as i said none of the actions that mentioned in barbara's

02:30:55 barbara's minute relate to the assets need to see the contract management team it looks as if there is some movement there between the four to six months to the second to over six months

02:31:07 months to the second to over six months old

02:31:08 old from so that 46 actions in 12 7 to 12 months has moved and i think that is the issue that i was flagging up in relation to this is the period where

02:31:19 period where an outgoing contractor has is swapped over to a new contractor and i think there was some i think there were some communications issues at this stage

02:31:30 issues at this stage in terms of actions being progressed new actions will be would be um new issues would be would be identified by new contractors but um but my understanding is that

02:31:41 but um but my understanding is that there was a bit of a lag in terms of the the reporting at this time with the new

02:31:47 new mobilized uh allied remedial uh my projection contract in relation to the two over twelve months old that we see there are these the same actions that have remained unresolved or is it was a new

02:31:58 remained unresolved or is it was a new pair of

02:31:59 pair of 12-month performance it couldn't have been the new pair because it would you would have seen it as it was coming between

02:32:04 between in the timeline so it could it must be the same actions and i'm assuming it's the actions relating to the sprinkler systems that i referred to and there are now 46 actions that have come in at six months plus

02:32:16 come in at six months plus yes and i think that i think that was an issue related to the mobilization of the new contract and and some turbulence in the communication of the of those actions

02:32:27 of the of those actions were you not concerned when you saw these figures yes i'd spoke that's why i spoke to the contracts manager and got an understanding of what the issues were and my recollection

02:32:41 what the issues were and my recollection is that this was about an under reporting and under communication issue from the newly um the newly mobilized contract with allied protection

02:32:54 protection did you actually provide an action plan as barbara matthews had asked well barbara matthews minute was about actions over 12 months and none of those actions related to me other than the two

02:33:04 the two that we've discussed which we'd agreed an alternative and did you provide an action plan in relation to those two yes well the reduction plan would be overstating i think we came to an agreement about how

02:33:15 agreement about how we would effectively service and communicate the servicing of those sprinklers but not carry out weekly inspections that was agreed with the fire risk assessor right if we go back to the minute though

02:33:27 right if we go back to the minute though i think you may have perhaps misread what the minute says she's expressing concern that there were a large number of actions over 12 months

02:33:39 at the next meeting each of the teams with outstanding actions will need to explain their action plan to clear these down

02:33:48 down was the was your understanding that the action plan should only relate to outstanding actions over 12 months or all outstanding actions well i read that minute is saying i read

02:33:59 well i read that minute is saying i read that minute now is saying over 12 months however

02:34:02 however yeah that's your understanding at the time i don't remember right but but i did expect and that at each um health and safety corporate meeting there would be a discussion

02:34:14 there would be a discussion about progressive fire risk assessments it was very much on the agenda and it was very much a high priority for the organization

02:34:27 now just going back if we can to the statistics uh that we saw the the the intervening document

02:34:37 document tm010015963

02:34:41 we can see on page one there that uh alr project management had 12 outstanding actions

02:34:54 had 12 outstanding actions of which four uh uh 12 outstanding actions

02:34:58 actions of a total uh of 78 allocated and if we go to page two we can see in relation to those 11 of the 12 had been outstanding

02:35:11 those 11 of the 12 had been outstanding for more than 12 months

02:35:14 now if we go then to the statistics for the next meeting which is in march 16th of march 2017 that's a tmo one double zero one six two one seven

02:35:28 we can see how that's developed

02:35:35 and the second item down there and our project management and technical systems team

02:35:40 team you see

02:35:47 has essentially cleared all of the outstanding items if you look at the second item down there are none outstanding the 12 in brackets figures relates to

02:35:58 the 12 in brackets figures relates to the 12th of january figures and you can see that from the footnote tiny little footnote at the bottom left-hand corner yes so it had been successful in clearing all outstanding fra actions

02:36:13 would you agree that your department had outstanding actions when barbara matthews ordered the teams that actions needed to be resolved or an explanation provided in other words once she'd put the whip on

02:36:25 words once she'd put the whip on things moved um it was a corporate priority it wasn't the case of responding to barbara i think barbara was right to be

02:36:36 barbara i think barbara was right to be raising concerns and keeping the pressure on the teams we all shared that as a corporate priority

02:36:41 priority and a lot of action had gone into ensuring these things were delivered i mean the

02:36:46 mean the the the action the 12 actions on the project management team there would be they would be they'd been there a long time and the reason they've been there a long time is that those capital programs tend

02:36:57 time is that those capital programs tend to have a long lead in time and long procurement and so that

02:37:01 that has obviously run its course and been completed

02:37:05 completed but the piece around the contract management piece which was a much larger issue and a challenge to actually make sure that we were collecting and managing data effectively having the

02:37:16 and managing data effectively having the right contractors in place to manage all of those assets of all properties not just that the properties that came out of the fire risk assessments and that was a much larger challenge and it did take some time

02:37:27 it did take some time to get into a stronger position on that now if we go down to page two in this document

02:37:35 document you'll see the age profile for project management to technical systems you've now got none uh outstanding as we've seen uh but those that had been cleared off

02:37:47 uh but those that had been cleared off included

02:37:48 included the 11 from 12 months plus

02:37:53 do you remember what those long-standing unresolved actions were not specifically but they'd be detailed in the reports that janus reported to the head of um do you know how those were cleared

02:38:06 um do you know how those were cleared no don't do you know why they had not been cleared before barbara matthews issued her imperative um they would have as i described they

02:38:17 they would have as i described they would have been part of a capital contract that would have taken a long lead into procure there would have been once that work was completed

02:38:25 completed confirmation would be then communicated from the capital programs team back to genesis team who would then close off the actions right do you know that or is that just that's how the process surmised right and so the process worked

02:38:37 surmised right and so the process worked you don't know specifically what these or any of these 11 was not for tottenham the details would be in the specific reports that are clear communicated to the head of capital projects did you look at those

02:38:49 capital projects did you look at those yourself to ask yourself the question i wonder what those 11 were and why they weren't cleared off until i would have done at the time yeah what was the answer

02:38:55 answer i can't remember right um can we look then at the actions outstanding at june 2017 at the moment we're now in march but let's look forward to june

02:39:06 in march but let's look forward to june 2017

02:39:07 2017 tmo one double zero one seven one one six please these are the actions outstanding at seventh of june a week before

02:39:18 seventh of june a week before the fire at grenfell tower and we can see now

02:39:21 see now on that page that there are for a and our contract management 73 outstanding of a of a total allocated uh of 931

02:39:34 uh of 931 so that's gone up from 65 in march 2017 but if we look at the age profile on page 2

02:39:44 we can see

02:39:48 that for contract management you you've got you've still got you've now got 12 in there for 12 months plus and 17 in there for six months plus

02:40:01 and 17 in there for six months plus how come um i think this so uh what i was i think the issue here was around the mobilization of the allied protection

02:40:14 mobilization of the allied protection contract which started towards the end of the previous year

02:40:18 year but it was mobilizing in this initial period

02:40:22 period the initial stage of that was about getting was was um it was focused on ensuring that double checking that the asset register was correct and we had

02:40:33 asset register was correct and we had all of the assets that needed to be serviced identified and there was some issues in getting information back from allied remedial protection to

02:40:46 from allied remedial protection to populate the database and to close off these actions so i think a lot of these actions have actually been complete but hadn't been recorded as complete by the contractor right

02:40:56 did you explain that in a in a document anywhere at the time of barbara matthews or anybody else no i spent i spent time with the contracts management team at the time looking at understanding the detail of this and i i

02:41:08 understanding the detail of this and i i understood that narrative and understood what was happening and i understood there was action being taken to make sure that these actions were being communicated and closed out so do i understand your your evidence to

02:41:20 so do i understand your your evidence to be that in fact these outstanding items should have been on the earlier uh documents that we saw from

02:41:26 from january or march but just didn't make it onto those summary documents because of backlogs in data processing i'm saying that some of the actions that were taken taken place in the first half of that year

02:41:37 of that year in the first six months of the contract hadn't been hadn't been closed out effectively right so there's a lag there yeah so there's a lag so and i think there was a

02:41:48 there's a lag so and i think there was a this lag was at a period where chubb the the interim contractor was demobilized and there was a new contract immobilizing and there was a

02:41:59 immobilizing and there was a so there was a there was a crossover between the two contractors and there was also

02:42:03 was also an issue about communication of those actions

02:42:07 actions would you accept that barbara matthews as we've seen had repeatedly asked you and others for some time that the backlog of fra actions needed to be addressed and completed as a priority

02:42:20 addressed and completed as a priority yes yeah and yet at mid-june 2017 your department still had a significant number of outstanding fra actions in the in the figures that were being

02:42:31 in the in the figures that were being produced yes but i think those figures weren't accurate at that time did barbara matthews ask you for an explanation it would have been discussed at the at this meeting

02:42:42 this meeting and what did you tell her i would have reported what i've said

02:42:51 we can see from this document and as we could from the january and the march versions of the document in the format which has now become familiar to you to

02:43:02 which has now become familiar to you to to us

02:43:03 to us and that although you're getting age profiles you're not getting even now the risk color coding uh or the um precise figures

02:43:15 uh or the um precise figures for how long these have been outstanding are you

02:43:19 are you no that you've been after why is that i don't know so in fact from the to february of 2013 through to

02:43:31 from the to february of 2013 through to june

02:43:34 2017 uh four and a bit year period you didn't in fact get

02:43:40 fact get the high level summary in either risk profile terms or um period outstanding terms which would enable you to to have a dashboard which so that you could tell

02:43:52 dashboard which so that you could tell of the outstanding actions not only how long

02:43:55 long have they been outstanding for but also how risky they were this was the information it was provided there was the there was a report that had the granular detail in so it was possible to

02:44:06 detail in so it was possible to extract that information at that stage but it wasn't it wasn't reported at high level at this level but i think the answer to my question is yes you didn't get that high level summary ever

02:44:21 how did you allow yourself not to get that which you had repeatedly asked for for years i got the information through a different route so by instead of getting the information

02:44:33 so by instead of getting the information at this level which i felt would be useful

02:44:35 useful i recognized the information was there in the granule level in my team and that's where i would go and have those discussions now we've been through a long history of this

02:44:46 this over the last almost day mr madison and i i'd like to apologize for taking you through it slowly i hope slowly enough during the period that you attended operational

02:44:57 period that you attended operational health and safety meetings and the health and safety committee meetings of the tmo do you agree that there was continual and frequent discussion about the importance of clearing fra actions yes

02:45:09 actions yes do you agree that those discussions were already taking place when you joined the tmo in january 2013 yeah and that they were still taking place

02:45:19 place in the days before the fire yes do you agree that the reality was that the assets and regeneration department never fully got to grips with completing fra actions

02:45:31 with completing fra actions um i don't agree with that i think that um

02:45:34 um there's been significant there's been a significant journey here progress from where we were at the outset

02:45:40 outset and we had put in place an infrastructure which would allow us to um that had reduced the number of actions significantly in the number of

02:45:51 significantly in the number of outstanding significantly and the age profiled significantly it had been brought into within everything within six months at the turn of the year and there have been some some delays in

02:46:03 and there have been some some delays in in communicating information between the contractor and this reporting in in the six months before this report so i think there'd been significant action and we

02:46:14 been significant action and we were in control of that at that time and do you agree that you never in fact got ahead

02:46:20 ahead of the completing of the fra actions but we're always playing catch up it had been a catch it had been a significant journey and and i think we were in a strong position

02:46:32 and i think we were in a strong position at this stage you might have been getting better one might say but you never actually got ahead but were always playing catch up

02:46:40 up i don't i think i think there was we were certainly determined to improve things and there was always an area that we wanted to improve and thought we could improve we did carry out benchmarking across other other parts of the sector

02:46:52 other other parts of the sector to try and establish where we were and actually felt you know understood that we were in a stronger position than many and we took it very seriously it was something that we put a lot of effort and a lot of energy into and

02:47:04 energy into and we were aware of what else was happening in the in the sector and trying to understand how we could learn and um and make things better and that was really where a lot of our focus was did the uh did the tmo health and safety

02:47:17 did the uh did the tmo health and safety team

02:47:17 team those in charge of it actually ever ask you the question why has your team failed to complete fra actions and why are you still playing catch up there was an ongoing dialogue i mean the

02:47:30 there was an ongoing dialogue i mean the the the process of fire risk assessment and actions and and an inspection is an ongoing process it's a

02:47:38 it's a it's a it's an endless process it won't it's it has to do and by its very nature it has to be so it will always be a case of there'll be times when there will be ebbs and flows of um of

02:47:49 there will be ebbs and flows of um of in that process and um i think that the progress we've made it taking a significant number of outstanding actions down to a

02:48:00 outstanding actions down to a much much smaller number and reducing the number of the increasingly the turnover of those was a significant piece of work but in fact the backlog of

02:48:11 piece of work but in fact the backlog of outstanding fra actions was never actually cleared before the date of the fire was it i don't think that the number of actions outstanding will ever go down to zero which will there would always be still always be something to be actioned in that program

02:48:24 something to be actioned in that program i'm talking about the backlog the backlog was never actually defeated i think it was i think it was in control at this time right i'm going to change change to a slightly different topic

02:48:36 slightly different topic now uh which is risk levels and that then moves into self-closing devices they link can i go back please to the tmos fire

02:48:48 can i go back please to the tmos fire safety strategy we looked at it yesterday it's a tmo double zero eight three zero five nine eight let's just look at page one again just to re-familiarize yourself with the

02:49:00 re-familiarize yourself with the document

02:49:02 i think you said yesterday that you weren't familiar with it is that correct yes if we go to page 15

02:49:13 yes if we go to page 15 again we went there yesterday but just again to fix it in time it's dated november 2013 under the hand of janice ray can we look now inside it at section 14

02:49:25 can we look now inside it at section 14 on page

02:49:26 on page nine

02:49:30 and look at paragraph 14.1.3 we look again we looked at this yesterday at the nfb's request in advance of starting the assessments the successful consultant was introduced to the nfb's

02:49:42 consultant was introduced to the nfb's fire safety team etc and then you can see in the second bullet point and there's the traffic light system and then

02:49:50 then the third bullet point actions would be progressed in order of risk with priority being given to those with a red or amber rating and then if we go to page 10

02:50:01 and then if we go to page 10 we can see under 14.4.2 it says that where a high priority

02:50:12 it says that where a high priority action

02:50:13 action cannot be progressed with the appropriate degree of urgency such as where significant resources and or lengthy procurement are required then entering measures to reduce the fire safety risk in the short term will

02:50:24 fire safety risk in the short term will be implemented specifically these interim measures will be contingency plans instigated when fire protection measures are out of use their repair is delayed etc

02:50:37 etc now i think you said yesterday that you weren't familiar with this document do we take it from that that you never actually read it i think i would have when i say i wasn't familiar i hadn't yeah i couldn't quote it verbatim but i

02:50:48 yeah i couldn't quote it verbatim but i i'm sure it has been presented basically has its committee uh it was it was

02:50:54 was it was uh produced in the year you joined

02:50:59 joined were you told that the tmo should put in place

02:51:03 place interim measures where the priority was assessed as red or high but not for other risk ratings

02:51:13 i wasn't so no were you told that interim measures would be adopted where significant resources or lengthy procurement was required not specifically i don't remember not

02:51:25 not specifically i don't remember not specifically at all i don't remember do you remember any

02:51:29 any case where interim measures were put in place in accordance with this part of the policy that i just read out to you

02:51:40 i don't recall i would i would assume that

02:51:43 that the any conversation along these lines would be between janus and the teams responsible for any actions so if there was an action that was a high priority that couldn't be actioned there would be a dialogue

02:51:54 be actioned there would be a dialogue there about any appropriate um remedial activities that um

02:52:00 that um or interim activities that may be required right you say you'd assume there'd be a conversation between janice and the teams responsible does that mean that you wouldn't be party to those conversations

02:52:12 party to those conversations um generally i would assume not so the the actions would go from um from the health and safety team to say the contracts management team

02:52:23 the contracts management team or the capital program team and they would

02:52:26 would consider those actions if those actions weren't able to be completed there would be a communication back or it would be discussion between the two parties

02:52:35 parties about any actions that may be taken required in the in the meantime but if the high risk fra action was to do with

02:52:43 do with alr contracts management why would you be left out of the loop in any communication between janice ray and the contract team members because they were dealing with the operational issue

02:52:54 operational issue and would result in they may bring me and if there was an issue that needed my involvement or needed to be resolved but i would assume that um

02:53:05 but i would assume that um most issues would be able to be resolved at that operational level no we went through this a little bit yesterday but does that mean that you would only ever get in involved or have any oversight where there was something that required your input yes

02:53:17 something that required your input yes so you had no ongoing monitoring of the um what was coming from janice ray to the contract teams not in the detail now right going back to my point

02:53:28 to my point do you not recall any specific instance of where an interim measure was required in respect of any particular high-risk fra action that was

02:53:39 high-risk fra action that was outstanding

02:53:45 um i don't recall any specifics right now let's look at a chain of email correspondence tm00869184

02:54:02 mr chairman i i've had both a note and a mumble behind me that this is an appropriate moment to break because this is quite a long chain it is um you should always listen to your junior well i was going to say um i was i was

02:54:13 well i was going to say um i was i was hoping to gain an extra five minutes but maybe

02:54:15 maybe the answer to this is to break now and come back at five minutes to two if not inconvenient to everybody else

02:54:23 well um i think we can indulge you to that extent mr millet i'm grateful um mr madison for practical reasons we're going to stop slightly early now

02:54:34 stop slightly early now luncha and we'll resume at five to two please

02:54:37 please thank you and uh please remember not to talk to anyone about your evidence over the break

02:54:41 the break thank you thank you very much

02:54:51 right just a minute five to two please i'm grateful thank you

02:55:15 you