Evidence from Barry Turner, former Director of Technical Policy at LABC, examining the certification process for Kingspan K15 insulation and the type approval system.
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00:00:30 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today's hearing. Today we're going to begin hearing
00:00:36 evidence from witnesses representing some of the organisations about whom we heard from
00:00:43 the Council making opening statements in the last two days. Yes, Ms Grange.
00:00:49 Yes, Mr Chairman. Could we have Mr Barry Turner, who is our first LABC witness, please?
00:00:55 Yes, thank you very much.
00:01:04 Good morning, Mr Turner.
00:01:05 Morning.
00:01:06 I understand you're going to make the affirmation.
00:01:09 Yes.
00:01:10 Thank you very much. Would you then please read the words on the screen?
00:01:13 I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and I affirm that the evidence I shall give shall
00:01:19 be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
00:01:22 Thank you very much indeed. Would you like to sit down please and make yourself comfortable?
00:01:26 There's some water there if you would like it.
00:01:49 Good. All right.
00:01:50 Okay.
00:01:51 Good. Yes, Ms Grange.
00:01:53 Yes, good morning, Mr Turner. Can I start by thanking you very much for attending this
00:01:58 public inquiry today to give your evidence. It is very much appreciated. If you have any
00:02:04 difficulty understanding any of the questions I'm going to ask you, please don't hesitate
00:02:09 to ask me to repeat the question or put the point in a different way. And can you try
00:02:13 and keep your voice up because there's a transcriber sitting to your right who's taking a note,
00:02:19 a clear note of your oral evidence. Now you provided two witness statements to the inquiry.
00:02:26 The first one was dated the 14th of February 2020. And the second statement, which was
00:02:32 a statement which amended your original statement and encompassed all of your evidence, was
00:02:37 dated the 9th of October 2020. If we can pull that up, that's at LABC 0011202.
00:02:50 So there's your second amended statement. And if we look at page 47, is that your signature?
00:02:59 It is.
00:03:00 Yes. And we can see it's dated the 9th of October 2020. And have you read that witness
00:03:06 statement recently?
00:03:08 No.
00:03:09 Okay. Well, I'll take you back to certain passages during your evidence. Can you confirm
00:03:15 that the contents are true and accurate?
00:03:18 They were, I believe so at the time. Yes.
00:03:21 Okay. Thank you very much. And you've also helpfully provided a document for the transcript.
00:03:27 That's at LABC 0011205, which sets out the amendments that you made to that second corrected
00:03:34 statement. Have you discussed the evidence you're going to give with anybody before coming
00:03:40 here this morning?
00:03:44 Legal representatives, yes.
00:03:46 That's fine. Okay. But nobody else?
00:03:48 No.
00:03:49 Thank you. Now, just to start with, I'm going to ask you some questions about your background.
00:03:53 And if we can pull up paragraph 12 of your statement at page three. You tell us there
00:04:05 in paragraph 12 that you are a chartered building control surveyor and a member of the Royal
00:04:10 Institute of Chartered Surveyers with over 53 years experience in surveying and building
00:04:16 control. Is that correct?
00:04:18 It is.
00:04:19 Thank you. And you tell us on the first paragraph of the statement on page one that at the time
00:04:27 you made your statement, you were employed by the District Surveyor's Association as
00:04:32 director of technical policy. And you explain that the District Surveyor's Association operates
00:04:38 under the trading name, Local Authority Building Control, and is commonly known by that name,
00:04:44 usually abbreviated to LABC. Is that correct?
00:04:48 Thank you. And you tell us there that you were the director of technical policy. Are
00:04:59 you still employed by the LABC in that role?
00:05:02 No.
00:05:03 Is it right that you retired from employment?
00:05:06 Yes.
00:05:07 When did you retire?
00:05:09 March of this year.
00:05:11 Thank you. Now, if we go to page four of your statement and look at paragraph 14, you tell
00:05:18 us that you joined the LABC in October 2006 as director of technical policy. Is that correct?
00:05:28 I'm not sure the job title is correct. I can't tell you what it was, to be perfectly honest,
00:05:34 but it was a similar role. Yes.
00:05:37 And was it a senior technical role within the LABC?
00:05:40 Yes.
00:05:42 Now, I'll ask you some more questions about that role in a minute, but just briefly, because
00:05:47 we don't get this from your statement, just tell us what jobs, what employment had you
00:05:51 been involved in before that time?
00:05:55 Principally Local Authority Building Control from trainee to manager of the service throughout
00:06:01 my career.
00:06:04 And had you stayed within a particular area doing Local Authority Building Control work?
00:06:08 Yes, in the North Wales area.
00:06:11 Yes, thank you.
00:06:13 Did you move between local authorities in the course of your career progression?
00:06:19 I did. Usually as a result of local authority reorganisation. We suffered two local authority
00:06:27 reorganisations during my time at employment.
00:06:32 Yes, thank you.
00:06:33 And staying with paragraph 14 there on page 4, you continue to say that you were appointed
00:06:41 to represent the LABC and Local Authority Building Control on government-initiated working
00:06:46 groups together with various technical committees and other industry advisory forums. Is that
00:06:52 correct?
00:06:53 Yes.
00:06:54 Yes, and we'll come to some of that work in due course. Paragraph 15, below that, you
00:07:01 say that your responsibilities include keeping members informed of legislative changes and
00:07:07 we're able to do so to offer advice on the application and interpretation of building
00:07:12 control legislation and regulations to local authorities throughout England and Wales and
00:07:18 also to collate and disseminate information. Is that right?
00:07:23 Yes.
00:07:25 And then we understand from Mr Bassan's statement that you were his line manager, is that correct?
00:07:33 Yes.
00:07:34 He, between February 2011 and May 2015, he was the head of technical practice and communications
00:07:40 at the LABC. Is that right?
00:07:44 He was a colleague, yes.
00:07:45 Yes. And you were his line manager?
00:07:48 I think that's probably the correct interpretation, yes.
00:07:53 Did you manage anybody else in your role as director of technical policy or whatever title
00:07:59 that role had?
00:08:00 No.
00:08:01 No.
00:08:02 No. It was a singular role, in effect.
00:08:06 Yes. Now, you said that you weren't entirely sure about the title of your role. Can we
00:08:12 just look at an email relevant to this? It's LABC 302825, page 101. This is an email dated
00:08:28 the 20th of November 2006, so it must have been shortly after you began working at the
00:08:35 LABC. And we can see that you're telling somebody called Nila Dionerine in the second paragraph,
00:08:48 you say, as for title, anything as long as it is polite. My official employment title
00:08:53 is technical coordinator, but it was felt that while this was very specific and correct
00:08:58 as far as dealing with our members are concerned, in some instances, this may not portray the
00:09:02 correct image to the outside world. Who am I to argue? Paul has suggested something along
00:09:08 the lines of director of technical services, which is fine by me. The board don't want
00:09:13 a technical director because it implies membership of the board. Do you see that?
00:09:17 Yes.
00:09:18 And then you say, go for director of technical services, but don't print too many copies.
00:09:22 Yeah.
00:09:24 Does that help you in terms of what title you came upon in terms of your role?
00:09:32 Yes. I think it also describes what the role involved.
00:09:36 Yeah. And can you just explain to us why the role of technical coordinator
00:09:41 didn't portray the right image to the outside world? What was the problem with that title?
00:09:45 This was a discussion that I'd had with the chief executive at the time. The idea was that I would
00:10:01 represent the membership and they wanted something that portrayed a
00:10:16 level of responsibility within the organisation. I think that's the best way I can describe it.
00:10:23 Yes, that's helpful. Thank you. There are references in, for example, the LABC type
00:10:30 approval service manual. So in some of the manuals you were using, there are references to the role
00:10:36 of technical coordinator. Were you different from that? Was your role distinct and different
00:10:43 from the technical coordinator role? Did somebody else perform that role?
00:10:51 Yes. I think that was primarily an administrative position.
00:10:58 Right. So where we see references in the manuals to technical coordinator,
00:11:04 and thinking back, for example, to the period, say 2006 to 2012,
00:11:09 are you saying that wouldn't have been you? No.
00:11:12 No. Okay. Can you help us as to who that would have been, the technical coordinator at that time?
00:11:17 It would have been one of the administrative assistants within the office. It was a role of
00:11:26 that nature. So are you saying- It was not a technical person. It was an
00:11:34 administrative person. Right. I see. So emphasis on the coordinator
00:11:39 rather than the technical. Yes.
00:11:41 I see. Thank you. Now, we don't need to go to this, but Lorna Stimpson has said in her evidence
00:11:50 that until Mr. Basson's appointment in 2011, you were the only person at the LABC
00:11:57 with technical expertise. Is that right? Probably correct, yes.
00:12:03 Yes. And she also says that the technical input and any technical decision-making
00:12:10 for the registered details scheme was the responsibility of the director of technical
00:12:14 policy as the most senior technical member of staff, i.e. that was your responsibility.
00:12:21 Do you agree with that? Not entirely, no.
00:12:25 Can you explain why? It was a function
00:12:30 carried out by the membership. If there was a
00:12:41 problem, then it could well be referred to me, but there was also a-
00:12:53 I don't know whether it was a working group or a committee, but basically a membership group
00:13:00 that it would be referred to for a peer review.
00:13:05 Right. So it wasn't entirely, you know,
00:13:10 on my say so. I see. Yes. Thank you.
00:13:14 Now, in terms of any training you received, and particularly training relating to the building
00:13:20 regulations and associated guidance, which you've said you were involved with, in your role as
00:13:27 director of technical policy, and given the responsibilities that you've described,
00:13:31 would it be fair to assume that you were required to know and understand the building regulations
00:13:36 and the associated practical guidance, including in the approved documents? Yes.
00:13:42 Do you have any qualifications which are relevant to the interpretation of the building regulations
00:13:49 and the practical guidance associated with it? Yes. At the time I was doing such training,
00:14:03 there was an organisation, in fact, it was the Institute of Engineers, or it was an engineering
00:14:18 institute associated with local authorities. They had a building control faculty and they had
00:14:29 examinations for building inspectors, they were called at the time, not building control officers,
00:14:38 and I took those examinations and followed up with various CPD issues and eventually with the
00:14:47 RICS. Right, yes. So when did you take that qualification that you've just described?
00:14:53 Well, with the RICS it was because of my qualifications at the time.
00:15:04 The Institute of Building Control had
00:15:19 a two-stage examination process of which I had completed the higher stage, and because of that,
00:15:27 because of experience and time, was accepted into the RICS for charter membership.
00:15:40 Right, and can you just give us some dates? When did you do that
00:15:43 Institution of Building Control qualification? I've got no clue.
00:15:48 Was that right at the beginning of your career? It would be
00:15:51 the late 70s, early 80s. Yeah. And when were you accepted into the RICS?
00:16:03 Whenever the Institute of Building Control was accepted into the RICS,
00:16:07 and I'm sure there are records that will tell you that. Okay, thank you.
00:16:11 Now you've mentioned CPD there, can you think back between 2006 and 2015,
00:16:18 did you attend any specific training relating to the building regulations and the associated guidance?
00:16:25 No, I think it was the other way around. I was the one providing it from knowledge gained
00:16:33 with my involvement with the government working groups. Yeah. The build up to the
00:16:40 introduction of changes to the legislation, and so it would be, my CPD was self-inflicted.
00:16:53 I see, you were the trainer. Yes.
00:16:56 Yes, I see. And would you say during that period, 2006 to 2015, that you were familiar with approved
00:17:02 document B, the practical guidance on fire safety? I would like to think so, yes.
00:17:07 Yes. Yeah. Would you regularly read approved document B? Would you go back to it during the course of your work?
00:17:15 No, not unless it was necessary, or if I was asked a, the role that I carried out was such that it was
00:17:29 reactive rather than proactive, so if I was asked a question then I would research the answer.
00:17:35 Right. So each time there was a new version of approved document B, for example 2006, 2010,
00:17:41 2013, would you take time to go and look at that version? Yes.
00:17:50 Had you delivered or attended in any way any form of training relating to the requirements
00:17:57 within the building regulations and approved document B about the use of external wall
00:18:01 materials in buildings over 18 metres in height? Not specifically, no.
00:18:06 No. So let's take 2009 for example, how good would your understanding have been
00:18:17 at that time, 2009, about the requirements for external wall arrangements in buildings
00:18:23 over 18 metres in terms of fire safety?
00:18:35 I would have researched it had I been asked a question about it. I wouldn't have carried out
00:18:48 such research without purpose. I see, yeah. If someone had asked you in 2009 what the meaning
00:18:56 of the phrase limited combustibility was, would you have known or would you have had to go and...
00:19:01 I would have known where to look for it. Right, yeah. Did you have any understanding
00:19:07 about the significance of that phrase in terms of building materials and their use over 18 metres
00:19:13 in 2009? I think that is a difficult question to answer because my understanding now is far
00:19:23 greater I would think than it was in 2009, so I can't say what my knowledge was in 2009.
00:19:30 Yes, but do you remember a time when your knowledge and awareness changed in relation to the use of
00:19:36 materials over 18 metres?
00:19:43 Again, I think the memory of that is clouded by events which have happened since.
00:19:53 Yes, I understand. What about your understanding, thinking back to say around 2009, of the BR135
00:20:01 guidance and BS8414 large-scale testing, did you have any familiarity with that aspect of
00:20:09 approved document B and then those particular guidance documents? I knew that they were
00:20:15 referenced in ADB. I didn't know the content of those documents in any particular detail.
00:20:22 Yeah. Did you ever read BR135 on external wall materials? Probably.
00:20:30 Probably. Now, just some more questions about LABC as an organisation now.
00:20:40 And if we look at paragraph 13 of your statement at the bottom of page 3, you tell us this. You say
00:20:47 LABC is a small, currently around 30 employees, a not-for-profit company established with support
00:20:54 from the local government associations. It was set up following the introduction of private sector
00:21:00 competition into building control and the creation of approved inspectors. Prior to that time,
00:21:07 building control was a regulated activity within the sole remit of duly authorised building control
00:21:12 departments of local authorities. And then I want to pick it up again in paragraph 17 on page 4.
00:21:21 You say there specifically LABC supports local authorities, LABC members, in achieving ISO
00:21:31 accredited standards within which to work, conduct learning, guidance, qualification programmes,
00:21:37 and promotes technical consistency in the application of building regulations. Currently,
00:21:43 all local authorities across England and Wales are members of LABC, but this is on a completely
00:21:48 voluntary basis. LABC has no formal regulatory status. Now, just with reference to what you say
00:21:53 in that paragraph, can you just in general terms explain how the LABC would go about
00:21:58 promoting technical consistency in the application of building regulations? What methods would it
00:22:04 deploy to try to do that? Newsletters, guidance notes,
00:22:13 general information sheets within membership, and it was not all necessarily generated
00:22:23 at LABC headquarters. And can you tell us why was technical consistency an important goal for the
00:22:32 LABC? One of the criticisms levelled at local authority building control, because I think at
00:22:38 the time there were some 350 local authorities, it's down to around about the 300 mark now.
00:22:46 You therefore have 350 different surveillance systems, and you have to be able to do that.
00:22:56 You therefore have 350 different surveying departments trying to interpret guidance.
00:23:07 One of the criticisms levelled was that it was not consistent because of the
00:23:18 the way that the documents were approached, as also some members had greater knowledge than others,
00:23:26 and it was useful to use that by way of educating those members that were sort of, shall we say,
00:23:36 less in contact. So it was about trying to get everybody to have a similar approach
00:23:46 rather than working in isolated cells. Yes, and was it considered that you needed to have that
00:23:55 similar approach so that you could compete with approved inspectors? That was one of the prime
00:24:02 reasons, and if it hadn't have been for that introduction, LABC may well not exist in its
00:24:09 current format, because the private sector were able to promote that view because they were
00:24:21 working from Kent to Newcastle, whereas you'd got sort of numerous local authorities in between
00:24:30 there that might have a different view, and therefore it was an attempt, if you like,
00:24:38 having been thrown into the competition role to promote a view that the general public
00:24:52 could relate to. Yes, yes, thank you. You tell us in that paragraph that currently all local
00:24:58 authorities across England and Wales are members. Were all local authorities members of LABC between
00:25:05 2009 and 2015, do you know? As far as I'm aware, yes. Yeah, and then if we look at paragraph 18 at
00:25:13 the bottom of that page, you tell us, when I joined LABC it was a very small organisation of about eight
00:25:20 employees and its role was still being developed. It operated very much as an administration centre
00:25:27 with its primary function at that time being to help market local authority building control in
00:25:33 the face of competition from the private sector. A part of that function, and through me and
00:25:38 subsequent recruitment of additional staff, it would act as a collation point for inquiries and,
00:25:44 where appropriate, would offer opinions on particular issues for consideration by its members.
00:25:50 However, it has never been part of LABC's role to set or dictate policy. Now, when you say there
00:25:59 that its role was to offer opinions on particular issues, just to be clear, did that include issues
00:26:06 in relation to the correct interpretation and application of the building regulations and the
00:26:11 associated practical guidance? If we were asked for interpretation of
00:26:28 an approved document or whether a particular material was appropriate, then we were in a
00:26:38 position or tried to put ourselves in a position that could offer that opinion or find a member
00:26:44 that was able to do so. Yes, that's helpful. In general terms, what steps did LABC take to market
00:26:54 local authority building control? What kind of initiatives would it engage in to do that?
00:26:59 That's probably not a question that I should offer an answer to because
00:27:13 I was not a marketing person. That was not part of my role. If an organisation, another
00:27:25 professional organisation, wanted information or wanted a presentation, if you call that marketing,
00:27:33 I would go and talk to them about whatever information they were looking for.
00:27:39 But the problem that local authorities had when they were
00:27:45 tasked with entering a competitive market to offer what essentially was an enforcement service,
00:27:58 you can't sell enforcement, you have to provide something that people want.
00:28:05 That was the basis for LABC. Local authorities at the time they were forced into competition,
00:28:18 I don't honestly understand the legalities, but I don't think local authorities were
00:28:28 able to market a service or sell a service. This had to be done at arm's length.
00:28:36 And that is where things have grown from. I fully appreciate that marketing wasn't your primary
00:28:45 role there, but as you've said, this was quite a small organisation, so you must have been
00:28:50 generally aware of the initiatives that it was engaged in. Yes, and it was, there were,
00:28:59 again, moving on from the position that we were put in in 1985,
00:29:10 the arm's length organisation had
00:29:15 people who would go and talk to developers and try to persuade them to use local authority
00:29:26 building control where they were either using or trying to use the private sector.
00:29:37 And what were the particular selling features, selling points that people were trying to get
00:29:42 across about the advantages of local authority building control as opposed to approved inspectors?
00:29:49 That it was a, I'm struggling for the words, but it was a
00:30:07 unbiased service. It was not related in any way to the development in any way. It was
00:30:19 able to give a view that was not
00:30:26 to be seen as part of a development. It was an independent organisation
00:30:35 that would offer an oversight, and unfortunately, quite often people don't want that. It's a
00:30:43 difficult thing to sell. People, developers don't want you looking over their shoulder, so
00:30:50 how do you sell it? That's why I didn't market it, because to me that wasn't a role for
00:30:58 building control. Right, yes. And you talk there about the advantages of the, you say, the
00:31:03 independence of local authority building control. Can you remember any specific steps being taken
00:31:09 to protect the integrity and independence of local authority building control in the face
00:31:15 of competition from approved inspectors? I don't think that there was a need to
00:31:29 protect the independence, because that was a given through the local authority
00:31:36 employer and the legislative background. The difficulty that they had was having a product
00:31:47 to sell, having a service to sell, because it is the only regulated service within local authority
00:32:01 that has to compete on a job-for-job basis in the private sector or with the private sector.
00:32:08 Now you say in that last sentence that I just read out that it's never been part of LABC's
00:32:15 role to set or dictate policy, but I think you would accept, wouldn't you, that LABC did issue
00:32:24 technical guidance notes and consistency advice notes, which they may not be policy,
00:32:31 but they were certainly LABC's interpretation of the building regulations and the relevant guidance.
00:32:37 Yes. Yes. Now if we look at paragraph 22 on page 5 over the page,
00:32:47 you say this, you say it's also important to make clear that LABC is not a testing house,
00:32:52 and although it has been described as a certification body, that description is
00:32:56 potentially misleading. LABC issued certificates in respect of both K15 CoolTherm and RS5000,
00:33:05 that's the Cellatex product, but that should not be confused with the detailed testing and
00:33:10 a technical assessment of a particular product by an accredited laboratory comparable to an
00:33:16 organisation such as the BBA or the BRE. But it's right, isn't it, that LABC did issue certificates,
00:33:25 didn't it? It did, and certificates was the wrong word. Did you disagree with that word at the time?
00:33:33 Yes. Who did you make that clear to? It was,
00:33:40 it would not be documented, it would be a discussion between the,
00:33:49 myself and the chief executive probably. So with Lorna Stimson?
00:33:53 No, she wasn't the chief executive at that time. Who was it at that point?
00:33:57 Paul Everall. Right, yes. Now those certificates were issued
00:34:02 following a technical assessment carried out by the relevant research authority within LABC,
00:34:07 that's correct, isn't it? Yes.
00:34:12 And Mr Brennan has said in his witness statement that those certificates were then relied on by
00:34:21 manufacturers to illustrate that their product complied with the building regulations in
00:34:26 situations in which they had marketed their product. Was that your understanding as well?
00:34:32 I think understanding is a strong word. It's not something that
00:34:45 perhaps describes it the way that I would. It was a way that manufacturers could
00:34:52 get an insight into the potential for acceptance of their products with
00:34:59 local authorities because it was the local authority, individual local authority, that had
00:35:05 to approve a project on the building regulations, not LABC.
00:35:12 Yes, but you must have been aware, surely, and I think we'll come to some examples of this,
00:35:17 of manufacturers using LABC certificates as part of their marketing materials.
00:35:24 Yes. Yes.
00:35:25 And it's right, isn't it, that the LABC issued several certificates through both the type
00:35:35 approval scheme and subsequently the registered detail scheme for the K15 product. We'll come
00:35:41 back to that, the Kingspan product. Now we're going to discuss these schemes in more detail later,
00:35:46 but can you just explain to us, just in general terms, what was the type approval scheme
00:35:52 within the LABC?
00:35:57 I can give you an overview. Yes.
00:36:00 I can't give you a detailed view because I was not involved on a day-to-day...
00:36:05 That's fine. An overview is fine. ...basis with it. But essentially,
00:36:13 a product to be used within a construction project needs to satisfy the requirements
00:36:21 outlined in approved documents. It's not always easy to trace all the documents that they need
00:36:30 to satisfy and indeed whether there is evidence to show that they satisfy those requirements.
00:36:40 The type approval, registered detail, call it what you will, that that process was to
00:36:50 look in detail at the evidence provided by the manufacturer to see whether it matched
00:37:00 what was being recommended in the approved document and to produce a document to say that
00:37:08 we've looked at this and in this given circumstance there is reason to expect it to satisfy the
00:37:17 requirements. Yes.
00:37:19 So would it be right to understand that in effect LABC carried out the investigation
00:37:27 into a particular product, that it might carry out if it were being done by a building control
00:37:33 officer in order to satisfy itself that the product would comply with ADB?
00:37:41 No. LABC would not. This is done by members. It's not done by me or an employee of LABC.
00:37:57 It's a member support whereby
00:38:01 it can take a lot of time to pull together the amount of
00:38:13 evidence necessary to show whether something satisfies the requirements indicated in an
00:38:19 approved document and to save time for a manufacturer having to go to 320 different
00:38:31 local authorities and produce all this documentation every time, assuming they wanted to do development
00:38:37 in those 300, but a developer would want to work in more than one local authority area
00:38:45 and this was the difficulty that local authority had in persuading that developer to use their
00:38:52 service in the first place because that developer could go to the private sector
00:38:59 and get that opinion once for wherever that was being used. So to try and get back to the consistency
00:39:09 was to pull together the documentation necessary to show or to provide evidence
00:39:21 that compliance with building regulations can be met. The manufacturer then knows pretty much
00:39:30 what evidence he might be asked for by 10 different local authorities rather than having to go to 10
00:39:38 different authorities. Also those authorities have got an idea of what documentation they might need
00:39:44 to look at as well. But in a sense the LABC certificate reflected the, forget who carried
00:39:54 it out, whether it's one of your employees or someone from a member authority, reflected the
00:40:00 investigation that a building control surveyor would need to undertake to be satisfied that the
00:40:08 product conformed to ADB. That's its point. I think that's a fair description. Thank you very much.
00:40:17 No, that's very helpful. Thank you. I'm just interested to know what in practice, what effect
00:40:25 those certificates then had as far as you understood it because you just referred to the fact you said
00:40:31 that the manufacturer would then know what documents they might need to produce. Wasn't the effect
00:40:38 much more immediate than that? That in effect once you've got the LABC certificate for the product
00:40:44 it would then be fast tracked through the building control process on particular projects?
00:40:51 That might well have been the effect. It was not necessarily the, or my belief of the way that
00:41:04 that evidence should be used because invariably the manufacturers were told individual local
00:41:12 authorities will be the ones issuing an approval. But I think it's fair to say that
00:41:24 there was a degree of inference that a particular type of construction would be satisfactory.
00:41:34 And you were aware of that effect at the time that you were in that senior technical role?
00:41:39 Yes. We'll come back to that because in the context of K15 we see some descriptions provided
00:41:46 as to what the effects were of the certificate. Can I look now at paragraphs 24 and 25 while we're
00:41:53 in your statement on page six for just some more background to these system type approval and
00:42:00 registered details certificate systems? And if I want to look at 24 and 25 you say system approval
00:42:07 had already existed between local authorities in advance of the creation of LABC by virtue of a
00:42:13 unilateral agreement between local authorities to work together and recognise each other's
00:42:18 technical decisions to ensure consistency. This was well in advance of the introduction of
00:42:23 competition into building control in 1985. And then you tell us 25 within this process one
00:42:29 local authority would technically examine a particular construction system or product
00:42:33 by interrogating the information provided to them by the manufacturer together with supporting
00:42:38 certification and test results provided to the local authority by the manufacturer from recognised
00:42:43 bodies, BBA, BRE etc. When the local authority was satisfied with the information provided a second
00:42:50 local authority would review the findings and where appropriate verify these to allow for national
00:42:56 recognition. So just to be clear you're describing there the fact that this system had effectively
00:43:02 been going on for many years informally within LABC is that correct? Not within LABC because
00:43:09 LABC didn't exist. Sorry across local authority building control departments this sharing of...
00:43:16 There's always been a need to know what your neighbour is doing and what your neighbour
00:43:22 may think of a particular project and even in my sort of early years within the profession
00:43:34 long before the days of emails and computers there was a need to speak to adjacent authorities
00:43:43 to see what their view was and indeed there was there was quite often more regional meetings
00:43:50 and talks for such discussions to take place and this has developed from that. Yes that's very
00:43:57 helpful thank you. Now I want to turn now to look in more detail at the Kingspan K15
00:44:04 certificates that were issued by the LABC and you've helpfully exhibited to your statement
00:44:11 as well as Mr Brennan prepared it's at LABC 0019607 and I want to look at page two.
00:44:24 So this is an exhibit to your statement and here at page two we helpfully see a table which sets
00:44:31 out all the certificates that the LABC issued for K15 between 2009 and 2019 that's right isn't it?
00:44:40 Yes. Yeah and we can see there that the first certificate that was issued was called a we can
00:44:49 see it from the third column along in the top row an LABC type approval certificate and that was
00:44:57 valid between the 1st of May 2009 to the 30th of April 2012 that's correct isn't it? I have to
00:45:06 accept that because I didn't prepare the document and I didn't prepare the certificates either so
00:45:14 this document is prepared by someone other than myself. Yes I appreciate that I'm going to take
00:45:19 you to what involvement you did have in that type approval certificate in due course at the moment
00:45:25 I'm just trying to get the broad chronology out there so we've got that type approval certificate
00:45:33 and we can see it's signed by David Jones of Hereford's accounts and we heard from Mr.
00:45:38 Jones in module two of the inquiry's work and then
00:45:49 the process for that type approval service was set out in the LABC type approval manual that's
00:45:57 right isn't it? Yes. Yeah and we'll look at that in due course and then we can see on this table
00:46:04 that the next certificate that was issued for K15 was the registered LABC registered details
00:46:10 certificate it's called RD165 in the second row down and that was issued on the 28th of August
00:46:18 2013 and ran to the 28th of August 2014 do you see that? And it tells us here that that certificate
00:46:26 was signed by you is that correct? It would be an auto signature it was not sort of a document that
00:46:34 I had any direct involvement with. Okay well again we're going to come in detail to look at the
00:46:40 email exchanges and other correspondence around that certificate now that registered details
00:46:46 scheme that was a new scheme which replaced the type approval scheme is that correct?
00:46:50 Yes the again I sort of reiterate I don't have direct involvement with
00:47:04 the changes that have been made there was a working group that put this together which I didn't attend
00:47:12 and so the the change in names that have gone through the iteration
00:47:22 is a development to try and reflect more accurately what would what's trying to be
00:47:28 achieved as much as I understand. Yes I understand just at this point I want to see if you agree
00:47:34 with what one of your colleagues said about the registered details scheme to Kingspan if we can
00:47:39 pull up an email this is labc303024 and I want to look at this top email this is from somebody
00:47:55 called Sam Lee Muller within labc to Reshma Rudaman of Kingspan on the 14th of July 2015
00:48:05 and I want to look really at the bottom of this email there's some red text and five lines up from the bottom
00:48:18 we can see in the middle of a page a sentence which says this an labc registered detail is
00:48:24 designed as a fast track route through the building regulation process and can significantly reduce
00:48:31 the time and costs associated with a construction project. Do you see that there? Yes. Do you agree
00:48:38 with that description of the registered details system? I can see why someone would want to say that
00:48:49 and
00:48:50 and
00:48:57 I think it's a description that that I would
00:49:04 not word in quite the same way. I see so if you'd seen somebody one of your colleagues describing
00:49:10 the registered details system in that way would you have disagreed with them?
00:49:14 We would possibly had a discussion.
00:49:28 We're very much aware now that we were perhaps not aware at the time of how wording can be
00:49:39 so important and so I think my view now is probably different to what it would have been at that time.
00:49:46 I see thank you. Can we just clarify one thing? I infer from what you've said already that there
00:49:54 wasn't really any change of approach between the type approval scheme and the registered detailed
00:50:01 scheme. The same technical analysis was going on. Correct. Yes thank you that's helpful.
00:50:09 If we just go back to that table then back to labc 0019607 we can see that there was another
00:50:17 registered details 165 certificate for k15 published on the 21st of august 2014 which ran to the 31st
00:50:26 of october 2014. Do you see that? Yes. And again that's said to have been signed by you and we'll
00:50:33 see that in the certificate in due course yes? Yes. And then the next certificate was dated the
00:50:39 8th of january 2015 which we're told in the final column on the right labc comment these certificates
00:50:47 were not published but were sent to kingspan and should be considered as delay in publication down
00:50:52 to kingspan waiting an updated corrected report from the bre and then in the next row down we can
00:50:59 see there was a another registered detailed certificate issued on the 30th of march 2015
00:51:04 that ran to the 30th of march 2016 and then in the final line we can see there was another
00:51:09 certificate from march 2016 through to march 2019 is that correct? I have to accept that as correct
00:51:19 because as i've said i did not prepare this document and so whilst it's part of my statement
00:51:29 it is a declaration by labc not necessarily by me. I see but it's a fact isn't it? As far as i'm aware
00:51:38 i've no reason to disbelieve it. No thank you. Now i want to start by asking you more detail about
00:51:44 the system approval certificate that was issued in may 2009. Now if we start with that labc type
00:51:52 approval certificate if we can go to kin 405705 here we've got that certificate we can see from
00:52:09 the top box certificate holder. Sorry if we could just zoom in on the top we've got it's for kingspan
00:52:17 installation and then under that under part two system title description is for kingspan
00:52:24 kingspan cool therm k15 rain screen board and it says underneath that systems have been assessed
00:52:32 on the following drawings and then there's a list and then underneath that
00:52:35 sorry we just need to go back to that there is a heading drawings and documentation to be referred
00:52:42 to and it's got the herifitia council type approval summary third of march 2008 kingspan
00:52:50 publication for k15 and then the bba certificate from october 2008 do you see that? Yes. And then
00:52:59 we can see under assessment section four there the design and method of construction of the system
00:53:10 designed in two above has been examined and as as far as it has been shown has been found to be
00:53:17 capable of complying with current building regulations and then we can see this has been
00:53:23 signed by david jones at herifitia council from the bottom of the page and then if we go to page
00:53:30 three of this certificate if we look at in the overview first at the top of that page
00:53:40 we can see it says cool therm k15 is a rigid phenolic insulation board incorporating foil
00:53:46 composite facings and then it says what it's intended to be used for and then if we
00:53:58 go over the page to page four
00:54:06 we can see under requirement b fire safety considerations if we could zoom in on that
00:54:12 it says k15 has been tested in accordance with and we see a bs 8414 part one test
00:54:20 we then see some fire resistance tests a 476 part six and part seven tests
00:54:28 and then underneath that it says this it says from the results it can be considered as a material
00:54:34 of limited combustibility and meets the criteria for class nought classification for surface spread
00:54:41 of flame do you see that on the page and then on the top of page five over the page
00:54:52 we can see under requirement b for external fire spread it says since k15 can be considered a
00:54:59 material of limited combustibility it is suitable for use in all situations shown on diagram 40 of
00:55:05 approved document b volume 2 including those parts of a building more than 18 meters above ground
00:55:14 now so that's what this first certificate said if we can look at what you say in your witness
00:55:21 statement paragraph 70 on page 23 of your statement
00:55:24 you're asked about this in your statement and you say this this is principally a matter for mr jones
00:55:32 i should make it clear that labc's position is that it does not claim that k15 was in fact
00:55:37 a material of limited combustibility or could or should have been described as such and i agree with
00:55:43 that i understand this is also now conceded by king span now i just want to be clear presently
00:55:51 what you are saying in that part of your statement are you accepting that it was an error
00:55:55 in the certificate to say that it could be considered a material of limited combustibility
00:56:01 yes and so you accept that the certificate was inaccurate and misleading yes
00:56:10 yes
00:56:16 were you aware in 2009 that k15 was not a material of limited combustibility
00:56:24 i'm not aware that i was asked that question in 2015 and therefore i may or may not have been i
00:56:36 can't answer the question i see it was 2009 2009 i beg your pardon yeah um
00:56:45 i can't answer that question with any degree of of recollection to be perfectly honest okay let's
00:56:53 look at some correspondence then between herafordshire council the labc and king span
00:56:58 which explains some of the background how this certificate came to be issued if we can go to
00:57:03 labc 30s 2281 and look at page four to start with
00:57:17 we can see that this is an email from andrew pack sorry if we could just blow it up thank you
00:57:23 this is from andrew pack of king span sent to you on the 24th of november 2008
00:57:30 and we can see he says dear barry thank you for your email i've tried you a couple of times this
00:57:35 morning i'd be grateful if you could ring me when you are free now can you help us was this the
00:57:43 first contact from king span requesting that k15 be assessed by the labc that email has got nothing
00:57:53 to do with k15 it is headed tapered roofing guidance well if we go up the tape of roofing
00:58:04 guidance is about the thermal performance and the way that you calculate if i remember correctly
00:58:15 this correspondence was about how to calculate the u value of a flat roof when you're using
00:58:24 tapered insulation it has got nothing to do with a particular material or the the
00:58:33 fire resistance or it was thermal properties in its entirety that is the reason for this
00:58:40 i see well let's just go up the chain if we go to page three of this same chain we can see an email
00:58:48 from you to philip hamond now is it right that he was the national director of business development
00:58:55 yes and it's copying in launas stimpson and bill harrison yes yeah what role was launas
00:59:05 stimpson at the time we know she's been chief executive since 2019 i couldn't swear to the
00:59:14 particular job title but it was more about promotion and marketing of of the service at
00:59:20 that time yes and then you've also copied in phil harrison he was the business development
00:59:25 director at labc is that correct he was a part-time i don't mean this is a derogatory
00:59:33 term but he was a part-time salesman for for labc yeah and you say in this email hi all you may be
00:59:40 aware of the work we've done recently with kingspan on a technical guidance note for tapered roof
00:59:45 insulation and in the next paragraph you say this i have now received an inquiry from their technical
00:59:51 services manager andrew pack for information on gaining a sta is that system type approval
00:59:58 or similar for their cool firm k-15 rain screen product primarily with regard to compliance with
01:00:05 parts b and c of building regulations from initial discussions i believe there is scope for us to
01:00:11 consider a system type approval in this situation given that the product has relevant bba certification
01:00:17 etc and we can add to that an opinion on compliance with building regulations in situations to be
01:00:24 described by kingspan could i ask the business development team to pick this up and discuss
01:00:29 arrangements with andrew and consider a suitable la local authority link do you see that yes so
01:00:38 it was on that basis that we had understood that your conversation with andrew pack
01:00:43 whilst you'd had these previous dealings about tapered roof insulation was in fact about
01:00:49 um a system type approval for the k-15 product do you see that would be
01:00:57 i would say the first time it was ever mentioned yes and can does this help prompt your memory
01:01:06 about what you discussed with kingspan when they were raising this point about k-15 and system type
01:01:12 approval the whole process and my connections with kingspan were developed through
01:01:25 um mhclg or dclg or whatever they were at the time working groups looking at the thermal
01:01:35 performance of buildings because the the working groups at that time were all about thermal
01:01:40 performance and sustainability and um that is how i came to to know these people and and the
01:01:50 reason that the the emails are worded in the way that they are in a friendly manner because we sat
01:01:56 on the same working groups um their technical expertise um and i came about the discussion
01:02:06 because there was some challenges there was some difficulty because it this wasn't something
01:02:15 in an unapproved document there was some difficulty in actually how to calculate the thermal
01:02:20 performances that that were being talked about at the time that was my involvement with them
01:02:26 they used that connection to uh from to go through me to start this process yes moving yes that's
01:02:37 very helpful background to this um but but can you tell us any more about what you actually
01:02:42 discussed with mr pack at this time it looks like you've had some initial discussions because you
01:02:48 say i believe there is scope for us to consider a system type approval in this situation so it
01:02:54 looks like you've expressed some kind of um view or certainly internally you were my when
01:03:00 anyway in my role within local authority when anybody came to me with a product that i'd never
01:03:08 heard of or not seen before was does it have a bba certificate does it does it meet the
01:03:17 the requirements laid down i can only infer from from the information there that i've asked that
01:03:26 question and they've said yes um having said yes if there is if if they had indicated that there
01:03:36 was certification in place um by an independent regulated authority such as bba bre etc which is
01:03:51 what we would be looking for because as i've also said in my statement we were not a testing house
01:03:58 to look at um new products we needed the scientific evidence provided by others
01:04:06 we're not scientists yeah that suggests that they said we've got that and in which case um
01:04:12 there may be a way to move forward okay let's look up at carrying on with this email chain to page
01:04:18 two we can see here there's an email from phil harrison to chris jenner of harrifordshire council
01:04:25 on the 26th of november 2008 that's at 10 14 yes and he says good morning chris thank you for
01:04:32 agreeing to take on this system approval for kingspan as you probably already noticed andrew
01:04:38 pack's contact details are at the foot of this string of emails attached as agreed for ease of
01:04:43 reference is a pdf of the type approval service manual together with a copy of the certification
01:04:49 flow chart please let me know if you need anything more and then um on the same day
01:04:57 we can see this uh from the email actually below this at the bottom of page two and onto page three
01:05:03 there's an email of the 26th of november 2008 um phil harrison wrote back to andrew pack saying
01:05:11 good morning andrew further to our conversation yesterday and then over the page harrifordshire
01:05:15 council have kindly agreed to act as the matched authority to check your proposed system approval
01:05:21 application and chris jenner their building control manager will contact you shortly to
01:05:25 arrange an initial meeting and then if we look at the bottom of page one of this string
01:05:36 there is an email from david jones to phil harrison
01:05:39 and uh he says this i've been following up on your email below with regard to a type approval for
01:05:45 kingspan's rain screen cladding insulation board and if i understand the process correctly i now
01:05:49 need to pass it back to labc for an invoice to be raised i met with andrew pack before christmas
01:05:56 to discuss what we could offer them through the type approval scheme and suggested that
01:06:01 in view of the scope of the certificate the minimum fee of 500 pounds would be adequate
01:06:06 would be adequate he was keen to proceed with this after our meeting and so i've carried on
01:06:10 and done the necessary work to produce the certificate though i haven't forwarded anything
01:06:14 onto andrew as yet and then he says this the most we can really offer in this case would be a product
01:06:21 approval k-15 is just the insulation component of the rain screen walling system both the inner
01:06:28 structural frame and the rain screen cladding itself are unknown variables produced by a third
01:06:32 party and so a system approval would be impossible to pin down i did emphasize this to andrew to be
01:06:40 clear that this type approval would not go any further than the current bba certificate but he
01:06:45 was happy that it would still be worthwhile if only to get the labc seal of approval
01:06:52 and then he carries on i would suggest then that the type approval certificate be for k-15 as part
01:06:57 of a generic but undefined system and refer to the following documents and then he's got
01:07:05 the documents listed and if we go over the page that includes the bba certificate and kingspan's
01:07:10 own literature and he says i'll be grateful if you could let me know what the next step would be to
01:07:15 formalize the approval now i appreciate that was an email to phil harrison from david jones you're
01:07:23 not copied in on that email but we want to know were you aware that mr jones in that email had
01:07:30 expressed some concerns about using a system approval process rather than a product approval
01:07:37 for k-15 no so you were never made aware of that not to my knowledge or not to my recollection
01:07:46 mr jones gave evidence to this inquiry and his evidence was that he spoke with someone at the
01:07:52 labc possibly mr harrison before he agreed to take on the job of assessing k-15 were you ever
01:07:59 made aware of any such discussion no were you aware about whether mr harrison might have reassured
01:08:08 mr jones that it was okay to use the system approval process
01:08:14 no did you ever give any reassurance to mr jones that it was okay to use the system approval process
01:08:21 for k-15 as far as i can recall i've never spoken to mr jones right now if we go up the page
01:08:30 we can see at the top of page one there's a response from mr harrison this is now on the
01:08:36 ninth of january 2009 and and he says to mr jones good morning attached for your use as agreed are
01:08:46 the latest versions of a type approval application form and the compliance declaration thank you
01:08:51 for sorting this out so thoroughly do you see that yes and then if we can look at another email
01:08:59 kin 3024989 if we go in the second half of that page we can see an email from david jones to
01:09:15 andrew pack of the 26th of january 2009 and he says this dear andrew apologies for being a while
01:09:22 getting back to you despite the slowdown things have still been a bit hectic since we last met
01:09:27 and he goes on i've now done the necessary the research necessary and come up with what i think
01:09:33 will be a usable certificate for acceptance by labc across the uk what i have tried to do as
01:09:40 we discussed is to get away from just assessing k-15 as a product in isolation
01:09:46 and extend the certificate to represent a system approval for the whole external wall arrangement
01:09:53 of course with the other components being undefined and with various options available this
01:09:58 does present some problems as we established when we met what i've done though is to refer to the
01:10:03 three standard details contained within the king span literature unless you've got any other
01:10:08 standard drawings that you think may be more appropriate and instead of applying a manufacturer's
01:10:13 reference to the undefined elements i've specified a generic standard for each and then he goes on
01:10:18 the conclusion being that k-15 can be accepted in all locations provided the other parts of
01:10:24 the wall construction meet the standard stated and reflect the king span standard details
01:10:32 and then he goes on to what he describes in the next paragraph as the painful part and he's talking
01:10:37 about money and how much is going to be charged for that certificate and he said once that's done
01:10:45 and the money's been paid i can send over the draft approval statement so you can make comments
01:10:50 if you wish now were you ever made aware that mr jones had had this discussion with king span
01:10:57 about the system the certificate being issued for a system rather than a product i have no
01:11:03 recollection of it no and thereafter what the correspondence shows is that a draft certificate
01:11:11 is sent from david jones to the labc if we can go to labc three zeros two two nine four
01:11:19 four
01:11:28 the email here we go at the top of the page we can see david jones on the third of march 2009
01:11:36 sends to sasha cruise was sasha an administrative assistant at labc she might well have been the
01:11:44 technical coordinator that you referred to earlier right yes that's helpful yeah
01:11:50 so she's pulling together the administrative work on this certificate yeah yeah and he says
01:11:57 further to your email below in the type approval application from king span please find attached an
01:12:02 electronic copy of the type approval compliance declaration along with the three documents which
01:12:07 should accompany the type approval certificate because of the limited room on the form itself
01:12:12 the relevant issues have been summarized on the separate summary document and that's the document
01:12:16 we looked at which says k-15 can be considered a material of limited combustibility yes and it
01:12:23 says the draft copy of this has been forwarded previously to phil harrison at labc and andrew
01:12:29 pak at king span and following their comments should now be ready for formal issue
01:12:33 thank you
01:12:37 now can you help us as to whether mr harrison had approved the contents of the draft certificate
01:12:45 and the type approval summary he's clearly been sent it previously can you help us on that i've
01:12:50 no recollection of having seen these documents before at all i'm sorry can you help us as to why
01:12:56 you as head of technical or key you know key role of technical weren't being sent this draft
01:13:02 certificate so you could check that the technical content was was accurate the
01:13:10 there should have been a peer review process which is the way that i've always understood this
01:13:17 to to work i think because of the the limited numbers of people that we had at labc there was a
01:13:33 a degree of reliance on individuals sort of to
01:13:42 carry out their job in the best way possible and i was
01:13:52 likely more involved with other aspects of of things going on and not in a position to review
01:14:00 daily things of this nature now had there been a
01:14:11 a consideration that it needed to be taken further it would be up to those people to bring it to me
01:14:20 as far as i'm aware that didn't happen yes well we can't see the draft certificate being sent to
01:14:26 you but let's let's go forward with the story if we go to labc 308171
01:14:37 and i want to look on page two
01:14:44 here we can see that sacha cruise on the 3rd of march 2009 sends to you and to others we can see
01:14:55 somebody called john gavin gavin at decorum borough council mr allen at guinard council
01:15:01 mr pathlin and west norfolk lorna stimpson and north harris hartford district council they're
01:15:08 all there on the email list and it says this to all members of the type approval working group
01:15:15 dear colleague please find attached a pdf of the completed compliance declaration form for the
01:15:20 system type approval for kings band insulation for your approval please could you advise me
01:15:25 of any comments in your approval by return email no later than tuesday the 17th of march
01:15:30 i look forward to hearing from you in due course now we can see you're on this email
01:15:39 were you a member of what's being referred to here the type approval working group
01:15:44 this would be the peer review group that i referred to earlier i couldn't have named the people on it
01:15:55 and as a member of staff as opposed to everybody else on that list apart from lorna
01:16:05 and lorna sasha paul everall but they the other members were the
01:16:16 local authority representatives who effectively were the the peer review group
01:16:23 and we as staff were there to do their reckoning if you if for want of a better description
01:16:32 so i would not comment directly unless asked to do so by a member of that group right so even
01:16:39 though you're being sent this email are you saying that you weren't actually a member of this type
01:16:45 approval working group i attended it as a member of uh as a member of staff so does that mean you
01:16:53 wouldn't have looked at the information i was sent the information as a matter of courtesy
01:17:01 and would not unless someone raised an issue necessarily review every document that was
01:17:09 circulated right do you have any recollection of reviewing the k-15 documentation at around this
01:17:16 time in no i don't 2009 no and um can you just help me what then was the purpose of this group
01:17:26 the type approval working group was this effectively a peer review process for the
01:17:31 situation yeah this was an opportunity for somebody to raise questions
01:17:36 and those questions would most likely have been referred to myself
01:17:49 now if we look at this email and we can see that it's saying the completed compliance declaration
01:17:55 form is being sent for the system type approval now we find that at hbc six zeros 21
01:18:06 on page two
01:18:16 so here we can see the compliance declaration and if we look down this page we can see
01:18:25 that it includes the document and drawing list if we go down the page it's got drawings documentation
01:18:33 here for to council time approval summary third of march 2008 the king span publication and the
01:18:40 bba certificate now those supporting documents don't appear to be attached to the email that
01:18:52 miss cruise sent can you help us as to whether the type approval working group would have been
01:18:57 sent those important supporting documents when they were sent this certificate
01:19:04 i can't confirm or otherwise i wouldn't know would you have expected them to have seen
01:19:09 the supporting documentation which underpinned the certificate
01:19:17 i would expect them to have access to them doesn't necessarily mean they needed to be
01:19:24 circulated with with this i see would they have access to them through a shared document library
01:19:35 most authorities 2008 most authorities i think at that time
01:19:44 would have electronic access to bba certificates
01:19:51 uh the king span information i can only assume would be available on their website yes but the
01:19:56 herafordshire council type approval summary was a pretty important document because that was the
01:20:00 one that set out in detail how it complied with the building regulations yes i would have expected
01:20:06 that to be circulated yes
01:20:08 yeah
01:20:13 and then if we go on with the story if we go to labc 308171 and look at the top of page two
01:20:28 we can see at the top of page two there's an email of the third of march 2009
01:20:32 at 1427 sent by mark pafflin from west norfolk to sasha cruz and to you and to others and he says
01:20:42 this i have no particular issue with this other than why is it an why is an insulation board a system
01:20:51 and then um we can see one email up at the bottom of page one mr fullstone from north hartfordshire
01:20:59 north hartfordshire
01:21:03 if we go one email up yes it starts right at the bottom of that page fourth of march 2009 mr
01:21:09 fullstone says difficult one to call this the certificate refers to a series of other documents
01:21:17 including a county issue i am happy with the assessment of the design by the local authority
01:21:23 presumably the thickness depends on whether it's assessed under l2b or l1a referring to part l
01:21:31 i agree with mark as this is an insulation product that could be used at various thicknesses
01:21:35 is this a system or a product do you see that yes and just going back to the bottom of page
01:21:41 one you were sent that email we can see yes do you know what he meant by it includes a county
01:21:50 issue is that merely because there's a type approval summary from herafordshire i think the
01:21:58 references there are all related to the thermal performance of the material particularly as he's
01:22:08 referring to thickness uh the relation referring to part l is thermal performance the county issue
01:22:18 um i'm sorry you'd have to go back was it herafordshire well herafordshire with the
01:22:23 lake no i don't know where the um the county issue was likely one one area i had a particular
01:22:37 um interest in thermal performance of materials and they produced their own
01:22:46 guidance notes on thermal performance um and various thicknesses and i suspect that is what
01:22:54 that reference is about right but it's not they're not just talking about thermal performance there
01:22:59 are they they're both saying both mr pafflin and mr fullstone are saying why is this a system
01:23:05 approval not a product approval because this is a product and it could be used in a variety of
01:23:11 different systems they're raising that very clearly aren't they there they are yes but i
01:23:17 still say the inference from that is it's all about the thermal performance of the material
01:23:24 and that is why it would be a a product i see and that's how you understood it at the time is it
01:23:31 right well that that's my sort of recollection now whether that's where i understood it at the time
01:23:38 i can't be certain right and we can see miss stimson one email up we've got it at the top
01:23:44 of that page responds the same day she said could this be an adopted solution or whatever it's
01:23:50 called this week now adopted solution would be for a product wouldn't it not for a system yes
01:23:57 not even sure we had product approvals or these are people that are on the the market inside
01:24:09 of labc that or laura was at that time anyway and that's rather a
01:24:20 that's just an off the cuff remark which really i can't comment on yes well we'll look at the
01:24:24 manual in a moment it would appear that there were product type approvals at this time we'll
01:24:28 have a look at the manual and can you recall anybody ever responding to mr pavelin or mr
01:24:35 fullstone explaining why this product was being granted a system approval no and did you ever
01:24:45 express any view about this at the time despite being copied or sent these emails no there was
01:24:53 reference within the documentation to the certification which i would have expected
01:25:00 and therefore i either bba certificates and therefore i would not have
01:25:08 likely looked at it in any greater depth right mr term and i think that's a good moment for our
01:25:13 morning break if that's thank you yes i think it's time we had a break well mr tanner we're going
01:25:18 to have a short break now we'll resume please at 20 to 12 and on this occasion and whenever you
01:25:26 leave the room i have to ask you please not discuss your evidence or anything relating to
01:25:30 it with anybody else all right thank you very much would you go to the usher please
01:25:48 all right 20 to 12 please
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01:42:48 all right mr tanner you're ready to carry on i hope thank you very much yes sir strange yes thank you
01:43:15 yes i want to look at the type approval manual now we mentioned that earlier if we can go to hbc 6049
01:43:31 and if we look at page six
01:43:36 which is where this starts here we've got the labc type approval service manual
01:43:42 that's the front page and we can see from page seven that it's dated march 2006 there we go edition
01:43:49 three march 2006 and if we go to page 10 and section 2.2 of this manual we see at the bottom
01:44:00 it's got different categories of type approval just zoom in on that and it says
01:44:08 a certificate shall be granted under one of the following four categories which category is chosen
01:44:13 will depend upon the most obvious categorization that the particular case naturally falls in
01:44:19 if there is any duality of fit then the customer may choose i think that's supposed to choose and
01:44:24 then we've got underneath that house type approval and then if we go over the page
01:44:31 building type approval that covers complete standard designs for whole buildings
01:44:39 underneath that we have the system type approval and we can see under the first paragraph it says
01:44:45 this category covers modular building systems elements and components that can be used for
01:44:51 or form part of different building designs and configurations it also includes for temporary
01:44:56 structures of any variety so it's elements and components that can be used for or form part of
01:45:04 different building designs and configurations yes and then underneath that we have the product type
01:45:15 approval and it says there this category verifies product small components in respect of compliance
01:45:22 small components in respect of compliance with specified building regulations it can be applied
01:45:28 to any construction product that in itself is subject to the building regulations or that
01:45:32 contributes to or has an influence upon compliance with building regulations now looking at that that
01:45:39 was the the categorization you had in place at the time according to the manual can you explain to
01:45:45 us why a system approval certificate was issued for k-15 despite the concerns that had been raised
01:45:51 by mr paffling and mr fullstone as members of the the working group i'm sorry no i can't
01:46:02 and you know that was a discussion i wasn't part of wasn't the only appropriate option
01:46:10 for the certification of a product like k-15 a thermal insulation board a product approval
01:46:18 um a product approval could have been appropriate in cases for providing additional insulation to
01:46:34 single-story domestic dwellings for argument's sake not necessarily in the type of situations
01:46:40 that's under review here
01:46:45 right let's look at some more correspondence i'm sorry before we leave this document can we
01:46:50 can we just scroll up to system approval yes
01:46:56 i mean the opening paragraph to system approval
01:47:02 suggests that it is or may be appropriate for individual elements of a design
01:47:11 um and the third paragraph notes that the category is exceedingly wide
01:47:18 accommodating everything from whole building systems through to individual components
01:47:23 now i don't understand at the moment and perhaps you can help us why an individual component
01:47:31 properly falls within the range of system approval
01:47:37 i'm inclined to agree with you i don't understand it either
01:47:42 but take it you weren't responsible for formulating this no um i was not party to the
01:47:51 the wording of this document so i'm sorry i'm i'm gonna go on you can't explain it no all right
01:47:55 thank you very much yes thank you um if we look at the correspondence again um if we go to la bc
01:48:03 20319
01:48:13 we can see an email to you
01:48:16 um so this is after launer stimpson has said on the 9th of march 2009 in that second email
01:48:23 down could this be an adopted solution or whatever it's called this week and then sasha cruise on the
01:48:29 26th of march 2009 emails you hi barry can this be issued thanks sasha now it appears that you
01:48:37 didn't respond to that email i think you tell us that in your statement is that right i have no
01:48:43 recollection of doing so and then you get a further email from miss cruise if we go to la bc 308171
01:48:59 it's at the top of the page it's on the 21st of april 2009 copying in mr harrison and mr jones
01:49:08 to you hi barry i've spoken to david jones at herifordshire regarding kingspan insulation
01:49:13 limited can you please advise me regarding the issuing of the certificate david has said that
01:49:19 conversations took place in the initial stages of the application as there were concerns then as to
01:49:24 whether this was a system or product it was agreed then that it was a system and for the
01:49:29 application to go ahead david is getting pressure from kingspan for the certificate now so could you
01:49:35 please let me know as soon as possible as to whether i can issue the certificate do you see that
01:49:42 yes do you remember being consulted about whether this certificate could be issued
01:49:47 i have no recollection of that correspondence but it was obviously sent to me yes and we know the
01:49:57 certificate was issued in the terms which mr jones had proposed can you help us as to whether there
01:50:04 was ever a response to this email we can't see one in the documents i know i can't i i have no
01:50:11 recollection of any response i may have given you can't recall no should there have been a response
01:50:20 to this for the certificate to then be issued there should have been
01:50:29 but i can't say whether there was or there wasn't i'm sorry i have no recollection and there's
01:50:34 obviously no record of it i don't know we can see in the documents that the certificate was sent to
01:50:39 mr jones on the 1st of may 2009 by miss cruz we can see that uh labc 301882 page three
01:50:57 she sends him a letter dear mr jones please please find and close the system approval
01:51:01 certificates that you requested for kingspan insulation limited
01:51:06 um now just on this theme can we just look at what you say at paragraph 58 of your statement at page 20
01:51:19 you say this in your witness statement apart from an initial discussion with andrew pack
01:51:26 and an email sent to me by sachet cruise querying whether k-15 was a system or a product which i do
01:51:32 not appear to have responded to i have no knowledge or recollection of any involvement
01:51:36 or of other labc staff members involvement in the 2009 k-15 assessment as explained above at that
01:51:43 time the role of labc was essentially administrative i understand from the documents
01:51:49 disclosed the inquiry that sachet cruz of labc notified the peer review panel members
01:51:53 of the need to review the k-15 assessment and subsequently sent the certificate to mr jones
01:51:57 on the 1st of may 2009 for him to sign and then send to kingspan directly with a copy being returned
01:52:03 to labc miss cruz held the title of technical administrator but essentially her job was purely
01:52:09 administrative she is no longer employed by labc now what do you mean when you say in the middle of
01:52:16 that paragraph at the time the role of the labc was essentially administrative
01:52:22 i would have hoped that it was self-explanatory but it was well you have a technical working group
01:52:31 sorry yeah it was the the the technical working group was made up of people employed in local
01:52:42 authority not members of staff so the the members of staff were there to coordinate the the thoughts
01:52:50 and processes of of those members of the working group i see so it's on that basis the committee
01:52:58 it was a committee of members from local authorities yes and the committee was the committee of the
01:53:06 so it's on that basis it was a committee it was a committee of members from local authorities
01:53:11 yes i see so it's on that basis that you're saying you had very little involvement with
01:53:16 the certificate is that right yes i see now you tell us paragraph 75 of your statement on page 25
01:53:26 i'm sorry to keep interrupting you i think it was quite important we get one thing clear we were
01:53:30 looking a little earlier at the email from sasha cruz asking you whether the certificate could be
01:53:37 issued and i think you said but i just want to confirm this that you did see the certificate
01:53:44 in the form in which it was subsequently issued before it was issued is that right
01:53:49 it was the evidence suggests it was sent to me via email and therefore
01:54:02 i must assume that i looked at it even though i have no recollection of such
01:54:10 it's possible there's no record of me responding to to to sasha cruz because it was
01:54:18 a verbal you know yes if they've got the certificates in place send it off
01:54:25 words to that effect there would there would be no formality to it i had assumed that if the
01:54:31 certificate had been sent to you for your response to the question then you would or at least should
01:54:41 have looked through it before you know the certificate was not sent to me
01:54:47 specifically with that question the certificate was circulated to the members of the working group
01:54:55 and it was for the members of the working group to bring it to my attention if they were concerned
01:55:04 about it that i understand it was just that that's the only way that that certificate was sent to me
01:55:13 right but then you receive right then you receive the request from sasha cruz could she issue could
01:55:19 the certificate be issued and i was under the impression that you had in had the certificate
01:55:27 in your possession or a copy of it or that you were sent a copy of it before you answered the question
01:55:35 i can neither deny or confirm that i've no recollection of i don't recall other than as i've
01:55:45 described receiving the the email to the members of the group i don't recall being sent the email
01:55:57 would would assume that i'd seen it because of the previous correspondence all right well i mean the
01:56:03 point really i was in want to invite you to comment on is is this it might be said that you
01:56:12 should have read through the certificate before you approved its issue and if you'd done that
01:56:19 properly you would have spotted the error which you accept it contained is there anything you'd
01:56:25 like to say about that um not really because i don't recall reviewing the certificate i don't recall
01:56:38 being asked
01:56:42 the email suggests that um it should have happened the way you describe it
01:56:49 i don't recall that it happened that way i can't say one way or the other whether i did it or not
01:56:59 the information on that certificate i've agreed is today i don't see it as being correct
01:57:09 um how i viewed it at that time i can't in all honesty recall um it was obviously not read
01:57:19 to the in the detail and the understanding that i've got today and do you think it should have been
01:57:28 hindsight is a wonderful thing and i would say today yes of course um that's not the environment
01:57:36 that we were working in at that time all right well that's very helpful thank you very much
01:57:42 yes yes can you explain why that wasn't the environment you were working in at the time
01:57:48 why when you're sent an email from miss cruise flagging up a particular issue about this
01:57:53 certificate should it be a system approval or not so she wasn't just sending it you to approve she
01:57:58 was saying there's been an issue about this certificate can you confirm why was the environment
01:58:03 in which you were working not one in which you would then thoroughly check that certificate for
01:58:08 its technical accuracy because i was relying on the the work of others i think um is the best way
01:58:19 i can describe it um there was a i don't want to you there was a trust there was an understanding
01:58:33 there was a belief that others were capable of making those decisions
01:58:48 and i was focused on other things right yes in your statement you've said at paragraph 75
01:58:57 on page 25 i was not involved in the checking process and would not have reviewed the certificate
01:59:05 it's very definite evidence you give in your statement now you've seen the documents
01:59:09 can you be so sure
01:59:17 that i would not have reviewed the accuracy of the content of those documents as i've said
01:59:31 they indicated certification by others that were that were being met and that would have been an
01:59:41 overview that i would have accepted yes i see you were the only individual approached to approve
01:59:50 this certificate so far as the documents tell us um does that suggest that it was only you that
01:59:58 could have reviewed it was there anybody else at the time that would have been approving these
02:00:04 certificates i think approving the certificate is is a a strong word and a strong assumption
02:00:15 there was a an agreement that the peer review group would um raise issues
02:00:27 yes and they did without and they doubt the agreement without the agreement of the peer
02:00:32 review group i would not have expected and it certainly wasn't incumbent upon me to overrule the
02:00:42 the peer review group um who am i to say that i know better than they do
02:00:50 and so that i would not agree with right what was the purpose in you seeing it then
02:01:00 if you were just trusting others to get it right and there was that trust and that belief that that
02:01:04 would be right why send the certificate to you at all why not well what was because of uh it was
02:01:14 the part of the staff involvement it was also circulated to the chief executive why send it
02:01:21 to him but but what what did you think you were doing i was i was being included as a matter of
02:01:29 courtesy in information that was being discussed within the the lobc ranks i see as a matter of
02:01:41 courtesy let's move on then just a few more detailed questions about the the objective of
02:01:49 this type approval system let's just go back to the manual this is hbc 6049 and i want to look
02:01:56 at page nine paragraph 1.2 sets out some of the objectives of the type approval certificate
02:02:07 here we have it at the bottom of the page and it tells us this the object of the type approval
02:02:11 is to issue a singular initial building regulation approval certificate in respect of standard
02:02:16 construction matter such certification will deem the matter to comply with the building
02:02:22 regulations and will apply to all following user uses of the particular form of construction
02:02:28 falling within the scope and terms of the certification now is that how you understood
02:02:33 it at the time that was in the manual that's very strong wording i didn't write it i was not party
02:02:43 to the manual it's likely that it would have come from the need to promote something
02:02:56 to draw attention to local authority building control to attract competitors to use it so
02:03:04 um the in that sense uh you know the things are viewed differently today
02:03:12 are you saying that you never saw the the no i can't say i never saw it i can't say that i
02:03:19 viewed it in the way that i do today right did you ever raise any concerns about the language
02:03:28 that was being used you've said it's quite strong language there about it's going to be
02:03:32 deemed to comply did you ever raise any concerns about that no as head of technical no
02:03:40 and why not can you help it was a it was a sales document for for want of a better
02:03:47 description and i didn't see it as a um a technical document at the time my understanding is this
02:03:55 this manual was primarily to help people like mr jones when they were putting these assessments
02:04:01 together isn't that right and it was put together by the uh the peer review group it wasn't put
02:04:07 together by me no but you would have had the authority to question it wouldn't you at the time
02:04:13 if you'd wanted to i was a member of staff authority is perhaps a strong word i could have
02:04:20 commented on it but it would be for the um the review group and the board of directors to decide
02:04:29 what what went and what didn't not me yes and we see below that our purpose in developing and
02:04:36 offering a type approval service are two and i just want to look at the first bullet eliminate
02:04:41 repetitive building regulation checking operations and then the third bullet as you've explained
02:04:47 already ensure consistency across the building control process again were you aware of that
02:04:53 wording eliminate repetitive building regulation checking operations
02:05:02 i didn't i obviously didn't see it as so objectionable that it was necessary to
02:05:08 raise it at the time um it's a way of marketing a service that basically local authorities
02:05:20 didn't have to to sell um and um to to draw attention to them so
02:05:29 i would not have read it in a in an aggressive format okay let's just look at another passage
02:05:36 bottom of page 13 there's a section called using the certificate in this manual
02:05:44 right the heading appears right at the bottom of that page using the certificate and if we go
02:05:48 over the page the manual says this first bullet the certificate holder or their agents should when
02:05:58 submitting relevant building regulation applications enclose a copy of the certificate with the
02:06:02 deposited documents and then the second bullet the local authority in receipt of such applications
02:06:09 shall record that fact in their records and not re-examine any of the matter covered by the
02:06:14 certificate in relation to that application do you see that yes again that's pretty
02:06:22 it's pretty strong stuff isn't it it's it's suggesting that these certificates have a
02:06:28 major impact in terms of what happens on a project yes yes and again were you aware of that at the
02:06:36 time no you weren't aware that that language had been used no were you aware that that was
02:06:43 in practice what happened with these certificates on sites no i didn't know um in great detail
02:06:55 how local authorities or manufacturers used these certificates i didn't have that
02:07:02 involvement with them um and i have no recollection of uh of
02:07:09 reading that or being aware of it or thinking it objectionable at the time right but i mean
02:07:18 it does suggest doesn't it that there's a real imperative in these certificates being
02:07:23 technically accurate if that's going to be the effect on site doesn't it yes
02:07:29 and and just for completeness let's go to page 10 paragraph 2.1 of the manual
02:07:34 this is outline of type approval process and seventh bullet down under using the certificate
02:07:42 which is there in capital letters it says customer submits certificate information in support of
02:07:48 subsequent building regulation applications all local authorities accept certificate within
02:07:54 its terms and limits without further checking were you aware of that language
02:07:59 no i can't recall reading the doc it wasn't a document i needed to know because it wasn't a
02:08:08 process that i was involved with on a day-to-day basis and i was not a product provided by the
02:08:27 product provider that wanted it and i wasn't a local authority that was trying to implement it
02:08:38 and and therefore um i think it extremely unlikely that i would have read it in a critical manner
02:08:48 no i see you say in your statement for the transcript this is at paragraph 28
02:08:57 on page seven you say there could never be a guarantee that an individual local authority
02:09:02 building control officer would accept a system approval or have specific regard to it but that
02:09:09 was that was my understanding not what that document said which would tend to suggest
02:09:16 i wasn't aware of the wording of that document right so you accept that what you've said in
02:09:21 your statement is flatly contradicted by the instruction what i said in my statement is what
02:09:27 i believe right but you accept it's flatly contradicted by what we see in this type
02:09:32 approval manual it does not agree with what is written there
02:09:36 now i just want to ask you a few questions about mr jones's evidence to the inquiry
02:09:48 about his understanding of the purpose of the labc certificate and he told us i'm going to
02:09:54 paraphrase but he basically told us that he had a specific role for in the team for marketing
02:10:01 activity at the time and he viewed the type approval system very much as a marketing tool
02:10:09 to raise the profile of the labc brand was that how you understood it at the time
02:10:16 yes yeah
02:10:21 because regions were encouraged to have a person like mr jones to promote the use of local
02:10:28 authority building control and he said that in terms of marketing the system approval served a
02:10:36 benefit to everyone involved he said that kingspan would benefit through their association with the
02:10:42 labc brand the labc would have its profile raised through being promoted as part of kingspan's
02:10:48 marketing literature and in turn herifordshire would benefit through its association with the
02:10:53 labc do you agree with that i'm not a salesperson so i'm not in a position to agree or disagree with
02:11:01 it no
02:11:08 and he said that he was essentially picked because of his role in the team in marketing rather for
02:11:15 rather than for any technical knowledge or expertise on his part is that consistent with
02:11:21 your understanding of why mr jones was chosen to put together that first k-15 certificate
02:11:29 no i don't have an understanding of why he was chosen so you can't help i was not involved in
02:11:36 his his choice so i can't comment mr jones said that he was reticent about undertaking the
02:11:43 assessment because he didn't have the requisite knowledge but his evidence was that he was advised
02:11:48 by somebody at the labc not to worry too much and he was effectively instructed to do a cut and paste
02:11:55 job of the bba certificate now can you help us as to whether that's correct or not well it certainly
02:12:03 wasn't me but are you aware of whether any of your colleagues i have no idea um i i can't um
02:12:12 um i can make an assumption and we're not here to make assumptions or guesses as to as to why that
02:12:21 occurred so i have no comment to make right mr jones said he was led to believe in a telephone
02:12:27 call he had with somebody at the labc which he thought might have been mr harrison phil harrison
02:12:32 although he couldn't remember for sure that there would be a process of checking any assessment that
02:12:38 he made by the labc and this was part of the reason why he agreed to take on the assessment
02:12:44 process again can you help us as to whether any of your colleagues ever reassured mr jones
02:12:51 that there would be a process of checking any technical assessments he made not i'm not aware
02:12:58 of any discussions of that nature
02:13:06 if we just look at what the type approval service manual said if we can go back to the manual hbc
02:13:12 6049 at page 16 and i want to look at paragraph 3.2 on page 16 there's a whole section here called
02:13:24 assessment checking level of service
02:13:30 and i want to read the third paragraph down it says a required quality feature of the type
02:13:34 approval assessment process is that a second check is incorporated it helps to secure comprehensive
02:13:40 assessment and can be utilized to bring any required specialist skills into play a number
02:13:46 of optional routes can be followed for this purpose which should be applied to best suit the case
02:13:51 these could include and then if you go down sending the project to a second local authority
02:13:59 for an independent check forming a group working panel drawn from a number of authorities
02:14:04 or other pertinent sources do we take it from the emails we've seen that it was that second
02:14:09 bullet that was in play here form a group working panel no from the emails the the
02:14:19 the working group panel that you're inferring there is the
02:14:28 the labc committee members committee of members which is not the same thing that that would be
02:14:35 forming a specific working panel of people from a given region or with a given knowledge not the
02:14:43 general committee membership of the of the the review group so can you help us as to what
02:14:52 checking process according to this manual was actually followed in relation to this first k15
02:14:58 certificate no because i wasn't party to it i see can you explain how whatever checking process was
02:15:10 followed they failed to identify the serious errors in the k15 certificate
02:15:20 i can't explain it and the serious errors that you refer to
02:15:29 um
02:15:34 need to be more specific what which particular or if there's a number what serious errors we
02:15:44 we've accepted that there were errors and previously there's been explanations as to why so i'm not
02:15:54 quite sure what what your what your question is aiming for i'm trying to understand how the labc
02:15:59 managed to issue a certificate that said that k15 could be considered a material of limited
02:16:05 combustibility as we've gone through previously i i can't and i can't enlarge on what i've said
02:16:16 previously so in that sense i can't enlighten you and i can't answer the question okay let's move
02:16:24 forward in time then because what we see in the documents is that a number of concerns were raised
02:16:30 by third parties following the labc issuing this system type approval certificate for k15
02:16:37 and we can see from the documents that in particular rock wall raised a number of concerns
02:16:43 about the claims being made and i want to look you've dealt with this briefly in your witness
02:16:50 statement where you say you've got no recollection of responding to this but let's look look at the
02:16:56 letters that you received and your response so let's start with mr kody's letter at labc 40924
02:17:13 so this is addressed to you
02:17:19 and we believe this letter is dated september 2009 and he says in the first and second paragraphs he
02:17:28 says it's about kingspan k15 and first to make the grade with labc newsletter we have been made
02:17:36 aware of the attached article newsletter currently appearing on the website of the insulation
02:17:40 manufacturer kingspan entitled first to make the grade with labc which relates to its k15 phenolic
02:17:47 plastic foam insulation product this article asserts that labc has stated that k15 can be
02:17:54 considered a material of limited combustibility and is suitable in all situations shown on diagram
02:18:01 40 of approved document b volume 2 including those parts of a building more than 18 meters above ground
02:18:07 this claim is of serious concern and then below that what mr kody does we'll see at the end that
02:18:16 that's the author of the letter is he goes on to explain under the building regulations and in
02:18:21 particular the guidance in approved document b how a material of limited combustibility is classified
02:18:28 according to table a7 and he gives information about the tests and the classification standards
02:18:35 used to pursue this
02:18:39 and he says in the the fourth paragraph under that heading materials of limited combustibility
02:18:45 we therefore ask you to please confirm whether labc has issued a statement that k15 can be
02:18:50 considered a material of limited combustibility if labc has issued such a statement we ask you
02:18:55 to please provide a copy of it together with an explanation of the basis on which it was issued
02:19:00 furthermore we ask you to please confirm whether the kingspan brochure provides a fair and accurate
02:19:04 representation of labc's position and then they go on to discuss diagram 40 of approved document b
02:19:12 and note that kingspan asserts that the labc has stated that k15 is suitable for all situations
02:19:18 shown in diagram 40 and and the letter goes on if we go over the page
02:19:28 it's acknowledged at the top of that page that there are alternative ways
02:19:32 to comply with the requirements of the building regulations for example performance criteria in br
02:19:36 135 successful testing bs 8414 but then it says however these tests are intended to evaluate the
02:19:44 performance of the entire proprietary systems and not just the insulation material within the cavity
02:19:49 behind a cladding system in isolation from other components and then in the next paragraph they say
02:19:57 bearing in mind that clause 12.5 of section 4 of adb lays out the principles for external wall
02:20:03 construction and states that the use of combustible materials in the cladding system and extensive
02:20:07 cavities may present such a risk medium for fire spread in tall buildings it is of concern that
02:20:13 labc is cited by kingspan as offering an opinion which could result in a combustible insulation
02:20:19 material being used in an application where a potential risk has been clearly identified
02:20:25 we therefore ask you to please confirm whether you've issued that statement
02:20:30 and then they say in the final paragraph we're currently in a position to comment only on kingspan's
02:20:35 representation of the labc's position and we'd like a response to properly assess what further actions
02:20:43 yours sincerely mr lw cody now it's right isn't it that you didn't respond to that letter that
02:20:52 first letter apparently so yes when you say apparently so do you know i i don't
02:21:01 didn't recall it to be perfectly honest i'm i'm relying on the the information that's
02:21:07 been provided to promote my recollection of it just going down the page i just want to see right
02:21:14 at the bottom i think it's cc this letter to other bodies can you see that there cc to paul everall
02:21:21 the chief executive of labc and mr brian martin principal construction professional at clg now do
02:21:28 you have any memory of receiving this september 2009 letter from mr cody i do now
02:21:38 only in the way it's presented here
02:21:44 sorry i don't quite follow do you actually have a memory at the time of receiving this letter
02:21:51 i have a vague recollection that we had a uh a letter of this nature i couldn't have told you
02:21:59 what it was until it's presented here yeah did you agree with mr cody's concerns as set out
02:22:07 very clearly in this letter uh from recollection i didn't consider them this was a letter
02:22:20 letter of or my recollection is that this was considered a complaint from a competitor
02:22:29 and labc shouldn't act as referee between competitors i put my trust in those that have
02:22:39 dealt with the matter and the certifications that were in place by the likes of bba
02:22:46 rather than believe an argument put forward by a competitor i see did you actually read the letter
02:22:55 did you read that is my you asked for my recollection that is my recollection it might
02:23:02 be one thing to dismiss complaints by a competitor where they're minor or you know nitpicking but
02:23:11 but this letter is raising pretty serious safety concerns about the use of k-15 isn't it
02:23:19 wasn't taken any further by anybody can you help us as to why not given the terms of the letter
02:23:27 no did you carry out any checks on the basis of this letter to look at the certificate
02:23:36 to look at what was in approved document b to check whether the certificate that had been
02:23:41 issued by the labc was technically accurate did you undertake any such this was a complaint from
02:23:48 a competitor so the answer is no so you simply dismissed it because it was from
02:23:55 king span's competitor and you didn't engage at all with the substance of it no
02:24:06 did you ever discuss rock wall's concerns with anybody else within labc we can see it's copied
02:24:13 to mr paul everall the chief executive did you ever discuss the concerns raised in this letter
02:24:18 with anybody else
02:24:23 i have a recollection that i may well have discussed it but i couldn't tell you the content of that
02:24:33 discussion because i don't have no recollection of it so what recollection do you have that you may
02:24:38 well have discussed it can you recall who it was it may yeah it would have been brought to the
02:24:42 attention of uh of the chief exec it may well have been brought to the attention of the board
02:24:49 of directors but i've got no evidence i've got no recollection i can't i can't make that statement
02:24:56 right and did you know who mr brian martin was when you received this
02:25:01 letter he's there cc'd at the bottom yes how well did you know him at this point
02:25:07 reasonably well i i knew i i probably met him on the on the working groups
02:25:16 were you concerned that mr martin was copied in here as the principal construction professional
02:25:21 at the clg didn't that heighten the importance of this letter um quite a bit but i think
02:25:30 quite the opposite i think if there had been um an issue that mr martin thought fit to raise
02:25:38 i would have hoped that he would have raised it with me so the fact that it was copied
02:25:44 and not responded to diminished the the strength of the letter i see so the fact that you didn't
02:25:53 subsequently hear from mr martin about this what gave you some kind of reassurance that there was
02:25:59 no problem no i can't say that was the case at all but the fact is there was no response
02:26:08 and the fact is it was treated as a complaint from a competitor
02:26:15 just help us when was the first time you became aware that there was erroneous information in the
02:26:21 k-15 type approval certificate when when the discussion when when the discussion started to
02:26:30 evolve around the the change in the bba certificate right so later 2013 2014 are you saying that sounds
02:26:40 about right okay now mr cody wrote a further letter to you on behalf of rockwall let's look
02:26:47 at that labc four zeros 853
02:26:57 and we believe the letter is not dated but we believe that this letter was written in october
02:27:02 2009 so about a month after the first letter and it states this and again headed kingspan k-15
02:27:11 phenolic insulation etc we wrote to you in september regarding an article first to make
02:27:17 the grade with labc this appears on the website of kingspan insulation in which they claim the
02:27:22 labc have stated that their k-15 product can be considered a material of limited combustibility
02:27:29 as i'm sure you are aware the appropriate fire classification claims on construction products
02:27:34 is extremely important with respect to both life safety and property protection
02:27:40 therefore we wish to clarify the basis of the statement appearing on the kingspan website
02:27:45 before considering any future activities whilst we understand that you may need time to consider
02:27:50 your response we would appreciate your acknowledged receipt of the original letter
02:27:54 dated 25th of september and provide an indication of when you are likely to respond yours sincerely
02:28:01 mr cody now um again i think it's right isn't it that um you didn't respond to this letter
02:28:12 in the days after it was received am i i have a recollection that there is on record a response
02:28:22 to this letter and it follows what i've already told you there is much later but there isn't at
02:28:28 this point there is a response in february 2010 but we're in october 2009 at this point can you
02:28:35 explain why you didn't respond promptly to this letter which is raising questions about life
02:28:42 safety and property protection in relation to claims that have been made about labc statements
02:28:48 no
02:28:53 do you remember making a conscious decision not to respond
02:28:59 no i don't i don't recollect how it was dealt with at all i'm afraid right we can see that on
02:29:07 the 1st of february 2010 mr cody writes an email to someone called stacy roper if we go to labc
02:29:15 two zeros 10318 and look at the bottom of page three
02:29:26 right at the bottom there we can see mr cody to miss roper first of february 2010 says hi labc do
02:29:35 you have a service charter and a procedure which will address concerns regarding the service provided
02:29:39 by the labc if so can you please forward a copy to me now we know from other emails that miss roper
02:29:47 was a support services and communications assistant at the labc does that sound right
02:29:55 i'm sorry i don't recollect stacy roper
02:30:00 okay and then we can see at the top of page three miss slater slater responds that same day 1st of
02:30:07 february saying good morning larry labc does not provide a building control service and therefore
02:30:12 we have no service charter relating to this the building control service is provided by individual
02:30:17 local authorities who will have their own service level agreements please note that labc is not a
02:30:22 governing body for local authorities any concerns or issues with individual authorities will need
02:30:26 to be raised with them i hope this helps now and then if we follow this chain through at the bottom
02:30:35 of page two mr cody responds again on the same day first of february he says this my issue is
02:30:42 not with the local authority but with a lack of response from labc regarding two letters addressed
02:30:47 to your mr barry turner and sent in september and october 2009 the latter was merely to ask for
02:30:52 confirmation that the first letter had been received and to ask for an indication on when
02:30:56 we could expect a response i would very much prefer not to invoke any sort of formal complaint
02:31:01 as i expect there's a very good explanation as to why these letters have not been answered
02:31:05 but on the other hand i would be very grateful to receive a considered response at the earliest
02:31:09 opportunity do you see that yes now just pausing there there was a complaints procedure in place
02:31:17 at the time were you aware of that not really no if we look at the labc manual again hbc six zeros
02:31:29 49 and this time at page 30
02:31:41 at paragraph 8.2 there we can see towards the top of the page it says local authorities and
02:31:48 labc should have complaints procedures according with building control performance standard 12 the
02:31:53 labc type approval service complaint procedure is as follows and then there's a staged approach
02:32:01 all complaints verbal written electronic that don't fall under the adjudication scheme will be
02:32:07 indexed in a complaints register an acknowledgement then sent setting out the procedure
02:32:13 complaint will be investigated item three by a person independent of the matter etc
02:32:18 now can you help us as to why mr cody's letters weren't dealt with in accordance with this
02:32:25 complaints procedure his letters asking for them weren't addressed to me so no i can't help you
02:32:33 ought mr cody's letters have been referred under this formal complaints procedure it would seem
02:32:40 he asked for a complaints procedure if there was one available
02:32:47 then he should his attention should have been drawn to it but
02:32:52 that correspondence was not addressed to me so i can't answer the questions as to why
02:32:57 that didn't happen well the later correspondence wasn't addressed to you but the earlier letters
02:33:02 were the earlier letters were but when he was asking about a complaints procedure they were
02:33:06 not addressed to me and you were never made aware of and i was not made aware of it to my knowledge
02:33:11 or to my recollection it's right isn't it that had the complaint been dealt with in the appropriate
02:33:17 way and an investigation carried out by a person independent of the matter the labc might have been
02:33:23 able to identify at that stage that there was inaccurate information in the labc k-15 certificate
02:33:29 that's right and it could have been amended that is correct yeah now the following day
02:33:36 we can see if we go back to labc 0010318
02:33:44 you say you weren't made aware that mr cody was asking about the complaints procedure
02:33:49 in fact what we see if we go to the top of page one in this string
02:33:59 we can see louis slater says to you on the 1st of february 2010 hi barry please see the attached
02:34:07 letter from larry at rockwall which he sent in september of last year please could you advise
02:34:12 if a response was ever sent to this do you see that yes do you remember miss slater drawing this
02:34:18 to your attention again that's the letter that we've already discussed yeah that refers to the
02:34:25 letter that we've already discussed so you weren't aware of the string below that where
02:34:31 he was asking about the complaints procedure no no okay we can also see that on the 8th of february
02:34:39 2010 someone called john garbett of kingspan he was the head of marketing at kingspan
02:34:46 wrote an email to you let's look at that labc 0019617 it's the second email down
02:35:03 and we can see that john buck garbett says to you
02:35:06 8th of february barry your email to richard bromwich was forwarded to me to deal with see
02:35:12 attached the system approval paperwork for the product and the original press release that was
02:35:16 posted on our website this press release is no longer on the website as it has been superseded
02:35:22 by newer items clearly we were quoting the content of the system approval and we consider that we
02:35:29 we did not in any way overstate the case should you like to discuss please let me know would it
02:35:36 be okay for us to let our contact in here for june know of the concerns raised by rockwall
02:35:41 so that he isn't caught cold so you appear to be discussing this complaint with the head of
02:35:48 marketing at kingspan in february 2010 that's right isn't it the letter is from him or the
02:35:55 email is from him that's correct and on the same day you respond if we go to the top email
02:36:03 in this chain 9th of february 2010 john i need to look at this more closely but for the moment i
02:36:09 have no problem with you advising colleagues of the matter although i would prefer if you did not
02:36:14 circulate the original rockwall letter i'm trying to be open and fair with everybody but i don't
02:36:20 appreciate such confrontational approaches so you said i need to look at this more closely did you
02:36:29 in fact look at it more closely it would appear not no sorry can i just ask you how well did you
02:36:37 know mr garbert i see you're on first name terms i knew him very well because of his again expertise
02:36:44 in thermal calculation and thermal performance working on the the the dclg working groups and
02:36:54 i think he was also involved with the zero carbon hub that i was also it was all thermal performance
02:36:59 related which is why i knew them good thank you very much i'm sorry i cut it no no it's fine
02:37:05 can you explain why you were discussing this with the head of marketing at kingspan before you've
02:37:11 even investigated the substance of the complaint that's been raised i think the first
02:37:21 connection or the first the first correspondence came from them not from me and it came from them
02:37:26 because he knew me through the working group not the other way around you say here that you'd prefer
02:37:33 in the second line you say i prefer if you did not circulate the original rockwell letter why
02:37:39 were you wanting to keep the rockwell letter to a small circulation group at this time i
02:37:48 viewed it as a
02:37:52 a complaint from rockwell as i said from between one competitor and another and so
02:37:59 um i was asking for a for a view on it because i
02:38:06 knew um or knew of them and because of the uh the previous contacts with labc not necessarily my own
02:38:16 contacts in in relation to the to the type approval yes so it was one of courtesy
02:38:23 yes but what we're seeking to understand is why would you seek kingspan's view on this complaint
02:38:28 before you've even ascertained what the nature of the complaint was and whether there's any
02:38:33 substance to it in independently of kingspan perhaps i was asked because they had provided
02:38:41 certification that supported their product but it was your certificate that certificate was based on
02:38:53 um
02:38:55 certificates issued by testing laboratories and testing facilities and because they had
02:39:06 accredited test certificates for their products um i chose to believe that those accredited test
02:39:16 certificates were correct and if that was the case then why was there a complaint being made
02:39:26 against them well did it occur to you that there might have been a simple error in transposing the
02:39:32 information in the accreditation certificates into your certificate
02:39:38 um
02:39:41 no to be perfectly honest um it's not something that was it was not a um
02:39:53 i don't recall and obviously because there's no evidence to suggest i did
02:40:00 carry out that then then it would appear not i have no recollection of it to be honest
02:40:05 thank you okay um on the 23rd of february you did uh 2010 you responded to mr cody's letter
02:40:14 if we look at that labc 0019618
02:40:35 here it is it's from you to mr cody copying in sasha cruz philip hammond and someone called
02:40:42 elwyn jones and you say this i refer to your letter requesting explanation of the labc system
02:40:48 approval issued for the above product and statements apparently made on the kingspan website
02:40:54 with particular reference to the k-15 product at the time of consideration the local authority
02:40:59 that carried out the assessment for compliance with the building regulations were satisfied that
02:41:04 it met the relevant criteria on that basis they felt able to recommend to other members that under
02:41:10 the circumstances described the material met the requirements of building regulations you go on
02:41:16 labc is a private company run by members for the benefit of those members and it is not for us to
02:41:21 explain to third parties our reasons or justification for the business of labc our intention is to be
02:41:28 fair and reasonable to all parts of the construction industry and work with industry for the benefit of
02:41:32 all concerned we would much prefer to work with your company and promote the benefits and
02:41:37 specialities that you have to offer rather than respond to your challenges of competitor products
02:41:43 this is now your second challenge on this rival manufacturer relating to compliance with part b
02:41:48 of the building regulations if you have issues with claims made by a competitor i must ask that
02:41:53 you deal direct with the company making those claims if labc have any concerns over statements
02:41:58 made or reference about an labc service it is for us to take up that matter with the party direct
02:42:04 i do not consider that it is a matter for discussion with a competitor if you would like to meet to
02:42:10 discuss how we may work together to promote good practice and solutions and make labc members aware
02:42:15 of the benefits of your company products and services i'd be very happy to do so i do not
02:42:19 however feel there's anything to be gained by your challenges of information we provide
02:42:25 do you see that there yes now from your response and particularly that second paragraph it appears
02:42:31 that you're not only agreeing with mr jones's assessment of k-15 but you are in fact defending
02:42:38 the technically incorrect claim made on that certificate is that right i put my trust in
02:42:45 others that they had done it correctly and as an organization representing local authorities
02:42:53 of course we were trying to defend them and was it purely that that by the time you wrote this
02:43:04 letter you still hadn't engaged with the substance of the complaint that was being raised yes
02:43:13 had you not appreciated by this time you've had a long time to think about it that the certificate
02:43:19 was technically inaccurate and misleading in a pretty major way by describing it as a limited
02:43:25 combustibility or can be considered of limited combustibility considering the
02:43:36 lack of involvement with the whole process of this certificate i have been drawn into something
02:43:45 um that's up to the point of receiving these letters i'd had no real involvement with
02:43:53 and so that is the the view that i took at that time
02:44:01 and others involved that had been in you know were not raising concerns and others involved
02:44:10 had got more knowledge of what was going on than i had
02:44:16 i see so you're saying because you weren't really involved with the
02:44:20 the certificate process that's what you're saying now you didn't really have any involvement with
02:44:26 this and so you just defended the certificate i put my trust in the people that have dealt with it
02:44:34 you suggest in this letter that rockwall should deal directly with king span about the labc
02:44:39 certificate how was that appropriate or practical it was your certificate not king spans
02:44:46 uh maybe the wording is not particularly um correct but the the principle was that
02:44:56 they should make a a complaint direct to the the person making the statement or to if if there was
02:45:04 an issue with a product and as i've said before this was seen as an argument between two competitors
02:45:15 with alternative products if they thought that the product was not right and again i was defending
02:45:24 the process that had been carried out in checking the certification put forward by king span
02:45:32 um then they the the approach that they should make was not through labc yes you say there was
02:45:43 a principle that they should make a complaint direct to the person making this statement but
02:45:47 rockwall are telling you that kings ban are quoting from your certificate so why weren't
02:45:53 you the appropriate people to be dealing with that complaint i can't answer that question and
02:45:58 i didn't see it that way at the time right
02:46:07 if we look at a document labc 0019620
02:46:15 second email down in this string
02:46:21 we can see that uh your colleague alwyn jones what role did alwyn jones have at the time
02:46:29 um he was a
02:46:36 technical
02:46:40 assistant helper
02:46:45 brought brought on board i as much as i recall to to
02:46:50 to put labc and have a greater involvement in the type approval process
02:47:01 and we can see he says if i do say so myself very good mr turner and then you say thanks al
02:47:08 not so sure mr kody will agree so you must have anticipated that rockwall were not going to be
02:47:14 satisfied with your response yes yeah did you appreciate the public safety ramifications of
02:47:20 being so dismissive to rockwall's concerns if i had appreciated that i wouldn't have dealt with
02:47:27 it in the way that i did but do you accept now that they were absolutely clear on the base of
02:47:36 those letters raised and viewed with today's knowledge um it could have been dealt with
02:47:44 in a more appropriate manner it was viewed as a complaint between competitors at the time
02:47:51 we see today that wasn't the way to view it but that's the way it was dealt with at the time
02:47:59 now just to complete this mr kody then responds if we go labc 0019632
02:48:06 and look at page three of the string
02:48:14 here we can see on the fourth of march 2010 he says thank you for the response to my letter and
02:48:21 clarification of labc's position as you suggest it's preferable to raise such issues directly
02:48:26 the company concerned as a first step in this process we wish to seek confirmation that labc's
02:48:31 opinion was as publicized by king span having now received this confirmation from you we can consider
02:48:36 our actions towards king span direct or through other channels the fact that we have sought such
02:48:41 fact that we have sought such clarification from you is an acknowledgement by manufacturers
02:48:45 of construction products as to the influence that the labc has in such matters and it goes on we
02:48:52 hope that we will be able to continue to engage with labc on important matters affecting the
02:48:56 construction industry and then he says we'd welcome your suggestion of a meeting to discuss
02:49:03 ways of working together and we can see you respond to this if we go on page two one email
02:49:10 up in this string you say thank you for your response i must for the record state that my
02:49:17 earlier message neither accepted nor denied the statements publicized by king span merely
02:49:22 indicated that we consider it's not a matter to discuss in this context with a third party
02:49:27 now pausing there why did you say that i can't recall um
02:49:33 um clarification um i don't know i mean those statements were matters of fact weren't they
02:49:45 they weren't there to be neither confirmed nor denied the statements that had been made about
02:49:49 k-15's properties i suppose i was trying to protect labc's you know involvement i i really
02:49:57 don't know why why that wording was used in that particular context at that particular time
02:50:03 right and you go on you say i would however like to draw a line under this exchange and move on to
02:50:08 more constructive discussion cooperation with us did you ever have any further discussions with
02:50:13 mr kody or rockwall about uh this complaint not that i'm aware of now in addition to mr kody's
02:50:22 complaint we know that the labc received an email from someone called jim mansfield of the
02:50:27 jim mansfield consultancy in april 2011 expressing concern about king span making misleading claims
02:50:34 so just to help you this is now over a year later let's look at this email labc 0019671
02:50:43 and it's the bottom of the email chain on page two email at 1047
02:50:55 mr mansfield says to miss sloper subject misleading claims by king span dears says i'm an accredited
02:51:04 energy assessor and chartered building services engineer i'm very concerned that king span who
02:51:09 is an engineering engineer i'm very concerned that king span who manufacture insulation products
02:51:13 are making misleading claims this will lead to many buildings which will not comply with
02:51:17 the requirements of the 2010 version of part l i believe that sellotex are similarly guilty
02:51:23 is this something you can resolve do you need me to address to provide further details now to be
02:51:28 clear he seems to be raising concerns about part l in terms of thermal efficiency there we see in
02:51:35 the same chain miss sloper forwards this email to you and mr bassin on the same day page two
02:51:43 she says uh hi barry and doug please see the email below mr bassin then responds he says
02:51:50 this is strange not sure but i had a real wise guy at the eco build come up to me and start
02:51:55 challenging me on all sorts of stuff turned out he was of the same credentials as this person
02:51:59 is it possible it could be one in the same person barry do you want to lead on this as
02:52:05 if it's part l i'm not happy to start the process sorry if not i'm happy to start the process off
02:52:10 as we will have to respond in some sort of way and then further up you respond you say i'll
02:52:18 answer it just in the process of not our problem and he will be told so now i appreciate this is
02:52:27 part l but it's king span again and it's misleading claims being made by king span
02:52:32 and why did you not take those concerns more seriously at the time and investigate them the
02:52:41 whole industry focus at that time was on thermal performance
02:52:51 and a very scientific process as to how you determine the thermal performance of materials
02:52:58 of materials way beyond the the capabilities of of surveyors so it was a calculation process
02:53:07 as far as compliance with regulations are concerned so it was not
02:53:15 should we say there was no connection made as far as i recall between this issue
02:53:22 and the ones that we've previously been discussing
02:53:25 and let's look at the chain and how i don't know whether you've got a copy of the response i've
02:53:32 absolutely no idea what sort of what response i made yeah i'm coming to it and so miss slo if
02:53:38 we keep going with the chain miss sloper then replies one one email up at 1106 she says not
02:53:46 sure if it's relevant but king span has some system approvals with us and then you say yes i
02:53:52 suspect that is why he's contacted us but if he doesn't give us any information he can't expect
02:53:56 much of a reply three exclamation marks well he won't get one and then we can see your response
02:54:06 at labc 0019673
02:54:10 so here on the 8th of april 2011 you write to mr mansfield and you say dear sir i refer to your
02:54:25 message below that's been passed to me for a response if you have an issue with claims made
02:54:29 by a particular company you should in the first place take up with them direct and follow their
02:54:33 established complaints procedure you may wish to verify claims by their third party accreditation
02:54:39 if there is an appropriate certificate of performance produced by a british or european
02:54:43 accredited testing station without further information i'm unable to comment further
02:54:48 labc is a member organization operating for the benefit of its members we do not govern
02:54:53 authorize or control commercial organizations so that was your response um did you not think to
02:54:59 ask mr mansfield for further particulars about what his concerns were at this time this is the
02:55:06 second time does that letter not invite further for a corporate further correspondence if he
02:55:11 wants me to follow it up you've said there without further information i'm unable to comment further
02:55:18 so are you saying that if he'd got further complaints you expected them to come back after
02:55:23 this yes right i see and did you not make the connection with the complaints that you'd had
02:55:29 from rockwall a year earlier about statements kingspan were making i've already answered that
02:55:33 and said no i didn't i see
02:55:40 mr chairman that's actually quite a good moment i know it's five minutes early to to probably
02:55:45 break because i'm moving to a slightly different but related topic all right and i'd rather take
02:55:50 that in one go it won't be disasters if we have uh five minutes longer for lunch will it i i don't
02:55:56 think so no i think that's fine um well thank you as you've heard mr turner that's a convenient
02:56:03 point in council's line of questioning to have the break that we would be having in a few minutes
02:56:08 for lunch in any event so we'll stop there uh we'll resume at two o'clock please and again i must
02:56:15 ask you not to discuss your evidence or anything to do with it with anyone over the break all right
02:56:20 thank you very much would you go the usher please
02:56:38 thank you very much