Calls for independent experts to look at how council spent £406m recovery money after Grenfell disaster

By Julia Gregory, local democracy reporter

A Grenfell campaigner has called for independent experts to look at the ways Kensington and Chelsea council spent £406m money on recovery from the disaster and said the “abuser was left in charge of the abused.”

At a council overview and scrutiny meeting she called for an independent review of the council’s spending on services and recovery after Grenfell, instead of the authority “marking its own homework”.

Kimiya Zabihyan who represents the Grenfell Next of Kin group bereaved by the deaths of 29 tower residents, said: “This public purse expenditure in the name of the victims and the traumatised community has been misspent, squandered, duplicated and has been completely unaccountable in an unacceptable manner.”

It followed the publication of the council’s expenditure on Grenfell recovery.

The council has spent £405.8m on Grenfell in the three-and-a-half years since the fatal fire – including  £177m on buying homes for 300 families from Grenfell Tower and Grenfell Walk next door.

The money includes £290m council cash, £105m from government and £11m from the Greater London Authority.

During the first two years after the fire the council spent

• £56m on housing, including £33m on emergency housing.
• £41m on social care which includes mental health support and £13m on discretionary hardship payments to people affected by the disaster.
• It also spent £18m for support services, including financial management of the response, community engagement and agency staff.

In April 2019 the council committed £50m towards recovery funding until 2024.

So far it has spent £22m and a further £28m is planned to be spent for the remaining three years of the strategy.

It includes a dedicated service which is used by 700 for the bereaved and survivors, housing support and a community programme for people who live near the tower.

The council worked with a steering group of 15 bereaved and survivors to set up the dedicated service.

Ms Zabihyan  who  volunteered at the scene after the fire said one person bereaved by the fire said “the abuser was left in charge of the abused”.

The council has provided more financial details after requests by Ms Zabihyan and others earlier this year.

She called for independent external auditors to look at “uneven spend”.

“We’re calling on the secretary of state to order an independent accountant and commissioners.”

She wanted details of who is helped by the money, its efficacy and who makes the decisions and line by line details of spending.

Ms Zabiyhan said: “The supported exploitation of our grief is offensive and painful.”

The council’s director of financial management, Taryn Eves, said line by line details can be provided.

She also said  the Government and the Greater London Authority look at details of the money the council has spent before it reimburses it.

The council’s chief executive Barry Quirk, who joined the authority after the fire said: “It’s the only authority that’s ever been charged in solving the problem that the people who are suffering the problem have charged us with causing in the first place.”

Outgoing leader of the opposition, Pat Mason, spoke about the pain the community is suffering four years after the tragedy.

He addressed the overview and scrutiny committee saying: “Residents still see this council as the old council.

“We are the Grenfell council, we are the council as far as they’re concerned  that killed 72 of their people.”

He added: “They see this council through the eyes of the Inquiry, the horror evidence that’s coming out.”

The Inquiry has recently been hearing evidence from former councillors about their role in the regeneration of Grenfell.

The North Kensington councillor who witnessed the horrific fire said: “It’s just such a different emotional trauma reality out there. People who have had their families killed as far as they’re concerned they’ve lost three, four, five members of  their family and you know they’re never going to be the same again.

“They simply will never ever forget from their point of view that this council didn’t listen and they don’t have their family members  anymore and they don’t have any housing and they don’t have their community, because they loved their community.

“This is a disaster that never leaves them day or night.”

“Four years later it is worse than  it was then, they are exhausted, four years of exhaustion, mental, physical, they are not sleeping at night, they are seeing the faces of the people who died, they go through all of that.