Council in charge of Grenfell Tower has not made all buildings safe after fire, audit finds

By Adrian Zorzut, Local Democracy Reporter

The council in charge of handling the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire has not completed work to ensure other high risk buildings are safe, five years after the tragedy.

Covid and some residents not letting workers in are partly to blame for delays, a Kensington and Chelsea council (RBKC) meeting has been told.

The council has defended the “adverse” finding by auditors after a report laid bare the authority’s failings in the three years that followed the Grenfell tragedy.

The council took control of managing its own homes from a Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) in 2018 after the devastating fire including the replacement of fire doors deemed unsafe.

During a council meeting on Monday, councillors were told 149 doorsets out of 2,040 had not been installed in high-risk blocks.

An officer said: “We’ve done all our properties, almost. There are a few exceptions where we’ve had difficulty getting in; some people don’t want us in for various reasons, which meant we had to go through a legal process.”

The officer claimed at times, workers had to negotiate entry with the carers and key workers of vulnerable residents or no one was home to let them in.

He also claimed flats were being sub-let in some instances and said Covid restrictions led to rollout being interrupted.

He said the doors were “by-and-large popular” and the council would now start on the latest phase of the door replacement programme to install them in smaller tower blocks and those deemed lower risk.

The officer told the Audit and Transparency Committee: “There’s quite a lot of history with fire doors. Initially, the fire doors we inherited had to be replaced because they failed the fire test. So, it’s really important to get quality right, to make sure what you’re putting in is actually going to be the right type so we’ve had a lot of that.”

Andrew Ling, a member of the committee, claimed the outcome, known as a Value For Money (VFM) judgement, did not show the council had prioritised safety over money.

He said: “Every time I come across this type of issue, it’s [meant to be] about safety, not about money.”

Auditors KPMG and Grant Thornton rated RBKC’s use of taxpayer funds “adverse” between the financial years of 2016/2017 and 2018/2019, a council document revealed.

A report by Grant Thornton showed that between 2016 and 2018, RBKC failed to put proper arrangement in place to make informed decisions about spending taxpayers’ money.

When it came to compensating civil claims around the fire, a council official said: “We’re working closely with government in terms of capitalisation direction to be able to borrow the funds to make the civil claim, which is the right thing to do.”

The council launched the door replacement programme after discovering many of the fire doors on its estates failed fire safety standards after the Grenfell tragedy. To date, it has replaced thousands of doors in tower blocks above 11m in height. The council will start on phase 3 and start carrying out works on smaller builds.

Pictured top: Grenfell Tower five years after the fire (Picture: Hannah Neary)