What does the Grenfell inquiry report mean for building safety regulations?

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry was created to examine the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the fire at Grenfell Tower on the night of 14 June 2017. Yesterday saw the release of the second and final 1,700-page report of the six-year public inquiry into the fire, by Sir Martin Moore-Bick. Phase one focused on the factual narrative of events that occurred on the night of the fire and subsequently saw the introduction of The Building Safety Act - a helpful article on this can be accessed here. The second phase, examines how the tower block came to be in a condition that allowed the fire to spread. 

In his address on 4 September, Chairman, Sir Martin Moore-Bick says the second phase of the inquiry has "taken longer than hoped" due to its broad scope and the fact that they had exposed "more matters of concern than originally expected". He goes on to say the “simple” truth is that all of their deaths were “avoidable” due to "dishonesty" and "incompetence". He had listed off boroughs, governments, manufacturers, contractors and the engineers who were described as having a ”chronic lack of effective leadership” bearing "significant" responsibility and labelled for having "deliberately concealed" the safety risk and to have "misled" the market resulting in risk being "ignored, delayed or disregarded". 

So how will the inquiry impact the industry? The final report has made a series of recommendations that would significantly impact the industry if accepted by the government. These include…

• The creation of a single independent body with one secretary of state responsible for the issue in government 
• The introduction of licensing of contractors 'to eliminate shortcomings'
• Recommendation that 'the definition of a higher-risk building for the purposes of the Building Safety Act be reviewed urgently'
• Recommendation that 'the construction regulator should be responsible for assessing the conformity of construction products with the requirements of legislation, statutory guidance and industry standards and issuing certificates as appropriate'
• Call for change in building control and recommendation 'that the government appoint an independent panel to consider whether it is in the public interest for building control functions to be performed by those who have a commercial interest in the process'
• A shake up to building control and competence 
• The documents that set out guidance on how to adhere to building regulations should be reassessed
• That fire engineers 'are recognised and protected by law and that an independent body [is] established to regulate the profession, define the standards required for membership, maintain a register of members and regulate their conduct' 
• A call for a knowledge hub for people involved in all aspects of building design and construction.

The timescale of when we are likely to see these recommendations and measures to come into effect remain unclear, however the final report marks a landmark day for building safety regulations with reform on the horizon. 

More information: Boodle Hatfield offers specialist legal advice across the whole spectrum construction compliance, including The Building Safety Act. Visit our hub that provides a series of helpful resources and outlines how we can help.