AT THE Grenfell Tower inquiry, Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) was said to have been ‘frustrated’ with main contractor Rydon’s progress.
Building, Sky News and Inside Housing all reported on the end of the evidence given by KCTMO’s project manager Claire Williams, in which she stated that she had felt both ‘frustrated’ and ‘let down’ by main contractor Rydon’s ‘slow progress’ on the job and advisor Artelia respectively. She said she had been ‘actively involved’ in a formal complaint sent to Rydon’s regeneration director Stephen Blake in March 2016, ‘less than two months away’ from the targeted completion date.
This complaint was written by Artelia’s Neil Reed, acting as KCTMO employer’s agent, and said that both KCTMO and Artelia felt Rydon ‘could and should be doing more in the runup to completion’, citing key staff including Mr Blake ‘being transferred away from the project’. It also detailed concerns around ‘meeting attendance and handover issues’, and inquiry counsel Richard Millett asked if it was true she had been frustrated with Rydon.
Ms Williams replied that ‘with slow progress of works and the lack of responsiveness in some areas, yes’, and agreed that work was ‘very delayed’ by the time the complaint was sent. She was ‘concerned’ about Rydon’s attitude to completing the project, and believed it had ‘not been resourcing [it] properly’, adding that ‘everything was progressing, but at a sedentary rate’, such as a lack of cladding fitters flagged by a KCTMO clerk of works, and ‘slow workmanship in flats.
Asked if she had fears Rydon might ‘cut corners’ to keep the project ‘on track or within its own budget’, and whether workmanship quality ‘might fall’, Ms Williams said: ‘That wasn’t something that I was aware of or I heard any of our clerk of works say. Nobody had any comment about the quality; it was rather the slow progress, that they hadn’t employed enough subcontractors to meet the programme.’
She was then asked about a complaint from resident David Collins made shortly after KCTMO and Artelia’s, with Mr Collins chair of the residents’ association and warning of the ‘appalling standard of work undertaken by Rydon in communal areas and inside a number of residents properties’. She said she had been satisfied this referred to work in progress that was then ‘properly finished’, and was also asked about KCTMO taking on the role of principal designer.
This occurred after a change in the Construction and Design Management (CDM) Regulations in October 2015, where CDM coordinators were replaced by principal designers, and the former role had been fulfilled by Artelia ‘up to that point’. KCTMO ‘unsuccessfully’ attempted to get Rydon, Studio E and consultant Bailey Garner to take on the role, before it decided to be ‘its own principal designer’.
Ms Williams was also reported to have ‘tried and failed’ to get a minute inserted into those of an October 2015 progress meeting ‘outlining circumstances in which’ Rydon ‘would take on’ the role. This was rejected ‘on the grounds that it would not be an accurate record’ of the meeting, and she told the inquiry she was ‘glad’ her approach had been corrected. Artelia offered KCTMO a CDM compliance adviser service, but KCTMO declined.
Asked by Mr Millett if the fact that other parties ‘declined to take on the role’ had ‘indicated’ to her this was a task that had ‘significant risk’ attached, she said ‘no’, adding: ‘It seemed to me more that because it was a new role, people weren’t geared up, they weren’t trained, they didn’t have perhaps a department or people in place who could carry out that role.’
Ms Williams was then questioned about fire safety information that needed to have been gathered at the end of the project for health and safety purposes and building safety, with a risk assessment undertaken at the end of the project in April 2016 shown that identified a ‘high priority’ need to gather more information required under Regulation 38 of the Building Regulations, with Ms Williams made responsible for doing so.
This required compiling a ‘wide range’ of fire safety documentation ‘to ensure future management and safety assessments […] could be carried out effectively’ by KCTMO, and Ms Williams was given a memory stick by Rydon with the information on it. Asked by Mr Millett if she had checked it was complete, she said that ‘I can’t say hand on hear that I checked exactly’, with the inquiry then shown an extract from expert witness Dr Barbara Lane’s report into the fire.
This stated that ‘none of the relevant sections was fully completed with the relevant fire safety information and a substantial quantity of the provided content… was insufficient to assist the responsible person to operate and maintain the building with reasonable safety’. Ms Williams was also asked about an incomplete health and safety file she was responsible for preparing at the end of the project, which was ‘missing several key documents’.
The file was ‘used to provide a record of the building to ensure any future works can be carried out safety’, and should have identified ‘any hazardous materials and the relevant statutory compliance’. Due to the CDM changes, ‘it was not clear who was going to be responsible for compiling this’, and Mr Millett asked whether it was ‘the truth that you were offered a golden opportunity to ask [Artelia] to do this and do it right and you turned it down?’.
Ms Williams replied that she was ‘disillusioned’ by Artelia’s service at this point, and hoped she would be ‘provided enough information’ to complete it herself, despite never having done one before. She also stood by the part of the statement where she said KCTMO felt ‘let down’ by Artelia over its guidance on appointing a principal designer under the CDM Regulations, and Artelia’s ‘inability to take on the role itself’.
Mr Millett pointed out that two different versions of the tower’s health and safety file were found post fire, one from Rydon and one from KCTMO, but ‘neither was complete’. The inquiry was also shown extracts from her witness statement alleging ‘disruptive conduct from a small number of residents’ at public meetings.
She said she had meant ‘people with strongly held views might use your meeting to express that […] and stop the rest of the group from hearing the information you are trying to get across’, and that as a result, KCTMO switched to consulting via newsletters and drop in meetings, though she accepted newsletters represented ‘telling, not listening’ – and later confirmed residents were not asked about what type of cladding they would prefer at the drop in sessions.
The hearing was adjourned after she ‘broke down’ when asked about emails between her and KCTMO colleagues on the morning of the fire, as Mr Millett noted her email lacked ‘any suggestion of surprise or shock that the building was burning’, in ‘light of the assurances’ she had said Rydon’s Simon Lawrence had given her and KCTMO’s head of capital investment David Gibson.
He was referring to both her and Gibson’s claim that Mr Lawrence had reassured them, at a meeting hosted by Artelia, that the cladding was ‘completely inert’, and while both KCTMO staff say they saw hard copy minutes detailing this, ‘no copies have been found’, and Mr Lawrence denies giving this assurance. He asked her if she was sure she was not trying ‘to reconstruct a conversation that never actually took place’,
Mr Millett gave her ‘an opportunity to accept’ that if she’d had that assurance, her reaction ‘on seeing the fire would have been to have recorded the assurance’, and this would ‘have been a perfect opportunity’. She thought both she and colleagues ‘had been directed on the information’ needed from them on the morning of the fire – ‘the emphasis was on: “This is the information that we need to provide”, for whatever purpose. And obviously there are other things going on’.
Concluding her evidence, she was asked what she would have done differently with the information she has now, and she responded: ‘I would have liked to have been able to evidence in document form the responses from Rydon in relation to my question about flame retardance and David’s question about the materials being inert. I would have loved to have been able to present those to you [ …] that would have been substantial information for you.
‘I knew many people who died in the fire. I’m glad that the inquiry is here and hopefully, through your work, we can get some resolution to stop a tragedy like this happening again.’
Sky News reported that Ms Williams’ actions in throwing away notebooks post fire ‘will be investigated’ by the Metropolitan Police ‘to see if any crime was committed’, despite her belief that there was ‘nothing underhand about it’. Her former colleague Peter Maddison, having disclosed notebooks and diaries to the inquiry last week, will need to give a ‘clear and convincing’ explanation for this late disclosure, Mr Millett added.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said it was ‘aware’ of the evidence relating to Ms Williams’ notes, and added that ‘once the public inquiry has provided material to the MPS, we will review the material to assess its relevance. If relevant documentation has been disposed of or withheld from the criminal investigation, the MPS will seek to establish the facts and assess whether a criminal offence may have been committed’.