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Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 37: ‘In giving that advice, weren’t you acting beyond your knowledge and expertise?’

Insight02.06.213.00 PM by Peter Apps

A curtailed week at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry saw fire risk assessor Carl Stokes grilled over advice he gave regarding the tower’s cladding. Peter Apps reports

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A curtailed week at the #GrenfellTowerInquiry saw fire risk assessor Carl Stokes grilled over advice he gave regarding the tower’s cladding. Peter Apps reports #UKhousing

KCTMO health and safety lead sought new fire risk assessor more willing to ‘challenge fire brigade’

‘I’m sorry to say that a member of the counsel team has suffered a bereavement’

The inquiry only sat for one day (Tuesday) this week to complete the evidence of Mr Stokes and will be paused on Wednesday and Thursday.

Inquiry chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick (pictured above) explained at the start of the session that this is because of a bereavement within the team of barristers that examine the witnesses.

The witness who is due to follow Mr Stokes, Janice Wray, was health, safety and facilities manager at Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) and is a critical witness for this part of the inquiry, having been involved in many of the key decisions the inquiry is examining.

She will now begin her evidence on Monday 7 June.

‘Would you agree that by not recording the fact that… you gave rise to the incorrect assumption that [it] would work in the event of a fire?’

Mr Stokes (pictured above) began his evidence yesterday being asked about the smoke ventilation system at Grenfell Tower.

To recap: this system failed during a fire in the tower in 2010 and was ultimately deemed “beyond economic repair”. But it was not replaced until 2016, as part of the wider refurbishment, despite a deficiency notice from the London Fire Brigade (LFB) in March 2014.

This meant the tower had been without a functioning smoke ventilation system for six years – a period in which Mr Stokes had produced several risk assessments of the building. So why did he not raise this issue?

It emerged that in three risk assessments from 2009 up to 2012, Mr Stokes put the following exact same statement: ”There are automatic opening vents on each flat/lift lobby area, it is not known if this system is serviced and maintained.”

But why if he did not know in 2009 had he not found out by 2012? He said he was simply not given the records.

“At this particular point, sir, I had no access to their [KCTMO’s] maintenance records. I literally had to ask each time I went to the building… If I didn’t receive the maintenance records, I would write that statement in, ‘I haven’t seen them’,” Mr Stokes explained.

By the time of his next assessment in October 2014, he was aware that a deficiency notice had been served in March and had recently been copied into an email which described the system had “been confirmed as beyond repair” just days before the review.

But all he said in his review was that “as part of the buildings refurbishment this smoke extraction system is being upgraded”, not that it was not working.

“Would you agree that by not recording the fact that the [smoke extract system] wasn’t working, you gave rise to the incorrect assumption that [it] would work in the event of a fire?” asked counsel to the inquiry Andrew Kinnier QC.

“But [it] was working, it wasn’t working at 100%,” replied Mr Stokes.

“Where do you say that in the [fire risk assessment]?” asked Mr Kinnier.

“I don’t,” accepted Mr Stokes.

The system was replaced in 2016, but the new system is also believed to have failed on the night of the fire. Mr Stokes met with one of the consultants designing the new system in 2015, but could only remember a few details.

He said he was reliant on building control to ensure the system was in compliance with relevant regulations and standards.

‘I’d never had any information on the cladding at Grenfell anyway, so I had no records to check’

Mr Stokes, like most risk assessors before the Grenfell tragedy, did not analyse the external facade as part of his review as he believed it fell outside the scope of the work he was legally obliged to do.

Nonetheless, he was taken through several pieces of guidance which suggested he should have taken it into account.

PAS 79 for example – the British Standard that guided risk assessment of residential properties – said fire risk assessors should have “a knowledge and understanding of… the building envelope eg fire-resisting external walls, curtain walls”.

Guidance published by the Local Government Association (LGA) in 2011 also said: “When assessing existing blocks of flats, particular attention should be given to any rainscreen or other external cladding system that has been applied.”

Nonetheless, Mr Stokes stood by his claim that the facade should not have formed part of his work as it was not part of the “common parts” of the building.

Despite this, he did talk about the issue of cladding at Grenfell Tower. In October 2014, having seen mock-up samples of the cladding on the tower, he suggested asking several questions including “the fire rating of the cladding and the fixings”.

By April 2016, his risk assessment described the cladding as “fire rated” and said the system had been “approved and accepted” by building control officers.

This, however, was written before building control signed off the project, so how had he come to this conclusion? Mr Stokes said that he had “informal conversations” with figures from Rydon when they showed him around the site and they gave him “assurances” that building control were happy with the cladding.

Handwritten notes following this discussion described the cladding as “Ok FR no timber” and “cladding external non-combustible”.

A year later, in April 2017, the issue was raised again when the LFB sent a letter to all councils in the capital warning of external fire spread and “strongly urging” that this be assessed as part of risk assessments.

This followed revelations – first unveiled a couple of weeks previously in Inside Housing – that the panels installed beneath windows at a block in Shepherd’s Bush (pictured above) contained polystyrene and timber, which likely contributed to the fierce fire spread up its walls.

This email was forwarded to Mr Stokes and on 24 April Ms Wray asked him: “My understanding is that we do not have any blocks with external cladding of this nature. Are you able to confirm please?”

He replied: “Grenfell was clad but the cladding complied with the requirements of the Building Regulations, lots of questions asked of Rydons and answers received back from them.”

Asked if he had checked his records before offering this comment, he said: “I’d never had any information on the cladding at Grenfell anyway, so I had no records to check.”

He has also accepted that he had “limited” knowledge of the materials used at Grenfell Tower and was “not a construction or materials specialist”.

“In giving that advice, weren’t you acting beyond your knowledge and expertise and you ought not to have expressed yourself in such unqualified terms?” asked Mr Kinnier.

In his answer Mr Stokes focused on the fact that the products at the building in Shepherd’s Bush were panels below windows, not a full cladding system.

“Shepherd’s Bush didn’t have external cladding on, so therefore the TMO at Grenfell Tower or any other TMO block didn’t have any external cladding of the same nature as Shepherd’s Bush,” he said.

‘I think that was had more than once, that conversation’

A topic that has come up consistently in this module is KCTMO’s struggle to complete the actions identified as necessary by Mr Stokes in his reports.

At one stage the organisation had more than 1,400 outstanding actions and gradually clawed the position back, but still had 287 outstanding at the time of the fire.

Mr Stokes said he “knew there was a backlog”, but did not know how long it was. He said he had emphasised the importance of closing out actions to Ms Wray “more than once”.

He was also shown an email from November 2015 where a staff member at KCTMO said he was “keen to reduce the number of actions we receive” and said it “would be helpful to raise [some issues outside of the process to ensure the process is manageable”.

“I can’t remember specifically that being asked, but I wouldn’t have done anyway,” Mr Stokes said yesterday.

What’s still to come?

Ms Wray will give evidence from Monday and the inquiry will then hear evidence from some of the LFB’s safety inspectors who raised concerns about Grenfell Tower.

We will then hear the evidence of Robert Black (pictured above), chief executive of KCTMO, before moving on to specific evidence about the smoke system, gas, lifts and fire doors.

Finally we will hear from experts Colin Todd and Dr Barbara Lane before closing submissions covering all of the evidence submitted to the inquiry so far. This was originally scheduled for 26 July, but may slip to after the summer break as the inquiry is around two weeks behind its original schedule for this module.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry: week 37 headlines

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The fire risk assessor for Grenfell Tower offered assurances that the cladding system installed on the block “complied with the requirements of building regulations” just weeks before the fire, emails released by the inquiry reveal.

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