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Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 40: ‘An exercise in concealment and half truth’

Insight25.06.212.30 PM by Peter Apps and Nathaniel Barker

Former Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) chief executive Robert Black gave his evidence to the inquiry this week and was asked to account for the various failures described over the previous six weeks. Peter Apps and Nathaniel Barker report

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Former KCTMO chief executive Robert Black gave his evidence to the inquiry this week and was asked to account for the various failures described over the previous six weeks. Peter Apps and Nathaniel Barker report #UKhousing

‘Actually this was escalated down to lower management’

Robert Black, the former chief executive of KCTMO, previously gave evidence in phase one back in 2018, where it emerged he took more than two hours to send on documents requested by firefighters on the night of the fire including a list of residents.

This time, the questions were about his role in the years building up to the fire, and to what extent he was personally at fault for the various failures described over the past six weeks.

He made a point of stating that KCTMO was an organisation with serious problems when he joined in 2009 from Circle Housing, where he had been executive director of customer services.

This is undoubtedly true: the organisation had recently been subjected to an astonishingly negative review by independent adjudicator Maria Memoli, who had described tenants waiting years for repairs amid “an unhappy culture [which] needs to change for the better”.

Mr Black described being under “gigantic pressure” to turn this around, claiming that as a result he mainly relied on Janice Wray, the former health, safety and facilities manager at KCTMO, who previously gave several days of evidence, to manage issues relating to fire safety compliance.

Throughout his evidence, there was a tension between his willingness to verbally accept blame and his inclination to make it clear that other people were actually responsible.

An example was KCTMO’s emergency plan, which the inquiry previously concluded was “obsolete and had been for many years” by 14 June 2017. Information about Grenfell Tower contained in the plan was more than 15 years out of date.

“How come?” inquiry lead counsel Richard Millett QC asked.

Mr Black replied: “I don’t know why people didn’t do, because actually this was escalated down to lower management to do as part of their roles and [they] should have been keeping it up to date.

“So, in a sense, I can’t get away from it; it’s out of date, I think that there was more up-to-date information available, but it wasn’t there, so I just have to accept that responsibility.”

Pressed further, he simply said “pass” when asked if he was ultimately responsible for the failure to keep the emergency plan updated. Eventually, after an intervention from inquiry chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick, Mr Black accepted that he “ultimately [had] to take responsibility for the way the system works or doesn’t work”.

Asked if he accepted that he had failed to fulfil his role in respect of ensuring that KCTMO’s management and maintenance procedures were “adequate” and “implemented effectively” in the lead-up to the notice being issued, Mr Black said simply: “In terms of my role, yes.”

‘Do you accept that the ultimate effect of your failure… was that the TMO was unable to identify all of the relevant vulnerable people in Grenfell Tower on the night of the fire?’

What, then, of the specifics? One major area in which KCTMO witnesses have been grilled is the failure to identify residents who would struggle to evacuate and provide them with personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs).

The background to this is that government-backed guidance published by the Local Government Association (LGA) in 2011 indicated this was not necessary in general needs housing and reliance should instead be placed on ‘stay put’.

As a result many social landlords simply parked a problem they felt was too difficult to solve without staff on site to assist with evacuations.

The problem is that several other pieces of guidance were clear that PEEPs were required, and so did KCTMO make a conscious choice to follow the LGA position? Mr Black’s evidence was that it did.

KCTMO was in fact advised by fire consultants Salvus in a general management review in 2009 to put fire safety policies for disabled and vulnerable residents in place.

“Do you remember whether a positive decision was taken not to follow the Salvus advice about vulnerable residents?” asked counsel to the inquiry Mr Millett.

“I can’t remember, but I think we probably did,” said Mr Black.

But the problem was that this was not what it was telling its board.

Papers presented to the board in July 2010 said it planned to “identify residents with special needs and work with them to establish a specific Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan (PEEP) to ensure their safety is protected”.

This statement continued to be repeated in health and safety objectives reported to the board right through to June 2015.

But despite these statements, the organisation was not actively working on PEEPs. Why not? Mr Black said the organisation had “adopted the LGA guidance”. But this decision does not appear to have been documented.

“It sounds to me as though what may have happened is that instead of there being any formal and certainly any documented decision, it was allowed to drop on the basis that it was thought not to be appropriate?” asked inquiry chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick (pictured, above).

“I would probably accept that,” said Mr Black.

In the event, the inquiry has only been able to identify two PEEPs prepared by KCTMO since 2010 across its entire 9,600 general needs homes.

“Do you accept that the ultimate effect of your failure to set out any substantive policy or strategy in respect of disabled or vulnerable residents, or a clear policy of collection of data about those individuals, was that the TMO was unable to identify all of the relevant vulnerable people in Grenfell Tower on the night of the fire?” asked Mr Millett.

“I think we’re probably clear we… wouldn’t have been able to identify all the people who lived in the 10,000 properties, because again, it wasn’t a proactive position we were in to do that. It was still a stay put and be rescued,” Mr Black said.

‘You were keeping the board in the dark’

What about the issue of fire door self-closers?

The fact that nearly two-thirds were missing from front doors in Grenfell Tower has already been established as a crucial cause of the loss of ‘compartmentation’ in the fire, which allowed smoke to spread through the building early in the fire – trapping many of the victims in their homes.

What makes this worse is that KCTMO had very specific warnings: it had been told to monitor and replace self-closers by the London Fire Brigade (LFB) following a previous fire at Adair Tower in October 2015 where they had failed, and missing self-closers were specifically raised in a deficiency notice covering Grenfell Tower in November 2016.

Mr Black’s interrogation on this began with the Adair Tower fire. That blaze occurred on 31 October, but KCTMO had actually been served a deficiency notice by the London Fire Brigade on 12 October, 19 days previously, warning of missing self-closers in the block.

This notices was upgraded to an enforcement order after the fire.

But when Mr Black wrote a report for his board about the blaze in December 2015, he did not mention that issues had been raised before the fire.

“Can you explain why you were giving the board a version of events that was so potted it even omitted the vitally important reference to the deficiency notice of the 12 October?” asked Mr Millett (pictured).

“I can’t explain it,” Mr Black said.

“You were keeping the board in the dark,” said Mr Millett.

“No, I didn’t, wouldn’t do that,” Mr Black replied.

Following this fire, the brigade warned of five other deficiency notices and told KCTMO it needed a boroughwide programme of replacement and maintenance.

Other witnesses have covered the ins and outs of why this did not happen, but Mr Black offered some overall context: KCTMO did not believe it was possible to achieve with limited powers of access and funding.

But wasn’t this an explanation of why achieving the aim would be difficult, not why no procedure was put in place, as the LFB had requested?

“I didn’t say specifically it’d be impossible to set up a procedure,” said Mr Black. “You can set up a procedure, but then you have to deliver that procedure. I think that’s the bit that Janice [Wray] and I were saying, you know, yes, impossible. You would eventually do it, but it’s [not] without huge challenges.”

‘Was it just a blind spot about how serious it all was?’

Another major theme that has been presented to all KCTMO witnesses is the question of fire risk assessments and a long-standing failure to complete the necessary actions identified as necessary in these reviews.

The backlog of issues was as large as 1,400 in 2014, and while it reduced in the intervening years, still stood at 287 by the time of the Grenfell Tower fire, with 128 outstanding for more than a year.

“Is the truth, Mr Black, that the TMO never really faced up to the degree of failure to comply with its [legal] obligations, and recognised that there was a fundamental, systemic problem with closing out actions in accordance with your own fire risk assessor’s timescales?” asked Mr Millett.

“We found it challenging,” said Mr Black.

Mr Millett went on to explore why, suggesting a series of possibilities to Mr Black and inviting his response. One was “the ageing condition of your social housing stock”.

Mr Black agreed that this was possible. “Long−term investment had only started really in 2012, when [Housing Revenue Account] freedom was given,” he said.

“Up until then, the government controlled the finances − yes, there was an uplift in terms of Decent Homes, but a lot of times that dealt with the interior, the kitchens, the bathrooms, rather than the actual structure of the buildings which decay over time,” he said.

Mr Millett then suggested the problem may in fact have been “your inability or unwillingness to resource proper fire safety measures appropriate to the age and size of your stock” or “a blind spot about how serious it all was”.

“I wouldn’t accept that,” said Mr Black.

Mr Black was also questioned over the decision to place sole-trader Carl Stokes (pictured) in charge of risk-assessing all 650 blocks in its stock – with two of three contracts handed over without formal procurement.

“Just standing back, did you yourself ever stop and ask yourself… how a one-man band could possibly perform the job of fire risk assessor for 650 buildings?” asked Mr Millett.

“I believe the programme is over three years,” Mr Black said. “And therefore, probably the assumption was that in that three years, he said he could do it and I think they achieved it.”

“Yes. There’s achieving it and achieving it , isn’t there? One could run around 650 buildings and knock out a 30−page report by dint of a lot of cutting and pasting... So my question: did you ever stop to ask how a one−man band could possibly perform the job of fire risk assessor for 650 buildings properly?”

“No,” replied Mr Black.

Asked how Ms Wray could be expected to keep up with the task of monitoring and overseeing the works which arose from these assessments, Mr Black replied simply: “It was her job.”

‘An exercise in concealment and half truth’

One specific incident of failing to respond to concerns raised by residents was brought to Mr Black’s attention: the complaints of Grenfell Tower’s leaseholders’ association following a fire in April 2010.

This fire exposed a deficiency in the building’s smoke ventilation system which KCTMO would leave unfixed for the next six years.

But the association wrote to Mr Black personally in September 2010 asking for an independent investigation of the tower’s safety.

A manager responded on his behalf, asserting that the smoke system had worked, and claiming that the issue was a failure by firefighters to activate the manual fan.

Mr Millett asked him if this was “an exercise in concealment and half truth” and an effort to “blame the fire brigade” rather than the defective ventilation system.

“I’m sort of upset reading this and can’t explain it. Apologies,” said Mr Black.

The inquiry saw another email from the leaseholders raising issues about the ventilation system in January 2015, which Mr Black forwarded to colleagues, asking them to “review and let me know if it’s the same old thing”.

“Oh, inappropriate language,” he said, shown the email.

“Was it [the smoke extraction system] a matter of concern to you?” asked Mr Millett. “It doesn’t appear to have been. You dismissed it as ‘same old thing’.”

“I have to accept that,” said Mr Black.

“Can you see why, looking at that, the [Grenfell Tower’s leaseholders’ association] might have had a reason to lose their trust in the TMO’s management of their building?” asked Mr Millett.

“Yes, now you’ve taken me through this, yes,” replied Mr Black, who will continue his evidence on Monday.

‘At times I felt they were economical with the truth’

Before Mr Black’s turn in the witness box, Monday saw the appearance of two LFB officers involved in the pre-fire inspection of Grenfell Tower.

One, Matthew Ramsey (pictued), explained how he had a “prickly” relationship with Ms Wray and the tower’s fire risk assessor Carl Stokes.

“At times I felt they were economical with the truth, especially in regard to the standards of the flat entrance doors,” he said in a witness statement. “I can’t say for certain that they outright lied but I’m not entirely sure that the whole truth was told. They claimed fire doors were up to standard – this had proved untrue during my audits of TMO-managed properties.”

Asked about these comments, Mr Ramsey said: “At times, information fed back from the bi-monthly meetings the TMO had suggested that there were very few non-compliant flat entry doors remaining.

“However, each time I’ve done an audit on the TMO premises I found a significant number.”

He said that a review of the low-rise blocks adjacent to Grenfell Tower had uncovered more non-compliant doors than Ms Wray had claimed existed across the entire KCTMO stock.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry headlines: week 40

Chief executive of KCTMO denies ‘keeping board in the dark’ about safety failings

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Former KCTMO chief executive admits personal failings over historic safety issues at Grenfell Tower

The former chief executive of KCTMO admitted that a failure to fulfil his role contributed towards historic safety issues in the block.

KCTMO ‘economical with truth’ on fire safety before Grenfell, says former LFB inspector

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