Firm that issued certificate saying Kingspan insulation could be used on high rises was ‘played’ by manufacturer
The company that issued a certificate which said Kingspan’s combustible insulation could be used on high-rise buildings was “gamed”, “played” and “sweetened up” by the manufacturer, a senior staff member has said.
As David Ewing, now head of education at the Local Authority Building Control (LABC), continued his evidence on Monday, the inquiry also saw emails which showed staff members had written “we’ll save this failing company yet” when Kingspan approached them to seek the certificates for their products.
The LABC produced various certificates that said Kingspan’s K15 insulation could be “considered a material of limited combustibility” which could be used on high-rise buildings between 2009 and 2014.
The firm’s witnesses have now accepted that these statements were inaccurate, misleading and unjustified by the test evidence, but they helped K15 become a market-leading insulation product for high-rises before the Grenfell fire.
Last week the inquiry heard how the LABC brushed off warnings about its certification of K15 and sought lucrative commercial sponsorship deals with Kingspan.
The inquiry heard on Thursday that the LABC did not withdraw it despite being told the product “carried on burning for 20 minutes” after the flame was removed in fire tests.
On Monday, Mr Ewing was grilled about whether there was a financial motive behind treating Kingspan in a “benevolent” way.
Counsel to the inquiry Kate Grange QC referred to a meeting Mr Ewing attended with Kingspan in July 2014 where he failed to challenge them over the claims on the certificate.
Ms Grange said: “Is part of the reason why you were so benevolent towards Kingspan that you needed their work, wanted their endorsement of the registered details scheme as market leaders?”
Mr Ewing replied: “There was certainly a bit of kudos to having Kingspan products there.”
But he said there was “very little in terms of profit”. “The financial side of it was never significant amounts of money,” he said.
The inquiry was shown an email chain from July 2014, which started off by Mr Ewing informing his colleagues that Kingspan was seeking certificates for a large number of products.
He said: “I thought you might like to know, I’ve been asked to quote for seven products over three product ranges, and a quote for their entire range of 30 over six of their product ranges…”
Lorna Stimpson, now chief executive, responded by writing “fanbloodytastic!!!!!”, while her colleague Cathal Brennan said: “We’ll save this failing company yet! Seriously, that’s really good news.”
Asked why Mr Brennan said “we’ll save this failing company yet”, Mr Ewing said it was down to the company “never making any money after doing most of the details”.
“The charges that we charge were nothing that was making a significant amount of money.
“That was a moot point… the whole drive for registered details was quality, not quantity,” he said.
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Ms Grange asked if the LABC was in financial difficulty at the time, Mr Ewing said he did not think it was.
Ms Grange said: “One of things that’s puzzling is that at the very moment when you’ve been made aware of some pretty serious concerns about Kingspan’s statements over its K15 product, as opposed to having serious conversations with Kingspan, you appear to be having conversations about extra work for Kingspan.”
Mr Ewing said: “In terms of the emails that you’re showing me, I accept that this was the case. But from my perspective, that was never the case.
“We could argue [that] Kingspan sweetening us up by offering us the additional work and that might well have been the case to try to take some pressure off the fire safety side of it.
“But naively I didn’t see that.”
When asked if he thinks the LABC was “played” by Kingspan, Mr Ewing agreed.
“We were played all the way along, both by Kingspan and Celotex [another insulation company which provided the rest of the insulation used on Grenfell],” he said.
Mr Ewing quoted Kingspan a total of £31,000 for the work.
The inquiry was also shown an email titled “urgent urgent urgent Kingspan” on 11 December 2014 from Mr Brennan to Mr Ewing noting that Dan Ball, technical director at Kingspan, had told Mr Brennan that a £31,000 quote could not get signed off, or would be difficult, if the issues with the testing and certification of K15 were not sorted. The email added: “What is the hold up our end? Cathal.”
Asked whether the LABC saw the comments as a threat, Mr Ewing said “yes”.
Mr Ewing said: “The fact that we didn’t do anything and didn’t jump to the tune showed that we weren’t finance driven…
“It was a verbal comment so we didn’t feel it necessary to go back and respond to something which wasn’t formalised. We were not jumping to their tune, as simple as that.”
The National House Building Council’s (NHBC), the UK’s largest building inspector, had been raising concerns about the use of Kingspan’s K15 insulation on tall buildings and threatened to reject applications including it in January 2015.
But following the threat of legal action by Kingspan and several meetings with the firm, it published guidance in July 2016 which instead said that K15 and insulation products made by two rival firms would be approved without test evidence in combination with popular cladding types, including aluminium composite material (ACM).
It emerged from the minutes of a meeting held on 24 June 2015 between LABC and LABC Warranty (another arm of the organisation) that the NHBC’s caution around K15 had been seen as a “business opportunity”.
The minutes said: “The registration of Kingspan K15 was discussed and potential to increase scope in light of client dissatisfaction with NHBC stance on situation. Business opportunity if any way forward can be resolved.
“Meeting suggested with Kingspan.”
At the inquiry, Mr Ewing said: “I believe the minutes were taken by LABC Warranty and not ourselves, so the viewpoints here are from a Warranty perspective as opposed to LABC.
“But I think that the NHBC stance in terms of approval on new buildings had changed and LABC Warranty were wondering if that was an opportunity for them.”
Ms Grange asked: “Should we read this as NHBC was getting tougher with the use of K15 on tall buildings and LABC were seeing this as a potential business opportunity to cash in on that by being softer?”
Mr Ewing said “You’d have to ask LABC warranty. It certainly looks like that how it’s written.
“I think it was more that there was an opportunity to talk with clients who weren’t solid NHBC.”
The issue of the LABC extending Kingspan’s certificate from August to October 2015 and then to November, despite not being given evidence of the safety tests, was raised several times.
The inquiry was shown an email from Mr Ewing to Mr Brennan on 21 August 2015 which read: “In reality we can’t issue certification on something we haven’t verified and this one is iffy until they can produce test data. I can hear NHBC whingeing now if we extend the current certificate.”
But on the same day the LABC did extend the certificate.
Asked why he did not adopt a more cautious approach in the face of NHBC’s concerns, Mr Ewing said “he wished he had”.
He added: “I was trying to be fair to Kingspan, to give them an opportunity to prove it themselves because I genuinely believed that a company like that would be able to demonstrate compliance.”
Asked if he would have done anything differently knowing what he knows now, Mr Ewigg said he would have a more robust email system and an audit trail in relation to competencies for research authorities and peer reviewers.
He said: “I feel LABC has been gamed and played by the insulation manufacturers for their own benefits.
“I’m still struggling to come to terms with why anybody would actually try and sell a product that wasn’t fit for purpose, particularly in relation to fire safety.
“I have real difficulty with that.”
He added: “I’m still personally upset at being played by manufacturers that should have known better and should have had integrity to work with us rather than for their own gains.”
The inquiry continues.
With additional reporting from Tim Clark.
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