At the latest stage of the Grenfell Inquiry, a government official has admitted to making ‘unsound’ assumptions regarding the need for a national competency scheme for fire risk assessors despite ‘consistent’ calls for one.
Fire safety rules, introduced in 2005, created a new duty for building owners to carry out risk assessments on buildings containing multiple homes, but set no requirements for the competency of those carrying out said assessments.
Local authorities raised concerns over the competency of fire risk assessors at this stage, but Louise Upton was accused of ‘frustrating’ and ‘inventing’ reasons not to support such an initiative. Allegedly, this lasted for a 20-month period, despite her being aware of concerns as early as March 2009.
After delving into a number of reports during the period, counsel for the inquiry, Andrew Kinnier Qc, asked Louise if she agreed that “the theme emerging through all of those reports is clear and consistent that there were reservations, to put it mildly, about the competence of fire risk assessors in England?”
Louise replied: “I suppose the environment was we just knew it would be unwelcomed by business and ministers, but we didn’t test it. You’re right. I made assumptions.”
In a previous stage of the inquiry, the government’s chief fire and rescue advisor at the time, Sir Ken Knight, argued that his report into the 2009 Lakanal House fire, delivered just four weeks after the blaze, highlighted a weakness in competency, and suggested that the legislation “be amended accordingly.”
In that report, he noted the potential need to strengthen the requirements for risk assessments, explaining to the inquiry that it was clear the assessment of risks at the building had been “inadequate”.
In an email around the same time, Louise Upton claimed she was “uncomfortable that any recommendations about legislation be made at such an early stage.”
When asked at the inquiry what had made her feel uncomfortable, Louise said: “I think we would already have started working on the idea of what we could do to improve the situation for those that wanted to employ a competent risk assessor, and I imagine it would have felt premature, given how new the [Fire Safety] Order was.”
The inquiry then observed the notes of a meeting that took place on 14th December 2009 between representatives of the fire sector that lead to the establishment of the Fire Risk Assessment Competency Council (FRACC) after concerns were raised about the adequacy of fire safety guidance.
During the meeting, it was suggested that a competency framework be created that required UKAS accreditation.
When asked if, at the time of that meeting, Louise was “keen to invent reasons not to go down the UKAS route”, she commented: “No, I think we would have liked a UKAS approach.
“I think what I’m not clear about is that, had it been a UKAS scheme, it wouldn’t have made it mandatory, it would have just given transparency to businesses that those certifying the competency of risk assessors had the processes behind that would have been robust.”
The inquiry heard how Louise had taken views from fire sector representatives and business that suggested UKAS accreditation might have placed “unnecessarily high-cost burden on business”, and distorted the market, but her team had not done their own assessment on this.
The inquiry continues.
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As I recall, there were several influential senior fire safety experts also trying to prevent the ‘only’ UKAS accredited route. Government policy was dismissed as a ‘red herring’ and not valid when brought to the working group. Hence we ended up with a three tier system which didn’t ‘raise the bar’ the way it needed to. It created an unlevel playing field and allowed the incompetent to continue in many instances. Only the most well informed RPs completed due diligence, the rest continued to select on price only thus encouraging the drive to the bottom.