The government faces a dilemma. Should it stick with the system reforms emanating from the Hackitt and Morrell/Day reports? Or embark on the radical new approach recommended by the Grenfell Inquiry Phase Two report? Reform means continuing to drive through the Building Safety Act secondary legislation and tightening oversight of product certification. The inquiry’s alternative vision would spark an ambitious and unprecedented process to centralise and nationalise regulatory oversight of construction.
The inquiry’s proposal for a new uber-regulator flows from its view that the current regulatory system is “complex and fragmented”. Essentially, it said that large parts of the system put too much trust in other parts, leading to catastrophic failure. Testing company BRE trusted manufacturers to assemble their own test rigs, leading to flawed test results. Government accreditation body UKAS trusted that the testing and certification firms BRE and BBA were doing their jobs properly. Each part of the contracting supply chain trusted that others would take responsibility for fire safety.
The inquiry’s proposed solution is simple, at least on paper: bring multiple agencies together under one roof to carry out product testing, certification, research and regulation of building control. Then give the regulator new powers over contractor licensing, covering an extended higher-risk building regime plus accreditation of fire assessors.
This approach would mean abandoning the idea that it is possible for the private sector to provide effective oversight of private firms carrying out testing and certification work. And it stands in contrast to Morrell and Day’s view that UKAS can be fixed and strengthened. The inquiry recommendations do not consider the merits of that simpler solution.
Careful thought needs to be made before creating a potentially unwieldy regulator with no checks and balances other than departmental and ministerial oversight. Severe failings within Whitehall were highlighted in the Grenfell report. It’s now 56 years since the Ronan Point Inquiry – which contained many eerie parallels with Grenfell – laid heavy blame at the door of officials and the National Building Agency responsible for providing assurance on the emerging building techniques of that era.
On the other hand, progress on Hackitt’s report – now six years old – is slow, perhaps stuttering, in some areas. The under-resourced Building Safety Regulator is creaking under the weight of its workload. The government has yet to collect a single penny through the Building Safety Levy.
Stick or twist, there is still much work for government to do, more than seven years after the Grenfell tragedy.
