Why aren’t lessons being learnt following Grenfell?
Alongside her role as a Master Consultant, Gill Kernick is a prominent voice in campaigning for systemic change to building safety following the Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017. She is also a former resident of Grenfell. In February 2021, we joined our sister title, Safety & Health Practitioner (SHP), in chatting with Gill about the pressing need to improve building safety culture and prevent low probability, high consequence events – such as Grenfell – from happening again.
It is worth noting that since this interview was carried out, new Secretary of State of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, Michael Gove, has announced a renewed commitment to Building Safety and insisted that leaseholders should not pay the costs of remediation.
“Right now I can see Grenfell from my window. I lived there, and I saw it burn. Seven of my former neighbours on the twenty-first floor died that night.”
As a resident of Grenfell Tower between 2011 and 2014, Gill Kernick has strong ties to the tragedy that befell the building’s residents in June 2017. Combined with her work as a safety culture and leadership consultant in high hazard industries, Gill is a passionate and knowledgeable campaigner for promoting the need to change the nature of how safety is considered within construction and ensure lessons are learnt for the future. Since the disaster, Gill’s profile among stakeholders has risen to prominence – she was named as one of SHP’s most influential figures in Health and Safety in the UK for 2020 and 2021.
Gill continues: “Having watched the fire, I became committed to applying the learnings of major accident prevention to Grenfell and the wider housing sector. I had also assumed, falsely, that Grenfell would be a catalyst for change. Over time, I’ve sadly realised this hasn’t happened, hence the need for so many of us to campaign.
“It was predictable, absolutely preventable, and we’re not learning the lessons. We’re not changing how we think about our relationship to risk in the case of buildings.”
Crucially, Gill highlights the lack of systemic change in the building safety sector. While there is a greater emphasis on ‘piecemeal change’ and component safety – such as fire doors and cladding –which are improving specific aspects, Gill is concerned ‘systemic’ changes to prevent low probability, high-consequence events are not being addressed.
As an example, the commitment in early February 2021 by former Housing Secretary, Robert Jenrick, of an extra £3.5billion towards the removal of ‘dangerous’ cladding on high-rise buildings was met by disdain from campaigners and leaseholders alike. Though extra funding is welcomed, critics questioned why it was only available to buildings over 18m (or six storeys), and also argued that it deals only with cladding, which is just one of several fire safety issues revealed by Grenfell. It is estimated that a figure of around £15billion is closer to the sum required to make buildings safe – in England alone.
Gill also published her book on the subject in May 2021. Catastrophe and Systemic Change: Learning from the Grenfell Tower Fire and Other Disasters explores the myths, the key challenges and the conditions that inhibit learning, identifying opportunities to positively disrupt the status quo. It offers an accessible model for systemic change, not as a definitive solution but as a framework to evoke reflection, enquiry and proper debate. Gill explores two primary questions in the book:
The book is available from several online book retailers, or directly from the publisher’s website, London Publishing Partnership, here.
You can also listen to Gill's podcast, 'Catastrophe', here.
These concerns reiterate Gill’s point – that there is a lack of commitment to wholesale, cultural and systemic change in the sector. In comparison to the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster in 1988 that resulted in significant improvements in safety management and industry culture, there is little evidence that the same outcomes will be applied following Grenfell. The housing sector is, of course, vast – a challenge in itself to promote wholesale changes – but is it vital that attitudes change, all the same.
Gill adds: “While piecemeal change will improve certain safety processes, the culture within building safety needs to change for real lessons to be learned. The lack of political intent for systemic change, coupled with a lack of consequences for those involved in constructing unsafe buildings, will mean poor practice will continue. Sadly, the people currently bearing the consequences of all this appear to be the leaseholders, residents and taxpayers.
“The risk of the buildings is not being viewed systemically. It wasn’t just the cladding, but a combination of factors – including fire doors, ventilation systems and escape routes – that caused so many deaths. A siloed focus on cladding is evidence that the scale of the problem is not being fully considered.
“And, we still don’t even know the true scale of the issues. Thousands of leaseholders and residents in what the Government considers ‘low risk’ buildings don’t feel safe and are having to pay for issues that are ultimately not their fault.”
For those on the frontline of the industry, managing risk collectively from early on in the construction process will be vital in enabling change, Gill believes. Management and the wider supply chain must take ownership to ensure fire safety is on the agenda right through the design, build and occupancy process.
"It was predictable, absolutely preventable, and we’re not learning the lessons. We’re not changing how we think about our relationship to risk in the case of buildings."
As the Government continues to push legislative change in building safety through the parliamentary machine, with the Fire Safety Bill and Building Safety Bill both set to come into force this year, are the crux of the issues really being addressed? Has the housing sector truly learned and understood the lessons from the 2017 tragedy in North Kensington that resulted in 72 deaths and led to nationwide repercussions for leaseholders, residents and families – thousands of whom continue to live in unsafe buildings?
Several years on, many remain unconvinced. Piecemeal change is good, but systemic change to the industry’s approach to building safety and risk is what really matters, underlines Gill.
