Andrew Kinnier QC, for the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, said that a document in 2013 viewed the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO), as having a reactive approach to maintenance built more on compliance rather than breakdown. /Annots [] In 2008 Juliet Rawlings, chair of the TMO's Board from 2003, was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for her work with the organisation. WebKENSINGTON AND CHELSEA TENANT MANAGEMENT ORGANISATION Grenfell Review Scoping Meetin~ Wednesday 24u~ February 2016 at 5pm Board Room, 346 /MediaBox [0.0 0.0 595.2 857.28] Your email address will not be published. Another couple, who bought a flat on the ninth floor of Adair Tower, said they saw little in return for the 4,000 service fee they pay to the landlord each year. /F6 21 0 R When a catastrophic event occurs, it is generally too simplistic to attribute blame to a prime cause or specific event. /Xi9 36 0 R The KCTMO tenant involvement failure as I see it was a matter of the numbers. The one managing Grenfell Tower, however, was actually an Arms Length Management Organisation wholly owned by the council, writes Anne Power. Most of the residents were working class and of BAME background. I have a huge admiration for Anne and her lifelong passion for community control. A key problem in the causation of Grenfell was LACK OF TENANT INVOLVEMENT AND OVERSIGHT. << Kensington and Chelsea decided to keep the name Kensington and Chelsea TMO, in the hope that tenants would identify with it. Edward Daffarn described Grenfell Tower's management as a "mini-mafia", Seventy-two people died in the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017. WebAt our core, GK Real Estate is an entrepreneurial, opportunity-driven organization. It emerged on Friday that 149 tower blocks in 45 local authority areas have failed tests on the flammability of their cladding. A list of amendments to the 9.2m contract between Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) and Rydon, the builder for the refurbishment of the 24-storey tower, reveals that the saving was made after tender by fitting cassette fix aluminium cladding in lieu of zinc cladding. There was further evidence of the drive to cut costs in an urgent nudge email KCTMOs project manager sent to Artelia, its cost consultant, about cladding prices. [email protected] uiry.org.uk 0800 121 4282 /F11 12 0 R /F8 11 0 R /Pages 2 0 R However, it was replaced in 2014 with cheaper aluminium cladding with a polyethylene core which has since proved combustible in government tests. /Font << /Parent 2 0 R /F10 10 0 R /Resources << It was set up to cover the whole borough and simply took on the existing council housing department and stock. I was struggling down through the smoke and was taken to hospital for smoke inhalation afterwards. Video, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council, MasterChef Australia host Jock Zonfrillo dies, Trump mistrial request denied in NY rape lawsuit, Russia launches missile attacks on Ukraine, Street piano confiscated as public 'break rules', US rock band Aerosmith announce farewell tour, Father tells how gunman opened fire on Texas home, DeSantis-backed board votes to countersue Disney. They believe the stay put policy places lives at risk. They range from around 100 to 1500 rented properties in a single estate or area. The correct lesson is that user control of governance does not in itself secure user empowerment. Shirley Phillips, 72, who lives on the second floor in a neighbouring block, said: I am worried, but is worrying going to help? She had read on Facebook that one of the tenants wants everyone to rally around and call for the cladding to be removed. The TMO has a board comprising eight residents, four council-appointed members and three independent members. > View this hearing. An effective governance programme includes effective risk management providing clarity in defining roles, delineating duties, preventing duplicated efforts, identifying potential blind-spots, and assisting these efforts by providing structure to policies and tools. stream We tried every way we could possibly find to get a voice and be heard, he said. Anne Power here has made a solid case that it was only a TMO in the most superficial, misleading sense. At Adair Tower in Kensington and Chelsea, Fabio Freemantle, 33, lives on the 13th and highest floor. The husband and wife, who did not wish to be named, said they had been in their flat when fire broke out last October. >> /F6 21 0 R Often Buy-To-Let landlords owning former council flats now let to homeless families, paid for by the borough through housing benefit, at vast public expense. (KCTMOs responses) made me have the impression that the council would essentially be against the residents because they might think: They keep complaining so we need to prove that we are right,' Mr Chapman told the inquiry on Monday. OToole also said the stay put policy directing residents to stay in their flats if there is a fire in another part of the building conflicted with the advice on posters on the walls on each floor directing residents to go to the nearest exit. /F3 18 0 R It was first published on the Oxford Business Law Blog. I do not want to comment on the terrible Grenfell disaster beyond saying that it is hardly fair to blame the TMO structure for a problem endemic in the social housing industry, well known from Lakanal and fully exposed over many years in Inside Housing. /Xi14 14 0 R /MediaBox [0.0 0.0 595.2 857.28] Artelia, a French-owned company, fulfilled several roles for KCTMO. It also acted as quantity surveyor primarily to advise on the cost of the project, [and] prepare tender and contract documentation. /F6 21 0 R There were no alarms and theres no sprinkler system in the building or panic buttons. /Resources << /Annots [] Seventy-two people died in the Grenfell fire on 14 June 2017. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. Disabled Grenfell residents 'had no escape route', Government defeated again on fire safety measures, Grenfell residents with safety fears 'bullied', Grenfell Tower: 9 things we now know about the cladding, Grenfell predicted a decade before, memo shows, Woman stabbed to death in street in Brixton, Ant and Dec among celebrities invited to King Charles Coronation as guestlist revealed, Pubs in Highgate that have called last orders over the years, 2023 House of Commons Sitting By Abdul Mateen Riaz, World record crowd provides fitting end to historic Women's Six Nations, London May Day and NHS protests pictures 2023: Guys and St Thomas, Trafalgar Square and Clerkenwell, More than 100 police hurt in French May Day protests, Fighter jets are roaring over my home in Sudan, Explosion derails train in Russian border region. Maybe stinks would be a more apposite word. London's high-rise tenants cite concerns in wake of Grenfell Tower fire Residents of other blocks run by Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management A Grenfell resident who predicted a "catastrophic event" would happen at the tower has defended his description of its management as a "mini-mafia". They negotiate a management agreement with their council landlord to take on limited, local responsibilities, paid for out of an allowance from their rents. /Parent 2 0 R /Parent 2 0 R To find out more about cookies and change your preferences, visit our, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_and_Chelsea_TMO, How Tenant Management Organisations have wrongly been associated with Grenfell, British Government @ LSE General Election 2015 Event Series, Write for the LSE British Politics and Policy blog, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported. /F12 15 0 R endobj (There was) nothing addressing the individual parts of it, it was just very generic.. The National Federation of TMOs, with several hundred members, is shaken to the core by the fire and its aftermath. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. >> Many small TMOs are based in similar high rise blocks to Grenfell. Edward Daffarn and another resident repeatedly attacked the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) in a blog. The first step is to put in place a neighbourhood manager on Lancaster West, someone who can pull together the core housing services, now so desperately needed, with residents directly involved, to restore the confidence of a deeply shaken community. The TMO was set up on 1 April 1996,[1] under the UK Government's Housing (Right to Manage) Regulations 1994. [6] Labour councillor and now MP, Emma Dent Coad was a council-appointed board member from 2008[7] to 31 October 2012. In an email to the KCTMO on March 20 2017, Mr Chapman said: Having seen these pipes numerous times, I am seriously concerned about how I will get out of the building alive in the event of a fire with this added risk., He added: At the 22nd floor it is a very long way down from the window in the event that after 30 minutes of fire our house is engulfed., In a second email three days later, Mr Chapman said: The potential risk to life and our common assets is without doubt very high given that this GAS MAIN is installed through our communal fire escape.. The Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, Lecturer in Law, Oxford Brookes University, The Grenfell Tower Fire as a Breach of the Right to Life. She explains why the difference matters in light of the disaster at Grenfell. Lees comment gives some of the background. /ProcSet [/PDF /Text /ImageB /ImageC /ImageI] Mr Kinnier said that a full review of the property policy arrangements was recommended in the 2013 document. >> The Council seems deaf. 1? The document containing proposed cost cuts to bring the refurbishment budget down from 9.25m to 8.65m was issued by Artelia. List of Grenfell's No, the correct lesson is twofold: (1) that a board of 8 tenants with 7 professionals will be dominated by the professionals and fail to represent the tenants. Ms Jevans said this would have been the responsibility of Mr Parkes. /ProcSet [/PDF /Text /ImageB /ImageC /ImageI] On the 14th of every month, the community around Grenfell gathers to remember those whose lives were lost on the night of the fire. Id say (fire safety and poor works) are outcomes whether you have a safe building, its all about the leadership and the culture, he said. Tenant Management Organisations are small, tenant-led organisations that take on a number of landlord functions from local councils. Camden council said it was conducting additional fire safety checks to reassure residents in its tower blocks. Both products were certified according to the European fire resistance standard. Police are considering manslaughter charges in relation to the fire. /F7 9 0 R The chief executive of KCTMO, Robert Black, stood down on Friday to concentrate on assisting with the investigation and inquiry. 3 0 obj Lee Chapman said he had repeatedly been refused an independent fire assessment of the building by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) in spring 2017. Grenfell Tower Inquiry. Although Grenfell Tower is owned by the Borough Council of Kensington and Chelsea, the management of the tower block is subcontracted out to the TMO. /Rotate 0 On Monday, the inquiry saw chains of email between Mr Chapman and KCTMO, in which residents were refused an independent fire safety inspection of the building. In addition, it provides a structured way to collaborate with stakeholders on specific issues with minimal risk of confusion and loss of productivity. The minutes also suggest that even though the design for the cladding was well under way, fire consultants had yet to be appointed. One of them, Dan Browne, who lives on the 22 floor of Burnham House, said: There is going to be holy war here. /XObject << Grenfell Towers landlords appeared to have a reactive approach to maintenance dating back to a report in 2013, a public inquiry has heard. Mr Chapman and other members of the leaseholders association repeatedly requested copies of fire safety reports from the National Grid and the fire brigade which KCTMO claimed it possessed. He opened his front door last October to find the stairwell full of thick smoke. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, Grenfell residents looked down on by housing chiefs, inquiry hears, Grenfell manager binned notes on refurbishment after fire, Grenfell contractor misrepresented cladding price to pocket savings, Firms in Grenfell Tower inquiry given immunity from prosecution, Grenfell report must criticise authorities, say survivors and bereaved, List of Grenfell's vulnerable tenants 'was 15 years out of date', Grenfell Tower manager confronted over 'cheap' refurbishment. /Type /Page /F4 19 0 R The leaseholders association also repeatedly raised concerns about residents smoking in the stairwell and the fact that the exposed gas pipes were an easy target for vandalism. Required fields are marked *. A list of amendments to the 9.2m contract between Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) and Rydon, the builder for the A fire at the Grenfell Tower block in west London in June 2017 claimed 72 lives. It is therefore possible, that the Council could be made liable in judicial review proceedings for its systemic regulatory failures, as the residents only discovered, post-Grenfell, that their homes were unsafe. A plausible explanation for the careless attitude towards establishing effective oversight measures is that under the previous arrangements the Kensington and Chelsea Borough council was directly responsible for managing social housing. A fire had started in a flat on the third floor. The aluminium panels received a worse rating in terms of the amount of smoke they would emit. The residents were also alarmed by the findings of a fire risk assessment which they obtained after repeated emails. London. It cut capital spend hence the cheaper, less fire-resistant cladding on Grenfell Tower and the cheaper building contractor, the lack of fire sprinklers, and the meagre on-site supervision. /F11 12 0 R On that occasion I went out on to my balcony, but there was thick smoke there. [The KCTMO] responded they sent up surveyors, but nothing was ever done. However the facts in her account are not fully correct. /F5 20 0 R The Labour councillor Robert Atkinson told BBC Radio 4s Today programme the brief session had descended into utter chaos, adding: I am ashamed of the way in which the council proceeded. /F8 11 0 R Such failures were not a new phenomenon but part of a pattern of governance failure in similar organisational structures. How are we going to get down if there is a fire? He added that he was worried because the window-sills were plastic and in a fire could produce toxic fumes. We use cookies on this site to understand how you use our content, and to give you the best browsing experience. WebWelcome to DARA. He added felt like residents of the tower were being "abused" by the KCTMO. The council and its tenant management organisation will give evidence in coming weeks. /F9 13 0 R Minutes of a progress meeting on 15 July 2014 attended by representatives of KCTMO, its project agent, Artelia, and Rydon, the contractor, suggest that the concerns they raised did not relate to safety but design issues, including the colour. /Xi5 14 0 R The TMO was the organisation appointed by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to run its entire council housing stock.