Expert warns against quick-fix online fire safety training years after Grenfell
The chairwoman of a group reviewing building control in England in the wake of the Grenfell Tower blaze has vowed she is determined to bring about a 'culture change', as she warned against 'dubious' online training courses on fire safety.
Dame Judith Hackitt criticised 'quick fixes' which she said will not work towards rebuilding public confidence in an industry which has been heavily criticised since Grenfell, and urged businesses to see proper training as an investment rather than a cost.
She will chair the first formal meeting of the Building Control Independent Panel this month, set up to look at whether changes are needed to the current system across England.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry found an issue with building control bodies tending to co-operate with companies who wanted their proposals to be approved, instead of enforcing building regulations 'rigorously'.
The inquiry recommended an independent panel look at whether it is in the public interest for building control functions to be performed by those with a commercial interest in the process, or whether all such functions should be carried out by a national authority.
The panel is due to present a report to the Government in autumn and Dame Judith suggested it will be as 'hard-hitting' as her 2018 one.
That report identified 'deep flaws' within the building regulations system, as she argued ignorance and indifference had created a 'race to the bottom', where there was a desire to do things 'as quickly and cheaply as possible rather than to deliver quality homes which are safe for people to live in'.
Asked what might be expected from her report this year, Dame Judith told the PA news agency: 'I think my track record speaks for itself, doesn't it? I'm unlikely to change my approach.
'I was honest and hard-hitting in my report seven years ago. I've continued to keep the pressure on government and on industry for the last seven years. I see no reason to change.
'I am determined to drive through this culture change that is needed across the whole of the built environment.'
Next month will see bereaved and survivors mark eight years since the fire in west London in June 2017, which resulted in 72 people losing their lives.
Asked what her message is to the many who say they have still not seen justice delivered or enough wholesale change in the system so many years on, Dame Judith said: 'I share their frustration that it's taking so long, but that's no reason to give up.
'We will get there. We will drive this change. We owe it to the people who lost their lives to do that.'
Dame Judith said she is 'absolutely confident that things are better now than they were in 2017' after building control came under the Building Safety Regulator which launched in 2023.
She added: 'We have moved from where we were. Is that enough? Is there more we need to do?
'I'm not going to speculate until we have looked at the evidence, but we will do that at pace, and we will deliver our report before the end of the year.'
Dame Judith urged 'more people to take personal responsibility and leadership in different parts of this built environment sector' after recently visiting a fire door safety centre which she praised for its efforts.
She said businesses must understand that proper training is essential as 'money spent on cheap training and substandard training is money wasted'.
Dame Judith added: 'Spending it on this sort of training is an investment in your people. It's not a cost.'
She praised Fire Door Maintenance Training and Development, which describes itself as the largest such practical training centre in the UK, saying she saw a 'real sense of purpose' in the people training there.
Dame Judith said that despite the sector-wide knowledge of the need for thorough training in aspects such as ensuring fire doors are properly maintained, the take-up of such training has been 'very mixed, very variable, and some of the training courses that have sprung up, I think, are of dubious quality to say the least, particularly online ones'.
She referenced one-hour online video training which might promise someone competency once they had completed it but added: 'That's not the case.'
Dame Judith added: 'Let's be clear, there's a place for online training and familiarisation.
'But to get people to the level of competence that they need to be on things that are safety critical, like fire doors, that practical training with someone assessing whether you are doing the job properly and are competent to do the job properly, is crucial.
'We're trying to rebuild public confidence here in an industry, and quick fixes aren't going to do it.
'You know, a quick training session online in many cases, is just not enough.'
She highlighted Fire Door Maintenance as 'what good looks like' in an industry where many others have been slow to act and change.
Nicola John, managing director at the firm which sees people training in realistic settings with doors and corridors, said they wanted to offer a 'practical training facility for practical people doing a practical job' in contrast to online courses alone.
Ms John added: 'The issue that we have is that it's not currently mandated, so we only attract the people who have the same mindset currently.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
37 minutes ago
- Times
HS2 boss took home £4.5m during ‘appalling mess' of project
The former chief of HS2 took home £4.5 million of taxpayers' money while presiding over an 'appalling mess' of a project that wasted billions. Mark Thurston was at the helm of the disgraced scheme for six and a half years before leaving in September 2023 and then becoming chief executive of Anglian Water. He has been banned by ministers from receiving a bonus at the water company for the last financial year because it was found to have polluted our rivers. While at HS2, Thurston's pay ranged from £585,000 to £676,000 a year including bonuses and other taxable benefits. During his time at the government-owned company he took home £4,449,977. He joined HS2 in 2017, shortly after parliament signed off the building of the project's first phase. He previously worked on the 2012 London Olympics and Crossrail, now the Elizabeth Line, the heavily delayed new railway through central London. Thurston's oversight of HS2 was put under the spotlight this week when his successor's initial findings into the failures of the project were published. Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, told the Commons on Wednesday that the scheme had become an 'appalling mess' after years of mismanagement. She said: 'It gives me no pleasure to deliver news like this. Billions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management.' Mark Wild, who took over the running of HS2 in December last year, has been carrying out a root and branch review of the scheme in an bid to stem ballooning costs and restore proper oversight. Wild's salary will be declared in accounts published this summer although his base salary is said to be lower than Thurston's. The project was originally due to cost £32.7 billion — in 2011 prices — with the first leg between London and the Midlands opening in late 2026. The pared-back scheme could now cost more than £100 billion. In a letter to Alexander, published on Wednesday, Wild said: 'The position I have inherited in HS2 Ltd is unacceptable; the organisation has failed in its mission to control costs and deliver to schedule.' It was announced that Thurston, 58, was leaving HS2 in July 2023. He said the project was the 'highlight of my career', adding: 'I have agreed with the board that someone else should lead the organisation and programme through what will be another defining period for HS2.' His appointment to Anglian Water, which he joined in July last year, caused much comment, not least because of government criticisms of the financial stewardship of HS2. Responding in November last year, he told The Times: 'If customers want to challenge my appointment, all I can say is that it was a very thorough and comprehensive process. 'The board clearly thought I was a good fit. They have to account for that and only time will tell whether it was a good appointment.' Transport bosses are traditionally the highest paid public servants in the country, with those in the rail industry in particular receiving the biggest remuneration packages. The last time the Cabinet Office reported on senior civil service pay was in 2023 with figures for the previous year. The list was not updated in 2024 by the Conservatives before the election. It revealed that the 45 highest paid staff at HS2 had a combined pay packet of £8.9 million. Of the top 20 best paid, only six still work at the company three years later. It is understood that many senior executives left the company after Rishi Sunak cancelled the northern leg of the project in October 2023. A spokesman for HS2 Ltd said: ' Mark Wild is leading a comprehensive reset of HS2 to ensure the project can be delivered for the lowest reasonable cost. This includes reviewing and simplifying the structure of HS2 Ltd itself — putting more focus on front-line delivery of the railway and bearing down on unnecessary costs. 'This year, we have frozen pay and withheld all bonuses for staff in the highest grades at HS2 Ltd.'
The Independent
41 minutes ago
- The Independent
Rantzen warns peers not to hamper progress of assisted dying law
Assisted dying campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen has urged members of the House of Lords not to block landmark legislation on the issue. The Terminally Ill Adults (End Of Life) Bill cleared the Commons with a majority of 23 votes on Friday, but opponents have vowed to continue their resistance in the unelected chamber. The legislation could face a difficult passage through the Lords, with critics poised to table amendments to add further restrictions and safeguards to the Bill. Dame Esther told BBC Radio 4's Today: 'I don't need to teach the House of Lords how to do their job. They know it very well, and they know that laws are produced by the elected chamber. 'Their job is to scrutinise, to ask questions, but not to oppose. 'So yes, people who are adamantly opposed to this bill, and they have a perfect right to oppose it, will try and stop it going through the Lords, but the Lords themselves, their duty is to make sure that law is actually created by the elected chamber, which is the House of Commons who have voted this through.' Dame Esther, who turns 85 on Sunday and has terminal cancer, acknowledged the legislation would probably not become law in time for her to use it and she would have to 'buzz of to Zurich' to use the Dignitas clinic. Paralympian and crossbench peer Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson told BBC Breakfast: 'We're getting ready for it to come to the Lord's and from my personal point of view, about amending it to make it stronger. 'We've been told it's the strongest Bill in the world, but to be honest, it's not very high bar for other legislation. 'So I do think there are a lot more safeguards that could be put in.' Conservative peer and disability rights campaigner Lord Shinkwin said the narrow Commons majority underlined the need for peers to take a close look at the legislation. He told Today 'I think the House of Lords has a duty to expose and to subject this Bill to forensic scrutiny' but 'I don't think it's a question of blocking it so much as performing our duty as a revising chamber'. He added: 'The margin yesterday was so close that many MPs would appreciate the opportunity to look at this again in respect of safeguards as they relate to those who feel vulnerable, whether that's disabled people or older people.' Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who steered the Bill through the Commons, told the PA news agency she hoped peers would not seek to derail the legislation, which could run out of parliamentary time if it is held up in the Lords. She said: 'I would be upset to think that anybody was playing games with such an important and such an emotional issue.' A group of 27 Labour MPs who voted against the legislation said: 'We were elected to represent both of those groups and are still deeply concerned about the risks in this Bill of coercion of the old and discrimination against the disabled, people with anorexia and black, Asian and minority ethnic people, who we know do not receive equitable health care. 'As the Bill moves to the House of Lords it must receive the scrutiny that it needs. Not about the principles of assisted dying but its application in this deeply flawed Bill.' Meanwhile, one of the leading opponents of the Bill, Conservative Danny Kruger, said 'these are apocalyptic times'. In a series of tweets on Friday night, the East Wiltshire MP – who is at odds with his mother, Great British Bake Off judge Dame Prue Leith in her support for legalisation – accused assisted dying campaigners of being 'militant anti-Christians' who had failed to 'engage with the detail of the Bill'.
BBC News
41 minutes ago
- BBC News
Millais School in Horsham welcomes backtrack on admitting boys
A girls' school in West Sussex said it was pleased council staff "recognise the concerns raised" about a consultation on it becoming Sussex County Council opened a fresh consultation on Thursday about a proposal to admit boys to Millais School in Horsham from local authority decided in March to make the change after a previous consultation, despite the school's board opposing the council abandoned that decision three months later, saying it "concluded that information linked to the consultation was incorrect and misleading". Millais School's headteacher Alison Lodwick said she welcomes the "opportunity for all points of view to be resubmitted and reviewed fully"."Similarly to West Sussex [County Council], Millais want the best educational outcomes for the for young people across our local community," she added. Anyone who wants to give their views has until 18 July to do Sussex County Council said on the consultation website that it "will consider or re-consider all responses and representations, including views previously expressed". The local authority added: "We have acted promptly to concerns raised about the previous process and want to make sure there is time for everyone to respond before the end of the current school year."A cabinet member could make the decision as soon as the end of July but this "will depend upon the responses received", according to the council. Boys bused outside Horsham Millais School published a policy paper in May 2024 opposing the reform, in which it claimed there were "huge social and emotional benefits" for pupils at girls' schools and the council was proposing a "very major change" to the school's ethos."We believe passionately that there is crucial space in Horsham for both coeducational and single-sex options to co-exist," the secondary school to the June consultation, Millais School has had excess capacity since 2021, impacting its budget, while some boys in Horsham were sent to schools outside the district."The pressure for places is likely to increase in the future," the council said. Millais School is the only single-sex school of the four secondaries in Forest School in Horsham was a boys school until West Sussex County Council decided in 2020 to make it co-educational.
