NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 40

Government
Responsibility
From the ministerial level to the people
responsible for administering Grenfell
Tower on a day-to-day basis, the governmental failures
described in the Phase 2 report were numerous
and created conditions for additional ecosystem
stresses and failures:
We conclude that the fire at Grenfell Tower was the
culmination of decades of failure by central government
and other bodies in positions of responsibility
in the construction industry to look carefully into
the danger of incorporating combustible materials
into the external walls of high-rise residential
buildings and to act on the information available
to them.
Participants in
a silent walk to
mark the sixth
anniversary of
the Grenfell
Tower fire.
In the years between the fire at Knowsley Heights
in 1991 [involving an apartment tower with combustible
exterior cladding] and the fire at Grenfell
Tower in 2017, there were many opportunities for
the government to identify the risks posed by the
use of combustible cladding panels and insulation,
particularly to high-rise buildings, and to take action
in relation to them. Indeed, by 2016 [the body then
known as the Department for Communities and
Local Government, referred to in the report as
" the department " ] was well aware of those risks,
but failed to act on what it knew. In particular, it
failed to heed the warning of the Environment and
Transport Select Committee in December 1999 that
it should not take a serious fire in which people were
killed before steps were taken to minimize the risks
posed by some external cladding systems.
The department itself was poorly run, in as much
as the official with day-to-day responsibility for the
Building Regulations and Approved Document B
[the building regulation in England covering fire
safety matters within and around buildings] was
allowed too much freedom of action without adequate
oversight. He failed to bring to the attention
of more senior officials the serious risks of which he
had become aware, and they in turn failed to supervise
him properly or to satisfy themselves that his
response to matters affecting the safety of people's
lives was appropriate. It was a serious failure to
allow such an important area of activity to remain
in the hands of one relatively junior official.
The department displayed a complacent and at
times defensive attitude to matters affecting fire
safety. Following the fire at Lakanal House [a 2009
fire involving combustible exterior components that
killed six people at a London apartment building],
the coroner recommended that Approved Document
B be reviewed, but her recommendations
40 | NFPA JOURNAL * WINTER 2024
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NFPA Journal - Winter 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - Winter 2024

Contents
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - Cover1
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - Cover2
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 1
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 2
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 3
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - Contents
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 5
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 6
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 7
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 8
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 9
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 10
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 11
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 12
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 13
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 14
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 15
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 16
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 17
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 18
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 19
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 20
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 21
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 22
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 23
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 24
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 25
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 26
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 27
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 28
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 29
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 30
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 31
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 32
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 33
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 34
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 35
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 36
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 37
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 38
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 39
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 40
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 41
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 42
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 43
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NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 45
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NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 49
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 50
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NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 53
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 54
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 55
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NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 57
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NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 60
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 61
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 62
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NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 64
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 65
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 66
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 67
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NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 77
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 78
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 79
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 80
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - Cover3
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - Cover4
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https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/nfpa/journal_20120910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/nfpa/journal_20120708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/nfpa/journal_20120506
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