(Sarcasm mode on)
Yep, probably in 12 years or so when the inquiry actually gets completed & published.
(Sarcasm mode off)

Oops
(Sarcasm mode back on)
Somewhere in the reports linked in this thread there was a couple of comments by the councils that cladding is energy efficient & aesthetically pleasing.

WE know. Highly efficient at producing energy.
NOT very aesthetically pleasing now is it?
(Sarcasm mode off)

You know as well as I do, what baffles brains.

---

Only too well...
...sadly.

The new concerns appear to relate to inadequate fire doors, and unprotected gas pipes. If those problems have been visible to, and known by, tenants for 10 years since the blocks were refurbished, how the heck didn't the council know about them?

---

(Sarcasm mode)
Ah yes, the 3 virus carrying monkeys that will eventually prove deadlier than Ebola.

34 blocks tested so far, all failed.

Local government does the snafu but it takes...

...national government to fubar.

34 blocks tested so far, all failed.

Local government does the snafu but it takes...

...national government to fubar.

Yep, and all these people will be put on the street until they have built replacement flats at twice the rent.

Read that the fire department didn't have enough engines to park them at the 8? flats they evacuated. Dumb question from a yank, don't you people have agreements between your fire agencies to share equipment and people? We do here in the USA*. I'm sure in a country your size pulling one engine company from here and there across the land you could have kept enough equipment staffed to have kept the people in the flats. Of course the owner of the building would have to foot the bill. Is that the issue, cheapskate landlords? Won't pay for fire safety? Even this dumb yank can guess the answer to that question!


*You better believe we do here in the west, it would be impossible to fight brush fires any other way!

---

If only it was that simple, Gary. Sadly, private companies with an eye on profits, are increasingly involved with the 'supply' of materiel and operational services in the increasingly less, 'public sector'. You can have any number of staff, but if the equipment they need to use, is 'leased' to them by private companies, then it all falls apart - predictably. With budgets cut and increasing involvement of companies seeking to make profit, it is inevitable that public services, such as the fire service, will not have what they need for the job, merely, what they have been told they can afford! I have a feeling that you would have found great accord with one of my favourite broadcasters, on LBC, James O'Brien - who regularly made a former member of the London Fire Authority look pretty bad. Google, Brian Coleman.....not that you'll need to. In the end, Coleman didn't need O'Brien's help to look bad......he did it himself.

I've worked for a Local Authority and have come across stupidity on 'both sides of the fence'. Tenants, who think it is OK to block access to fire doors with their 'over fill' and a land-lord (council) that can't be bothered to maintain properties. Gas pipes, un-protected and car petrol tanks 'stored' close by. Fire doors, normally closed (as in electro-magnetically kept shut!), but inaccessible due to resident's belongings being in the way on a regular basis. Yet, for the favoured ones, there are pay increases of between £5k and £10k, while lower paid employees have their pay cut. There is something insidiously unpleasant going on in this country and with luck, light will be shone in those dark places.

---

Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!

There is something insidiously unpleasant going on in this country and with luck, light will be shone in those dark places.

Your's is not the only one, we have it here big time. Because our populous has selected The Orange One to be our great leader it will only get worse here until they figure out they are getting screwed. By then our obese great leader may end up being the richest man in the world by using the Putin method. As an interesting factoid Bill Gates is now only the 2nd richest man in the world .

---

There is something insidiously unpleasant going on in this country and with luck, light will be shone in those dark places.

Perhaps it is time to reactivate Pontefract? To put some of those dark places in a real dark place for an extended vacation, the kind that doesn't end?

---

Breaking news More high-rises fail fire safety tests

Cladding on 60 high-rise buildings across 25 council areas fails fire safety tests, UK government says

That's all so far.

---

10% Not looking good :-(

10% Not looking good :-(

Make that 100% of panels tested so far. That looks systematic.

Indeed. People systematically looking the other way, perhaps, or systematically not doing their blasted jobs!

---

Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!

10% Not looking good :-(

Make that 100% of panels tested so far. That looks systematic.

Sorry should have made it clearer. Yes it is 100% of those tested to date, but it is still 10% of the 600 tower blocks in the country.

Indeed. People systematically looking the other way, perhaps, or systematically not doing their blasted jobs!

I would say a combination of both.

Mostly I've been listening to TV audio (BBC News Channel), with occasional input from Sky News or Al Jazeera (both of which I can get on Freeview where I live).

Just been out visiting, so heard a different version on the car radio. A long-term resident - one of the ones refusing to move from a Camden flat until it's better organised and explained - was pretty explicit that the original work before 2010 had been done on a PFI contract.

Which might explain a lot. (Ask the Scots about their collapsing schools)

Indeed. People systematically looking the other way, perhaps, or systematically not doing their blasted jobs!

I would say a combination of both.

As I said earlier, put them up on the top floor, let them go to sleep and torch the building.

Unfortunately this is the conservative way. Carpe Diem. It is your fault for having a flat at Grenfeld, you didn't research it and know it was a firetrap. You are to blame.

That conservative mantra that you personally are at fault when bad things happen to you.

It is what Rump is doing here, get rid of all social welfare and give an unfortunate one no help of any kind. Extra cruel, all so the conservative can have a few more drinks of champagne paid for in blood.

---

Hmm, will we see a new offence on the statue books - Murder by political decision?

Bill could be £600,000,000

It's going to be an interesting inquiry.

Corporate manslaughter on the organisations that specified, designed and installed the cladding system.
This charge, if proven, can lead to massive fines on organisations, plus the imprisonment of key "officers of the company". There are at least three parties concerned, the organisation that specified the cladding system, and "proved" it was safe (see my earlier comment about "proof of safety by extrapolation"), the organisation that then acted on this specification, and the builder that installed it.
In the UK a council decision making machine comprises two main bodies, the "permanent" staff, whose job is to advise the "semi-permanent" councilors on technical matters. One cannot expect the councilors to be experts in all aspects of building legislation, construction materials etc. hence the "expertise" actually lies in the hands of the "permanent" staff. In recent years these permanent staff have become more important as both the legislation and the technology concerned have become more complex.

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

In the past, local councils operated through committees and sub-committees. I believe that it was lawful for a Council to delegate decision-making powers to committees or sub-committees, but not to a single individual elected councillor.

In recent years, councils have moved to a 'cabinet' structure, with individual members responsible for whole departments. Have decision-making legal powers followed this same path? (hard to see how a 'cabinet' council could function without it)

While I see how it might be hard to prosecute a committee for an unsafe decision against officer advice, could a cabinet member be individually prosecuted?