LABC ‘wholeheartedly’ apologises for Grenfell failures

A building control body criticised in the Grenfell Inquiry’s final report has “wholeheartedly” acknowledged and apologised for failures of oversight.Yesterday’s report said that Local Authority Building Control (LABC), which represents local authority building inspectors, had failed to ensure certificates issued for products used in building work were technically accurate.In its response yesterday, LABC chief executive Lorna Stimpson said she was “pleased” at the comprehensive scope of the final report, adding that the conclusions from its own internal investigations “entirely coincide” with the official inquiry.“We can see there are justified criticisms about some of our actions at the time,” Stimpson added. “LABC admitted errors at the very first opportunity and apologised immediately and repeatedly.“Again, we wholeheartedly acknowledge and apologise for any areas where LABC has failed in the past.”A total of 72 people died in the fatal blaze at Grenfell Tower in June 2017.The report found that LABC was “the victim of dishonest behaviour on the part of unscrupulous manufacturers” of rainscreen cladding panels and insulation products used on Grenfell Tower.LABC, which represents all local authority building control teams in England and Wales, “must take its share of the blame for the acceptance by the market of Celotex RS5000 and Kingspan K15 for use on buildings over 18 metres in height”, the report concluded.It added that the organisation was guilty of “complete failure” for years to take basic steps to ensure the certificates it issued were technically accurate.LABC was “vulnerable to manipulation because its processes were not implemented rigorously enough”, the report also said.In its executive summary, the final Grenfell report said that initial product assessments should not have been made by building control officers who lacked the necessary knowledge and experience to pass judgement. Second-stage reviews were not always carried out by competent individuals.LABC “is not the same organisation as it was”, Stimpson said, and it had embarked on “radical change” even before the inquiry began in September 2017.“We take the inquiry’s conclusions extremely seriously and will continue the process of reform within LABC itself, and the promotion of new standards, the building safety regime and the registration of the building control profession,” she added.“We are completely committed to playing our part in educating, building and validating the competence and standards of the building control sector.”