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The firm of architects behind the Grenfell Tower refurbishment manipulated its fees to avoid the contract being put out to open tender, the public inquiry into the disaster has heard.
Studio E Architects has already admitted that it would not have been selected for the job in competition because it lacked experience in high-rise housing or over-cladding works.
Neil Crawford, the Studio E designer who was the day-to-day contact for the contractor, was not a qualified architect, and Bruce Sounes, the lead architect, had not worked on a high-rise building and had no experience with polyethylene composite materials as a working architect.
The fire breaks out in the early hours of the morning, prompting a huge response from emergency services, who are unable to bring the fire under control or prevent a severe loss of life.
The then Conservative prime minister, Theresa May, visits the scene and orders a full inquiry into the disaster, and the government promises that every family will be rehoused locally.
The communities secretary, Sajid Javid, orders an emergency fire safety review of 4,000 tower blocks across Britain, and it will emerge that 120 tower blocks have combustible cladding. Scotland Yard launches a criminal investigation into the Grenfell fire.
The chancellor, Philip Hammond, says the cladding used on Grenfell Tower was banned in the UK.
The retired judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick is appointed to lead the public inquiry. Kensington and Chelsea council’s first meeting since the disaster is abandoned after the council fails in a bid to ban the media from attending.
Survivors have their first official meeting with the police and coroner.
The inquiry formally opens.
As the final death toll is confirmed to be 71 people, it is revealed that hundreds of households are still living in hotels.
In defensive testimony at the inquiry, London fire brigade commissioner Dany Cotton said she would not change anything about the way the brigade responded to the Grenfell disaster, provoking anger from both survivors and the bereaved.
The public inquiry report concludes that fewer people would have died had the fire brigade been better prepared.
Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg is forced to apologise after stating that victims of Grenfell did not use “common sense” and leave the burning building.
Grenfell cladding firm Arconic reveals it has spent £30 million on lawyers and advisors defending their role in the disaster.
Sounes told the inquiry on Tuesday that, at the request of the tower’s landlord, Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organisation (KCTMO), he deferred charging some fees so the threshold that would have obliged the client on the council-owned block to issue an open tender was not met.
Under European Union procurement rules, known as OJEU, which applied at the time, public works above a certain threshold have to be put out to open tender.
The building caught fire on the fourth floor on 14 June 2017 and a blaze spread to the 24th floor in less that half an hour through the cladding system the architects had helped design, ultimately claiming 72 lives. The tenants management organisation (TMO) was set up by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the tower’s owner, to run the property.
The inquiry was shown a 24 July 2012 project meeting note written by Sounes saying “the TMO would like … the total fee up until stage D [a design phase] not exceeding £174k which is the OJEU threshold for requiring work to be tendered. This will probably mean deferring some fees.”
Three days later Sounes proposed to Mark Anderson, director of assets and regeneration at the TMO to Studio E: “A 50% deferment of all stage D fees to keep the total stage D fee below £174k.”
Sounes said in his statement to the inquiry: “I understood that this limit was the maximum contract value permissible under EU procurement regulations, above which KCTMO would have to follow a compliant procurement process in selecting consultants. Such a process might involve advertising and tendering the opportunity publicly or using consultants from an approved framework list.”
The inquiry had earlier heard that in May 2012 when the consultants were told they were working on the job, Anderson had stressed: “we have a project to deliver within a very tight time scale and an even tighter budget.”
Under cross-examination by Kate Grange QC, counsel to the inquiry, Sounes confirmed that at the time, none of the Studio E architects had experience of over-cladding projects.
The chairman of the inquiry, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, asked Sounes: “Did you ever suggest to the TMO that because of the level of fees it ought to go out to tender?”
Sounes replied: “I’m afraid I don’t have the insight on the OJEU rules to take a view on what ought to have happened,” adding he did not know who in the TMO made the decision.
By December 2012 Studio E had stopped invoicing because they had reached the OJEU threshold.
The inquiry continues.
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