Sprinklers Oct 31st Newsletter

Dear All,

Please feel free to pass this on to anyone who might be interested.

THE FIRST TIER TRIBUNAL – FIRST MEETING

There was an excellent turnout – more than 100 – to the Case Management Hearing of the First Tier Tribunal (FTT) at the Town Hall Civic Suite on October 16. (The Council has applied to the FTT, a body a bit like a court of law, to determine if it has a right to force sprinklers and presumably anything else it wants to do on residents without their support.) The Council was told by the FTT that it had to produce a more detailed outline of its case, as what it has provided so far is clearly inadequate. (I found it bizarre how ill-informed the Council’s legal team, funded by your good selves out of the Housing Revenue Account, was – one minute they were talking about 99 blocks, then it was 100; one minute it was blocks ‘over 10 storeys’ the next it was ’10 storeys or more’ and so on.) The residents’ case was put very effectively by a legal team, led by solicitor Mark Eaton, instructed by a group of 11 residents who clubbed together to fund the presentations at this meeting. However, if the case goes ahead more funding will be needed and I know residents are working on this. There was little discussion of the merits of the case itself as this meeting was about the process – fortunately Councillor Clare Gilbert, a lawyer by profession, was able to ask all the right questions and I am a little clearer about what will happen when the full hearing is held next year. (A preliminary hearing is likely in February but there may be a fuller one after that.) The meaning of ordinary English words like ‘necessary’, ‘maintenance’, ‘administration’ and ‘security’ will be central – the Council seems to have a different dictionary to the rest of us – but the wider arguments over safety will be relevant to this.

FIRE RISK ASSESSMENTS

Some weeks ago I asked for all the 2016 FRAs for 10+ storey blocks. Officers are supposed to respond to Councillors’ questions within two weeks but at first I was told that it would take four, then five – and still nothing had appeared. I therefore put in a Freedom of Information Request and was sent the FRAs in an electronic form that I could not access! The question is important because in March the then Cabinet Member for Housing, replying to a question from me, made an interesting statement (see https://democracy.wandsworth.gov.uk/documents/b12884/Written%20Questions%20to%20the%20Leader%20Executive%20Members%20and%20Committee%20Chairmen%2007th-Mar-2018%2019.30%20Coun.pdf?T=9, page 15).

“[The Local Government Association – i.e. the body which represents Councils in England and Wales] recommended that ‘fire risk assessments should be reviewed regularly and when circumstances change’ and that there was absolutely no requirement to complete new assessments. The Council takes its obligation around the management of fire risk seriously and in 2016 commissioned an independent consultant to complete new FRAs for all of its 1,300 purpose built blocks. Since the fire in Grenfell the FRAs to all of the high-rise blocks are being reviewed and when further guidance is issued new assessments will be commissioned but meanwhile I can confirm that they remain valid and fit for purpose.”

In other words the Council accepts that the Grenfell Tower tragedy does not represent a ‘change in circumstances’ and that the 2016 FRAs (which as far as I can tell do not make any reference to sprinklers) are still perfectly adequate. This goes hand in hand with the statement of Mr Ian Stewart, Assistant Director of Housing, who has said: ““To be clear, neither members nor officers have referred to our blocks being unsafe in any way.”

MP LOBBY GROUP MISREPRESENTED

Several of you asked me about a Council press release of October 18 (http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/news/article/14759/cross_party_group_of_mps_backs_sprinklers_plan) which claimed that a cross-Party group of MPs “tasked with improving fire safety in residential tower blocks” was supporting the Council plans. The clear implication was that this group of MPs was in some way an official body carrying out work on behalf of the Government or Parliament. In fact the Fire Safety (&) Rescue Group is an All-Party Parliamentary Group or APPG (see https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmallparty/register/register.pdf) – is in effect a lobby group on behalf of the fire safety industry. As Parliamentary rules make clear, APPGs are "not official parliamentary bodies and Groups must avoid presenting themselves in a way which leads to their being confused with Select Committees” [exactly what the Council tried to do]. Indeed, far from being bodies which speak for Parliament in any way, in fact they need to register so they can be regulated to prevent them abusing their position (amid concerns that “lobbyists are increasingly using all-party groups to further their interests in Parliament”, as the Daily Telegraph put in in 2013). There are over 500 such groups: like this one they typically get around 10 or 12 MPs and Lords coming to their meetings. They are generally set up by an industry as part of its political lobbying activity: this one is a workstream of the Fire Sector Federation (see https://firesectorfederation.co.uk/workstreams/all-party-parliamentary-fire-safety-rescue-group.php), whose members/funders include the companies that make money from sprinklers, e.g. the Association for Specialist Fire Protection and the British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association. This does not necessarily mean their views are not valid or worth hearing and as far as I am aware there are no allegations of impropriety against this particular group. But it is a shocking fabrication to describe such a group as "tasked with improving fire safety in residential tower blocks". The clear impression is that they have been tasked by the Government or Parliament with this role – in fact nothing of the kind is the case. They have no locus whatsoever in a Governmental response to such an issue like Grenfell, merely representing the interest of their members. I have made an official complaint at yet another attempt to misrepresent the facts in the Council’s favour.

WHAT IS THE COUNCIL’S POLICY ANYWAY?

Until the Housing Committee meeting on September 13 the Council gave every impression that the decision on sprinklers had been taken and they had no interest at all in what residents or anyone else had to say about it. Unsurprisingly, Home Life, the housing version of the Council ‘information’ sheet which is sent to all of our estates, managed to dedicate a lot of pages to a very dubious set of statements in favour of forcing sprinklers on people but failed even to mention the biggest public protest for several years which accompanied that meeting. At the meeting Conservative Councillor Peter Graham (who did raise some very helpful points regarding the paper Councillor Paul White and I put to the Committee) put down an ‘amendment’ to Council policy which included the following:

“to allow directions from the First Tier Property Tribunal and recommendations made by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry to shape whether, and how, the programme is progressed across the Council’s high-rise stock.”

As far as I can tell this is the first reference in any Council policy to the outcome of the Grenfell Inquiry. Many of us have been saying all along that no decisions should be taken until we know what we are talking about (a new idea for Wandsworth Council, I accept) and this amendment, which was agreed by what is called the Executive and is therefore now the Council’s position, seems to accept that point. So – the Council might drop the whole idea depending on what comes out of Grenfell and in effect no decision has been taken, yes? (One reading is that the Council, having realised that it has gone out on a limb – I have yet to find any other local authority which is intending to impose this work and recharge leaseholders for it – is looking for a way to climb down with minimum embarrassment, as of course it could never bring itself to accept it had got things wrong.) However, the Director of Housing tells me that the point of the amendment was to make no changes in Council policy – in which case it is not really an ‘amendment’ – so I have asked for clarification.

MISLEADING INFORMATION

At the same meeting residents were told that the Council’s block insurance would cover the costs of any damage caused by sprinklers going off inappropriately. As I suspected at the time this was simply not true. If the Council can be shown to have been negligent – i.e. to have botched up a maintenance visit to some of the pipework – then its insurance would cover it. But for any other reason – say ordinary wear and tear, or mischief-making by an individual or group of individuals – then residents would have to cover the costs of redecoration, replacing damaged furniture etc. themselves. If they cannot afford household insurance – as many (tenants and leaseholders alike) cannot – they would find themselves in a very unfortunate position should the sprinklers go off in that way. I have asked for a correction to be put in Home Life so people are not misled by this – again I have not had a reply after a month. (In fact I have just been told that he replied to my email on October 1 – odd since I did not send it until October 2!)

WORKSTREAMS

The technical working group of residents is a bit short on members. It will be working on challenging the technical details of the Council’s case – e.g. the potential threat to fire safety represented by drilling through the very concrete which has protected residents for so many decades, creating a new hole through which fire can travel and potentially causing cracks as well. If anyone has knowledge and interest in these things please let me know.

THE MAJOR WORKS REVIEW SUB-COMMITTEE

By the mid-1990s several Wandsworth leaseholders were complaining about the level of charges for some major works and repairs. A report brought before the Council’s Policy and Finance Committee on 26^th January 1994 sought to review and address these (and other) concerns. The Council recognised that for leaseholders: “bills can cause distress and concern and it is felt reasonable for the Council to assist as best it can”. A new Councillor group, the Major Works Review Sub-Committee (MWRSC), was created. “It is clear that leaseholders feel, in some instances, that they are at a disadvantage when faced with the Council with its technical support weighted in favour of the particular scheme to be carried out. [Sound familiar to anyone?] The onus must now be on the Director of Housing to carry out more intensive discussions at the briefing stage and, if necessary, at later pre-tendering stages, to try and reach a consensus among all tenants and leaseholders before a scheme is contractually committed.”

The importance accorded to the MWRSC by the Councillors of the day is perhaps illustrated by its membership, consisting of six Councillors, under the chairmanship of the Leader of the Council and including high-ranking Councillors such as the Deputy Leader of the Council (who also chaired the Policy and Finance Committee), the Leader of the Opposition and three other Council Committee chairs, including the Chair of Housing. The Council also sought to give similar reassurance with regard to concerns about more routine repair and maintenance issues. “It is likely that any [recent] increase in repairs expenditure has been caused by the reasonable attempt of housing managers to commission additional works in order to take advantage of the keen prices available and both ‘catch up’ on arrears of maintenance and adhere to new higher standards in our estates. However, as such higher costs have been passed on to the leaseholders, there have been significant complaints and queries and, in these circumstances, I am instituting very stringent controls on the commissioning of any items of service chargeable routine maintenance to ensure that only essential works are carried out and charged to the leaseholder in accordance with the lease.” Whatever happened to those ‘stringent controls’ and ‘intensive discussions’, I wonder?

The intention behind the MWRSC was clear – a genuine desire on the behalf of the leading Group of the Council at that stage to support existing and potential leaseholders in keeping their bills as low as possible by subjecting proposed major works schemes to an extra layer of scrutiny to ensure that the works (and associated charges) were kept to a reasonable minimum, with only clearly essential works to be undertaken. Any reasonable person considering purchasing a lease during this period would have presumed that the Council’s assessment would always seek to err on the side of lower bills rather than higher.

Best wishes,

Yours ever,

MALCOLM GRIMSTON

Councillor (Independent), West Hill Ward