exactly this

I know there is a school of thought that it is too early to play the blame game and that some are sensitive to criticism of government (to which, I just say this: User Posted Link

And in deference to Tombs I will refrain from a long polemic on the subject. I'll just provide an example of what frames my views on this:

For my sins I have spent a couple of years at an outsourcer drafting big long term FM contracts. Post 2007. The era of austerity. (But this applies both across central govt applying rigid spending cuts, local authorities eking out diminishing budgets, and private sector clients chasing profits.) You'd sign a long term contract, lets say 5 years. Your capital & maintenance budgets would be fixed at year 1 levels. The client would then want year-on-year savings - let's be conservative and say 3%. So by year 5 you've had to absorb inflation and take 15% off the spend. So in real terms your spend is down maybe 20-25%.

There are only 3 ways to cut costs like that: reduce quality, reduce service levels, or reduce staff. To be honest, it's all 3. So you extend a maintenance cycle here, defer a capital upgrade there, you take an item off a checklist or two, you check 30% of the estate each year instead of 50%. etc etc. Individually inconsequential changes, all justifiable in themselves. But suddenly after 5 years you've got an estate that's a bit more tired than in year one, things stay broken that little bit longer, equipment is a bit older than you'd like it to be. You've got few less people to check things/respond. Your people are probably just that little bit busier. You probably haven't replaced that 30 year career man (or if you have, it's now a minimum wage school leaver) And all of a sudden a system that had a lot of spare capacity and redundancy (what you might have identified to the client as 'waste' or 'efficiency savings') now doesn't. You might even be at a point where you can say it's at breaking point.

And that, in a nutshell, is what we have every where through the system. You can't cut and cut and cut without, at some point, cutting the golden thread that keeps it all hanging together.

So back to Grenfell. There is not going to be a single person or thing that can be pointed to that we we can blame. The cladding may have contributed. The lack of sprinklers will be pointed to. The poor sod that didn't spot the locked dry risers will get sacked. The middle manager that didn't get around to authorising the boxing in of the gas pipes will find his promotion prospects disappearing. Some 999 call handlers will get counselling when/if it's determined that all of the 'stay put' advice wasn't appropriate for this particular building/circumstances. Some ministers will be criticised for delaying reviews. The Building Regs might get some attention.

But none of these individual points of failure are really to blame. It's much, much bigger than that. And there are some deep, deep questions to be asked - can we afford to be safer? Do we just have to accept the status quo? After all, this is only the second such incident affecting tower blocks in 10 years out of the 4000 odd that we have. Is that an acceptable rate of failure?

But none of that will really be thought about as some scapegoats will be found, a few band aids applied, and attention will be deflected for long enough for the news cycle to move onto the next event. After all, none of us wants to pay more tax or pay higher prices.

(Sorry, I guess the polemic happened anyway)

Posted By: CWC on June 15th 2017 at 22:39:27

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