This means taking in house the ALMO that can no longer masquerade as a TMO, but all Senior Officers in the Council are under legal orders to say nothing; this includes the Kensington and Chelsea TMO, now with a new chief executive. Giving evidence to the inquiry on Monday, Sacha Jevans, of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, said she believed that work would have been done to address the situation by a colleague called Anthony Parkes. To find out more about cookies and change your preferences, visit our, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_and_Chelsea_TMO, How Tenant Management Organisations have wrongly been associated with Grenfell, British Government @ LSE General Election 2015 Event Series, Write for the LSE British Politics and Policy blog, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported. Artelia replied with three options including that fully cassette-fixed cladding would save 293,368. Seventy-two people died in the Grenfell fire on 14 June 2017. [2] Kensington and Chelsea TMO was the largest TMO in the UK[3] and unique in having been the only TMO that managed the entire housing stock for the local council.[4]. Ms Jevans said this would have been the responsibility of Mr Parkes. It also acted as quantity surveyor primarily to advise on the cost of the project, [and] prepare tender and contract documentation. Central to this is the doctrine of effectiveness, which requires courts to give the fullest weight and effect to the underlying purpose of protecting human rights. The public inquiry will take many months to reveal the truth; prosecutions may take even longer. WebProvide full-time tenant management; Schedule and oversee property repair and maintenance; Manage collection of all rent and enforce penalties for late payments; Kensington and Chelsea, following budget cuts, was quick to close day care centres, local libraries, and direct services, including the repair budget of KCTMO. endobj [17] In September 2017 Kensington and Chelsea councillors voted unanimously to end the contract with KCTMO, stating that the firm "no longer has the trust of residents in the borough". However, KCTMO continues to exist as a legal entity so that it can be represented at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. >> /F9 13 0 R >> /F8 11 0 R /F9 13 0 R Many small TMOs are based in similar high rise blocks to Grenfell. (modern). A list of amendments to the 9.2m contract between Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) and Rydon, the builder for the refurbishment of the 24-storey tower, reveals that the saving was made after tender by fitting cassette fix aluminium cladding in lieu of zinc cladding. John Kieran, a resident of Bray House, said his concern was not the cause of the fire in Grenfell or Rydons standards. Contact. I think with the letters that we sent and the responses that we got, it just didnt seem to fully address (issues) we were raising, Mr Chapman said. /Count 5 /Xi14 14 0 R /Resources << Not according to Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_and_Chelsea_TMO which states that in 2017 it had a huge total of EIGHT residents on its board of thirteen (the other seven being non-residents), representing nearly TEN THOUSAND properties. London's high-rise tenants cite concerns in wake of Grenfell Your life is too precious to stay put. How are we going to get down if there is a fire? He added that he was worried because the window-sills were plastic and in a fire could produce toxic fumes. Needless to say, our focus on the role of corporate governance in ensuring the safety of the residents at Grenfell Tower and on how corporate governance failures contributed to the tragedy is not meant to diminish the responsibility of key organisations and individuals in their duty of care in the management and maintenance of Grenfell Tower. /MediaBox [0.0 0.0 595.2 857.28] /Xi3 27 0 R In addition, it provides a structured way to collaborate with stakeholders on specific issues with minimal risk of confusion and loss of productivity. /Rotate 0 The first step is to put in place a neighbourhood manager on Lancaster West, someone who can pull together the core housing services, now so desperately needed, with residents directly involved, to restore the confidence of a deeply shaken community. It was set up to cover the whole borough and simply took on the existing council housing department and stock. In total, over 250 fire fighters supported by 70 fire engines fought for over seven hours to control the blaze and helped 223 residents to evacuate from the worst residential blaze experienced in the UK during peacetime for a century. /Xi8 14 0 R All rights reserved. The year before the fire, Mr Daffarn's blog, which he wrote with Francis O'Connor, said: "It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders.". /F7 9 0 R They have no good reason for doing so but so what they can get away with not bothering to answer for their actions, even the judicial review court doesnt give a d that they breach their TIAES obligations without honest excuse. >> /XObject << However the facts in her account are not fully correct. /F6 21 0 R /Annots [] WebAt our core, GK Real Estate is an entrepreneurial, opportunity-driven organization. OToole also said the stay put policy directing residents to stay in their flats if there is a fire in another part of the building conflicted with the advice on posters on the walls on each floor directing residents to go to the nearest exit. A fire had started in a flat on the third floor. The borough has a high level of evictions and resulting homelessness from private renting. The Labour councillor Robert Atkinson told BBC Radio 4s Today programme the brief session had descended into utter chaos, adding: I am ashamed of the way in which the council proceeded. Residents of other blocks run by Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organisation raise concerns about the safety of their buildings. KCTMO declined to comment on the material swap. /Im22 22 0 R Critics of the public-private partnership, or PPP, management hand-off claim that the quasi-privatised TMO arrangement is rife with corruption, including sweetheart deals to Asked if she would have made any contribution in ensuring these deficiencies were fixed, she said: I am sure there was discussion in the monthly health and safety meetings. The chief executive of KCTMO, Robert Black, stood down on Friday to concentrate on assisting with the investigation and inquiry. /F1 16 0 R Giving evidence at the inquiry into the disaster, Mr Daffarn said he had "spent a long, long time thinking how to describe this organisation" but he "wouldn't change a single word of it. /Parent 2 0 R /F2 17 0 R It is true to say that some lessons have been learnt about potential risks of inappropriate cladding and evacuation advice but there is no evidence that the lessons of the governance failure that led to the choice of poor redevelopment, inappropriate safety standards and the procurement of unsafe cladding have been learnt. /Contents 8 0 R The ECHR must be interpreted in the light of its object and purpose. endobj /F5 20 0 R They only put on fire doors after the fire in Adair Tower last October. In December 2017, the TMO board decided that it could no longer guarantee that it could deliver services to a standard that residents should expect and fulfil all its duties contained in its contract with the council (known as the modular management agreement or MMA). /F10 10 0 R Kensington and Chelsea TMO has previously received a three-star status from the Audit Commission for its services. Artelia said on Friday none of its roles involved the design of the project, or specification and/or approval of materials. The minutes also suggest that even though the design for the cladding was well under way, fire consultants had yet to be appointed. /Type /Page It is shocking if, as has been reported, this board then refused to listen to the concerns raised by Grenfell residents, or give them an independent fire safety inspection as they requested. It has now lost its role on the They believe the stay put policy places lives at risk. /F1 16 0 R They range from around 100 to 1500 rented properties in a single estate or area. Run by a board of 13 tenants, it was described at the time as "one of Britain's most ambitious property management schemes".[5]. Staff managing social housing for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea adopted an us vs them mentality towards residents of the Grenfell Tower in the months before the fire that killed 72 people, an inquiry has heard. /F7 9 0 R Grenfell Inquiry. The lack of health and safety regulation is therefore a clear a failure on the part of the state to protect the right to life under Article 2 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) 1950. /F4 19 0 R Police said they were considering manslaughter charges in relation to the fire as they revealed that the cladding tiles at the building had failed safety tests. endobj The fire regulations are clearly out of date and it was a political decision not to update them.. However, he said he could not be wholly confident of safety until he the council reassured them that the situationw was different to that in Grenfell. /Rotate 0 Mr Kinnier said that a full review of the property policy arrangements was recommended in the 2013 document. /Type /Page /XObject << >> /F12 15 0 R /F1 16 0 R I have yet to see any rebuttal here. Lees comment gives some of the background. Among the 200 TMOs nationally, that particular organisation is a total anomaly not community-based, not cooperatively run, not representative. In many ways the organisation that now exists is the product of central government policy without which the entire housing stock would have remained under direct council control. Grenfell The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. /MediaBox [0.0 0.0 595.2 857.28] 7 0 obj /Xi12 39 0 R Disabled Grenfell residents 'had no escape route', Government defeated again on fire safety measures, Grenfell residents with safety fears 'bullied', Grenfell Tower: 9 things we now know about the cladding, Grenfell predicted a decade before, memo shows, Woman stabbed to death in street in Brixton, Ant and Dec among celebrities invited to King Charles Coronation as guestlist revealed, Pubs in Highgate that have called last orders over the years, 2023 House of Commons Sitting By Abdul Mateen Riaz, World record crowd provides fitting end to historic Women's Six Nations, London May Day and NHS protests pictures 2023: Guys and St Thomas, Trafalgar Square and Clerkenwell, More than 100 police hurt in French May Day protests, Fighter jets are roaring over my home in Sudan, Explosion derails train in Russian border region. /Rotate 0 It cut capital spend hence the cheaper, less fire-resistant cladding on Grenfell Tower and the cheaper building contractor, the lack of fire sprinklers, and the meagre on-site supervision. By the time the blaze had been extinguished 72 residents were dead and an additional 70 others were injured. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) over-ruled the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) to have Leadbitter the original contractor lined up to refurbish Grenfell Tower replaced and the job re-procured, the Grenfell Tower Inquiry has heard. It became an ALMO in 2002 in response to the (Labour) governments funding of Decent Homes and the fact that they wouldnt give the funding to local authorities (or TMOs). Kensington and Chelsea TMO - Wikipedia The resident-led board has an ongoing role in scrutinising the delivery of services under the MMA, as well as ensuring ongoing assistance to the public inquiry and criminal investigation. >> KCTMO, of course, took no further part in ATIC (having been glad to accept help to fix their political problem, the facts in her account are not fully correct. In the email to LFB he said: "We believe that the TMO and the council have never acknowledged the possible consequences of this catastrophic power surge and its associated fire risk. /F11 12 0 R << In April 1996 it had sub-contracted the management of its entire social housing stock to a private entity, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation The fact that all the tenants can become members amounts to little as all they can do is elect some of the Board. (KCTMOs responses) made me have the impression that the council would essentially be against the residents because they might think: They keep complaining so we need to prove that we are right,' Mr Chapman told the inquiry on Monday. >> This could form an ongoing violation of Article 2 of the ECHR, even in a domestic court of law. As secretary of the Grenfell Tower Leaseholders Association (GTLA), he had raised concerns about bare gas pipes being run through the stairwell of the building the only fire escape during recent upgrade works. The power lies elsewhere. /F3 18 0 R Kensington and Chelsea TMO (KCTMO) was the largest tenant management organisation (TMO) in England, managing nearly 10,000 properties on behalf of Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council the entire council housing stock in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Bob OToole, head of the residents association in the Chalcot Estate, said he had received about 40 calls from panicked residents since the fire in Grenfell. >> Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Rock Feilding-Mellen is chairman of Kensington and Chelseas housing committee. /Xi13 38 0 R Opinion: Grenfell not one but multiple stories of displacement, Faculty of law blogs / UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. Untangling responsibility for decisions on the project remains complex. The council and its tenant management organisation will give evidence in coming weeks. >> So according to James Lusk here, 8 out of 13 equals the great majority, and having that slight majority board constitutes it being tenant controlled. /F1 16 0 R People need action to restore normal conditions on the estate and rebuild trust. (HRA 1998, s 6) It also requires domestic courts to interpret legislation so far as possible in a manner that is compliant with the ECHR, and empowers courts to award damages where Convention rights have been violated. /Xi11 14 0 R (modern). Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation opening statement. When conceptualised this way, a corporate governance framework can be perceived as a systematic approach to prevent failings by identifying inherent risks and addressing collective actions to mitigate these risks and foresee negative outcomes or potential threats. /F2 17 0 R endobj And 8 tenants is far too few to deal sensibly with 10,000 properties. << [The KCTMO] responded they sent up surveyors, but nothing was ever done. /F10 10 0 R The Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, Lecturer in Law, Oxford Brookes University, The Grenfell Tower Fire as a Breach of the Right to Life. (2019). % Tenant Management Organisations are small, tenant-led organisations that take on a number of landlord functions from local councils. The Role of Corporate Governance Failure in the Grenfell Tower Grenfell cladding approved by residents was swapped for >> >> The Guardian has also learned that representatives of the KCTMO and the councils planners were shown a mock-up of the cladding system on site in the summer of 2014. Andrew Kinnier QC, for the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, said that a document in 2013 viewed the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO), The Kensington and Chelsea borough-wide TMO, formed in the 1990s, is known by tenants locally around Grenfell Tower as a fake TMO. On Monday, the inquiry saw chains of email between Mr Chapman and KCTMO, in which residents were refused an independent fire safety inspection of the building. The fire was a foreseeable consequence of collective political inaction to regulate health and safety in tower blocks. Staff managing social housing for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea adopted an us vs << The aluminium panels received a worse rating in terms of the amount of smoke they would emit. /F8 11 0 R The handback took place on 1 March 2018. Following the tragic fire in June 2017, changes were made which ultimately led to the KCTMO handing back delivery of all day-to-day housing and related support services to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea at the end of February 2018. All queries about housing services should be directed to the Council. An ALMO is a government-approved public structure, wholly owned and controlled by the Council, which separates the Councils landlord services from other Council functions such as schools, libraries, and swimming pools. This changed in 1995 when Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) was established to manage 10,000 local council properties. << /Resources << This allows decision makers to focus on the relevant and appropriate issues and prioritize their time and resources. /F7 9 0 R Families who live in nearby Adair Tower in north Kensington, also operated by Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organisation (KCTMO), have instructions to stay in their homes in the event of a fire. >> Without this threat its doubtful KCTMO would ever have been established. Lee Chapman said he had repeatedly been refused an independent fire assessment of the building by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) in spring 2017. /F10 10 0 R Since the [KCTMO] took over from the council, they have made it worse.. Theres no sprinklers, no fire alarms and the security cameras dont work. Grenfell was, at least in part, a consequence of the lack of local control; tenants of Grenfell Tower had warned months before of the risk of fire or other disasters because of the neglect of safety by the ALMO (KCTMO). Witness: Kensington and Chelsea I do not want to comment on the terrible Grenfell disaster beyond saying that it is hardly fair to blame the TMO structure for a problem endemic in the social housing industry, well known from Lakanal and fully exposed over many years in Inside Housing. It was its agent with a duty to coordinate the development of the requirements for the project with the client and their professional advisers, and to act as the contract administrator. Grenfell Towers landlords appeared to have a reactive approach to maintenance dating back to a report in 2013, a public inquiry has heard. The Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation was established on 1 April 1996, when it assumed management of 9,760 properties from the council. /ProcSet [/PDF /Text /ImageB /ImageC /ImageI] Edward Daffarn and another resident repeatedly attacked the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) in a blog. Residents at high rise flats managed by the organisation that ran Grenfell Tower have spoken of their concerns over their safety after Wednesdays catastrophic fire. Artelia, a French-owned company, fulfilled several roles for KCTMO. WebKensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation. /F6 21 0 R /F6 21 0 R The residents who have formed the umbrella group Grenfell United, have vowed not to give up their fight for justice until they get it. Meanwhile, Camden council has been asked to urgently review cladding on five high-rises in the borough after tenants discovered that the contractor used in the Grenfell Tower block refurbishment was also responsible for renovation of their buildings. It was first published on the Oxford Business Law Blog. Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 /ProcSet [/PDF /Text /ImageB /ImageC /ImageI] chief executive of KCTMO, Robert Black, stood down on Friday, leaders of Kensington and Chelsea council have been accused of shameful behaviour, An absolute fiasco: angry scenes as council ends Grenfell Tower meeting, leader Nick Paget-Brown also quit on Friday, the Guardian obtained a high court order preventing the council from banning journalists. The actual management agreement between the borough and effectively the Director of Housing, who became the CEO of the TMO, is still unclear. Tenants in the Lancaster West estate where Grenfell Tower is located and in other big estates in the Royal Borough wanted more say and better housing services. KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA TENANT Tap above to watch video coverage of the Grenfell Inquiry. /Font << They have also demanded copies of the service history for the buildings dry risers containing the hose connectors for the fire fighters, following unconfirmed reports from residents in Grenfell that some of the dry riser cabinets were jammed. The handback consisted of all the services to residents and those support functions required to enable these services to be provided. /Type /Page They negotiate a management agreement with their council landlord to take on limited, local responsibilities, paid for out of an allowance from their rents. In an email, the local councillor, Judith Blakeman, said "continuing to give these people so much access to put their views is unhelpful as it gives them greater legitimacy". It was also the result of decades of deregulation in the housing sector. There are smoke alarms, but no fire alarms in the building, said one tenant, who did not want to be named. KCTMO was set-up as a means of escaping the threat of the (Conservative) governments Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) regime in 1996. The focus of our article is to examine corporate governance failure itself as a contributing factor in the fire, relying on evidence unearthed in the course of the investigation. Maybe stinks would be a more apposite word. Monday 19 April 2021, 4:47pm. He opened his front door last October to find the stairwell full of thick smoke. More sensible was the arrangement we had in Ladywood, of an elected Ladywood Housing Liaison Board of twelve-or-so tenants (and ONLY tenants), handling just the few hundred properties in our locality. >> About the Author In the case of Grenfell Tower, a faulty fridge/freezer was the ignition source. The document containing proposed cost cuts to bring the refurbishment budget down from 9.25m to 8.65m was issued by Artelia. The public inquiry into the June 2017 disaster is now looking at issues surrounding social housing management, including risk assessment and handling of tenants complaints.

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