I used to work for Building Control in Scotland. Something like this happening is sickening. They're questioning the cladding for example. So if a Building Warrant Application was made for re-cladding a tower, the Building Control officer would check the specification to make sure that the cladding complied, fire stops were being installed in the correct places etc. Once they were happy with the info. provided they would grant a warrant. That meant that the work could commence on site. When the work was complete the building control officer would then grant a completion certificate if he was satisfied with the work. Before doing so they had to make "reasonable enquiry" this could be a combination of site visits, photographs, certificates etc. The problem is that the Building Control Officer can't reasonably inspect every detail, because they have dozens of jobs to look at. The responsibility is sort of passed to the person applying for Completion - they are saying that it complies with the Warrant when they do that. Its just up to the Building Control Officer to accept that or not. So for fire stops behind the cladding for example. There's no way a Building Control officer would see them all. The site agent/supervisor maybe check a few but again, I can't see him having time to check them all. So who are these important details left to. Maybe a sub-contractor, maybe just the operatives themselves. They're saying the cladding installed complied with fire regs. But how do we know what was used was actually what was specified? What if they specified a suitable material but used something cheaper on site?That might get past the Building Control officer if he just done a visual inspection. Its frightening, it's really sad. Building Control wasn't for me in the end. I was a control freak over it, I couldn't check every screw and nail that was on site but I worried and felt like I wanted to. So, I got out. I'm just thinking out loud here over how on Earth this could happen, because it's horrific. It looks to me like there is not just one thing gone wrong, like 1 fire stop not in position. This looks like a multitude of failings to me. The poor people.
It's what I do for a job now and everything you say is exactly right...but there's no end of potential problems with things like this.
We will receive details and specifications, but then often the contractors will start carrying out the work on site before we've even had a chance to check the details...sometimes before we even receive the details. There is nothing technically to say a person can't start work before being issued with a warrant/approval. It just states it is "at their own risk". Sometimes the work has already been done and we find out afterwards.
Then when you're checking things on site it is impossible to check every detail...you'd have to be there all day. So generally you make a judgement on what you do see, and to an extent on whether the people doing it seem like idiots or not.
The Building Regulations is written on that basis in that when the work is signed off, it specifies that "as far as can be reasonably ascertained" it complies with regulations. If contractors have done things not in accordance with approved designs or what was specified to them, generally the comeback is on them but it's a very difficult thing to prove one way or another.
It can be wrong for all kinds of reasons. Even if we do receive and approve designs, the contractor might then not follow them, or they might use the correct materials and products but not install them correctly. I've seen some astonishingly stupid things and I've not been doing the job that long. Contractors/builders (well, the useless ones), seem to have a really poor understanding of a lot of things. For example, what a Fire Barrier is and why what they've done means it wont work.
On top of that with work like this you have the Fire Brigade but they generally are in the same situation. They approve the design under their own regulations, and they might carry out a visual inspection. They aren't there to see that every single tiny thing is put in place correctly. if they were they'd have no one left to fight fires.
Someone doing a periodic Fire Risk assessment also isn't going to be able to tell whether cladding for example is installed correctly. At best they can ask for the Building Regulations certificate and then it just comes back to the above.
Then on top of that you're relying on people not to tamper with important parts of the design after the work is carried out. For example in shopping centres it's a constant menace where people will wedge fire doors open by putting things against them, or stack things in places that block primary fire escape routes. Place flammable materials in places they really shouldn't be, etc. Again someone carrying out an assessment might pick up on some of this and ask that it's put right, but then two weeks later 9 times out of 10 it's back how it was before again.
Generally it's very easy to say "this is what went wrong" with a degree of accuracy quite quickly, but then finding out why it was allowed to go wrong is a lot more difficult. Bad contractors are a nightmare as you just don't know. A lot of Councils and Building Control bodies also struggle to employ fully qualified, experienced surveyors, as there just aren't enough of them...so you can get someone overseeing and inspecting work on a scale they aren't experienced or knowledgeable enough to deal with.
The guidelines issued by the Fire Brigade in case of a fire in a tower block or similar building, are based on the building being fully compliant. Even with all the difficulties above there's only a small handful of cases where this has failed and cost or endangered lives, and nothing on a scale with what's happened here anytime recently I don't think...not in this country anyway.
