By With the release of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report, we can no longer ignore the cold hard truth about our failings as an industry and it’s time to enable meaningful change to avoid a repeat of the regulatory failings that led to such an appalling tragedy.
In July 2017, seventy-two people lost their lives because of systemic negligence, regulatory failure, and profit-driven decision-making. The recently-published Grenfell Inquiry Phase 2 Report exposes a culture where cutting corners was standard practice, accountability was non-existent, and safety was secondary to profit.
Fresh calls from the government for improved practices to be made under the watchful eye of a ‘super-regulator’ to oversee the entire construction industry are a start, but regulation alone is not enough, and the industry must go beyond compliance if it has any hope of rebuilding trust, enforcing real accountability, and achieving transparency at every level.
What went wrong?
The negligence, failings, and oversights that led to the Grenfell Tower fire can be described in five sentences:
- Regulation was weak, fragmented, and ineffective.
- Product manufacturers misled the industry and the public.
- Building control was compromised by conflicts of interest.
- Fire risk assessments were inadequate or ignored.
- Fire safety data was hidden, incomplete, or inaccessible.
The super-regulator is going to be charged with ensuring none of these five things are allowed to happen again. But to do this, technology is an essential partner because, while all five of these things happening concurrently caused unbearable disaster, real problems can still occur if just one of the five is allowed to happen again.
How can technology assist the super-regulator?
Human intervention is important and essential if practices are to be improved, but true due diligence in today’s world is only viable through collaboration with technologies that can directly overcome the problems laid out in the inquiry report.
Technology can provide digital and infallible compliance records with automated tracking to ensure nothing ever falls through the cracks. Automated testing and certification workflow can take the guesswork out of safety testing procedures.
Digital contractor licensing and qualification tracking for high-risk building contractors can log training, experience, and performance history to ensure ultimate accountability. Automated alerts can flag overdue inspections and potential risks to improve fire safety. And a centralised fire safety data repository would mean there is no more hidden information, instead enabling publicly accessible safety records to improve and promote industry-wide knowledge sharing and collaboration.
Regulation and technology hand in hand
The failings involved with the Grenfell Tower fire are now laid bare in black and white. If a repeat disaster is to be avoided, there can be no half measures when it comes to improvements.
Regulation alone is not enough. Failure to do more will cost lives. It is simply a question of when, not if. While the industry has been rightly disgraced by this final report, it now has the opportunity to redeem itself by learning from past mistakes and committing to meaningful, lasting change.
Innovation is already available to help regulators shoulder the immense responsibility now placed upon them.
Technology is a fundamental necessity to ensure that compliance is transparent, verifiable, and automated. This will eliminate oversight failures and enforce real accountability at every stage of construction and building management. Without it, we risk repeating the mistakes of the past.
We know what needs to be done. Now, we must insist that those in power not only listen but act decisively.
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