Leadership, Compliance and Culture. Dame Judith Hackitt speaks about the Evolution of Building Safety

Hello. I'm Lisa Hamilton from SFG20. Today, I'm joined by Dame Judith Hackitt, and we are here to talk about the Building Safety Act and what that means for building owners and maintenance professionals. Dame Judith, welcome. Thank you. Would you like to start off by introducing yourself briefly?

Well, I'm Dame Judith Hackitt. I'm an engineer by training, chemical engineer, as it happens, worked in industry for a very long time, but the latter part of my career has been very much involved in the world of safety across the whole of industry. I spent almost a decade as Chair of the Health and Safety Executive. Of course, then what most people now associate me with in this sector is the independent review of building safety after the Grenfell Tower fire.

Thank you very much. So we're going to just jump straight in. Let's refer to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase Two report, which cites that there were flaws in the building's tenant management association. I'm just going to read out some of them. There was a huge backlog of maintenance work that it never managed to clear. There were poor repair services, a persistent indifference to fire safety, no fire safety strategy in place despite advice in 2009, and their only fire assessor had invented some of his qualifications and was ill-qualified to carry out risk assessments.

So how widespread do you think these sorts of issues are?

I think they are far more common than any of us want to admit. And I don't think that is supposition. If you think about the report that I did and the timing of it—so the remit that I was given by the then Secretary of State was to look at the regulatory system that was in place and identify what had gone wrong. In less than 12 months, I was able to conclude that the regulatory system had failed, and as a result of that, poor practice was widespread. So none of the specific findings associated with Grenfell that came out of the public inquiry should have come as a surprise to people, because I had identified six years before then that those things were happening, and they were happening far more widespread than just Grenfell. Grenfell was by no means a one-off, and neither was it just about cladding. Those poor practices in looking after the building and everything to do with that were clear to me from every conversation I had with people.

So are we sitting on a ticking time bomb?

I hope not, not anymore. I think we sleepwalked—if that's the correct term—into what happened at Grenfell, because lots of people knew that things were wrong. Let's not kid ourselves that this all came as a complete surprise. People knew things were wrong, but I don't think anyone knew quite how devastating the consequences of those failures and weaknesses in the overall system could be. I don't think anyone had contemplated that it could be as bad as it was, and that 72 people would lose their lives. So that was a real moment from which we must never go backwards. The only way now is forwards, and everyone I talk to and have talked to in the last seven years—every one of them says we can't let this happen again.

Absolutely. Do you think that the industry is doing enough to align itself with the Building Safety Act requirements?

It's a very mixed picture, and that means there's good and there's bad. I see lots of examples of people who have embraced it and are doing the right things. I also see a lot of people who are still playing ostrich, if you like, and that comes in many forms, not least of which is: "I can't do anything until the regulator tells me what to do. I need more detail." And then there's a lot of people, I think, in the middle who know they need to do something. They're very busy trying to do the right thing, but they don't know where to turn to get help and advice. And some of that advice is leading them to do more than they need to, or do the wrong things—not prioritising the right things first. So we are in that really difficult position right now. Emotions are running high. Everyone says it's not enough, we're not going quickly enough, and we need to kind of take a breath and get some proportion back into the system.

That's interesting. You've said before that Great Britain's performance in health and safety is world-class.

And I just wonder whether there's any parallels between the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act and the actual adoption and putting that into practice, and what we're now seeing with the Building Safety Act.

Yes, absolutely. I think there are lots of parallels. I'm old enough to remember when the Health and Safety at Work Act was introduced, and the Health and Safety Executive was set up, and I can remember lots of conversations where people said, "Industry will collapse under the weight of all of this extra burden. We won't be able to do anything because we have to scaffold everything." And there was a kind of pendulum swing into "this is awful." But at the same time, I think some industries recognised that there really was a need to do something about the harm that we were causing to people in the workplace back then. Remember, we were talking about—in the '70s—over 1,000 people dying at work every year from accidents, let alone health-related things.

So it took a long time, and the pace was different in different sectors at which people got their head around what it really meant in practice and why it was that the Health and Safety at Work Act moved us away from prescription of "do all of these things and tick off these things on a list and you'll be okay," to the regulator saying, "I'm not going to tell you what to do. You have to decide, because this is your responsibility." So there are many, many parallels. It probably took us, in the case of the Health and Safety at Work Act, 20 years before we got to the point where the majority of people got it. That is not to say that we can take 20 years to get there with the Building Safety Act, because the principles are the same. What we're now talking about is that same duty of care that the Health and Safety at Work Act places on people to look after their own employees. That focus now has to be equal on the safety of those who will live in, work in, and use the buildings.

So in what ways does the Building Safety Act and the associated regulation place greater responsibility on maintenance teams?

Well, I think the first thing to say is that it provides clarity of who is responsible. The first thing I was surprised by when I did my review was the extent to which people said—when I asked questions like, "Who’s responsible for this?" or "Who does that?"—people would say, "It’s not me, it’s them. I do my bit, but the problem is someone else." That, I think, is partly a function of the fragmentation of the whole construction sector and the way we contract out work, even in buildings that are in occupation. There are some very complicated models of how things are managed and so on.

But what's clear is there's been no proper line of responsibility and accountability in the past. What we've put in place is exactly that. That doesn't mean to say that simply because you're the Principal Accountable Person that you carry all of the responsibility. Some of your responsibilities are to ensure that the people you employ are also people who are going to behave responsibly. In fact, the Act is clear that there is a duty on everyone to behave responsibly in what they do. That’s a direct parallel with the Health and Safety at Work Act.

What do maintenance teams need to do to transition to the new regulatory regime?

I think, first of all, to take stock of and have an honest assessment of where you are right now. Going back to your first question around “Are we sitting on a ticking time bomb?”—that will vary from one building to another. The first thing any organisation needs to do, in my view, is—with any complex building—to take stock and say: Where are we? What are we doing right here? Where are the gaps in what we’re doing? And to be honest about that.

That, more than anything else, requires the people at the very top of the organisation to ask the right questions. Because if the questions that come down are ones that say, “Just tell me we’re all alright and we’ll move on,” then you’ll drive one set of behaviours. If you actually do the mature thing and say, “I want an honest assessment of where we are and what it’s going to take to get us to where we need to be,” then you’ll get a very different answer.

That leads me on to the next question, which is about building owners.

What should building owners be most concerned about relating to compliance with the Building Safety Act?

For me, that’s a list in order of things you've got to do—which seems fairly logical to me. The first is: What do you know about the building you’ve got? Because actually, for buildings that are already in occupation, one of the biggest challenges is that golden thread I called for in all new buildings. People have been in the process now for months, if not years, of trying to build that golden thread out of pretty sparse information, because the discipline of providing that data was not commonplace.

So knowing what you've got is the starting point. Trying to fill those gaps to the best of your ability is the next. And then having the courage to go and look and find what problems there are. We’ve seen that in the case of the way different companies and organisations have approached the whole flammable cladding issue. Some have been very proactive. Others have had to be really pushed to do it. Some of that is because they don’t know. Part of the problem is they know or suspect that the cladding is not the end of the story by any means, and when they remove the cladding, they’re going to find other more serious problems behind it.

But the reality is: You need to know what you’ve got. It’s no good not looking. Because when the regulator comes round to your building, they are going to expect you to have used your best endeavours to find out what you can about the building.

What actions can building owners take to mitigate the risk that they carry?

I think the answer is pretty much the same: know what you’re dealing with, and then get advice—experts—to help you decide what are the most important things to fix first. One of the things I hear a lot is people saying they come up with long, long work lists, and it feels a bit like the hospital waiting list problem. If you just measure how many things need to be fixed, there is a real tendency then to try and manage the numbers to get the number down, rather than managing the risk—which is where you should be.

Doing one thing may well take a big chunk of risk out of the system and leave you with lots of other small things that can be fixed later. Or you could fix twenty small things, and it really won’t make a hill of beans’ difference to the risk that you’re dealing with. So it’s really important to do the right things, and the things that will make the most difference first.

Take a risk-based approach?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm wondering what cost implications are associated with the new legal requirements that CEOs and financial directors need to be aware of and budget for.

Again, it will vary enormously depending on past practice. Because, again, let's not tar everyone with that same brush that says, "All buildings built in the last 50 years are poor quality." That's not the case. But knowing what you’ve got and knowing what the size of that liability is, is really important.

I've seen some really good examples of companies who are doing that and doing it well, and who are taking that mature approach that says, "This is going to be on our balance sheet for the next five to ten years until we fix it." That’s the kind of pragmatic approach that needs to be more widespread, I think, rather than just trying to manage the numbers.

What role do you think the Building Safety Regulator should play in driving compliance within building maintenance?

I think there are two things a Building Safety Regulator should do—and is trying to do. The first is to make it clear who is responsible, and also to continue reminding people that they are not looking for overnight fixes to everything, but they are looking for proper plans to improve things over time.

I think they’re doing both of those things and doing them well. But the problem is, of course, they get met with people saying, "Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it." Well, they can’t tell you what to do, because it will be different in different buildings, for all the reasons I’ve just explained. Until you’ve done that risk profile and know what the biggest risks are in that building, a list of things from the Building Safety Regulator isn’t going to help.

But all of those words around proportionality, having a plan, and so on—in due course, I think as they do their job, and let’s remember that they’re still in start-up mode—they know they are having some teething problems dealing with the volume of work, and they are addressing them. Things will get better. But I think for them, in due course, to be able to show people examples of what good looks like is going to help clear some of this fog in people’s minds around, "I don’t know what they’re looking for. I don’t know what they want."

There have been some concerns raised around buildings regulation guidance being too complex and difficult to use. In response, the Health and Safety Executive have promised to review how guidance is produced, updated, and communicated to the industry.

Do you share that view about the regulations being complex and difficult, and if so, what should be done?

I think if you look back to my Building a Safer Future report, I was the one who said that. I think the guidance, which everyone interpreted as being the rules, was hugely overcomplicated. And worse still, it was in tramlines. You pick up one book to tell you what to do on electrics, you pick up another book to tell you what to do on thermal efficiency, and so on. All of those Approved Documents were written in silos.

The Building Safety Regulator shares my view that there is far too much prescription and not enough joining up of how all of those things are interdependent and cross over with one another. The task of revising that suite of documents is a significant one, but they have made a commitment—and they made the commitment before the Public Inquiry said it—that they would need to conduct a full review of the guidance.

So thinking about the definition of higher-risk buildings, do you think it goes far enough?

Well, it’s under review, so let’s not preempt what comes out of that. I think I and other people have been clear all along that using height as a proxy for risk was always an oversimplification. But what’s really interesting is how, in the space of time that I’ve been involved in this, people now start to think much more about buildings as complex systems than they did before.

Even though we still use that height most often as being the main proxy for risk, you do get the sense that people are thinking more about what constitutes the risks associated with the building. Often, of course, that risk profile is changed by the people themselves who are in the building. So if that building contains elderly people who are not mobile, who will need help to evacuate—in a care home, for instance—or indeed students in a hall of residence, and so on, there are different risk profiles associated with all of that. That needs to be built into thinking about those buildings, not just in terms of their height, but the complexity of the totality in terms of its purpose and its structure.

So it sounds like the definition is going to increase in scope?

I don’t know whether it will or not. I think we may see some better definition emerge that may cause some new things to be added in, but may change. I mean, I remember the whole debate we had during the time that the Building Safety Act was going through Parliament about: Should it be 11 metres, or should it be 18 metres? Or where should we set this bar? It isn’t as simple as that. And if we can get to some way of assessing the size of the risk that takes account of other factors, I think that would be much better for everyone.

In your role as Chair of the Industry Safety Steering Group, what improvements are you seeing in building safety culture?

A lot, I think, is the first thing to say. There’s a lot happening and a lot of people trying to drive the right behaviours and support people in delivering those right behaviours. But again, I come back to my experience with other regulatory frameworks. Sometimes, with the best of intentions, lots of that guidance that comes from others—other than necessarily the regulator—can sometimes be part of the problem in terms of making people feel it’s all a bit too complicated and they don’t know where to start.

One of the things we try and do through the Industry Safety Steering Group is to keep pushing people to think logically and to be proportionate. I think for me, the biggest disappointment right now is that to do all of the things I’ve just said—particularly thinking logically and making judgements, which is what this is all around—requires people to be competent. We know that this isn’t just about the guidance, but is also about a lack of overall competence throughout the sector.

So my disappointment is that in spite of all the work that’s been done over the last six or seven years to develop those competence frameworks—and the people who have done that have done an absolutely wonderful job—the rate of take-up of the competence modules is not where it should be. One of the things the whole industry needs to do, I think, is as well as looking at the buildings, look at the competence of its own people, and start investing some time and effort in building people’s confidence and competence so that they can make good decisions. Because good decisions will actually cost you less in the end, rather than you interpreting the guidance to the nth degree and going over the top.

That’s really interesting. Why do you think that there’s such a low take-up of these new competence frameworks?

I don’t know. I wish I did. As I said, I think a lot of people who for a long time were in the "Until I know what I need to do, I can’t do anything" mindset—now we’re in a position where the Act is in force, people are now required to register buildings, we’re now in the place where people are having to apply for their certificates of assessment. So it’s very real now, and what we’re seeing is a shortage of competent people to do the work. Well, that could have been anticipated.

Interesting. So it’s there, the guidance is there, the training is there. People have got to take it up.

Yeah.

My last question is:

What are your future predictions of what will come next with regards to improving building safety?

Oh, that’s a good question. I would like to see us move on from seeing this purely as a safety subject, and move it into the space of safety and quality of build. So following on from that, I think there will be a time when we will look back on this transition period we’re going through now, and I think that once people get over the "I don’t know what to do, I’m scared, whatever," and really get to grips with this—in the same way that we did with workforce health and safety through the Health and Safety at Work Act—when it actually starts to drive the right behaviours and the right performance, we’ll look back on this period and think, "Wow—not only did we build safer and better-quality buildings, but oh look, our productivity went up at the same time." I think that’s what will happen.

That’s a great vision for the future. Thank you very much, Dame Judith.

Thank you.