kensington and chelsea tenant management organisation grenfell

/F6 21 0 R Read about our approach to external linking. The Director of Housing proposed a borough-wide TMO that kept the housing department intact. Seventy-two people died in the Grenfell fire on 14 June 2017. Mr Chapman and other members of the leaseholders association repeatedly requested copies of fire safety reports from the National Grid and the fire brigade which KCTMO claimed it possessed. It emerged on Friday that 149 tower blocks in 45 local authority areas have failed tests on the flammability of their cladding. 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. Of the description in 2013 of the TMO as having a reactive approach to maintenance, Ms Jevans said she thought the organisation understood about planned preventative maintenance and that it was working to pick up this gap. >> endobj /F11 12 0 R /ProcSet [/PDF /Text /ImageB /ImageC /ImageI] 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". The fact that all the tenants can become members amounts to little as all they can do is elect some of the Board. There were a handful of tenants on the board as there are in other ALMOs. /Type /Catalog And 8 tenants is far too few to deal sensibly with 10,000 properties. WebAt our core, GK Real Estate is an entrepreneurial, opportunity-driven organization. /F9 13 0 R /F3 18 0 R (modern). I was chasing them for three and a half years. And (2) that a board of 8 tenants is wholly inadequate for managing or even just supervising such a large number of 10,000 properties. [11][12], Grenfell Action Group, the block's tenant organisation, had repeatedly warned of major fire safety lapses since 2013. /F12 15 0 R Witness David Collins said the fire safety issues were a product of the culture and leadership at KCTMO. Such justice must encompass potential lawsuits under the Human Rights Act 1998, as well as criminal charges against those entities who manufactured the ACM cladding and were instrumental in the refurbishment of the tower. /Xi14 14 0 R He said residents had tried to get KCTMO to engage with them on the noise from the upgrade works, poorly fitted windows and the placement of boilers. KCTMO declined to comment on the material swap. Most of the residents were working class and of BAME background. OToole, who also lives in Burnham House, said he was reassuring tenants that the building is safe because there was a fire in a 10th-storey flat in a neighbouring block two years ago which was contained. In the early hours of the morning of 14th June 2017 a fire broke out in one of the fourth-floor flats at a recently renovated tower block at Grenfell Tower, London, a social housing complex of almost 1,000 homes. Contact. In one reply, residents were told KCTMO had been assured recent works were safe by the London Fire Brigade and the National Grid. On the 14th of every month, the community around Grenfell gathers to remember those whose lives were lost on the night of the fire. London. /F8 11 0 R /Font << endobj Since the [KCTMO] took over from the council, they have made it worse.. Kensington and Chelsea TMO has previously received a three-star status from the Audit Commission for its services. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. >> /Xi10 34 0 R Another issue raised by Mr Daffarn centred on a power surge at the tower in May 2013. My point is that KCTMO was a TMO ie all tenants and leaseholders were entitled to join, the board was elected by these members, and the majority of the board comprised tenants and leaseholders. He added felt like residents of the tower were being "abused" by the KCTMO. 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). It was also the result of decades of deregulation in the housing sector. So the Council must act to close down the fake TMO and take responsibility directly, both for what happened and what should happen next. John Kieran, a resident of Bray House, said his concern was not the cause of the fire in Grenfell or Rydons standards. 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). 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] Following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, the council terminated its contract with KCTMO. Since January 2018, the housing has been directly managed by the council. [8], Membership is open to any named tenant or leaseholder of a property owned by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea who is over the age of eighteen.[9]. /F10 10 0 R Is not the answer for the community to take complete control themselves either through a self-financing TMO (a proper one) in the mould of Leathermarket JMB in Southwark, or a community controlled housing association such as WATMOS (Walsall/Lambeth)? /Count 5 /Im58 40 0 R [10] In 2016 the chair, Fay Edwards, was awarded the British Empire Medal for her services to the community in Kensington and Chelsea. 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. Andrew Kinnier QC, for the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, said that a document in 2013 viewed the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO), My point is this: it is a serious and dangerous error to draw the lesson that KCTMO was not really a TMO.. The 8 tenants in a board with 7 professionals will be easily subdued by those more capable professionals. WebKensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation. Grenfell Tower fire: six victims provisionally identified, say police latest updates, High-rise towers are safe but tougher inspections needed, say experts, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. [6] Labour councillor and now MP, Emma Dent Coad was a council-appointed board member from 2008[7] to 31 October 2012. They believe the stay put policy places lives at risk. But neither can we duck away from the problems of governance and accountability in TMOs, well understood by NFTMO. [16], In August 2017, it was announced that KCTMO would no longer manage the Lancaster West Estate containing Grenfell Tower, which would come under direct council control. [The KCTMO] responded they sent up surveyors, but nothing was ever done. Grenfell Towers landlords appeared to have a reactive approach to maintenance dating back to a report in 2013, a public inquiry has heard. 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. They should have spent some of that money., Jose del Faria, 53, lives on the 11th floor of Adair Tower. Edward Daffarn and another resident repeatedly attacked the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) in a blog. Both Kensington and Chelsea Council and the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) have been told they may have committed manslughter. << >> /MediaBox [0.0 0.0 595.2 857.28] Kensington and Chelsea council has said it will cooperate with any investigation into the fire. << He continued: I cannot imagine the possible consequences of a fire in this building and as a duty of care the RBKC must ensure we can get out in an emergency, if there is a need to evacuate. /F7 9 0 R He was told the work would have no impact on emergency access, but he was not reassured because vehicles continued to take up the emergency bays - he felt, with management approval. I had a sense that the people in the TMO and RBKC looked down on the residents of Grenfell Tower and were brushing us off, he said. The actual management agreement between the borough and effectively the Director of Housing, who became the CEO of the TMO, is still unclear. Publicity about the fake TMO puts their track record at risk. There are also no sprinklers in the building, something residents also complained about in Grenfell. ATIC, a lobby group for tenant control, with support of NFTMO and co-op housing groups, organised a meeting where Lord Falconer, the housing minister, was persuaded by Gordon Perry, the then CEO of KCTMO, to agree a special exception for KCTMO to remain tenant-controlled while gaining ALMO status and the associated capital investment. The Grenfell Tower formed one part of the Lancaster West Estate envisioned in the 1960s and completed in the 1970s (MacLeod, 2018, p.467). The council, whose leader Nick Paget-Brown also quit on Friday, wanted the meeting held behind closed doors but a group of media organisations including the Guardian obtained a high court order preventing the council from banning journalists at about 6pm on Thursday, half an hour before the meeting was scheduled to start. 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. /Contents 8 0 R However, it was replaced in 2014 with cheaper aluminium cladding with a polyethylene core which has since proved combustible in government tests. Going forward I get the impression that the community will not want the council to take back control as there is a complete lack of trust but the alternative would appear to be being managed by a Housing Association and Im not sure that would gain much traction in the community either. The Kensington and Chelsea borough-wide TMO, formed in the 1990s, is known by tenants locally around Grenfell Tower as a fake TMO. All rights reserved. It said said: We need good costs for Cllr Feilding-Mellen and the planner tomorrow at 8.45am!. Mr Daffarn told a There was further evidence of the drive to cut costs in an urgent nudge email KCTMOs project manager sent to Artelia, its cost consultant, about cladding prices. /F2 17 0 R An effective governance programme includes effective risk management providing clarity in defining roles, delineating duties, preventing duplicated efforts, identifying potential blind-spots, and assisting these efforts by providing structure to policies and tools. In a closing comment, Mr Daffarn said the building's management "didn't treat us with respect or humanity or empathy and if they had done, we wouldn't be here now". /F4 19 0 R As well as the recent fire in Adair Tower, he said, there had been another one two months ago in nearby Trellick Tower, which is run by the same landlord. About the Author /F4 19 0 R We tried every way we could possibly find to get a voice and be heard, he said. The fire speaks to the failure of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, one of the wealthiest boroughs in the country, to adequately regulate social housing. /Xi12 39 0 R It was set up to cover the whole borough and simply took on the existing council housing department and stock. Each of the organisations that was involved in the management and refurbishment of Grenfell Tower was subject to a specific professional regulatory framework. It has now lost its role on the Notify me of follow-up comments by email. /F6 21 0 R One of them, Dan Browne, who lives on the 22 floor of Burnham House, said: There is going to be holy war here. He has called an emergency meeting next week for residents who have other concerns about fire that need to be addressed. /Annots [] >> It said Rydon would appoint other consultants (to include fire, DDA [Disability Discrimination Act], acoustic, etc, after the main subcontractors are on 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. All power is a trust and people who are entrusted with power must be ready to use it to empower others, Size and scale of responsibilities make no difference to this principle. Concrete is a better fire retardant material.. In 2008 Juliet Rawlings, chair of the TMO's Board from 2003, was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for her work with the organisation. It also acted as quantity surveyor primarily to advise on the cost of the project, [and] prepare tender and contract documentation. >> Documents show contractors were asked to fit aluminium instead of more fire-resistant zinc, saving 300,000. /F1 16 0 R /F1 16 0 R [18] In late December 2017 KCTMO announced that it would be handing control of all of its housing stock back to the council by 31 January 2018 as an "interim measure".[19]. WebThe Kensington and Chelsea borough-wide TMO, formed in the 1990s, is known by tenants locally around Grenfell Tower as a fake TMO. There were no alarms and theres no sprinkler system in the building or panic buttons. [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]. The Grenfell Tower Fire as a Breach of the Right to Life. 3 0 obj Article 2 therefore includes a positive substantive obligation on states to take appropriate steps to safeguard the lives of those within their jurisdiction. 6 0 obj 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. Untangling responsibility for decisions on the project remains complex. /MediaBox [0.0 0.0 595.2 857.28] 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 Organisation (KCTMO). << 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 /F3 18 0 R The council and its tenant management organisation will give evidence in coming weeks. Typically, a chain of events leading to the catastrophe is triggered by a breakdown within a structure that fails to address problems as they occur and mitigate risks as they arise. The TMO was the organisation appointed by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to run its entire council housing stock. /Type /Page Edward Daffarn was accused of being "disruptive" and "aggressive" at meetings held by KCTMO during consultation with residents about the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower. /Parent 2 0 R Tenant Management Organisations are small, tenant-led organisations that take on a number of landlord functions from local councils. Mr Kinnier said that a full review of the property policy arrangements was recommended in the 2013 document. Looking at the blog of the Grenfell Action Group they made enquiries about reviving it in 2015 but it doesnt appear to have gone very far. Considered one of the worst man-made disasters in post-World War II Britain, the Grenfell Tower fire of June 14th, 2017 is a breach of the right to life, an assault on human dignity and a manifestation of stark inequality in the UK. They told us to put wet clothes on the floor. 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. /Rotate 0 You are quite right Robin a key problem (maybe the key problem) was a lack of tenant involvement. But Paget-Brown then adjourned the meeting, saying it could not continue with journalists present as this could prejudice the official inquiry, which will be led by Sir Martin Moore-Bick, a retired court of appeal judge. /ProcSet [/PDF /Text /ImageB /ImageC /ImageI] Edward Daffarn described Grenfell Tower's management as a "mini-mafia", Seventy-two people died in the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017. Trellick Tower is a listed building and at least they cant put any cladding on it. The housing department staff were transferred over into the new organisation on existing terms and conditions, and the so-called KCTMO took over all council housing management functions, making it an Arms Length Management Organisation of the Council an ALMO. The leaders of Kensington and Chelsea council have been accused of shameful behaviour after shutting down the first cabinet meeting since the disaster after attempts to block the media from the meeting failed. Another couple, who bought a flat on the ninth floor of Adair Tower, said they saw little in return for the 4,000 service fee they pay to the landlord each year. [15] In the aftermath of the disaster, KCTMO has been further criticised for appealing to the public for donations to support the victims, despite giving no indication that it is donating to them itself. A spokesperson said: As we continue to cooperate fully with the investigation into the tragic events at Grenfell Tower, Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation has to put on hold all requests for disclosure of relevant information. /F1 16 0 R It was not a TMO, because the tenants could not take on the complex task of running the whole of the boroughs near 10,000 unit housing stock. The Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London, The Role of Corporate Governance Failure in the Grenfell Tower Fire. The board decided that it would be in the best interests of all residents that the services which the TMO provided were handed back to the council while it carries out a consultation about the future management of its housing stock. >> doesnt it just make it harder to find out who is responsible? The Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) now exists as a residuary body for a single purpose - which is to support and be accountable to the Public inquiry and all other legal proceedings arising from the Grenfell tragedy. /Parent 2 0 R The windows blew, flames were jumping out the window and there was some damage to the concrete, but the cladding and the insulation held, he said. Required fields are marked *. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Sorry but that assertion that Anne Power was not fully correct sucks, sucks very badly. endobj Until April 2015, Artelia was also a key project adviser on construction health and safety risk management matters. >> 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. 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. /F7 9 0 R 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. Of course we are worried. Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation opening statement. They fear their lives could also be at risk if the cladding is found to be an issue in the Grenfell inferno, which has killed at least 17 people. Is climate change killing Australian wine? The number of at risk buildings has risen steadily since the government ordered a full review of high-rises around the country, and there is still a 100% failure rate in fire safety tests. The document says there were issues which needed attention regarding planned maintenance. > View this hearing. 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). On that occasion I went out on to my balcony, but there was thick smoke there. The council retains the ownership, a significant share of the rent, and overall responsibility for the properties, including allocations policy, capital investment, major repairs, public accounting and performance. /F8 11 0 R /CropBox [0.0 0.0 595.2 857.28] /XObject << /Resources << Indeed, AVOIDANCE of tenant involvement. The fire started in a faulty fridge freezer on the 4th floor of the 24-storey, 120-flat residential block in West London, rapidly spreading throughout most of the building and engulfing the outside cladding within 45 minutes. Your life is too precious to stay put. The windows dont work. It declined to discuss the documentation citing a duty of confidentiality in its contract with KCTMO. He decided to ignore the advice to remain inside his apartment. /Length 3951 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. In July 2014, KCTMO asked it to provide costings for the three different types of cheaper cladding. The one managing Grenfell Tower, however, was actually an Arms Length Management Organisation wholly owned by the council, writes Anne Power. You have to go up another level on the council to find out what happened. 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. The ECHR must be interpreted in the light of its object and purpose. /F12 15 0 R This would have been done in conjunction with the contract management team and any other advice that was needed, she added. 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. When the Grenfell fire disaster happened, very few people had heard of Tenant Management Organisations (TMOs). /F2 17 0 R The leaseholders association also repeatedly raised concerns about residents smoking in the stairwell and the fact that the exposed gas pipes were an easy target for vandalism. Tenant Management Organisations such as KCTMO are founded when residents create a corporate body, which appoints a management committee to run the body, funded by management fees paid by the Council under the agreement. (2019). /F5 20 0 R /Resources << He emailed London Fire Brigade (LFB) in March 2014 warning that "if there was a major fire in Grenfell Tower and fire brigade access ever became an issue we would use the evidence recorded on our blog and in extensive email correspondence to ensure that those in charge at the TMO (Tenant Management Organisation) would face extremely serious consequences". We recognise our responsibility to ensure that the investigative process is not hampered or undermined in any way.. This could form an ongoing violation of Article 2 of the ECHR, even in a domestic court of law. << 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

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