The same ingredients keep appearing in the Safety Soup
In my previous post here I pointed out some of the “evidence” LABC had given to parliament as part of their “witness statement”:
- LABC argued that the private sector had eroded the standards that they had valiantly sought to uphold.
- LABC said the private sector was engaged in a “race to the bottom.” Approved Inspectors were allowing shoddy work because their prices were so cheap and they could not afford to inspect.
- LABC stated that the Private Sector was overcharging. Councils could only charge fees that were for the actual cost of the service – so they weren’t allowed to overcharge. And cutbacks in service meant they had less staff so could only charge less.
- LABC said the ability for a developer to choose their Building Control Provider was wrong. It was allowing them to “mark their own homework”
- They said the private sector was corrupt because they were accountable to the people through local democracy in action.
- They said Approved Inspectors had low standards, in fact no standards to match theirs
Now read what The Mayor of London had to say in the London Assembly 27th October in response to questions about Making Homes Safer in London:
Sadiq Khan Mayor of London
…There is a huge amount of regulatory work required and I think this is the evidence of a race to the bottom, the deregulation we saw in previous decades. The race to the bottom and saving costs is leading to some of these challenges we face today. This is one example, and other examples are fire doors that do not work. Other examples are people marking their own homework when it came to previous safety certificates and so forth. This is one example of work needing to be done and I am hoping that the Building Safety Bill currently going through Parliament is the vehicle for the Government to make the changes required. Politicians from all sides of the House are trying to put in amendments, which I hope the Government will accept.
Do you see any similarity between the two?
In tone?
It doesn’t matter that we are talking of new or existing buildings its all about the language. The Mayor of London was talking about how “fire experts” had cut corners on existing buildings and issued false reports that buildings were safe. How the government had allowed deregulation which was bad and that what we needed was strong regulation. The fire service need more power.
It’s all convenient to lump all this together in a big safety soup but if this all comes down to sound bites then those barking the most will prevail.
Everyone agrees change is required but change can lead to opportunism.
Now, we are also going to see the start of the amendments to the Building Safety Bill
I wonder what they will be?
Please share
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The Secret Building Inspector 