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Government action to remove dangerous cladding on flats could take until 2035 with thousands of buildings still not identified, the National Audit Office says today.
A critical report from Parliament’s spending watchdog highlights the painfully slow progress that has been made since the Grenfell Tower fire seven years ago which caused 72 avoidable deaths. It says internal forecasts from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government suggest that it will be 2035 before all flats over 11 metres high are safe. The NAO think this could even slip to 2037 because some schemes may not start until 2034.
Between 9,000 and 12,000 buildings could need their cladding replaced but so far 60%, some 7,200 buildings, remain to be identified. The report concedes that some may never be identified because of difficulties in tracing owners and incomplete building records.
The audit office found that the ministry still has to set milestones to remove the cladding leaving hundreds of thousands of residents with no idea when their buildings will be made safe.
Up to August this year 1,392 buildings had their cladding removed at a cost of £2.3 billion between 12 and 16 per cent of all buildings requiring remedies depending on the estimates of the numbers involved by the ministry. Another 4,771 had been discovered housing 268,000 people with the rest unknown.
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The full cost of the all the work could be anything between £12.6 billion and £22.4 billion with the taxpayer having to foot a substantial part of the bill.
The costs of replacing the dangerous cladding is supposed to be shared between the taxpayer, developers, social housing providers and private owners. The last government was going to introduce a building safety levy on developers to recoup some of the cash but left office without it being implemented.
The levy on new developments was set to raise £3.4 billion but the earliest it will be introduced will be autumn 2025.
Money from the taxpayer was supposed to be capped at £5.1 billion but the audit office is very sceptical that this will be met and suggests the figure is more likely to be £9 billion – almost double that.
The report also raises the spectre of fraud among applications from developers for taxpayer’s money as there are not enough controls and checks on letting contracts. A review by the ministry revealed that one application for £500,000, with an upfront payment of £400,000 was thought to be fraudulent. The review commented on the building industry as “an industry with known historical integrity issues.”
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Gareth Davies, head of the National Audit Office, said: “considerable uncertainty remains regarding the number of buildings needing remediation, costs, timelines and recouping public spending. There is a long way to go before all affected buildings are made safe, and risks MHCLG must address if its approach is to succeed.
“Putting the onus on developers to pay and introducing a more proportionate approach to remediation should help to protect taxpayers’ money. Yet it has also created grounds for dispute, causing delays.”
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the new Conservative Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts: said
“The programme is falling behind schedule and MHCLG needs to pick up the pace to get it back on track. There is a long road ahead to resolve the cladding crisis and the government must take steps to better protect the taxpayer. It urgently needs to ensure its fraud controls are working and that developers contribute their fair share to the costs “
Building safety campaigners thought the NAO report did not go far enough.
Stephen Day said: “With 1.7 million excluded leaseholders from protection in law from potentially ruinous building safety remediation costs if defects are found, the government need to find non tax payer funds urgently to remediate defects for buildings of all heights.
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“We call on them to implement the Earl of Lytton’s consumer protection legislation for blocks of flats of all heights. Also buildings need to be made safe, insurable and sellable with all defects remediated instead of following the watered down partial remediation standard condemning millions around the country to uninsurable unsellable flats after the work is done. If we water down remediation standards, then Grenfell is destined to repeat itself.”
The new Government welcomed the report. Building Safety Minister Alex Norris said:
“The pace of remediation to make homes safe has been unacceptably slow. This government is taking action – meeting our commitment to invest £5.1 billion to remove dangerous cladding and making sure those responsible pay for the rest.
“This Government will protect leaseholders and empower regulators to take enforcement action against those building owners who fail to act. Since coming into office, we have ramped up work with local authorities and regulators to speed up remediation and we will set out a Remediation Acceleration Plan soon.”