Background to the report

On 14 June 2017, a fire broke out at Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey residential block in London, and resulted in the deaths of 72 people. The subsequent inquiry found that the presence of aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding had played a significant role in the spread of the fire.

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After the fire, concerns were raised about the risk of major incidents in other multi-occupancy residential buildings, and testing revealed that the use of ACM and other flammable cladding in England was widespread.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) is the main government department responsible for building safety and is leading the government’s activity to support the remediation of unsafe buildings.

MHCLG does not fix buildings directly but has introduced programmes to help fund, oversee and monitor cladding remediation by building owners and developers. It also supports enforcement activity to compel owners and developers to remediate.

Scope of the report

This report assesses whether MHCLG’s remediation portfolio in England is completing timely remediation of unsafe cladding at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer. It examines:

  • how well MHCLG has designed its portfolio to maximise the identification and remediation of unsafe buildings
  • whether remediation is progressing as expected
  • how well MHCLG is managing taxpayers’ exposure to remediation costs across the lifetime of the portfolio

Conclusions

As MHCLG’s ACM programme draws to a close, remediation works on most tower blocks over 18 metres with the most dangerous form of cladding are now complete or nearing completion.

However, the scale of the cladding crisis has proved much bigger than the government initially understood, and its interventions have expanded as a result. For the many thousands of residents who have been living in fear of fire, facing costly remediation bills, struggling to access mortgage finance or affordable insurance, or unable to move, leaseholder protections and the promise of a way forward for all buildings over 11 metres are welcome.

The principle of ‘polluter pays’, where the costs of remediation works are met by those responsible, was established to relieve pressure on the public purse, improve public value and protect leaseholders from paying to fix a problem that is not of their making. However, there is a long way to go before all affected buildings are made safe, and there are risks MHCLG must address if its approach is to succeed.

Of the 9,000 to 12,000 buildings over 11 metres that MHCLG estimates will need remediating, 4,771 buildings have been identified and included in its portfolio, leaving up to 60% of affected buildings still to be identified. Of those identified, remediation work has yet to start on half and has completed on around a third. Of all the buildings that may be in scope, work has completed on only 12–16%. The pace of remediation works is behind where MHCLG expected it to be. Putting the onus on developers to pay and introducing a more proportionate approach to remediation should help to protect taxpayers’ money.

However, this approach also created grounds for lengthy disputes between developers and freeholders over the scope of works required and these disputes are causing delays. To stick to its £5.1 billion cap in the long run, MHCLG needs to ensure that it can recoup any funds it spends above this through successful implementation of the proposed Building Safety Levy. MHCLG has been slow to address fraud risks and must ensure its incentivisation and enforcement activities encourage reluctant freeholders to engage and ensure the industry is not stalling.

Seven years on from the Grenfell Tower fire, there has been progress, but there also remains considerable uncertainty about the number of buildings needing remediation, the cost of remediating them, and how long it will take to fix them and to recoup spending in the long run.

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View press release (4 Nov 2024)

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