‘It displayed a casual attitude to fire safety throughout the project’ - what did the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report say about Rydon

Design and build contractor Rydon blamed the failures of the Grenfell Tower refurbishment on its subcontractors, but the final report took a different view

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What role did Rydon play?

The firm was the lead design and build contractor for the refurbishment, which meant it took on the responsibility to ensure that when completed the building complied with the Building Regulations.

Rydon and its witnesses argued during the inquiry that it effectively delegated this responsibility out to other parties - primarily the architects Studio E and the cladding sub-contractor Harley Facades. 

But the report said the firm “remained responsible for the quality of the work carried out by those whom it engaged” and “had an obligation to co-ordinate, integrate, supervise and monitor the work”. 

“Accordingly, Rydon cannot avoid all blame simply by relying on the engagement of specialist sub-contractors and designers,” it said. 

‘Those involved knew or should have known that what they were doing was improper’ - Rydon’s appointment

Rydon was appointed after Leadbitter, the contractor who had initially been lined up for the job, had quoted a price higher than KCTMO, the organisation which managed the tower, had budgeted for. 

A public procurement process had resulted in Rydon submitting the lowest bid of any contractor. This then led to Rydon being given a secret tip-off by KCTMO staff that it was in “pole position” in bidding, and being invited to attend an “offline” meeting to discuss whether the costs of the job could be reduced even further. 

This was a straightforward breach of procurement rules, and KCTMO had been told as much by its solicitors - who advised them not to do it. 

“Those involved in the meeting knew or should have known that what they were doing was improper,” the report said. 

No minutes of this meeting were taken, but it is clear that fateful decisions about cost-cutting were made. 

‘Rydon stood to make a greater profit from the refurbishment if the rainscreen were changed to ACM’ - the value engineering process

Both KCTMO and Rydon wanted to save money. Rydon’s bid was £800,000 higher than the budget KCTMO had been given by the council, and rather than ask for an increased budget, it wanted Rydon to reduce its price accordingly. 

Rydon was also in trouble - it had made a mistake in its estimation of the cost of the job, and needed to save £212,000 in order to make the work profitable - something it never told KCTMO. 

This meant it needed to find savings of more than £1m. As soon as it was told it was in “pole position” but needed to find savings, Rydon contacted the eventual cladding sub-contractor Harley to learn how much could be saved by switching to the cheapest cladding material - the highly combustible polyethylene-cored ACM, which would become the primary cause of the fire spread.

Harley quoted the savings at either £420,000 or £577,000, depending on the way the material was fixed to the tower. 

These savings were discussed at the ‘offline meeting’ mentioned above. Given that there were no minutes kept, we don’t do exactly what was decided. But we do know that a day later Rydon contacted Harley and told them the team were “keen to push this job down the… ACM route”. 

Further documents show Rydon had understated the savings - saying the reduced cost of the ACM would be £293,000 or £376,000 instead of the higher sums Harley had quoted to them.

Their witnesses have accepted they were seeking to “pocket the difference” in order to make up for their estimating error. 

“It is self-evident that Rydon stood to make a greater profit from the refurbishment if the rainscreen were changed to ACM,” the report said. “It was therefore in Rydon’s interest to promote the selection of ACM panels.”

‘Not an appropriate or safe [way] for a contractor… to conduct its business’ - Rydon’s management of the work

As the job began in earnest, Rydon appointed an inexperienced team. Its three key managers were each doing the role for the first time. Rydon “plainly failed” to ensure they had sufficient supervision or training, which “contributed to a general lack of clarity about the responsibilities that its employees were expected to shoulder”. Rydon had not made this lack of experience clear in its tender documents - instead inventing qualifications and experience which its team did not possess.

“Those whom Rydon employed on the project lacked even the most basic knowledge of the regulatory regime within which the refurbishment was being carried out,” the report said.

This meant Rydon had no ability to oversee the work of its subcontractors. “At the very least, Rydon should have been aware of all those aspects of the design that required the attention of appropriately qualified professionals so that it could satisfy itself that people with the necessary skill and training had applied their minds to them. That is what is involved in co-ordinating and supervising the design process,” the report said.

It said that in the end, all Rydon offered was a management service of other contractors, and it failed to even carry out this limited role, which the report said was not an “appropriate or safe [way] for a contractor… to conduct its business”.

‘Alarmingly complacent’ - the fire safety strategy

In particular, it pointed to the decision not to continue to employ fire engineers Exova, even though the fire safety strategy was incomplete. 

“Rydon’s approach to Exova, and to fire engineering generally, was alarmingly complacent,” the report said. It did not consult the rest of the project team about its decision to drop the engineers, and in fact indicated that it would contact them about further work when it did not. 

It also never investigated whether the incomplete fire strategy was sufficient, even though it was titled “outline”. “Each of those was a serious failure on the part of Rydon,” the report said. 

“Rydon understood that it was ultimately responsible for ensuring the fire safety of the refurbished building, but it abdicated that responsibility by failing to take an interest in Exova’s work,” the report said. 

Ultimately a final version of the fire safety strategy, which might have involved a serious assessment of the overcladding of the building, was never written. 

‘Significantly below that which could be expected of a reasonably competent design and build contractor’ - Rydon’s performance during the works

As Studio E and Harley worked on detailed design drawings for the cladding, Rydon took a back seat - authorising them to speak to each other with no active oversight from its team. 

“It was ill-equipped to determine whether something was missing, given that it had no proper system for monitoring the design process and employed no one qualified to identify any defects,” the report said. 

It never asked whether the designs were compliant, or worked out who was even responsible for this. “By failing to ask those questions Rydon failed to ensure that the design of the cladding was safe,” the report said. 

Rydon also hoped that it could rely on building control to notice if its work was non-compliant, which the report was scathing of. 

“In our view it is never appropriate for a principal contractor (or any other party) to rely on building control to ensure that its designs comply with the Building Regulations,” it said. 

It said it was “particularly inappropriate and unsafe” in this context because of its “haphazard communications with building control”.

It also failed to supervise the work on site and did not detect “serious defects in workmanship”, particularly in regard to cavity barriers. 

“Rydon’s employees appeared to have regarded its quality control process as little more than a snagging inspection, but that fell far short of performing its obligation to ensure that the work had been properly carried out,” the report said. 

Rydon staff were also chased on two occasions by Claire Williams at KCTMO to provide answers on the fire safety of the cladding. It offered no response. 

Noting more general comments about Rydon’s use of “cheap incompetent sub-contractors” and that the management consultants said they had “never worked with a contractor demonstrating this level of nonchalance”, the report said that the “general quality of Rydon’s work fell significantly below that which could be expected of a reasonably competent design and build contractor”.

“Rydon bears considerable responsibility for the fire at Grenfell Tower,” the report added.

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I have also written summaries of the reports comments on the architects, fire engineers, cladding sub-contractors and housing management. I will continue to work through the other key players in the coming weeks.

This content is not behind a paywall, but since it takes time to create and upload each piece, do please consider becoming a paid subscriber (especially if this project is something that you value, and you have the means to do so), which is either billed monthly at £3.50 or annually at £35. A paid subscriber has full access to the back catalogue of posts.

If you pay £40 or more for an annual subscription, I will send you a signed copy of my book. Or you can buy a copy here.