How the hell does it potentially cost that much to investigate this ?
I read somewhere there are up to 200 officers involved in dealing with various investigations, but £38 million ??,
How do they come up with that figure , although I see they have already put in a £11m for overtime spent on it alone.

Not sure but a low estimate of the cost of the officers per hour puts it at 240k a week, plus expenses, so not an order of magnitude out even if everything is fully closed out in 12 months.

I too am struggling with the figure.
If it turns out that 300 grand saved on cladding, should not have been approved in the first place…. what justice or gain will this get for the people of Grenfell?

Many of the survivors are still being ignored by the council/politicians.

what justice or gain will this get for the people of Grenfell?

On the rather risky assumption it’s done properly, the main beneficiaries won’t be the survivors of Grenfell but those that find themselves in safer accommodation as a result and not have to suffer the same fate.

If it’s something that results in nationwide improvements in fire safety £38m seems fine to me.

Seems like a big “if”.

If it actually ends up with the people responsible being brought to justice, fine

Money well spent

Unfortunately, absolutely everything that’s gone on so far – establishment closing ranks, victims families and survivors being, at best, marginalised and ignored – suggests another Hillsborough style debacle in the offing

In which case it’ll cost a damn site more than 38 million, and will still be unresolved in 20 years time

I’d rather they billed the local authority and/or housing association/landords instead of the nation.

I agree Piemonster + binners.
Although I thought that safety changes were already being implemented
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/27/cladding-17-manchester-high-rises-to-be-removed-after-failing-fire-tests-grenfell and sprinklers were on there way(?)

That’s quite a lot of cash innit.

I suspect there is some creative accounting going on, and a little stab in Mays back at the same time for good measure. 😆

It’s not surprising that this would be an extremely expensive investigation. Even a complex fraud investigation is probably simpler and less costly (and major fraud investigations are undertaken by the SFO instead of the Met, precisely because they require specialist expertise and are expensive).

All the persons significantly involved in the design, specification and construction of Grenfell Tower will probably be interviewed. Their statements will be compared with one another and with a probably vast quantity of records held by the council and by the companies concerned. They won’t look just at who made the final decision to use that particular cladding, but at all the background that lead to that decision. For example, any prosecution is probably going to hinge on the interpretation of the Approved Code of Practice to the Building Regulations, specifically the bit that prohibited combustible insulation being used in external cladding, and whether the combustible ACM outer panels breached the Approved Code of Practice even though they were not performing the function of insulation.

Similarly, the foil faced insulation boards installed behind the ACM panels had passed a specific combustibility test which meant that they were permitted to be used by the Approved Code of Practice. Despite this, those panels burned in the fire (possibly because the test they passed failed to reflect real world conditions, e.g. the test would not have involved them being tested together with the combustible ACM panels to see how they performed synergistically).

All this will have to be considered in the investigation, and the Met may have to get its own testing done (=expensive) to present as evidence.

It’s not money well spent, except in so far as with all legislation there needs to be the threat of appropriate sanctions and punishment for criminal breaches, in order to deter others from similarly breaking the law. As with most things safety related, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and it would have been better if money had been spent before Grenfell on research, general reviews of the effectiveness and suitability of the Approved Code of Practice and the Building Regulations and of the enforcement regime (which would probably have identified a need to spend further money on improving elements of that system).

I read somewhere there are up to 200 officers involved in dealing with various investigations, but £38 million ??,
How do they come up with that figure

How long do you think this is going to take? Longer or shorter than, say, Hillsborough?

£38 million would keep 200 people busy for about 5 years.

Whitewashes cost money. Someone’s got to foot the bill for all those loyal senior public servents who are about to take early retirement ‘on grounds of ill health’ to claim their gold-plated pensions

That’s all included in the 38 million, right?

I think it’s a disgusting amount. There will be quite a few people making quite a lot of money out this.

Someone above mentioned fire testing – I pay companies for aviation fire testing and it’s expensive on both my side preparing the samples and fixtures and expensive to undertake but that side of it is pretty clear cut to me and I can easily understand the amounts of money that will be spent there and on the reports to match but it’s the investigations into the paperwork and stuff that went on behind the scenes that will swallow £1Ms and it is this I find frustrating.

If they need 200 coppers and will take let’s assume 2 years (250 working days, 8 hour days)

Then the number is achieved q easily

yeah I got 200 people for 2.5 years at an average cost of £80k (that is employed cost not pay) and that doesnt allow anything for expenses and testing etc which will be high. Soon goes doesnt it but it is still a ridiculous amount of money and someone will make a tidy sum out of it somewhere.

Since when does the met publicise enquiry costs?

Any other big enquiries they want to divulge the cost of?

The Grenfell survivors are going to love the fallout from this…

hang on, is this just the figure the Met want for themselves so doesnt include all the external experts, testing, lawyers etc? Could we we be on for £100M in total by the time everything including the initial event, compensation, demolition etc are all included?

£100M wont nearly be enough to cover all the costs.

Lengthy drawn-out investigations which publish their findings 15 years after the event, when no one gives a toss, or thereabouts, cost a lot of dosh, innit.

I guess not, was just going through it all in my head doing rough calcs like the salary one above and £100M soon goes.

Private sector companies are risk averse due to the possibility of corporate manslaughter where ultimate responsibility sits with the chief exec; this also explains the focus on health and safety.
I see no reason why the same should not apply in the public sector so, in the context of Grenfell, that would see the former head of the council and the head of the management organisation possibly facing manslaughter charges.
Will the council fund legal fees for any such charges for ex employees – defending the indefensible?

As for £38 million, it’s difficult to assess whether that’s reasonable or excessive; police time, expert witnesses, independent analyses, forensic IT, forensic accountants and so much more – all costs big bucks and, regrettably, there will be profiteering and inflated costs.

Westminster council should be on the hook for the costs if it is found that they or their management organisation were negligent.
Every guilty party – council, contractors, designers, specifiers should be on the hook.
Politicians favouring ‘light touch’ regulation – aka no proper regulation – should be eviscerated.
Rigorous fire inspections to be re-introduced and the fire authorities fully empowered to say ‘no, that is not compliant’.

It’s a huge high profile case with major political, commercial and social implications.
38Mil sounds completely plausible.

Although the outcome will almost certainly won’t lead to any arrests, I can’t see how any individuals can be to blame if building practice and codes we followed and signed off. The building regulations will ultimately change which is a good thing.

Surely not for 200 coppers as they are hardly experts in buildings, fire prevention or anything else technical. TBH I’m slightly surprised a body like the HSE aren’t taking the lead on the investigation.

I’m not as cynical as others and hope something good comes from this and fairly quickly. There are instances where inquiries have reported in reasonable time and with strong conclusions / recommendations e.g. Cullen report following Piper Alpha.

I think the message was sent out load and clear on the morning after when May met the authorities but made damn sure she came nowhere near any contact with the survivors or the victims families

Same old, same old

All that was missing was the Sun publishing a front page blaming the victims.

There’s time yet.,,,,

Surely not for 200 coppers as they are hardly experts in buildings, fire prevention or anything else technical.

they arent and that means that either the £38M is just for the bits they will be doing so the bill will be much, much larger or they are expecting to pay for what external help they need out of that £38M. I hope it’s the latter but suspect not.

I’m not as cynical as others and hope something good comes from this and fairly quickly. There are instances where inquiries have reported in reasonable time and with strong conclusions / recommendations e.g. Cullen report following Piper Alpha.

You appear to be conflating the criminal investigation being undertaken by the Met with the enquiry being chaired by Sir Martin Moore-Bick.

£11m (and counting) for an investigation into one missing girl in Portugal makes this look like a bargain.

£11m (and counting) for an investigation into one missing girl in Portugal makes this look like a bargain

When you put it like that……..

I prosecuted a simple case in my job, I was the only investigator and it involved a few site visits and case file preparation and my costs of £5000 ish were awarded to me. Conducting a proper investigation using PACE to ensure someone can be found guilty beyond reasonable doubt is a very exacting thing to do, and the time involved mounts up very quickly and is therefore very expensive. If you don’t do it properly and cut corners you’ll just lose in the court as you won’t have followed proper procedure to ensure the case is fair for the defendant.

You can’t have it both way, it’s either done properly and fairly and is costly or you could do a cheap job and it goes nowhere are no-one is found guilty. In my case just doing the disclosure schedules took a few hours, for a big case it can takes many people months to do it.

I’m surprised the police need that sort of expense/amount of officers, as has been said shouldn’t it be the fire service & HSE etc. doing most of the investigation?

Might be a joint investigation with the Met leading it? They’ll probably need assistance from Mann other agencies but they might be coordinating it.

The loaded rate* for a professional CID officer is probably around £150k per annum. So £38m = 253 man years of effort or 253 officers for 1 year, so seems about right to me.

* loaded rate is the gross cost of the person and all support costs / infrastructure necessary for them to do their job.

20 years ago, when I worked at Nortel, my loaded rate was something $120k and I was only paid under £20k at the time!

I am not convinced that spending that amount on a criminal investigation is good value. In a way, it’s closing the door after the horse has bolted. I can imagine the reply from Government if professional bodies such as the Institution of Fire Engineers and the Institution of Structural Engineers has asked for £38M to improve guidance on design of high rise buildings. That kind of approach would have worked better, but Government is unable to distinguish between professional bodies working for public benefit and those who just support their members, so doesn’t trust them.

any prosecution is probably going to hinge on the interpretation of the Approved Code of Practice to the Building Regulations

An Approved Document to the Building Regulations is not an “Approved Code of Practice” – an ACOP has special legal status under HSWA. If the Building Regulations themselves have been breached – and they say “The building shall be designed and constructed so that there are appropriate provisions for the early warning of fire, and appropriate means of escape in case of fire from the building to a place of safety outside the building capable of being safely and effectively used at all material times” and “the external walls of the building shall adequately resist the spread of fire over the walls…” – and that didn’t happen, the ADs may only help identify who was responsible. Prosecution is also possible under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order and CDM (and maybe others).

I’m surprised the police need that sort of expense/amount of officers, as has been said shouldn’t it be the fire service & HSE etc. doing most of the investigation?

The police are undertaking the investigation because of the seriousness of the possible charges, i.e. manslaughter. Although the HSE has more experience of investigating and prosecuting breaches of this type of legislation where there is alleged to be some failure to comply with a technical requirement of an Approved Code of Practice, it would probably be just as – or even more – expensive and a drain on their resources for them to undertake the investigation.

The cost is partly going to be so high because the legislation and Approved Code of Practice were flawed/poorly worded, giving the accused too much wriggle room to choose the unsafe/less safe option when cladding materials were specified etc. while seemingly staying within the law, and that wriggle room will result in prolonged technical arguments in courts involving multiple expert witnesses (= even more expense). If the law and Approved Code of Practice had been less amibiguously worded, the investigation and prosecution would be much simpler.

Another complicating issue is that the combustible cladding was not the only factor: there are reports that the mains gas pipes were not properly installed/enclosed, and that the fire separation between floors and rooms had not been properly maintained, i.e. contractors had drilled holes for pipes in floors and not stopped them up with suitable materials, which allowed fire to spread rapidly between floors.

The defence for each party will therefore argue that were it not for these other factors, the deaths might/would not have happened. In other words even more expert witness argument about which factors were decisive.

Obviously, before it even goes to the CPS for a charging decision, never mind to court, these issues have to be investigated by the police and they will need to get the prosecution’s expert witness opinion evidence in advance, in order to consider whether it will be strong enough to get a conviction.

An Approved Document to the Building Regulations is not an “Approved Code of Practice” – an ACOP has special legal status under HSWA.

Incorrect. The Approved Documents to the Building Regulations are ACOPs with that same special legal status: you must either comply with the AD/ACOP or you must be able to show that what you did instead provided the same level of safety/protection. Similarly the Highway Code is not called the ‘Highway Approved Code of Practice’, but it too neverthless has that status.

One of the main issues I have with this investigation, and I think it’s plausible to highlight..

It’s one of the outcome. To what extent do the Police have for influencing any recourse? Don’t the CPS take over the decision making process once the investigation information on the case has been passed to them? And with the history the CPS has would they actually take the time and effort to investigate this themselves or rather just state “no case to answer too” as they seem inclined to do these days.

Incorrect. The Approved Documents to the Building Regulations are ACOPs with that same special legal status: you must either comply with the AD/ACOP or you must be able to show that what you did instead provided the same level of safety/protection

Do you have a reference for that, please, Slowster? The point about an ACOP is that it reverses the burden of proof. I did not think that applies to other approved guidance, or the Highway Code; compliance with such codes is evidence that you are compliant with the law, but if you didn’t comply, the prosecutor would have to prove that you didn’t meet the law. The ADs include the wording “there is no obligation to adopt any particular solution contained in an Approved Document if you prefer to meet the relevant requirement in some other way.” and say nothing about the legal status (as the HSE link I included does).

Do you have a reference for that, please, Slowster?

This is Approved Document B, which covers fire safety. The status of the document is briefly covered on page 5, but in essence all such legislation (Building Regs, HASAWA, RTA etc. etc.) will contain clauses empowering the Secretary of State to issue and ‘approve’ guidance to the legislation, thus giving it that legal status. Here are the Building Regulations and you will find repeated references in it to the power of the Secretary of State to issue approved guidance.

compliance with such codes is evidence that you are compliant with the law

Correct

but if you didn’t comply, the prosecutor would have to prove that you didn’t meet the law.

No. The point is that if you do not comply with the AD/ACOP, the onus is on you (not the prosecutor) to show that what you did provided the same level of safety/protection. For example, some types of buildings cannot be designed to comply entirely with ADB (e.g. shopping centres) and have to be designed according to different – but well established, appropriate and accepted – guidance.

The Highway Code is slightly different in that (unsurprisingly) it does not give the option to choose alternatives to complying with the Code.

The point is that if you do not comply with the AD/ACOP, the onus is on you (not the prosecutor) to show that what you did provided the same level of safety/protection

That is the case for an ACOP, but can you show me where it says that for the AD? I understand what you say about approved guidance, but approved guidance is not necessarily an ACOP. I agree that the building inspector will challenge you to show how you meet the Regs if you don’t meet the AD, and that you will be allowed to build if you can show that, but that’s not the same as the burden of proof in a prosecution.

I’m sticking to the my guns as I’ve had this same discussion with a number of colleague over the years and they have all come back eventually to agree that I was correct. If you can show me a reference that says I’m wrong I’ll happy accept that.

That is the case for an ACOP, but can you show me where it says that for the AD? I understand what you say about approved guidance, but approved guidance is not necessarily an ACOP. I agree that the building inspector will challenge you to show how you meet the Regs if you don’t meet the AD, and that you will be allowed to build if you can show that, but that’s not the same as the burden of proof in a prosecution.

Regulation 17 of HASAWA:

17 Use of approved codes of practice in criminal proceedings.

(1)A failure on the part of any person to observe any provision of an approved code of practice shall not of itself render him liable to any civil or criminal proceedings; but where in any criminal proceedings a party is alleged to have committed an offence by reason of a contravention of any requirement or prohibition imposed by or under any such provision as is mentioned in section 16(1) being a provision for which there was an approved code of practice at the time of the alleged contravention, the following subsection shall have effect with respect to that code in relation to those proceedings.

(2)Any provision of the code of practice which appears to the court to be relevant to the requirement or prohibition alleged to have been contravened shall be admissible in evidence in the proceedings; and if it is proved that there was at any material time a failure to observe any provision of the code which appears to the court to be relevant to any matter which it is necessary for the prosecution to prove in order to establish a contravention of that requirement or prohibition, that matter shall be taken as proved unless the court is satisfied that the requirement or prohibition was in respect of that matter complied with otherwise than by way of observance of that provision of the code.

Regulation 7 of the Building Act:

7 Compliance or non-compliance with approved documents.

(1)A failure on the part of a person to comply with an approved document does not of itself render him liable to any civil or criminal proceedings; but if, in any proceedings whether civil or criminal, it is alleged that a person has at any time contravened a provision of building regulations—

(a)a failure to comply with a document that at that time was approved for the purposes of that provision may be relied upon as tending to establish liability, and

(b)proof of compliance with such a document may be relied on as tending to negative liability.

I appreciate that the phrase ‘may be relied upon as tending to establish liability’ is not entirely the same as ‘that matter shall be taken as proved unless the court is satisfied that the requirement or prohibition was in respect of that matter complied with otherwise than by way of observance of that provision of the code’, but the actual fundamental effect will be the same: the onus will be on the defendant to prove that if they did something different to what the approved document required, that it provided at least the same level of protection/safety.

Thanks for the quotes. I hadn’t found the wording in the Building Act; it’s closer to the HSWA than I thought, but I’m not fully convinced. I’m an engineer not a lawyer, but I’d still expect that the common law principle of ‘innocent until proved guilty’ would apply unless the statue specifically says otherwise (as the HSWA does). I may come back if I can find the right people to ask! It’s interesting (and may be relevant to Grenfell) that the Building Act refers to civil as well as criminal proceedings, although since the standard of proof is lower in civil cases that might be inferred.