Presented to Parliament by the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government

by Command of His Majesty

26 February 2025

Foreword from the Deputy Prime Minister

The fire at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017 that took 72 lives was a national tragedy. It was also a personal tragedy for those bereaved, the survivors who lost their homes, and the community of which they were all a part. On behalf of the government, the British state, and all those responsible – I am deeply sorry that we failed in our fundamental duty to keep the residents of Grenfell Tower safe.

Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his team have uncovered and faithfully recorded evidence of failure after failure, year after year. The government and regulators failed to protect people. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and its Tenant Management Organisation failed to listen to residents. The London Fire Brigade was unprepared for a fire like Grenfell. The companies that refurbished Grenfell Tower put profits ahead of safety – and, worse, some concealed how flammable their cladding and insulation products were, despite knowing they would be used on people’s homes.

The Inquiry has laid bare the truth in painstaking detail, amplifying the demands and the need for justice. I understand that for many this means criminal charges. The government fully supports the Metropolitan Police in its investigation.

We must face the stark reality that the failings that led to the events on 14 June 2017 were not unique to Grenfell Tower. Thousands of people are still living in buildings with combustible cladding across the country. The impact on their lives is completely intolerable and the speed at which this has been addressed has been too slow.

I have heard from the community the need for government to respond fully to the Inquiry’s recommendations and to take further action to instil long-lasting change. The government accepts all the Inquiry’s findings and the problems that it highlighted need to be fixed. We are committed to taking forward the work required to address the Inquiry’s recommendations, and indeed to going further: we must embrace not only the specific findings, but their spirit. Anyone who lives in an unsafe home is one person too many. This must be the moment that we refuse to accept anything less than safe, quality homes for everyone.

We must build a regulatory system that everyone trusts to deliver this. As well as responding to each of the Inquiry’s important recommendations, this publication lays the foundations for long-term reform that will create better, safer buildings. Today, we set out a vision to reset the relationship between the the government, the public, the housing sector, our fire and rescue authorities and their services.

This means taking decisive action to put residents back at the heart of a system that truly serves and works for them. It means reforming our construction products system. We must ensure there are clear standards and expectations and clarity on roles, responsibilities and accountabilities across all professions involved in designing, constructing and maintaining buildings and those providing services to residents. At the same time, the government must improve its own organisation to drive forward this much needed change. We must also improve resilience, response and recovery, and modernise and reform our fire and rescue services.

Achieving this will require profound change in culture and behaviour from those who develop, procure, design, build and manage buildings across the built environment, as well as the government, its bodies and wider institutions. I am under no illusion: this will take time and commitment. But we will bring about a generational shift in the safety and quality of housing for all.

I thank Sir Martin and his team for their commitment to exposing the truth. It is now our duty to see that the tangle of political, corporate and individual failings exposed by the Inquiry is swept away and can never recur.

Since I took on this job, I have been grateful to hear directly from the bereaved, survivors and immediate community who live near Grenfell Tower. I pay tribute to them for their determination, and for the great personal cost they bear in continuing to make their voices heard: we are in their debt. I hope that the changes we will make, in their names and the names of those they love, can be a proud legacy for each of them.

I will continue to support them to ensure what happened to their loved ones and their homes is remembered, including through a fitting and lasting memorial, to be determined by the community. And I will keep their voice at the heart of our work as we work tirelessly to deliver the change that the country deserves.

The Rt Hon Angela Rayner MP

Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government

Executive summary

Introduction and background

1. The terrible tragedy at Grenfell Tower was Britain’s worst residential fire since World War II. In the early hours of 14 June 2017, a fire broke out in the kitchen of Flat 16 Grenfell Tower, a high-rise residential building in West London. The fire, which should have been contained within Flat 16, escaped into the external envelope of the building and spread rapidly up the outside. Within a few hours, it engulfed almost the whole building. 72 innocent lives were lost as a result of the tragedy, 18 of them children.

2. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry was formally set up under the Inquiries Act 2005, with Sir Martin Moore-Bick appointed as Chairman. The Inquiry was established to investigate the circumstances surrounding the tragedy, including the cause and origin of the fire at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017, the means by which it was able to spread throughout the building and how the building came to be in a condition which allowed that to happen. Related matters, such as the response of London Fire Brigade, the scope and effectiveness of building regulations and the response of central and local government to the disaster, also formed part of the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference.

3. The Inquiry’s Phase 1 report was published on 30 October 2019. It examined how the fire started, how it escaped from the flat of origin and how the fire and smoke were able to spread through the building. It also examined the response of the emergency services on the night of the fire. The Inquiry’s report made 46 recommendations, of which 15 were directed at the government and 31 were for the Fire and Rescue or other emergency services. The government welcomed the Phase 1 report and published its response on 21 January 2020, accepting, in principle, all the recommendations made for central government. The Home Office worked with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to implement the Inquiry’s Phase 1 recommendations addressed to the government, while supporting Fire and Rescue Services to deliver the recommendations addressed to them.

4. Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his team published their Phase 2 report on 4 September 2024. This was their final report, concluding the Inquiry’s work. The report examined the underlying causes of the disaster, including the decisions made in relation to critical aspects of the design and construction of the cladding system, the testing and assurance of construction products, the adequacy of the regulatory regime and the response of central and local government. It also covered evidence related to inquests. The Inquiry made 58 recommendations, of which 37 were directed at the government and 21 were directed at other bodies and institutions.

The government’s response to the Inquiry’s Phase 2 report

5. The government accepts all of the Inquiry’s findings and the problems which must be fixed, as highlighted by the recommendations. It is committed to delivering a strong response to all of the recommendations. This is why 49 of the recommendations are being accepted in full by the government and other responsible organisations. As regards the remaining 9, which are all directed at government, the government accepts them in principle and makes clear in our response how we will implement them. This does not take away from the above commitment, but the government must make sure that it achieves the best outcomes for the public where a recommendation requires further consideration, such as public consultation.

6. Significant reforms have been made since 2017 to tackle the most urgent and pressing safety failures identified in response to the tragedy at Grenfell Tower across building safety; fire safety and regulation; remediation; social housing and resilience and emergency response. This includes the government’s Remediation Acceleration Plan, which was announced in December 2024 and sets out this government’s approach to tackling unsafe cladding on buildings in England, including by fixing buildings faster, identifying remaining buildings at risk and ensuring residents are supported through the remediation process. In a joint effort across the Houses, Parliament also passed the Building Safety Act in 2022. This legislation made reforms giving residents and homeowners more rights, powers and protections to make homes safer.

7. This government will ensure these changes are implemented effectively and is committed to going even further to instil a generational shift in the safety and quality of housing for everyone. This is why, alongside responding to each of the Inquiry’s 58 recommendations, this response sets out a long-term vision for continuing to rebuild people’s trust in our building and fire safety systems and delivering better outcomes for residents across the country. As set out throughout this response, the government will deliver a series of ambitious reforms to achieve this goal.

8. Firstly, residents must be at the heart of the systems that design, construct and maintain buildings. They must always be treated with dignity, have access to redress when things go wrong and have their views properly heard. The Regulator of Social Housing’s new Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard will create requirements that will ensure all social housing residents are treated with fairness and respect and have a voice with their landlord. The government is extending the Four Million Homes resident training programme and taking forward the Make Things Right communications campaign, which support residents to better understand and exercise their rights. We are extending the Social Housing Resident Panel, which enables residents to influence government policies to improve social housing. We also commit to exploring further reforms to deliver systemic change to how all residents’ voices are heard and reliably acted upon.

9. Today we have published a construction products green paper, which sets out our proposals for system-wide reform of the construction products sector, the regulatory regime that governs it and the institutions that must fulfil their responsibilities in assuring safe products that can be safely used. These proposals address the systemic failures that contributed to the tragedy at Grenfell Tower and set the path to fulfilling our ambition to ensure that construction products are both safe and used safely now and in the coming decades. Our proposals include changes to the licensing of Conformity Assessment Bodies; mandatory data reporting; reforms to create clearer accountability for manufacturers and distributors; establishing a Construction Library; expanding the national regulator’s surveillance powers and improving the regulatory framework for products. The publication of the green paper marks the start of a formal consultation and period of active engagement to ensure we get the detail of the proposed reforms right. Today’s publication is a significant step forward in instigating the generational shift on construction products we urgently need.

10. We commit to reforming our regulatory regime so there is no doubt about the standards expected, who is responsible for delivering them and how they can be accurately assessed. Working with the Building Safety Regulator, we have undertaken an initial review of the definition of a higher-risk building and will set out plans for its ongoing review in summer 2025. In December 2024, we announced a fundamental review of the Approved Documents, to centre on how they are produced, updated and communicated. The Building Safety Regulator will also put Approved Document B under continuous review, notwithstanding improvements implemented since 2017. The Building Safety Regulator will launch a consultation on further changes by autumn 2025. Additionally, we are working to ensure appropriate measures are in place to access and maintain pipeline isolation valves regularly and ensure they can be used in an emergency. In the coming months, we will legislate to require social landlords to carry out stringent and regular electrical safety checks, and to introduce the regulations needed to implement Awaab’s Law in the social rented sector through a phased approach from October 2025. We will consult on the introduction of a new Decent Homes Standard and minimum energy efficiency standards (MEES).

11. We are taking decisive action to create a thriving, professional and skilled workforce. We will direct the Regulator of Social Housing to set standards for the competence and conduct of staff. We will be establishing an independent panel to consider how to address conflicts and commercial interests in building control and whether there needs to be a change to the delivery model for building control decisions. Additionally, we are engaging a panel of experts and academics to consider how we best achieve the reform that is required to ensure fire engineers play their part in driving safety in design and delivery. We plan to set out how we will deliver this by autumn 2025. Alongside this, we will legislate to make it a mandatory requirement for fire risk assessors to have their competence to perform this critical role independently verified by a United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) accredited certification body. We will consult on the most appropriate functions a College of Fire and Rescue could fulfil and how it could be structured and delivered. We will introduce new requirements for principal designers and will work with the sector to consider how a licensing scheme for principal contractors on higher-risk buildings can best work.

12. We will introduce reforms that establish clearer mechanisms for accountability, so residents are never left to bear the consequences of wrongdoing. All fire-related functions will move from the Home Office to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), where they will be co-located with building safety and emergency response functions under one Secretary of State. This will provide for a more coherent approach within government. We also accept the intent of the Inquiry’s recommendation to draw together functions relating to the construction industry under a single regulator. The single regulator will deliver the functions specified in the report with two exceptions. We do not believe it is appropriate for the single regulator to undertake testing and certification of construction products or issue certificates of compliance, as this would create a new conflict of interest within the regulator. Instead, we will strengthen oversight of Conformity Assessment Bodies through reforms to the construction products regime. We will go further than the Inquiry’s recommendation by consulting on strengthening the investigation of serious building safety incidents.

13. Additionally, the new regulatory regime that seeks to drive up transparency and strengthen accountability in the social housing sector is helping to address situations where landlords are not meeting the outcomes set by the Social Housing Regulator’s standards. We will further strengthen the new regime by introducing new access to information requirements for private registered providers and we will extend the Freedom of Information Act to cover Tenant Management Organisations (TMOs). We will review overall arrangements for the oversight of delegated management organisations, including TMOs, to ensure effective oversight and accountability is in place regardless of who delivers housing management services to tenants. We also set out our next steps on action against construction product manufacturers.

14. The government is committed to ensuring that the people it serves are at the heart of everything its ministers and officials do. The government accepts in principle that there needs to be a more robust system in place to scrutinise the implementation of recommendations it receives. Alongside the publicly accessible Coronial Prevention of Future Deaths Reports and Select Committee reports, we will establish a publicly accessible record of all recommendations made by public inquiries since 2024. We will ensure that this becomes standard practice for all future public inquiry reports, and will consider putting the requirement to maintain such a record on a statutory footing. Progress reports to provide an update against each recommendation from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry will be published on GOV.UK from June 2025 on a quarterly basis. The Prime Minister has committed to implementing a ‘Hillsborough Law’ to place a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities to ensure that the truth is disclosed and prevent any cover ups. We are also carefully reviewing the Inquiry’s conclusions about how the now Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government operates as a department, both in terms of processes and behaviours. We continue to focus on the importance of effective risk management and ensuring there is a comprehensive whistleblowing policy. Further, we set out our vision for a close working relationship between the government and industry to identify and advance considered reforms at pace.

15. This response sets out how the government will strengthen our country’s resilience and increase preparedness against a range of risks. This includes work being undertaken as part of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s resilience review; reviewing legislation and guidance to ensure it is clear what is expected of local partners and national government before, during and after a response; and working with those on the ground in advance of and during response and recovery to support communities. We also confirm funding for Local Resilience Forums for 2025 to 2026 and commit to building processes to better understand their performance, capacity and capability. We will publish revised Resilience and Emergency National Occupational Standards in April 2025.

16. We are working to improve evacuation plans. Later in 2025, we will lay new secondary legislation on residential personal emergency evacuation plans (RPEEPs), which will include mandating building-level evacuation plans for all high-rise residential buildings, and for those medium-rise residential buildings with a simultaneous evacuation plan in place. Statutory guidance has been updated to provide for Evacuation Alert Systems in all new blocks of flats over 18 metres, to enable fire and rescue services to send an evacuation signal to the whole or a selected part of the building by means of sounders or similar devices. This government is also bringing forward a fire and rescue modernisation and reform programme. Working with sector partners, this programme will establish a long-term vision for the sector; deliver improvement in standards and professionalism; create conditions for a positive and inclusive culture; optimise productivity and efficiency and provide a resilient and well-trained leadership cadre.

17. We are committed to delivering meaningful change as quickly as possible. Given the scale of further change needed, including legislative, we intend to deliver these further reforms using a three-phased approach over the course of this Parliament, bringing together the recommendations directed at government and our wider reforms as coherent packages. They will also form a central part of our upcoming housing strategy. The first phase of our approach will focus on ensuring that we effectively deliver our current programme of regulatory reform and change between now and 2026. During the second phase (2026 to 2028), we will develop our proposals to deliver the Inquiry’s recommendations and our wider reforms, including by bringing forward legislation when parliamentary time allows. From 2028 onwards, we will focus our efforts on implementing the reforms which will have been introduced. Close collaboration with all our delivery partners will be vital at every stage.

18. We commit to undertaking this work and instilling long-term, meaningful change in tribute to the 72 lives lost and those forever changed. This is our responsibility as a government of service.

Chapter 1: Government’s response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 report’s recommendations

19. The government accepts all of the Inquiry’s findings and the problems which must be fixed that were highlighted by the recommendations. We are committed to delivering a strong response to all the recommendations. This is why 49 of the recommendations are being accepted in full by the government and other responsible organisations.

20. For the remaining 9 recommendations, which are all directed at government, we accept them in principle and have made clear in our responses how we will implement them. This does not take away from the above commitment, but we must make sure that we achieve the best outcomes for the public where a recommendation requires further consideration, such as through consultation.

21. The government’s direct responses to the recommendations are set out below, using the paragraph numbers from the report in brackets.

Recommendation 1

That the government draw together under a single regulator all the functions relating to the construction industry to which we have referred. (113.6)

Recommendation 2

That the definition of a higher-risk building for the purposes of the Building Safety Act be reviewed urgently. (113.7)

Recommendation 3

That the government bring responsibility for the functions relating to fire safety currently exercised by MHCLG, the Home Office and the Department for Business and Trade into one department under a single Secretary of State. (113.8)

Recommendation 4

That the Secretary of State appoint a Chief Construction Adviser with a sufficient budget and staff to provide advice on all matters affecting the construction industry, including:

• monitoring all aspects of the department’s work relating to the Building Regulations and statutory guidance

• providing advice to the Secretary of State on request

• bringing to the attention of the Secretary of State any matters affecting the Building Regulations and statutory guidance or matters affecting the construction industry more generally of which the government should be aware (113.9)

Recommendation 5

That the statutory guidance generally, and Approved Document B in particular, be reviewed accordingly and a revised version published as soon as possible. (113.11)

Recommendation 6

That a revised version of the guidance contain a clear warning in each section that the legal requirements are contained in the Building Regulations and that compliance with the guidance will not necessarily result in compliance with them. (113.12)

Recommendation 7

New materials and methods of construction and the practice of overcladding existing buildings make the existence of effective compartmentation a questionable assumption and we recommend that it be reconsidered when Approved Document B is revised. (113.13)

Recommendation 8

Calculating the likely rate of fire spread and the time required for evacuation, including the evacuation of those with physical or mental impairments, are matters for a qualified fire engineer. We do not think that it would be helpful to attempt to include in Approved Document B an indication of what would be acceptable because each building is different, but we recommend that the guidance draw attention to the need to make a calculation of that kind. (113.13)

Recommendation 9

That, as far as possible, membership of bodies advising on changes to the statutory guidance should include representatives of the academic community as well as those with practical experience of the industry (including fire engineers) chosen for their experience and skill and should extend beyond those who have served on similar bodies in the past. (113.14)

Recommendation 10

That it be made a statutory requirement that a fire safety strategy produced by a registered fire engineer to be submitted with building control applications (at Gateway 2) for the construction or refurbishment of any higher-risk building and for it to be reviewed and re-submitted at the stage of completion (Gateway 3). Such a strategy must take into account the needs of vulnerable people, including the additional time they may require to leave the building or reach a place of safety within it and any additional facilities necessary to ensure their safety. (113.15)

Recommendation 11

Assessing whether an external wall can support a particular evacuation strategy is difficult because the necessary information is not always available. We therefore recommend that steps be taken in conjunction with the professional and academic community to develop new test methods that will provide the information needed for such assessments to be carried out reliably. (113.18)

Recommendation 12

BS 9414 should be approached with caution and we recommend that the government make it clear that it should not be used as a substitute for an assessment by a suitably qualified fire engineer.

Recommendation 13

That the construction regulator should be responsible for assessing the conformity of construction products with the requirements of legislation, statutory guidance and industry standards and issuing certificates as appropriate. We should expect such certificates to become pre-eminent in the market. (113.22)

Recommendation 14

• that copies of all test results supporting any certificate issued by the construction regulator be included in the certificate

• that manufacturers be required to provide the construction regulator with the full testing history of the product or material to which the certificate relates and inform the regulator of any material circumstances that may affect its performance

• manufacturers be required by law to provide on request copies of all test results that support claims about fire performance made for their products (113.23)

Recommendation 15

That the profession of fire engineer be recognised and protected by law and that an independent body be established to regulate the profession, define the standards required for membership, maintain a register of members and regulate their conduct. (113.25)

Recommendation 16

That the government take urgent steps to increase the number of places on high-quality Masters level courses in fire engineering accredited by the professional regulator.

Recommendation 17

That the government convene a group of practitioner and academic fire engineers and such other professionals as it thinks fit to produce an authoritative statement of the knowledge and skills to be expected of a competent fire engineer. Such a statement would also enable others in the construction industry to understand better the nature and importance of a fire engineer’s work. (113.27)

Recommendation 18

That the government, working in collaboration with industry and professional bodies, encourage the development of courses in the principles of fire engineering for construction professionals and members of the fire and rescue services as part of their continuing professional development. (113.28)

Recommendation 19

We recognise that both the Architects Registration Board (ARB) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) have taken steps since the Grenfell Tower fire to improve the education and training of architects. We recommend that they should review the changes already made to ensure they are sufficient in the light of our findings. (113.30)

Recommendation 20

That it be made a statutory requirement that an application for building control approval in relation to the construction or refurbishment of a higher-risk building (Gateway 2) be supported by a statement from a senior manager of the principal designer under the Building Safety Act 2022 that all reasonable steps have been taken to ensure that on completion the building as designed will be as safe as is required by the Building Regulations. (113.31)

Recommendation 21

That a licensing scheme operated by the construction regulator be introduced for principal contractors wishing to undertake the construction or refurbishment of higher-risk buildings and that it be a legal requirement that any application for building control approval for the construction or refurbishment of a higher-risk building (Gateway 2) be supported by a personal undertaking from a director or senior manager of the principal contractor to take all reasonable care to ensure that on completion and handover the building is as safe as is required by the Building Regulations. (113.33)

Recommendation 22

That the government appoint an independent panel to consider whether it is in the public interest for building control functions to be performed by those who have a commercial interest in the process. (113.37)

Recommendation 23

We recommend that the same panel consider whether all building control functions should be performed by a national authority. (113.38)

Recommendation 24

We have referred to the Cladding Materials Library set up by the University of Queensland, which could form the basis of a valuable source of information for designers of buildings in general. We recommend that the construction regulator sponsor the development of a similar library, perhaps as part of a joint project with the University of Queensland, to provide a continuing resource for designers. (113.39)

Recommendation 25

That it be made a legal requirement for the government to maintain a publicly accessible record of recommendations made by select committees, coroners and public inquiries together with a description of the steps taken in response. If the government decides not to accept a recommendation, it should record its reasons for doing so. Scrutiny of its actions should be a matter for Parliament, to which it should be required to report annually. (113.40)

Recommendation 26

That the government establish a system of mandatory accreditation to certify the competence of fire risk assessors by setting standards for qualification and continuing professional development and such other measures as may be considered necessary or desirable. We think it necessary for an accreditation system to be mandatory in order to ensure the competence of all those who offer their services as fire risk assessors. (133.41)

Recommendation 27

We are not in a position to determine whether greater standardisation of the fire control switches and keys is required. We therefore recommend that the government seeks urgent advice from the Building Safety Regulator and the National Fire Chiefs Council on the nature and scale of the problem and the appropriate response to it. (113.43)

Recommendation 28

That every gas transporter be required by law to check the accessibility of each such valve on its system at least once every three years and to report the results of that inspection to the Health and Safety Executive as part of its gas safety case review. (113.44)

Recommendation 29

That the government establish [an independent College of Fire and Rescue] immediately with sufficient resources to provide the following services nationally:

• practical training at all levels supplementary to that provided by individual fire and rescue services

• education in the form of lectures and seminars on different aspects of the work of the fire and rescue services in order to share experience and promote good practice

• research into matters that may affect the work of the fire and rescue services, including major fires

• the development of equipment, policies and procedures suitable for ensuring the effectiveness of fire and rescue services nationally and the safety of firefighters and the public

• setting and maintaining national standards of managerial competence for senior managers, including control room managers, and providing management training for, and regular assessment of, senior ranks by reference to such standards. (113.51)

Recommendation 30

That [the college] should have a permanent staff of sufficient size to manage its operations and develop its functions in response to the demands of fire and rescue services nationally and the requirements of the board. The college will need access to permanent facilities, including facilities for practical training and education. We envisage that much of the training and education will be delivered and led by firefighters of suitable experience drawn as the occasion requires from fire and rescue services around the country. (113.53)

Recommendation 31

That His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (“the Inspectorate”) inspect the London Fire Brigade as soon as reasonably possible to assess and report on:

• the extent to which the control room is now integrated into the organisation

• the effectiveness of the arrangements for identifying the training needs of control room staff, delivering effective training and recording its outcomes

• the effectiveness of the control room generally

• the ability of the control room to handle a large number of concurrent requests for advice and assistance from people directly affected by fires or other emergencies

• the quality and effectiveness of the arrangements for communication between the control room and the incident commander. (113.55)

Recommendation 32

That as soon as reasonably possible the Inspectorate inspect the London Fire Brigade to examine and report on the arrangements it has in place for assessing the training of incident commanders at all levels and their continuing competence, whether by a process of revalidation or otherwise. (133.56)

Recommendation 33

That as soon as reasonably practicable the Inspectorate inspect the LFB to examine and report on its arrangements for collecting, storing and distributing information in accordance with section 7(2)(d) of the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, and in particular its arrangements for identifying high-risk residential buildings and collecting, storing and distributing information relating to them (113.57)

Recommendation 34

That the London Fire Brigade establish effective standing arrangements for collecting, considering and effectively implementing lessons learned from previous incidents, inquests and investigations. Those arrangements should be as simple as possible, flexible and of a kind that will ensure that any appropriate changes in practice or procedure are implemented speedily. (113.58)

Recommendation 35

That fire and rescue services that continue to use low power intrinsically safe radios as part of breathing apparatus consider reserving them only for situations in which there is a real risk of igniting flammable gases and generally using radios of higher power, particularly in high-rise buildings. (113.59)

Recommendation 36

That all fire and rescue services give consideration to providing all firefighters with digital radios. (113.60)

Recommendation 37

Since radio communications are inherently unreliable in certain environments, we recommend that firefighters be trained to respond appropriately to the loss of communications and to understand how to restore them. (113.61)

Recommendation 38

That basic training on the structure and operation of the water supply system, including the different types of hydrants in use and their functions, be given to all firefighters. Training should also be given on effective measures to increase water flow and pressure when necessary. (113.62)

Recommendation 39

That all fire and rescue services establish and periodically review an agreed protocol with the statutory water undertakers in their areas to enable effective communication between them in relation to the supply of water for firefighting purposes. (113.63)

Recommendation 40

That the British Standards Institution amend BS 750 to include a description of the circumstances under which the flow coefficient to which it refers in paragraph 10.2 is to be measured. (113.64)

Recommendation 41

That National Fire Chiefs Council consider whether, and if so in what circumstances, firefighters should be discouraged from departing from their instructions on their own initiative and provide appropriate training in how to respond to a situation of that kind. (113.65)

Recommendation 42

That the [Civil Contingencies] Act [2004] be reviewed and consideration be given to granting a designated Secretary of State the power to carry out the functions of a Category 1 responder in its place for a limited period of time. (113.67)

Recommendation 43

Regulation 23 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (Contingency Planning) Regulations 2005 requires a Category 1 responder to have regard when making its plans to the activities of relevant voluntary organisations. We therefore recommend that the regulation be amended to require Category 1 responders to establish and maintain partnerships with the voluntary, community and faith organisations in the areas in which they are responsible for preparing for and responding to emergencies. (113.68)

Recommendation 44

The current guidance on preparing for emergencies is contained in several documents, all of which are unduly long and in some respects out of date. We recommend that the guidance be revised, reduced in length and consolidated in one document which lays greater emphasis on the need for those leading the response to consider the requirements for recovery, the need to identify vulnerable people, the importance of identifying and ensuring co-operation with voluntary, community and faith groups and is consistent with the Equality Act 2010. (113.69)

Recommendation 45

That regard for humanitarian considerations be expressly recognised by making it the ninth principle of effective response and recovery. (113.69)

Recommendation 46

Events demonstrated, however, that there is a need for a clearer understanding of the nature of the London Gold arrangements, in particular in situations in which a single borough is affected. We therefore recommend that the guidance on the operation of those arrangements be revised and that existing and newly appointed chief executives be given regular training to ensure they are familiar with its principles. (113.70)

Recommendation 47

That local resilience forums adopt national standards to ensure effective training, preparation and planning for emergencies and adopt independent auditing schemes to identify deficiencies and secure compliance. (113.71)

Recommendation 48

That a mechanism be introduced for independently verifying the frequency and quality of training provided by local authorities and other Category 1 responders. (113.71)

Recommendation 49

That local authorities train all their employees, including chief executives, to regard resilience as an integral part of their responsibilities.

Recommendation 50

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) had no effective means of collecting and recording information about those who had been displaced from the tower and surrounding buildings, including those who were missing. Compiling reliable information of that kind is difficult and the challenges likely to be faced by local authority Category 1 responders will vary according to the nature of the emergency. We recommend that all local authorities devise methods of obtaining and recording information of that kind, if possible in electronic form, and practise putting them into operation under a variety of different circumstances. (113.74)

Recommendation 51

That all local authorities make such arrangements as are reasonably practicable for enabling them to place people in temporary accommodation at short notice and in ways that meet their personal, religious and cultural requirements. Such arrangements should, as far as possible, involve local providers of social housing. (113.75)

Recommendation 52

That all local authorities include in their contingency plans arrangements for providing immediate financial assistance to people affected by an emergency. (113.76)

Recommendation 53

That as part of their planning for emergencies local authorities give detailed consideration to the availability of key workers and the role they are expected to play so that suitable contingency arrangements can be made to ensure, as far as possible, continuity of support. (113.76)

Recommendation 54

That as part of their emergency planning local authorities make effective arrangements for continuing communication with those who need assistance using the most suitable technology and a range of languages appropriate to the area. (113.77)

Recommendation 55

That all local authorities include in their plans for responding to emergencies arrangements for providing information to the public by whatever combination of modern methods of communication are likely to be most effective for the areas for which they are responsible. (113.78)

Recommendation 56

That what in the past has been called by the police a “casualty bureau” be described in a way that makes it clear that it does not provide information to the public about people affected by the emergency. (113.78)

Recommendation 57

That further consideration be given to the recommendations made in the Phase 1 report in the light of our findings in this report. (113.82)

Recommendation 58

That the advice contained in paragraph 79.11 of the LGA Guide be reconsidered. (113.83)

Chapter 2: Action taken since 2017

22. Significant reforms have been made since 2017 to tackle the most urgent and pressing safety failures identified in response to the tragedy at Grenfell Tower across building safety; fire safety and regulation; remediation; social housing and resilience and emergency response.

Building Safety

23. Legislative and regulatory changes have laid the groundwork for a more robust safety regime for buildings in England. The use of combustible materials in and on external walls of buildings, including flats, hospitals and student accommodation over 18 metres in height, has been banned. The threshold for the provision of sprinklers in new blocks of flats has been lowered from over 30 metres to over 11 metres and new provisions for sprinklers in new care homes have been introduced. There will be statutory guidance on the need for a second staircase in all new buildings over 18 metres coming into force in 2026.

24. The Building Safety Act 2022 made provisions for a strong oversight role for the Building Safety Regulator, including in relation to the design, building and occupation of higher-risk buildings, and for the National Regulator for Construction Products, providing it with the full suite of enforcement powers under the construction products regulations. The statutory functions of the Building Safety Regulator came fully into force from April 2024 and the regime is moving to a steady state of operation. Higher-risk buildings are now subject to more stringent safety checks at both design and construction stage, and only the Building Safety Regulator can approve building work on residential buildings over 18 metres. All building control professionals must be registered with the Building Safety Regulator and must demonstrate they meet specified competence standards and codes of conduct. We are required in law to ensure the regulatory regime is reviewed every 5 years.

25. New legal duties mean building owners are clearer about their accountability and must ensure buildings are properly constructed, refurbished and maintained through their lifetime. The Building Safety Act requires named principal accountable persons for higher-risk buildings to put in place a residents’ engagement strategy. This is intended to promote and improve the participation of residents in decision-making that affects the building safety risks in their building. The Act also created a statutory resident panel within the Building Safety Regulator to make sure residents’ views are properly represented and considered in the heart of the regime. The panel participants provide insight based on their own experiences as residents on a range of areas including the Building Safety Regulator’s guidance relating to residents and its operations. They also test its communications material.

26. The Building Safety Act makes sure that developers who build defective buildings must take responsibility for remediating them, that the industry contributes to fixing the unsafe historical defects, and that qualifying leaseholders are protected in law from crippling bills that they were otherwise facing. Courts have also been granted new powers to make Remediation Orders and Remediation Contribution Orders, including in the case of Remediation Contribution Orders against associated companies. This ensures that civil cases for claims in relation to defective buildings can be brought against companies associated with a developer, preventing the use of complex corporate structures to avoid liability.

27. The Building Safety Regulator has been open and transparent about the challenges of implementing a significant shift in the way building safety is now regulated in higher-risk buildings. These challenges have included the introduction of new services, procedures and processes. A significant number of applications for building work in higher-risk buildings have been rejected or withdrawn since the new processes came into play, because they could not demonstrate compliance with building regulations prior to construction. This shows the new system is reducing the risk of sub-standard buildings being created.

28. The Building Safety Regulator is supporting industry to build capacity and understanding of their responsibilities under building control and Building Assessment Certificates. It is working directly with key industry stakeholders and dutyholders to produce additional guidance and support based on early experience for applicants. This will ensure the regulatory system drives and retains high standards and clear industry accountability, while ensuring it can deliver safer, better quality homes for residents.

Fire regulation and response

29. Since 2017, fire safety improvements have been made, including new legal requirements. These include requirements on those responsible for fire safety, including regular checks on fire doors, improved information sharing with residents and emergency services and increased fines for offenders. A number of new fire safety guides have been published to support these legislative changes and provide practical examples and advice on best practice in relation to fire safety in specific types of premises.

30. In December 2024, this government announced our plans to legislate on residential personal emergency evacuation plans (RPEEPs) and building-level evacuation plans as a way forward on the Phase 1 recommendations regarding the evacuation of vulnerable people whose ability to self-evacuate may be compromised. Statutory guidance has been updated to provide for evacuation alert systems in all new blocks of flats over 18 metres for use by fire and rescue services.

31. Fire and rescue services have addressed all of the Inquiry’s Phase 1 recommendations, including 29 directed specifically at London Fire Brigade (LFB) and 9 for all services nationally. As a result, services are better trained and equipped to handle the largest scale incidents. LFB has also undergone an extensive transformation.

Getting buildings fixed

32. We are working to go further to end the cladding crisis which is taking its toll on the lives of people across the country. Our Remediation Acceleration Plan, announced in December 2024, sets out our approach to tackle unsafe cladding on buildings in England. It sets out key measures to fix buildings faster, identify remaining buildings still at risk and ensure that residents are supported through the remediation process.

33. We are increasing the pace of remediation by working with developers, local authorities and regulators. Through a new agreement with government, most major developers have agreed to ambitious stretch targets to finish assessing all their buildings by July 2025 and to start or complete remedial works on all buildings by July 2027. Metro mayors are producing local remediation plans, convening regulators and preparing joined-up local plans to drive remediation in their areas. We are reviewing options to overcome all barriers to accelerating remediation in social housing and will announce a long-term sector remediation strategy in spring 2025. Ahead of this, we are clarifying the existing scheme rules to make sure that social landlords who are eligible to apply for government remediation funding do so and, from April 2025, we will also increase funding for social landlords applying for government remediation funding so that remedial works can start sooner.

34. We are proposing new sanctions for all those who fail to remediate their unsafe buildings, backed by further investment in 2025 to 2026 to provide capacity for regulators to tackle hundreds of enforcement cases a year. We are focused on ensuring the guidance and training package available to local regulators supports their improved competence and capacity in enforcement.

35. We will identify the remaining buildings at risk through an intensive assessment programme and the proposed introduction of a new legal register of buildings over 11 metres. We expect to have reviewed 80% of the building stock over 11 metres in Ordnance Survey data by the end of March 2025.

36. In the meantime, residents cannot keep paying for the consequences of others’ failures. We have launched a dialogue with the building insurance industry to explore whether government might support industry to reduce fire-related liabilities before remediation is complete, to reduce the bills some have experienced, which can be over £3,000 per year. We have also launched a consultation on how we can ensure that leaseholders are only charged a fair and transparent fee for work done in arranging insurance. We have extended the Waking Watch Replacement Fund until March 2026, which can save average leaseholders around £172 per month, and we will consider our long-term plans alongside the next Spending Review.

37. It is right that the construction industry pays its fair share towards making homes safe. In the Remediation Acceleration Plan, we confirmed the introduction of a Building Safety Levy, which will raise around £3.4 billion for remediation. We are streamlining the delivery of grant funded remediation through the Cladding Safety Scheme, now responsible for all buildings starting remediation outside London.

38. Through this work we will increase the pace of remediation in England to deliver for the hundreds of thousands of residents still living with unsafe cladding on their homes. By the end of 2029, all buildings over 18 metres with unsafe cladding in a government funded scheme will have been remediated. In addition, every residential building over 11 metres with unsafe cladding will either have been remediated, have a completion date, or the landlord will be liable for severe penalties.

39. This plan will be backed up by changes to the law. The government will deliver these legislative changes as soon as Parliamentary time allows. This legislation will create certainty on which buildings need remediating and who is responsible for remediating them, and make obligations for assessing, completing and regulating remediation clearer, with severe consequences for non-compliance. It will give residents greater control in situations of acute harm where landlords have neglected their responsibilities.

40. We are committed to understanding the experiences of residents to ensure that those affected are at the heart of the building safety agenda and necessary steps are taken to mitigate the impact of remediation. We offer various opportunities for residents to engage, including resident forums and our newly launched online feedback form, allowing residents to share their experiences and the impact remediation has on their lives.

41. We will publish an update on our plans to increase the pace of remediation in summer 2025, assessing progress and outlining next steps.

Social housing

42. Since 2017, a new regulatory regime has been introduced that gives the Regulator of Social Housing enhanced powers to hold social landlords accountable for the services they provide to their residents. Through the Social Housing (Regulation) Act (SHRA) 2023, powers were taken to create a proactive regulatory framework that prioritises safety, trust and transparency. The new regime came into effect on 1 April 2024 and includes revised consumer regulatory standards which have strengthened requirements on landlords to be transparent and engage meaningfully with their tenants. Landlords are also now required to have an accurate, up to date and evidenced understanding of the condition of their homes to ensure they identify issues and take action to address them.

43. The SHRA 2023 was brought forward as a direct response to concerns raised by members of the Grenfell community and shaped by the experiences of residents across the country. This legislation is an important step in creating a lasting legacy to the tragedy and to put right some of the injustices of the past. We pay tribute to those in the Grenfell community who campaigned for many years to bring this to fruition and to make sure that genuine change happens, and to the family of Awaab Ishak, who worked tirelessly following the tragic death of Awaab from the effects of damp and mould in his home, to secure the addition of Awaab’s Law to the Act.

44. Alongside regulatory reform, we have strengthened the role of the Housing Ombudsman Service to give residents faster and easier access to redress when things go wrong. We have given the Ombudsman wider and stronger powers to require landlords to take action when it finds mismanagement in individual cases, and to investigate wider issues of concern with respect to both individual landlords and across the sector as a whole. The Ombudsman refers cases it believes are wider than just individual issues to the Regulator of Social Housing. The Housing Ombudsman has also been given a legal duty to monitor compliance with its statutory Complaint Handling Code. Landlord self-assessments must form part of their annual complaint performance and service improvement report, and must be published.

45. These reforms are shining a light on the issues which too often blight residents’ lives and are driving landlords to take urgent action to put things right, both for individual complainants and for the benefit of other affected tenants. The Ombudsman works closely with the Regulator of Social Housing and, collectively, the changes to their powers and duties are beginning to drive systemic changes in policy and practice across the sector to deliver a better deal for social housing residents.

Resilience and emergency response

46. Improvements have been made to emergency response and resilience arrangements since the Grenfell Tower tragedy. However, this government acknowledged that more must be done from a national perspective, and it has therefore been a priority since the first day of this administration. We have improved our approach to national risk assessment, bringing in greater external challenge, and how we communicate risks to everyone. Engagement with critical partners such as the voluntary, community and faith sectors is stronger, helping to put in place a humanitarian-centred approach to all resilience activities. We have developed national resilience standards to provide a consistent and progressive means for assessment and assurance at a local level and improved the national coordination of training and exercising, through:

• building a comprehensive cross-government crisis management training programme, now already one of the largest in the world and a foundation for engagement with academia, business, frontline public bodies and the voluntary sector

• a refreshed suite of National Occupational Standards that will be published in April 2025, to accompany the launch of the UK Resilience Academy, providing clear and consistent requirements for resilience and emergencies training qualifications

47. We have strengthened our resilience structures within government. There is a single Cabinet Committee that has oversight of all resilience matters. The National Situation Centre has transformed access to data and analysis, and geospatial and open-source intelligence, in crises. It has access to data on high-rise buildings, including those at high risk.

48. We have led a substantial update of the Central Government Concept of Operations for Emergency Response and Recovery (HMG CONOPs) which is due for publication in spring 2025. As part of this refresh, we have provided greater clarity on the arrangements for activating central government’s crisis management arrangements, the corresponding responsibilities and governance structures, including Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBR), which are established as part of activation. In our national arrangements, we have also put greater emphasis on the need to take a humanitarian approach to response to effectively manage the disproportionate impacts of emergencies on vulnerable groups and to best use the expertise and capabilities of the voluntary and community sector.

49. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s (MHCLG) Resilience and Recovery Directorate is responsible for local coordination and has 24-hour cover to respond to emergencies, fielding Government Resilience Officers to multi-agency Local Resilience Forum (LRF) meetings. We have significantly adapted training, established a policy and strategy function to lead on resilience reform and bolstered data and analysis functions. We are also working to strengthen information flows between the local and national tier.

50. We established a Central Response and Coordination Unit to work across MHCLG to develop plans and capability within policy teams on risks such as community tension, local government cyber-attacks and building safety. MHCLG and the Home Office have each revised their respective department’s major fires protocol, ensuring effective join-up across departmental boundaries. These arrangements have been tested through internal and cross-departmental exercises and in response to residential building fires.

51. In 2018, there was an external review of Home Office critical incident management capability to strengthen arrangements for managing non-terrorism related critical incidents. This resulted in the creation of Home Office Central Crisis Command, working to support Home Office business areas in responding to cross-cutting crises and in crisis response and preparedness.

Chapter 3: Our commitment to go further

52. This government is committed to ensuring the reforms made since 2017 are implemented effectively and contribute to long-lasting change and improved outcomes for residents across the country. While important progress has been made, there is more we can and must do. The terrible events of 14 June 2017 and the shocking findings from the Inquiry’s Phase 2 report have brought a difficult truth into sharp focus: due to many years of deep-rooted and widespread failure, trust in the regulatory system has been undermined.

53. That trust can only be re-established through widespread reform that is ambitious and that people can see is effective. The Inquiry must catalyse a shift in safety and quality of our housing for everyone, including the most vulnerable. We will bolster the systems and institutions responsible for delivering and regulating safe and high-quality homes: an essential part of the journey towards a future in which everyone has access to a decent, safe, secure and affordable home.

54. The Inquiry and our response together lay the foundations for long-term reforms to create better building and fire safety systems that deliver better outcomes for residents across the country. We will ensure these systems are reliable, clear and well regulated, so that all homes being built, refurbished or retrofitted are not only safe, but of the quality that people deserve. We also commit to reforms that will ensure residents’ needs are heard and prioritised within a fair and trustworthy system, that they have the power to make decisions and change their circumstances, are not unfairly financially burdened and that their lives are not adversely affected by the buildings they live in. We will ensure that expectations and accountabilities are clear for all involved in designing, building and maintaining buildings across the country.

55. Alongside addressing each of the Inquiry’s 58 recommendations individually, today we set out a long-term vision to reset the implicit contract between the government, the housing sector, our fire and rescue authorities and their services and the public. In practice, this means we will take decisive action to put residents at the heart of the system; reform the construction product system, starting with the publication of a green paper today; create clear standards and expectations; have competent professionals, trades and emergency responders; ensure clear accountabilities and enforcement and deliver change together with our partners, including cultural change. This multi-pronged approach will ensure that our previously fragmented system is coherent and effective.

56. Achieving this requires continuing change in culture and behaviour from those who develop, procure, design, build and manage buildings across the built environment, as well as the government, its bodies and institutions and the emergency services. We must work together to do things differently so residents can recognise that the system works for them, and investors and developers can have confidence in a regulatory system that helps the sector to thrive.

57. This is the government’s case for change. It is the driving force behind our reforms that we are committed to deliver. We have already taken urgent action and committed ourselves to stretching targets. Later this year, we will publish a long-term housing strategy which builds on the reforms we have already announced and will set out our vision for a housing system where everyone has a decent, safe, secure and affordable home. We are working closely and collaboratively with the sector to inform the strategy so that it works for residents and delivers meaningful change.

Chapter 4: Residents at the heart of the system

58. Above all, residential buildings must meet the needs of those that live in them. Through our strong renters’ rights legislation, including extending Awaab’s Law, this government is stepping in to make this happen. But there must be a renewed focus so that those designing, constructing and maintaining buildings and those providing services always put residents at the centre of their decisions. Through both the Inquiry’s recommendations and wider findings, it is clear that the residents of Grenfell Tower were not treated with the respect and dignity that they deserved, their homes were not safe and they were not listened to or given the right information when they raised concerns. Residents across the country must be able to trust the system to deliver safe homes. Everyone deserves access to redress when things go wrong. All residents should be treated with dignity, and their views and experiences should be at the heart of decision-making by landlords and government.

Respect for residents

59. The events in 2017 showed us the awful consequences when we forget that buildings exist for people, and that those people understand their own homes better than anyone else. Too many voices, especially those of social tenants, still go unheeded. This government will ensure that the injustices the Grenfell tragedy exposed are put right. Those voices will be heard.

60. The Inquiry did not directly make recommendations for RBKC, but it is clear that much needed to change. RBKC has been clear it failed in some of its most fundamental duties to keep residents safe, to listen to and act upon their concerns, and to respond effectively when disaster struck and has apologised unreservedly. The council has committed to meaningful change which is felt by residents. They have taken steps towards this since 2017 and recent commitments in their response to the Inquiry and to an independent review of culture and independent advisory panel are welcome, but, as they acknowledge, levels of trust between the council and some of its residents, especially those in the immediate community, remains low. The government is taking an active interest in seeing this improve and has challenged RBKC to become an exemplar Council as a fitting legacy to the tragedy. We will continue to hold RBKC to account on their commitments to the community.

61. The residents of Grenfell Tower were failed by those who were responsible for serving, protecting them and advocating for them in the many years leading up to, on the night of and in the aftermath of the tragedy. Too little has changed since. The coroner’s report into the tragic death of Awaab Ishak in 2020 and subsequent reports by the Housing Ombudsman highlight that this lack of respect for social tenants and lack of transparency is not confined to the residents of Grenfell Tower. The Housing Ombudsman investigation into Rochdale Boroughwide Housing found a pattern of exclusion and marginalisation based on particular cultural identities, including those for whom English is a second language, disabled people and residents with other additional needs.

62. Since the tragedy, we have heard from tenants across the country who tell us that they have had similar experiences. We have listened when tenants have told us how important it is to feel respected, to have opportunities to engage meaningfully with their landlord, to be consulted when decisions are made about housing delivery and to be able to access redress when things go wrong.

63. All residents must be treated with fairness and respect and have a strong voice with their landlord. This is at the centre of the Regulator of Social Housing’s new Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard, which requires all registered providers of social housing to treat their tenants with fairness and respect and to take action so that the services they provide deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants. They are required to understand the diverse needs of their tenants, including those arising from protected characteristics and language barriers. The standard also requires landlords to listen to their residents’ views and take them into account in their decision-making. Landlords must provide a wide range of meaningful opportunities for tenants to influence and scrutinise their strategies, policies and services. Landlords must provide accessible information and support that meets the diverse needs of tenants so that all who wish to can make use of these opportunities. This includes allowing tenants to be supported by an advocate in their interactions.

64. Under the new consumer regulatory regime, the Regulator of Social Housing will actively seek assurances that social housing providers are taking action to meet these requirements and hold those who are not to account. We are also addressing the behaviours and attitudes that have contributed to these issues by introducing practical interventions to reform our systems and put residents back at their very heart. This includes a new Competence and Conduct regulatory standard for social housing staff.

Giving residents more rights and supporting them to use them

65. To support residents to exercise their rights and hold their landlords to account, we are extending the Four Million Homes resident training programme, which offers training and information to residents about their rights and how best to engage with their landlords. We are also taking forward the Make Things Right communications campaign, to ensure we continue to raise awareness of the right to redress and how residents can make a complaint. We are extending the Social Housing Resident Panel which gives social housing tenants a stronger voice at national level, rightly enabling them to influence government policies to improve social housing. We are committed to listening to social housing residents as we develop policy, publishing what they tell us, and learning from their experiences to ensure our reforms lead to the changes that matter most to them. We will set out further measures to strengthen tenants’ voices and champion best practice in the social housing sector as part of our long-term housing strategy later in 2025.

Giving all residents a voice

66. Beyond the significant reforms already underway in social housing, we will continue to ensure all residents’ voices are better heard. Mechanisms such as tenant panels, surveys, correspondence and local authority engagement channels have been honed and developed since 2017 to provide opportunities for residents to raise concerns. We must continue to go further to tackle where there are fragmented systems, barriers to access for vulnerable groups and inconsistent feedback and follow-up. We must make sure that we drive culture change for the organisations responsible for providing these services.

67. It is our priority to address these gaps across all housing tenures, whilst recognising the significant progress made in social housing, particularly improving residents’ ability to access existing channels and considering how their rights may be further enhanced, including in law. We are committed to exploring further reforms to deliver systemic change to how residents’ voices are heard and reliably acted upon, ensuring residents receive consistent follow-up and can track resolution with clear timelines. We will seek to improve accessibility on grievance reporting mechanisms, encourage direct resident participation and ensure diverse representation in resident panels and surveys to reflect the voices of all residents, across all tenures and populations. These improvements are essential to rebuild trust in the government and the housing sector, ensuring that lessons from the Inquiry lead to meaningful change for all residents to be heard and listened to.

Chapter 5: Construction Product system reform

68. Alongside the findings from the Inquiry, the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety by Dame Judith Hackitt in 2018 (the Hackitt Review) and the Independent Review of the Construction Product Testing Regime by Paul Morrell OBE and Annelise Day KC in 2023 (the Morrell-Day Review) revealed widespread and systemic failures of the regulatory and oversight regime for construction products.

69. These failures include: insufficient focus on product safety within the existing regulatory regime; uneven coverage of the regulatory regime, with only one third of construction products covered; a lack of rigour and capacity in key institutions responsible for testing and certifying products and conflicts of interest not properly managed; poor product information and tolerance within the sector of misleading marketing and false claims about products. Failures were underpinned by insufficient enforcement and routes to redress. Nowhere is this clearer than the shocking finding from the Inquiry that there had been “systematic dishonesty” by those who made and sold the rainscreen cladding panels and insulation products, which was a significant reason for their installation on Grenfell Tower. In short, the systems that should have ensured public safety failed to do so, allowing unsafe products to be inappropriately used and poorly installed. This government will not allow these failures to continue. Residents across the country must be able to trust that their homes, and the products used to build and repair them, are safe.

70. Some action has been taken since the tragedy at Grenfell Tower, but this government is clear that this has been insufficient to address the system-wide failures identified by the Inquiry and the two independent reviews. This includes banning the use of combustible materials in and on the external walls of buildings over 18 metres and establishing the National Regulator for Construction Products (NRCP) in 2021. The NRCP, set up in the Office for Product Safety and Standards (which sits within the Department for Business and Trade), has focussed on fostering the culture change that is needed within the construction product industry, through enforcing compliance, educating the industry and influencing their decision-making. Market surveillance across the construction products sector has increased and resulted in enforcement action that has, for example, removed or prevented supply of non-compliant insulation products, fire-retardant plywood and toughened glass.

71. However, further reform is needed to respond fully to the findings of the Inquiry and independent reviews. On 2 September 2024, the government announced an extension to the recognition of CE marking for construction products and committed to system-wide reform. We have taken the next step in delivering that promise by publishing a construction products green paper. This sets out our proposals for system-wide reform of the construction products sector, the regulatory regime that governs it and the institutions that must fulfil their responsibilities in assuring safe products that can be safely used. These proposals seek to address the systemic failures that led to the tragedy and set the path to fulfilling our ambition to ensure that construction products are safe and used safely now and over the coming decades.

72. Through proposals within the green paper, we are seeking to embed strong accountability and oversight. To this end, we set out reforms to the key institutions that support the construction products regulatory regime to ensure rigour, independence and transparency across those responsible for the testing and certification of products. Our proposals include requiring all Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs) to be licensed by the regulator to enable them to provide conformity assessment services and to be subject to a statutory code including obligations in relation to conflicts of interest and mandatory data reporting requirements. We also explore ways to boost testing capacity, including potentially in the public sector.

73. The reforms seek to make sure that manufacturers, distributors and other economic operators have clearer accountability and take their responsibility to market products in a clear and honest manner seriously. They include measures to require the provision of test results and clear and honest information about a product’s performance, including assessing its suitability for use.

74. Additionally, we will establish a Construction Library as the platform to make information such as test results available and to provide wider material such as reports on serious fires and academic papers. We will also introduce greater transparency to claims made by manufacturers, with tighter rules around marketing and increased traceability of information.

75. We also set out measures to expand the national regulator’s powers for surveillance throughout the whole system and clarify its roles and responsibilities. We propose stronger powers to enable it to enforce the rules and take action more effectively when they are broken. Measures will equip the national regulator with the tools needed to enforce the new requirements.

76. More widely, we are proposing improvements to the regulatory framework for products. We will bring all products into the regulatory regime by introducing a proportionate, risk-based general safety requirement to address the products that currently sit outside the construction products regulatory regime. We will complement this with reforms to products covered by Construction Product Regulations (CPR). Noting that the EU regime is introducing greater requirements to drive product safety, we will be guided by the overarching principle of consistency with the revised EU Construction Product Regime (published in December 2024) where this delivers our objectives for reform.

77. The publication of the green paper marks the start of a formal consultation and a period of active engagement with residents and the sector to ensure that we achieve ambitious reforms and get the detail right. We recognise that the construction products system is complex and the proposals set out in the green paper are wide-reaching. We are realistic that the system-wide change that is needed will not happen overnight. However, in publishing the green paper today, we are signalling our intention to address the effectiveness of the institutions that should be overseeing the behaviour of those who manufacture, test and use products, and the robustness of the system that oversees them. In doing so, we are taking significant steps towards rebuilding trust in construction products and instigating a generational shift in the safety of these products.

Chapter 6: Clear standards and expectations

78. Residents should be able to trust that the buildings they live in meet the standards as described and that action will be taken to bring them into compliance where standards are not met. A fragmented regulatory system has developed that does not achieve the best outcomes for residents and communities. Without reliable and consistent guidance, standards and regulation, we cannot trust that all our buildings and the products they are made from are safe, healthy, resilient and sustainable. Our regulatory regime must leave no doubt about the standards that are expected, who is responsible for delivering them and how they can be accurately assessed, so that residents, investors and developers can trust in a regulatory system that helps the sector to thrive. Clear standards should provide clear expectations of what industry should do and what residents should expect of the buildings they live in. Regulatory decisions should be predictable and regulators should be able to effectively and efficiently target their compliance and enforcement activity on those who are trying to shirk their responsibilities. Equally, those who want to do the right thing should be confident in the likely outcome of regulatory decisions.

The definition of a higher-risk building

79. As recommended by the Inquiry, we acknowledge that the definition of a higher-risk building should be reviewed, in particular to ensure the risk to vulnerable people arising from buildings is effectively managed, noting this will take time to complete carefully and thoroughly. The current scope of the higher-risk regime was subject to public consultation and extensive stakeholder engagement as part of reviews, and engagement will continue. We have worked with the Building Safety Regulator to carry out an initial review, which considers the infancy of the regime and the limited existing evidence base on which to identify and assess further risks. An ongoing review will help strengthen the building system, reassure residents and identify whether the list of buildings currently subject to the enhanced regulatory oversight and requirements of the higher-risk regime should be amended in any way. Plans for this ongoing review will be set out in summer 2025.

Approved Documents and Approved Document B

80. In December 2024, we announced a fundamental review of the Approved Documents, to centre on how they are produced, updated and communicated. Alongside this, the Building Safety Regulator will put Approved Document B under continuous review, notwithstanding improvements and changes implemented since 2017.

81. The changes to Building Regulations and statutory guidance that have been put in place since 2017 have strengthened the building safety regime for new construction. Putting Approved Document B into continuous review, and considering accessibility, utility and coherence of the entire set of Approved Documents, will ensure that statutory guidance on the safety and standard of buildings, not just fire safety, will take into account advances in modern construction techniques, materials and technologies. A cultural shift towards safer buildings and a clear and well-regulated regime for new building work will ensure residents can trust it to deliver for them.

82. The Building Safety Regulator will launch a consultation on further changes to Approved Document B in autumn 2025. Importantly, our review will ensure that guidance on how new construction should meet the requirements of building regulations is clear. People with academic, professional and practical experience will be integral to how statutory guidance is drawn up in future. New materials, techniques and technologies will be reflected in revised Approved Documents and we will consider how they might affect compartmentation, design strategy, structural design, fire spread and evacuation strategies. Approved Documents will recognise the limitations of applying generic advice to special situations; where the expertise of a qualified fire engineer or other professional is needed, it should be sought.

Gas valves

83. The Inquiry heard evidence about the challenges of accessing pipeline isolation valves which enabled the supply of gas to be shut off to Grenfell Tower. We agree with the Inquiry’s findings that accessibility and functionality of such valves is key to ensuring health and safety by stopping gas supplies in an emergency. Whilst inspections every three years may be appropriate, there may be other situations where inspections should be more frequent or where a longer interval is suitable. We also recognise that the interrelationships between gas network operators, building owners, accountable persons and landowners are key to identifying who is charged with enabling access when needed, and how any issues which are identified during these inspections are quickly resolved. We will work to understand these complex relationships to ensure that measures are in place to access, inspect and maintain pipeline isolation valves at appropriate intervals in order to ensure that they can be used in an emergency.

Clearer standards for social housing properties

84. We will legislate in the coming months to require social landlords to carry out stringent electrical safety checks at least every five years, as well as mandatory appliance inspections on all electrical appliances that are provided by the landlord. These changes will help protect social residents from the dangers of poor electrical safety.

85. We have committed to bring Awaab’s Law into force in the social rented sector through a phased approach from October 2025. Named after Awaab Ishak, the law sets requirements for landlords to investigate and repair serious hazards within specific timeframes, so that residents can be assured that serious problems that could affect their health will be dealt with swiftly. Further, we will be consulting on the introduction of a new Decent Homes Standard and Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) so that landlords are clear what requirements they must meet to ensure all homes are safe, decent and warm.

86. These reforms will form a crucial part of our plan to improve standards for all residents in the long-term housing strategy. This will ensure that landlords are clear on their responsibilities and that the regulatory system works to support and protect tenants when standards are not met.

Private rented sector standards

87. In the private rented sector, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has launched a consultation on MEES. This seeks views on raising MEES in the private rented sector to Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) C rating or equivalent by 2030. The proposed changes will make it easier and cheaper for tenants to keep their properties warm, lift tenant households out of fuel poverty and lower carbon emissions as part of the government’s broader strategy. The consultation closes on 2 May 2025.

88. We are also taking action to improve standards for privately rented homes through the Renters’ Rights Bill, which is currently before Parliament. The Bill will allow us to apply a Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector for the first time and provide local authorities with effective and proportionate enforcement powers. It will also extend Awaab’s Law to the privately rented sector, enabling us to set clear legal expectations about the timeframes within which landlords in the private rented sector must make homes safe where they contain serious hazards.

89. The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 require that private rented sector landlords have property electrics checked at least every 5 years by a properly qualified person. The electrics must meet standards and landlords must give their tenants proof of this.

Chapter 7: Competent professionals and trades

90. Poor culture, a lack of integrity and malpractice jeopardise public safety. The Inquiry set out a range of findings that point to lack of adequate training across a number of professions, with multiple institutions identified as having insufficient procedures that were not always rigorous, technically accurate or aligned to their own policies. This cannot continue. We must create and nurture a thriving, professional and skilled workforce that upholds high standards of performance, competence and integrity across all professions involved in designing, constructing and maintaining buildings and those providing services to residents, including fire services.

Competence within Social Housing

91. We will direct the Regulator of Social Housing to set standards for the competence and conduct of staff, to raise the bar and professionalise the social housing sector so that all residents are always treated with respect and given the support and services they need. This standard will require senior managers and executives to have, or be working towards, a relevant qualification.

92. The new requirements will mean those who work in the sector must have the right skills, experience and behaviours to deliver a high quality, respectful service. Social housing residents should be able to trust that they can raise their ideas and concerns and will be listened to, treated with empathy and respect, and that their landlord will work with them to ensure good quality services.

Building Control

93. The reforms that have already been made to building control have supported improvements, in particular that building control work can only be carried out by individuals who have demonstrated their competence to, and are registered with, the Building Safety Regulator, whether they are in public or private sector organisations. The Building Safety Regulator is also now the building control authority for all decisions relating to higher-risk buildings, meaning these decisions have already been taken out of the private sector.

94. Nevertheless, it is important that we thoroughly consider what more should be done to ensure a consistent and reliable service. We will be establishing an independent panel to consider both how to address conflicts and commercial interests in building control and whether there needs to be a change to the delivery model, such as moving further towards a national model of delivery for all building control decisions.

95. Work is underway to identify and appoint the members of the independent panel and this will be completed and published shortly. To maintain momentum on this important work, we will ask the panel to make its recommendations by October 2025. We will consider them carefully and set out our proposals in 2025.

96. We will work with the independent panel, the Building Safety Regulator and the wider building control sector to establish a shared long-term and financially sustainable vision for building control services, so that they are able to provide assurance, inspection and enforcement activities that support housebuilding, cladding remediation, decent homes, net zero and social infrastructure ambitions.

97. There needs to be a significant increase in capacity in the building control profession to deliver those ambitions. The government is working with the sector to support the recruitment and training for significantly more building inspectors, building on the existing £16.5 million of government funding. We will deliver further improvement in standards and professionalism to improve competence across all building control functions.

Fire engineers

98. The Inquiry highlighted the lack of consistency in qualification and approach by fire engineers in ensuring the safety of life in the design and delivery of safe buildings. The fire engineer recommendations are far-reaching and important. We agree with all these recommendations and acknowledge the pivotal role fire engineers play in delivering safe buildings. We also acknowledge that the lack of regulation, the function of a fire engineer and the title ‘fire engineer’ must be addressed if we are to ensure that only those with appropriate skills and qualifications undertake fire engineering work on buildings. We must deliver a robust training and education framework and we must properly regulate to ensure proficiency and professionalism. This must be done with help from experts in the sector. This is why we are engaging a panel of experts and academics in the field, to consider how we best achieve this ambition that fire engineers play their part in driving safety in design and delivery and to attract and retain skilled professionals. We plan to set out how we will deliver this by autumn 2025.

99. We agree with the Inquiry that a fire strategy should be part of the information submitted through the higher-risk building control regime to ensure fire risks are effectively managed throughout the building’s life cycle. The Building Safety Regulator’s guidance sets the expectation that the new information requirements under the regime can only be met by submitting a fire strategy and assumptions about the occupants of the building. In March 2025, we are making these expectations clearer in the guidance to support sector understanding on what is required.

Fire risk assessors

100. For too long, fire risk assessors have operated with no consistent standards or oversight, resulting in a culture of complacency without due regard to competence, as evidenced at Grenfell Tower. We intend to bring into law mandatory competence requirements for fire risk assessors to perform this vital role, independently verified by a UKAS-accredited certification body and overseen by a regulator. Certification bodies will be required to use standards currently being developed by the British Standards Institution, against which they must assess competence.

101. By placing fire risk assessors on a more professional footing, setting a common standard for competence and creating a clear pathway into the profession, we will be able to build a pipeline of future talent for this critical role and attract a more diverse workforce. With a robust certification system and a commissioning process that requires competence to be verified, we will ensure that only fire risk assessors with appropriate skills, knowledge and experience are employed.

College of Fire and Rescue

102. The Inquiry recommended that the government establish a College of Fire and Rescue to provide the highest quality education and training to our firefighters, underpinned by the best research. Building on the existing suite of national fire standards, this body could also ensure that there are national standards in place for equipment, policies and procedures, so that fire and rescue services can be as efficient and effective as possible. It could offer tangible benefits by bringing greater consistency to the sector, as well as by helping to drive the continuing development and performance of the fire and rescue profession.

103. We will strengthen our proposals by engaging with and hearing from a wide range of people and organisations. Therefore, we will initially address this recommendation by consulting on the most appropriate functions for it to fulfil and how it could best be structured and delivered. An early priority will be to agree with sector partners what real-world outcomes a successful college would deliver, to inform all further work. The proposals will form an important part of consultation on the government’s wider programme for reform and modernisation of the fire and rescue sector. The intention of these reforms will be to bring about meaningful change that will set a solid foundation for the work of fire and rescue services for years to come.

Licensing of principal contractors

104. The Inquiry recommended introducing a licensing scheme operated by the construction regulator for principal contractors wishing to undertake the construction or refurbishment of higher-risk buildings. The government accepts this recommendation and will work with the sector to consider how a licensing scheme for principal contractors on higher-risk buildings can work and the timescales for its introduction.

105. It also recommended that it should be a legal requirement that any application for building control approval for the construction or refurbishment of a higher-risk building (Gateway 2) is supported by a personal undertaking from a director or senior manager of the principal contractor to take all reasonable care to ensure that on completion and handover, the building is as safe as is required by the building regulations.

106. There is no easy way for a regulator to know if those being employed to work on higher-risk buildings are appropriately skilled, have the right knowledge, experience and behaviours, or are using the right materials. The Inquiry’s view was this should be the responsibility of the principal contractor as the entity responsible for employing people, purchasing materials, and utilising materials onsite. That is why in the Building Safety Act 2022 we introduced new dutyholder requirements, which came into force in October 2023. These clarify that the principal contractor’s role is to ensure that building work is completed in accordance with the approved design and building regulations.

107. This regime was intended to go some way to achieving the same outcome as the Inquiry has proposed, and its impact needs to be fully assessed. The new provisions state that everyone involved in a building project must ensure building safety and compliance with regulations. The dutyholders covered by the new regime include clients, principal designers, designers, principal contractors and contractors. There are significant sanctions attached to this regime and breaching building regulations can result in an unlimited fine and/or up to two years in prison.

108. We will therefore review the impact of the new dutyholder regime in relation to higher-risk buildings from October 2025 and publish our findings by autumn 2026.  This will include working with the sector to determine how we can go further, including introducing a licensing scheme in law where a licence may be granted on the basis of criteria aligned with the dutyholder requirements and can be withdrawn for failure to achieve compliance with the regulations.

Principal designers

109. To further promote the required change in culture and behaviours to ensure high-quality and safe homes, subject to consultation, we will require the principal designer to sign a declaration that they have complied with their duties, including taking all reasonable steps to ensure the designs comply with building regulations, when designs are submitted to the Building Safety Regulator to secure approval to build. This is part of responding to the Inquiry’s recommendations regarding the design process of higher-risk buildings and builds on a similar requirement in building regulations when building work is complete, emphasising the importance of those leading projects to be accountable for achieving compliance and to ensure their designs give due consideration to occupants and those using buildings.

Improving the training system

110. We will work across government, including with Skills England, to ensure the training system gives young people and experienced staff the skills and competence needed for the future of construction. However, delivering this systematic change cannot be delivered by government alone. We are already working in partnership with industry to reform industry culture and practice, building on a recent industry-funded investment of £140 million to create 5,000 more high quality training places. We will set out more detail in our long-term housing strategy later this year.

Chapter 8: Clear accountability and effective enforcement

111. Responsibility and oversight for the built environment and residential buildings is scattered across local and central government, multiple government departments, regulators, fire and rescue services and bodies that are not accountable to government. Not only does this make it easier for non-compliance to be missed and for there to be a lack of clarity about who should take responsibility for issues and risks, but it also limits productivity, efficiency and innovation. There must be clearer mechanisms for accountability to ensure residents are never left to bear the consequences of wrongdoing through risk and poor outcomes. There must be clarity on roles, responsibilities and accountabilities across all professions involved in designing, constructing and maintaining buildings and those providing services to residents, including fire and rescue services, so that residents can be confident that the system truly works for them. We must also support clients in making informed choices when procuring these services.

Improving government structures

112. We have listened to the Inquiry’s recommendations on how fire safety is structured within government, and as a first step the Prime Minister announced on 13 February 2025 that he will move responsibility for all fire-related functions from the Home Office to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), where it will be co-located with building safety and emergency response functions under one Secretary of State. This will provide for a more coherent approach to keeping people safe from fire in their homes as part of the government’s wider building safety agenda. It also aligns with MHCLG’s role of coordinating cross-government assistance to local responders when emergencies occur. It will mean that there is a single lead government department for the response to and recovery from major residential fires.

113. The Home Office currently leads on all aspects of fire safety, strategy, reform, funding, resilience, pensions, analysis and the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate. These functions will all transfer from the Home Office to MHCLG. This will include the responsibility for delivering outstanding Phase 1 recommendations relating to Residential Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (RPEEPs), to support fire safety of disabled and other mobility-impaired residents. This structural reset has benefits across fire and rescue, building safety, construction product safety, emergencies management and related capabilities and reduces potential for oversight or duplication.

114. In making this change, we will maintain a focus on nurturing strong working relationships, increased efficiencies and close collaborations across all emergency services, especially those across police and fire and rescue services relating to security and resilience. The Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP), overseen by the Home Office, form the foundation for effective joint working across responder organisations, in particular in relation to major incident response. The Home Office, in partnership with the multi-agency JESIP team, will continue to work across the fire and rescue, police and ambulance services to ensure enhanced collaboration across the emergency services. Sponsorship of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) will remain within the Home Office. A new governance model will be built to facilitate engagement with and commissioning of HMICFRS by MHCLG on Fire inspections, with a Memorandum of Understanding in place to ensure ways of working are clear.

115. A holistic approach to fire safety, one which understands its contribution to communities and wider government objectives, will enable closer working between fire and building safety and with building control, fire and rescue authorities and local authorities at both government and local level. Combined with the capability in those partners to identify and respond to new risks and known ones, this will help to ensure that residents experience a more ‘joined up’ and responsive regulatory framework which allows them to feel safe and be safe in their homes and in the wider built environment.

116. The Department for Business and Trade already reports to the Deputy Prime Minister in respect of construction products regulation, meaning that all these functions will now be aligned with our wider considerations on construction product regulatory reform. We will continue to closely examine how fire safety functions that are exercised in the Department for Business and Trade will play their part in delivering the vision and reform set out in this government response.

Reform of regulatory institutions: a single regulator for construction and a Chief Construction Adviser 

117. The government agrees with the Inquiry’s recommendation to create a ‘single construction regulator’ for the building system. The case for a single regulator is strong. The Inquiry exposed a failed system in which trust and confidence had fundamentally broken down: regulation had become too complex and fragmented, and risks and issues identified in different areas of the system were left unconnected and unaddressed as no-one had a ‘big picture’ view. Bad actors cynically exploited this fragmentation and played off different regulatory standards against each other. Lack of enforcement reinforced a vicious cycle in which they could evade accountability and pass risk onto residents. The Inquiry’s report has now identified new areas of the system which are not regulated and must be.

118. A regulator with oversight across the whole building system will be better equipped to take on these new responsibilities and prevent gaps and inconsistencies. Brigading responsibility for regulating construction products, professionals and monitoring operation of building regulations provides the best basis for a regulatory system where standards are clear, regulatory regimes do not compete, and industry has clarity and certainty on how they must conduct themselves. This coherence will encourage investment confidence, which is necessary to meet our ambitions for housebuilding and quality. A regulator with visibility across the entire system will be able to draw together evidence and identify patterns of risks and issues, rather than relying on single points of communication between regulatory bodies. Unified enforcement teams will act more quickly and forcefully to ensure sanctions bite, including swift criminal action where there is evidence of offences.

119. Significant regulatory reforms have taken place since the tragedy at Grenfell Tower, including the Building Safety Act 2022, the creation of two new regulators, the Building Safety Regulator and the National Regulator for Construction Products in the Office for Product Safety and Standards, and a framework to support the cultural change required of industry. The work of both regulators and the paradigm shift in how regulation is delivered and how industry demonstrates compliance with building regulations is at an early stage. We are committed to strengthening the foundations of our current system, so the progress made since 2017 is not lost.

120. This government is determined to go beyond simplifying regulatory institutions. We must be confident that this reform will result in watershed change for residents: a regulatory system capable of rebuilding trust in the building system which has been lost.

121. Our future regulator must learn from the failures exposed by the Inquiry and avoid creating conflicts of interest. The single regulator will deliver the functions set out in the recommendation with two exceptions. We do not believe it is appropriate for the single regulator to undertake testing and certification or issue certificates of compliance for construction products. This would create a new conflict of interest within the regulator: it would set the rules, test and issue certificates against those rules, and police compliance with the rules. Instead, we will strengthen oversight of Conformity Assessment Bodies through reforms to the construction products regime.

122. We must put in place appropriate checks and balances to prevent single points of failure where serious risks go unaddressed. This is why we agree with the Inquiry’s recommendation to create a new Chief Construction Adviser to advise the Secretary of State. In the first instance, they will lead work with industry, residents, regulators and experts to design the single regulator model. The model of one-way, government-driven activity, not based in a sense of collective responsibility and accountability, has not worked. Industry feels accountable too. The Chief Construction Adviser will lead this process of shared responsibility, welcoming those in industry who are already driving positive change and holding to account those who continue to lag behind.

123. We will publish a Regulatory Reform Prospectus in autumn 2025 which will set out our plans for regulatory reform. We intend to bring forward the primary legislation to establish the single regulator when parliamentary time allows, with full implementation shortly after. We will proceed carefully and in partnership with industry, residents, regulators and experts, ensuring that we establish the new regulatory regime quickly while building on recent reforms and strengthening the current system.

124. We will consult on proposals to strengthen the investigation of serious building safety incidents. We will examine all options for going further to ensure serious incidents are investigated quickly and transparently, including a standalone organisation to provide an additional point of insight, evidence and challenge so that industry learns vital lessons to prevent future incidents. This work will take account of the new arrangements being introduced by the Building Safety Regulator for voluntary occurrence reporting.

The regulation of Social Housing

125. The Regulator of Social Housing now routinely inspects large registered providers of social housing, publishes judgements showing how they are performing and will hold landlords to account where they are not delivering the outcomes set out in the consumer standards. A significant element of these inspections is determining how social housing providers give their tenants meaningful opportunities to shape decision making. The Regulator takes a range of approaches to directly engaging with tenants during inspections, including meetings, interviews, focus groups and estate tours.

126. While early inspections have found evidence of good practice at some providers, they have also exposed examples of non-compliance with safety requirements such as electrical and gas safety checks and a failure to carry out meaningful resident engagement. Where non-compliance is identified, the Regulator will work with landlords to ensure that improvements are actioned quickly. The publication of regulatory judgements following inspections ensures that residents can see how their landlord is performing and hold their landlords to account on areas where they need to improve. Residents are the experts in their homes and, as with Grenfell Tower, the residents will often know best what the issues are from their lived experience. The new regulatory regime will ensure that social housing providers listen to their tenants and take action where they raise issues.

127. The new regulatory regime seeks to drive up transparency in the social housing sector, to ensure that tenants have greater access to information about how their landlords are performing, including through new Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs). The first year of TSMs data, published by the Regulator in November 2024, showed that 70% of residents living in low-cost rental accommodation, such as social rent and affordable rent, were satisfied with the overall service from their landlord. The data also draws out greater insights on the areas landlords need to improve, with the first year of results showing that a significant proportion of landlords need to focus on driving up the quality of their repairs services, and dealing with complaints promptly and fairly.

128. Landlords cannot be complacent. Where problems are identified and it is clear social landlords are not meeting the outcomes set by the standards, the Regulator will work closely with them to ensure they put in place plans to address this. If the Regulator determines a provider cannot or will not make the changes necessary, there is a range of formal enforcement powers, including fines, at their disposal. Social landlords should also take steps to ensure residents understand their improvement plans, to increase trust in the system and ensure that their views are taken into account.

129. We will direct the Regulator of Social Housing to introduce new Social Tenant Access to Information Requirements (STAIRs) for private providers of social housing, to enable residents to request information about their housing management. To address the gap in access to information for tenants of Tenant Management Organisations (TMOs), we will also extend the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act to cover TMOs. This will enable residents of TMOs to request access to information about the management of their homes in the same way as other local authority tenants. As a result of this extension of the coverage of the FOI Act and the introduction of STAIRs, every social tenant will have a route to access the information they need to hold their landlords to account. This will increase trust and transparency in the sector and support tenants in holding their landlords to account for providing quality homes and services. It will make it harder for landlords to withhold policy documents and reports from their residents and help to ensure they act with integrity at all times.

130. It will take time for the new social housing regulatory system and changes to redress mechanisms to deliver the sector-wide transformation that is needed. We are ambitious in our plans for social housing. We will keep the new system under review and have committed to evaluating its effectiveness by 2028, to ensure it is delivering the improvements needed to fundamentally shift how residents are treated and create a fair and trustworthy system with residents’ views and needs at its heart.

Making accountabilities clearer in social housing

131. We are determined to ensure that residents’ rights, the quality and safety of their accommodation and the services they receive are not compromised when landlords delegate management of housing services to third party organisations, as the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) did through Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO).

132. KCTMO was unusually both a TMO and an Arm’s Length Management Organisation (ALMO). Both models for delegating housing management are intended to put residents at the heart of decisions about the delivery of housing services, but the Inquiry’s findings show that was not the case at KCTMO. Residents were ignored and marginalised. Lines of accountability between RBKC and KCTMO were not as clear as they should have been. In some cases, information was deliberately concealed from the governing board and residents, to prevent them from holding KCTMO to account. The Inquiry did not express a view as to whether the current arrangements for governance and oversight of TMOs and ALMOs are sufficient, but it is right that the government considers this.

133. Earlier this year we launched a call for evidence on the governance and accountability arrangements for delegated management organisations, including TMOs and ALMOs, so that we can ensure residents have the right level of protections in place and that overall accountability lines are clear with the delegating local authority or housing associations. We will consider responses to the call for evidence before setting out next steps for a review of the existing arrangements for oversight of delegated management organisations. The review will identify what changes may be needed to existing arrangements, to ensure that residents know who is responsible for delivering their housing services, they can be confident that their housing management is fit for purpose, and that effective oversight and accountability is in place regardless of who delivers it.

Taking action against construction product manufacturers

134. The Inquiry’s Report was clear that one very significant reason why Grenfell Tower came to be clad in combustible materials was systematic dishonesty on the part of those who made and sold the rainscreen cladding panels and insulation products.

135. The government is taking action. The construction products regime must include deterrents to prevent the behaviours we saw as part of the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower. Having committed to reform in September 2024, our construction products green paper includes proposals to strengthen sanctions, penalties and liabilities against manufacturers.

136. In addition, procurement legislation has been reformed to enable government to take stronger and broader action in relation to supplier misconduct which we will, where appropriate, utilise to effectively hold organisations to account. The new Act allows us to investigate suppliers and, if certain grounds are met, to add their names to a published and centrally managed debarment list, which must be taken into account by contracting authorities across the public sector in awarding new contracts and undertaking new procurements.

137. The Cabinet Office is launching investigations into a number of organisations criticised by the Inquiry, using new debarment powers in the Procurement Act 2023, to establish whether professional misconduct has taken place. We will make decisions on these organisations at pace.

138. We want to act swiftly and decisively, and are committed, where appropriate, to pursuing meaningful action in respect of failings related to the Grenfell tragedy.

Chapter 9: Cultural change

139. The government must be a catalyst for wider systemic change. We must improve our own organisation if we are to drive positive change and rebuild trust in the system. The Inquiry report is a stark reminder of the responsibility that ministers and officials have to ensure that the interests of the people we serve are at the heart of everything we do. As a government, we must reflect on these important responsibilities. We are clear that industry should also deliver change. Leadership from industry is vital to increase the pace of cultural change across the construction sector and ensure those working within it feel empowered and emboldened to put people above profit.

Improving transparency and oversight of implementation of recommendations and other reports received by government

140. The Inquiry found that in the years leading up to the events of 14 June 2017, a number of recommendations concerning fire safety, including those made by the Lakanal House Coroner, were not adequately implemented by government, and that the department lost sight of others. A number of steps have already been taken to improve the tracking and oversight of recommendations, including the development of a comprehensive recommendations tracking system within MHCLG. However, we must do more.

141. The Inquiry recommended that it be made a legal requirement for the government to maintain a publicly accessible record of recommendations made by select committees, coroners and public inquiries. They recommended that scrutiny of its actions should be a matter for Parliament, to which it should be required to report annually. We accept this recommendation in principle and agree that there needs to be a more robust system in place to scrutinise the implementation of recommendations received by government. We are committed to improving the transparency and accessibility of inquiry recommendations and coronial Prevention of Future Deaths reports received by government, and the action taken in response to them, to ensure it is easier for the public to hold government to account, both in relation to this response and far beyond it.

142. Ministers and officials have heard directly from members of the Grenfell community about the importance of being able to hold government to account for the implementation of our response. The government has heard their calls, alongside others, such as those affected by COVID-19 and the Infected Blood scandal, for the introduction of a National Oversight Mechanism. We recognise this goes wider than the Grenfell tragedy and is an important issue to the Grenfell community and other families. We are closely considering this as part of our wider review of measures to strengthen the public inquiries system as a whole in the year ahead. The government will listen to the views of affected families as part of this.

Tracking Inquiry Recommendations

143. Public inquiries can shed light on injustices of the past, provide a means for those affected to finally have their voices heard, ensure that terrible disasters, tragedies or scandals are not repeated, and help to rebuild trust in national institutions. But too often, past governments have failed to act upon the recommendations of inquiries, leading to errors being repeated and more lives lost. Some have also responded to recommendations in a piecemeal and opaque way, which damages public confidence and fails the victims. This is why this government takes the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s recommendation seriously and is determined to be transparent and open in its response to all future inquiry recommendations.

144. To this end, the government will establish a publicly accessible record of all recommendations made by public inquiries since 2024. We will ensure that this becomes standard practice for all future public inquiry reports and we will consider putting the requirement to maintain such a record on a statutory footing. This is part of wider consideration of reforms to the frameworks around inquiries which is currently underway, led by the Minister for the Cabinet Office. We are considering this particularly within the context of both the establishment of the Independent Public Advocate and a statutory duty of candour, which are important additions to the wider system of administrative justice.

Tracking Coronial Prevention of Future Deaths Reports

145. Prevention of Future Deaths (PFD) reports are produced by coroners in relation to the investigation of individual deaths and raise areas of concern where the coroner believes that action could be taken to prevent or mitigate the risk of future deaths. As such, they play an important role in contributing to public safety. It is important to note that by law, coroners do not and cannot prescribe solutions, and therefore do not make recommendations on what action should be taken. These reports, alongside responses received from recipients, who are required to respond within 56 days of receiving a PFD, are already published on the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website.

146. However, we recognise that more needs to be done to improve accessibility to information from PFD reports and to ensure, particularly across government, that lessons are learned, disseminated as quickly and widely as possible and effectively monitored and evaluated. Work continues on these initiatives. Recent improvements to the PFD webpage have enhanced the user experience, including for those using assistive technology. Reports can now be searched for based on key words, themes on the issues being considered and by date.

147. The government is working with the Chief Coroner to identify ways to further improve the transparency and availability of the published reports and accountability for responses to them. As a first step, in November 2024, the Chief Coroner’s Office issued a revised list of key national stakeholders to all coroners, in order help ensure that PFD Reports are directed to the right recipients. The Chief Coroner has also instigated a process whereby PFD recipients who do not respond within the statutory deadline of 56 days, unless this is extended by the coroner, will be clearly identified online. We are grateful to the Chief Coroner for these positive steps and look forward to continued joint working on both this and the other key areas set out in this response.

148. The Ministry of Justice and the Chief Coroner’s Office have been working with Dr Georgia Richards at King’s College London to explore ways to improve learning from PFD reports. Dr Richards and her team of specialist academics have developed the Preventable Deaths Tracker website which utilises the PFD reports published by the Chief Coroner to generate a rich dataset for use by organisations across government, regulators and academia. This tool seeks to minimise premature deaths by enabling more learning which, in turn, contributes to improving public safety.

Tracking Select Committee Reports

149. This government recognises the essential value of parliamentary select committees in holding departments to account. We are committed to responding to select committee reports in a timely, transparent and thorough way. Parliament already publishes select committee reports and government responses, and rightly hold departments to account for following through on them.

Tracking progress against Grenfell Tower Inquiry Recommendations

150. Alongside the work to deliver the Inquiry’s recommendation on the public tracking of recommendations and wider inquiries reform, we are committed to being transparent in the way we report on progress against the delivery of the 58 recommendations made by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. A cross-government ministerial implementation board will meet at least quarterly to monitor the work that is being undertaken to complete the recommendations. The role of the board will be to ensure that government does not lose sight of the work to be done. They will scrutinise the pace of work, resolve any issues that are blocking delivery and approve the quarterly progress reports.

151. The progress reports will be published on GOV.UK and provide an update against each recommendation, showing if it is complete and summarising the work that has been done to deliver it. To improve access to this information, the updates will be translated into the 11 languages most commonly used within the Grenfell community. The reports will also update on any work to address Phase 1 recommendations. We will continue to publish progress reports until all accepted recommendations have been implemented. Alongside these quarterly reports, we will provide an annual update to Parliament to ensure wider scrutiny of the pace and direction of work.

The culture of the Civil Service

152. Officials must put the people they serve at the heart of policy-making.  The Inquiry heard that ‘that every decision, every act, omission, interpretation, understanding, practice, policy, protocol, affects someone somewhere, someone who is unknown and unseen, but who is an adored child, a beloved sister, a respected uncle, a needed mother’. We will endeavour to embed this into our approach to policy-making.

153. The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of all civil servants to uphold the Civil Service’s core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality. The department has disciplinary policies in place that are used where staff do not meet expected standards of conduct or performance.

154. The previous government signed up to the Charter for Families Bereaved Through Public Tragedy, now known as the Hillsborough Charter through which the government commits to placing the public interest above its own reputation, approaching public scrutiny with candour, honesty, and transparency, and assisting the search for truth. This government is taking further steps to put integrity and candour at the heart of public life. The Prime Minister has committed to implementing a ‘Hillsborough Law’ to place a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities to ensure that the truth is disclosed and prevent any cover ups. This is not just a law for the 97 victims of the Hillsborough Disaster and their families. It is for the Grenfell community and other families affected by other major incidents and scandals.

155. The Cabinet Office is currently developing a strategic plan for the future of the Civil Service. Realising a new vision for the Civil Service means changing how we work. This means shifting our organisational culture and making sure that civil servants across departments and across the country are embodying our shared values every day. We need to recognise that failings in our culture, as has been exposed by the Hillsborough, Infected Blood and Grenfell Inquiries, have had harmful impacts on the public and undermined trust in the public sector that we must address. This work is ongoing and the strategic plan looks at how the Civil Service drives a culture of openness and challenge, to put the public at the heart of delivering government priorities.

Processes within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

156. Although the Inquiry did not make any recommendations concerning MHCLG and its ways of working, the department is addressing the conclusions the Inquiry reached about how it operated, considering both processes and behaviour. Since 2017, within MHCLG we have been on a journey of continual improvement, working to ensure we are operating in a robust and effective manner.

157. We continue to focus on the importance of effective risk management. At MHCLG, the risk management framework is refreshed regularly, most recently in October 2024. The framework reinforces the importance of managing risk proactively and fostering a culture where consideration of risk is integral to delivery of the department’s activities. In practical terms, this means having effective processes in place to manage risks at all levels and to inform key areas of decision making. In their most recent report in 2024, the Government Internal Audit Agency stated that the department has a good risk infrastructure, operating, supporting, guiding and providing challenge to teams cross-department. Our approach has been independently endorsed by the Government Risk Profession. The department remains committed to further development through an action plan to improve risk management.

158. Another focus area is whistleblowing, where workers can report certain types of wrongdoing, when it is in the public interest. MHCLG has a comprehensive whistleblowing policy that reflects cross-government best practice. The policy is supported by multiple routes for staff to raise a concern, including the option to raise matters anonymously and with an external body. Each year the policy is tested against a cross-government standard and in January 2025 an internal audit concluded that “MHCLG has an effective approach to whistleblowing, including a clear and accessible policy and procedure for whistleblowing based on standard Civil Service policy. It has multiple communication channels and a culture that encourages people to raise concerns.” The policy is overseen by the department’s Audit & Risk Committee, which takes annual reports on the effectiveness of the policy.

Working in partnership with industry

159. This government is clear on our expectation for industry – the umbrella term for those who build, maintain and repair our homes so they are safe and secure: they must create a trustworthy culture that puts the safety of residents first. Industry played its part in the failures that led to the events of 14 June 2017, which exposed a system that was not fit for purpose and which was exploited, with lax oversight, poor competence and a lack of leadership. Industry leaders have consistently recognised that the sector failed and as a result have started to change.

160. We have made important improvements but, as the Inquiry’s report demonstrates, we have not gone far enough. Evolving an industry as large, multidimensional and complex as the built environment will require generational change from the highly visible representatives through to the skilled tradespeople on the ground and their supply chain.

161. A close working relationship between government and industry is vital to identify and advance considered reforms at pace. However, the way we have operated to date, where government sets standards and too many in industry fail to respond, or where industry highlights technical problems and government takes too long to respond, has not worked. This response must mark the start of a new relationship between government and industry that is based on transparency, clarity, collective responsibility and external scrutiny. The relationship must transition from defensive stakeholders talking at each other to working collaboratively and with a culture of challenge to identify the risks and opportunities in products, designing, building and maintaining of buildings and to develop standards and approaches that tackle them swiftly and proportionately, with clear accountabilities where commitments are not delivered. The government has a clear role to play in this process by holding actors in the system to account and effectively enforcing standards.

162. The government is committed to stewarding the highest standards of culture and behaviour. We expect industry to take more ownership for living up to the expectations that the public rightly have of them. Over the last seven years, we have seen some within industry step up to embrace and embody this leadership. For example, members of the Industry Consultative Group (formerly the Industry Response Group) and the Building Safety Regulator’s statutory committees have carefully considered the Inquiry’s findings and recommendations, actively supported the government’s policy-making and communicated the right, often difficult, messages to their members.

163. There is now emerging evidence of the beginnings of wider culture change, including revised operating procedures, established competence frameworks for key roles in the fire and construction sectors and a code for construction product information. This demonstrates the best of what those with influence in the sector can achieve. However, this leadership and responsibility has not been universal. Too often we hear of apathy, delayed uptake of initiatives or, worse, continuing practices that should have stopped years ago. There must be collective responsibility across the entire sector to identify and deliver solutions.

164. There is more that the government will do to facilitate transparent conversations with the right people and ensure expectations are clear. However, industry must take responsibility for communicating and educating themselves, their businesses and their investment and supply chains about the need for change. This new way of working, collective responsibility and cast-iron accountability for action, will go beyond the response to the Grenfell Inquiry. We must establish reform and rebuild trust in our built environment as our collective mission.

165. Where responsibility and accountability are shirked, government will use its enforcement powers to act. There can be no trade-offs in safety with speed or profit. Commercial practice and considerate development are mutually exclusive. We will work at pace to establish the right infrastructure to enable this collective responsibility, and we will establish the right mechanism to bring industry and government together to make decisions, track activities and enable reporting to hold our performance to account. We will ensure what we do matches what we say.

Chapter 10: Delivering together

Improving resilience, response and recovery

166. A large proportion of the residents of Grenfell Tower were from ethnic minorities. The Inquiry stated that it had seen some evidence of racial discrimination in the way in which some of the survivors and displaced residents were treated in the days immediately following the tragedy, at a time when they were at their most vulnerable. For many, their main source of support was local voluntary organisations who helped and provided basic needs where authorities failed. This was especially the case for survivors and residents with religious, cultural or social needs.

167. Local responders play important and essential roles in the most challenging of circumstances. Their presence, choices and actions are often the first thing that affected people see at a highly vulnerable time. The role of local partners is therefore essential in how we anticipate, assess and prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from crises and emergencies. While we have made improvements to strengthen our resilience and increase the country’s preparedness against a range of risks, there is more that we need to do together to ensure that we have the foundations in place to build a more resilient country, including strengthening local resilience and working between statutory responders and voluntary, community and faith groups. This is why the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is leading a resilience review, concluding in spring 2025, and we are working closely to ensure that local resilience is at the heart of this review.

168. We know that at Grenfell Tower, there was too little emphasis on the unique needs of different individuals and families. While anyone can be affected by the impact of an emergency, these impacts can fall unequally. This can stem from a variety of factors, including social, financial, physical and mental health, disability, and environmental causes. Recognising and addressing the diverse needs of individuals and communities, particularly those most at risk, is essential for effective emergency planning and response. We agree that a human-centred approach leads to more effective and inclusive responses, enhancing community resilience and recovery. We are committed to ensuring that our national and local emergency planning is more closely connected with our communities, that they can trust our emergency response will meet their needs and that we are more explicit in our guidance about what is expected, whether we are preparing for or in the midst of a response or recovery.

169. Vulnerability is a key focus of the government’s review of our approach to resilience. We are engaging with charitable, faith and other relevant representative organisations to understand how the reduction and prevention of disproportionate impacts to at-risk groups and persons can be better considered in resilience planning and policy.

170. More broadly, we are committed to reviewing legislation and guidance to make sure that it is clear about what is expected of local partners and national government before, during and after a response. We have already made progress by leading a substantial update of the Central Government Concept of Operations for Emergency Response and Recovery (HMG CONOPs) which is due for publication in spring 2025. We are committed to updating local resilience standards to set out expectations on local partners. There may also be times when government might need to intervene. We will review legislation to understand how and when to best intervene and if additional powers are required to do so, in advance of, during and after a response.

171. We will work closely together with Category 1 responders and voluntary, community and faith organisations in advance of and during response and recovery to support communities. We will also look to strengthen the requirements to produce local community risk registers so they more accurately reflect the demographics of an area.

172. Local government is absolutely vital to the resilience of our places and communities. The public look to local government to provide leadership and support in times of crisis, be that responding to floods or major fires or providing support to the most vulnerable. Local authorities have a range of statutory and non-statutory duties placed on them to appropriately prepare and respond, but these duties are not always clear and are set out in different places. We are committed to doing more to make sure that we are clear about the expectations on local authorities and the role that local leaders should play, set out clearly in standards and guidance.

173. More broadly, we are clear about the opportunities that come from devolving power. In the devolution white paper we set out how Strategic Authorities might take on clear accountability for resilience and work in partnership with communities to design bespoke ways to plan for, respond to and recover from incidents. This will include considering how Strategic Authorities and Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) may work together to build resilience across their communities to ensure their areas are best placed to engage with the challenges of the future.

174. The multi-agency partnership role of LRFs is key to local areas better preparing for and responding to incidents and therefore to our national resilience. LRF partners, as Category 1 and 2 responders, are on the ground supporting people at the worst times, responding rapidly to incidents and getting communities back on their feet after an incident. We are committed to continuing to work very closely with LRFs to understand challenges and opportunities they face and provide support, including through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s (MHCLG) dedicated Strategic Resilience Advisers. Recognising this, since 2021, LRFs have been provided with capacity and capability funding to build on the funding provided locally by partners, most recently confirming funding for 2025 to 2026. This funding has enabled LRFs to hire dedicated staff to better develop targeted plans for emergencies in their locality and run programmes to build local resilience. There is more that we can do together to strengthen LRFs, and through Stronger LRF trailblazers, this government is committed to working with local partners to consider how to test different models of leadership, accountability and assurance.

175. We are also building processes to better understand LRF performance, capacity and capability. We have already introduced formal reporting to better understand LRF preparedness, have a local capability assessment process in train, and plan to test a new peer review protocol for LRFs to work together to assess their planning and recovery activities.

176. The London Resilience Forum ensures London’s preparedness in the event of emergencies and coordinates the activities of a wide range of organisations to achieve this. London resilience arrangements are set out under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and its statutory guidance, Emergency Preparedness. These require both a strategic pan-London multi-agency approach, as well as separate Borough Resilience Forum partnerships for each London borough and the City of London. We understand that reform activities are underway and welcome and agree that work needs to continue to ensure clarity on accountability, leadership and escalation routes. We will continue to work with London partners to ensure resilience arrangements in London reflect the recommendations of the Inquiry report.

177. London’s 33 Borough Resilience Forums (BRFs) lead on multi-agency planning at the local level, including capability building, training and exercising to implement strategic frameworks developed by the London Resilience Forum. They build relationships between local representatives of Category 1 and 2 responders, and with local voluntary, community, faith and business sector organisations. As they are staffed largely from local authority resilience teams, capacity across London is inconsistent. There is an opportunity to improve capabilities and assurance at the BRF level to help plan and build local capabilities in a more coordinated way.

178. High-quality and accessible training is critical to further improvements. We agree with the Inquiry’s recommendation that all relevant staff in local authorities and across the local tier should have access to training on emergency planning, response and recovery. Revised Resilience and Emergency National Occupational Standards will be published in April 2025 to coincide with the launch of the UK Resilience Academy (UKRA). These will clearly identify the knowledge and skills required from those working in resilience in local authorities, LRFs and national government. This should result in clear learning, training and development expectations required to achieve competent practice for resilience roles across local authorities, LRFs and national government, and will improve the quality and availability of training pathways for all resilience practitioners. MHCLG will work with local partners to scope a process for local authorities to report on training and development.

Improving evacuation plans

179. In December 2024 we announced the way forward to address the outstanding recommendations for the government from the Inquiry’s Phase 1 report which concerned the evacuation of vulnerable people from high-rise buildings. The Inquiry identified that a disproportionate number of residents whose ability to self-evacuate was compromised (including those with reduced mobility or cognition) failed to escape the building, and that existing Local Government Association guidance failed to consider the needs of such residents. The English Housing Survey (2023 to 2024) estimates that up to 30% of private renter and up to 59% of social renter households in England contain someone with a long-term illness or disability and we understand the importance of helping such vulnerable residents to be more protected in a major incident.

180. The Inquiry recommended in its Phase 1 report that the owner and manager of every high-rise residential building be required by law to prepare personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs) for such residents, and be required by law to include up to date information about persons with reduced mobility and their associated PEEPs in the premises information box for use by fire and rescue services.

181. To address these recommendations, we will lay new Residential PEEPs (RPEEPs) secondary legislation later in 2025, which will include mandating building-level evacuation plans for all high-rise residential buildings and for those medium-rise residential buildings with a simultaneous evacuation plan in place. Together, these measures will mandate that the building owner or manager engages with their vulnerable and disabled residents, considers how to improve their fire safety and evacuation, enables all residents to be clear on what they should do in the event of a fire, and give fire and rescue services information in case they need to support their evacuation.

182. Where a disabled resident has their mobility impaired, under the RPEEPs proposals, they will be entitled to a person-centred fire risk assessment to consider the fire safety risks in the resident’s flat, the building’s common areas, and the resident’s ability to self-evacuate, including with help where necessary and where the resident can arrange this.  The Government has committed funding for the next financial year (2025 to 2026) to begin this important work by supporting social housing providers to deliver RPEEPs for their tenants. Future years’ funding will be considered at the upcoming Spending Review. Together, these requirements will improve the fire safety and evacuation of residents with disabilities or impairments, and give firefighters information to provide these vulnerable residents with the support they need.

183. The government will engage with relevant stakeholders as they move to introduce the new policy. Once introduced, there will be new legal requirements on building owners and managers. We will engage widely on producing the statutory guidance underpinning the new requirements.

184. Statutory guidance has been updated to provide for Evacuation Alert Systems in all new blocks of flats over 18 metres, to enable fire and rescue services to send an evacuation signal to the whole or a selected part of the building by means of sounders or similar devices. The limited evidence on the effectiveness of the system is not sufficient to justify mandating retrofitting of evacuation alert systems into existing high-rise residential buildings at this time. There have been significant improvements in the broader fire and building safety environment since the Phase 1 report, and fire and rescue services have completed policies and training for partial and total high-rise building evacuations, meeting a separate Inquiry recommendation, which have increased overall safety of evacuations and reduced fire-related injuries.

Improvements in fire and rescue

185. Firefighters across the country act with huge courage every time they go to work, to keep us all safe. The hundreds of individual firefighters who attended the fire at Grenfell Tower showed incredible bravery and dedication in tackling the fire, whilst those in control rooms operated in hugely difficult circumstances. But there is no doubt that mistakes were made by London Fire Brigade (LFB), both in their preparedness and decision-making during the incident, with equipment shortcomings and people told to stay put for too long. This was the focus of Phase 1 of the Inquiry and since then, positive progress has been made by all fire and rescue services in England to ensure they are better prepared and equipped to respond to large-scale incidents in the future.

186. Since 2017, LFB has transformed the way it tackles fires in high-rise buildings. The Brigade has significantly upscaled its training for firefighters and control officers, underpinned by new and updated policies for high-rise firefighting, evacuation and rescue and fire survival guidance. The Brigade has introduced new 64-metre turntable ladders which replace its entire existing fleet, new command units, and new equipment including fire escape hoods, smoke blockers, new fireground radios, thermal imaging technology, gas detection monitors and drones. The Brigade also has a new fire survival guidance app and new software that enables the public to share a live video feed of the incident with the control room.

187. The response by LFB to a fire in the Spectrum Building, a seven-storey block of flats, in Dagenham on 26 August 2024 demonstrated the operational improvements it has implemented in recent years. Firefighters evacuated 80 people and carried out 20 rescues using fire escape hoods, which provide 15 minutes of clean air in smoke-filled environments. Further detail on the changes that have been introduced by LFB can be found in their formal response to the Phase 2 report published in October 2024: Response to ‘The London Fire Brigade’ Recommendations – Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report.

188. Elsewhere, other fire and rescue services, supported by the National Fire Chief’s Council (NFCC), have made good progress in modernising response procedures and procuring new equipment. All 44 services in England have now reported that they have addressed all of the recommendations directed to them that were made by the Inquiry as part of their Phase 1 report. As a result, services are now better trained and equipped to handle the largest scale incidents in high-rise residential buildings. Following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the NFCC also produced the first suite of national fire control guidance and has developed systems and processes to support control rooms during periods of exceptional demand.

189. Fire and rescue services have improved the methods used to transfer information between control rooms through the roll out of the Multi Agency Incident Transfer system across England. New talk groups have been introduced to allow services to share information live between fire control rooms to ensure the information provided by anyone handling a call, wherever in the country the call may be received, reflects the current state of the fire. All services have now embedded these talk groups in their control rooms. In addition, a national 999 call redistribution plan has been introduced to enable 999 calls to seamlessly be diverted to other fire control rooms to assist fire and rescue services during major, protracted incidents.

190. To support the important work of fire and rescue services, legal duties for those in control of a building have been strengthened, penalties have been increased for those who breach those duties and action has been taken to make it easier for enforcement authorities to act when breaches occur. New requirements to improve information sharing with residents have been introduced and specific regulations are now in place for those who own and manage multi-occupied residential buildings. A range of new fire safety guides have also been published.

191. These are significant steps forward since the terrible tragedy at Grenfell Tower. However, as the Phase 2 report makes clear, there is more work to do to improve the competence of firefighters and to ensure the systems and equipment that support them are fit for purpose.

192. LFB is committed to being a listening and learning organisation to ensure lessons from incidents are learned and good practice is shared across the organisation and with key agencies. The collection of learning and data from operational incidents has been improved and a more open and supportive approach to learning is being taken, which reflects best practice from other sectors such as health and aviation. Through these changes the Brigade is committed to continuous improvement and ensuring change is sustained.

193. Many of the recommendations concerning LFB have wider applicability to all fire and rescue services. This includes the recommendations for His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) to inspect LFB’s control room, incident commander training and process for collecting, storing and distributing information related to higher-risk buildings. As such, the NFCC is surveying services to understand how they might support them to continue to act on the wider lessons of the tragedy. They will produce a delivery plan setting out what further action they will take.

194. HMICFRS plays an important role in identifying and driving forward performance improvements across services. Since the Inquiry’s Phase 1 report was published in 2019, the inspectorate has incorporated many aspects of the Inquiry’s recommendations into its inspection framework. Findings on services’ progress in addressing the Phase 1 recommendations, based on 25 service inspections from the inspectorate’s third round of inspections, were published on 12 February 2025. The findings affirmed that many improvements have been made by services, while identifying some areas where there is scope to do more to further embed the changes and instil better ways of working. Overall, improvements were found in how services train for, communicate about and plan operations for major incidents. Some promising and innovative practices were found, such as the use of electronic systems to manage fire survival guidance. However, it was found that some challenges remained with the effectiveness of training, maintaining accurate records, using electronic systems to manage incidents and with sharing learning.

195. It should be noted that some of the service inspections took place from early 2023. It is therefore likely that further improvements have been made since. HMICFRS will continue to inspect services through its fourth round of inspections in 2025 to 2027 to provide ongoing independent scrutiny of implementation of both Phase 1 and Phase 2 recommendations.

196. The NFCC will also continue to provide oversight, coordination and support to services to help them share best practice and act on the wider lessons of the tragedy.

197. The government will work with HMICFRS and the NFCC to ensure there is an ongoing focus on embedding and sustaining improvements made in response to the Inquiry’s reports, with tangible improved outcomes for communities.

Fire and rescue service culture and wider reform

198. The Inquiry’s findings reflect the sentiments of recent HMICFRS inspection reports and several recent independent reviews across the fire and rescue sector that have shared the view that poor culture can lead to operational incompetence and that this increases risks to public safety. For fire and rescue authorities and the services they employ to protect the public, public trust is essential. Fire and rescue authorities and their services must therefore be transparent, accountable and committed to acting on inspection findings, so that they can build and maintain that trust, especially in the face of reports of unacceptable behaviour. Fire and rescue must be, and be seen as, a sector with high standards of professional integrity. It is wholly unacceptable to turn a blind eye to poor culture and misconduct, and swift action is imperative to hold those responsible to account.

199. This government is committed to improving workplace culture within the fire and rescue sector. In December 2024, we hosted the inaugural meeting of a solutions-focussed Ministerial Advisory Group, convening key sector representatives to advise on fire and reform. This included considering how we can work together to improve culture and conduct. We will continue to work closely with our partners, including fire and rescue authorities and services, HMICFRS, the NFCC and representative bodies, to make sure deeply concerning issues regarding integrity across the sector are addressed.

200. Our work to address the Inquiry’s fire and rescue specific recommendations and drive up standards and integrity in fire and rescue authorities and services sits within a broader fire and rescue modernisation and reform programme. Working with sector partners, including through the Ministerial Advisory Group, this programme aims to:

• establish a clear sense of purpose and shared long-term vision for the sector which reflects and delivers for the communities they serve

• deliver improvements in standards and professionalism to improve performance and public and firefighter safety

• provide a resilient, well trained, supported and diverse leadership cadre with effective oversight to oversee delivery of the modernisation and reform programme

• create the conditions for a positive and inclusive culture in which misconduct is managed effectively to improve trust in services

• provide clarity and where necessary, modernise the firefighter role, including to increase its attraction as a career choice

• optimise productivity and efficiency including through collaboration with other emergency services

Working with devolved administrations

201. Whilst this response sets out the government’s clear intent, we must recognise that the issues we are tackling are not confined to specific places. Poor and unsafe housing sadly exists in all four nations. Construction firms and professional sectors work across borders. Housing policy and building regulations are devolved, and the regulatory regime for construction products is a reserved matter, under the Windsor Framework, and Northern Ireland applies relevant European Union rules relating to the placement of construction products on the market.

202. This government remains committed to working with the governments of the devolved administrations as we implement and deliver our reform agenda. We will share our rationale and plans for change so that those administrations can consider whether and if any of the reforms would be applicable or beneficial for them, recognising the unique systems and legislation in those nations. The government remains committed to safeguarding and upholding the integrity of the UK market.

Chapter 11: Our next steps

203. The shocking findings set out in the Inquiry report must be the catalyst for long-lasting change. It has been nearly 8 years since the events of 14 June 2017, and as a government of service, we are committed to making sure this meaningful change becomes a reality. This has been long overdue for the bereaved, survivors and residents in the immediate Grenfell community, and the wider public.

204. This is why we will deliver reform using a phased approach over the course of this Parliament, bringing together the recommendations directed at government and wider reform as coherent packages. These reforms are a central part of our upcoming long-term housing strategy, which alongside reforms to improve affordability through increased supply, will raise standards in the housing system, ensure tenants are prioritised and protected and lay the foundations for a fairer housing system in which residents can trust. Close collaboration with local government, including the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, social housing providers, industry and emergency services will be a vital component of this, as they also deliver the recommendations which are directed at or are relevant to them.

205. We know that it will be important to the public that this government effectively delivers the stated responses to recommendations and wider reform. The Deputy Prime Minister is committed to being transparent on our progress, and will work with ministers from across government to review and advance progress against recommendations. We will publish updates quarterly on GOV.UK and this will include statements being made to Parliament when appropriate.

Phase 1 (2025 to 2026): delivery of existing reform

206. The first phase will focus on making sure that we effectively deliver our current programme of regulatory reform and change. This includes existing reform and commitments made towards improving building safety through the Building Safety Act and the creation of the Building Safety Regulator, to ensure the continued safety of residents in their homes. To this end, it is important that we do not lose momentum in fixing all remaining buildings with unsafe cladding through the Remediation Acceleration Plan and bringing forward the legislation to do this.

207. The construction products green paper’s consultation period will conclude 12 weeks after its publication and is the first important step in making sure that we deliver a comprehensive package of measures to reform the construction products sector. This will address key failures which were highlighted in the Inquiry’s report, such as the conformity of products, bad testing practices and competence of the sector.

208. In spring 2025, the resilience review will conclude and we will publish a strategic statement bringing together the response to similar recommendations on resilience and emergency response across multiple inquiries.

209. We will introduce the regulations needed to implement Awaab’s Law for social landlords, including its extension to the private rented sector through the Renters’ Rights Bill, legislate for stringent electric safety standards in social housing, set new regulatory standards for the competence and conduct of social housing staff and introduce access to information requirements for private registered providers.

210. There are multiple reviews which will conclude in the next year and we will publish the findings. This includes the review of the building control regime and the Approved Documents suite of statutory guidance. All proposed changes will be consulted on. We will also set out our plans for the ongoing review of the definition of a higher-risk building in summer 2025.

211. The delivery of certain recommendations will require further consultation to make sure that the best outcomes are delivered for the public. This includes formal consultation processes for the formation of the single construction regulator and the College of Fire and Rescue, which will begin from summer 2025.

Phase 2 (2026 to 2028): further development and legislation

212. The second phase will focus on having fully developed proposals to deliver recommendations and wider reform. Legislation will be required to deliver reforms such as reforming the construction products sector, creating the single construction regulator and forming the College of Fire and Rescue. It will also be necessary for uplifting the competency standards of key fire safety critical professions such as fire engineers, fire risk assessors and principal contractors, as recommended by the Inquiry.

213. This should not be viewed as a period where the government’s implementation of change will stagnate. The definition of a higher-risk building and Approved Document B will remain under continuous review. This will make sure that this is a government which is ready to react to an evolving built environment and ensure the continued safety of residents in their homes.

214. There will be a significant programme of social housing reform delivered during this period including introducing new regulatory standards for decency and energy efficiency standards, expanding to the private sector too; extending the Freedom of Information Act to cover Tenant Management Organisations; carrying out a review of the oversight arrangement for delegated management organisations providing social housing management services on behalf of registered providers; and setting out further measures to strengthen tenants’ voices.

Phase 3 (2028 onwards): implementation

215. With necessary legislation and regulatory powers in place, this will allow this government to focus on implementing the reforms which will have been introduced over the previous years. This will remove fragmentation from the regulatory system, making sure all professionals involved in building safety and fire safety critical work are appropriately qualified and competent, and that there are strong emergency response functions across both central and local government. We will keep the new system this government has delivered under review to evaluate its effectiveness and ensure it is delivering the intended improvements to residents’ lives, making sure that we are taking on their feedback as part of this.

216. This is all underpinned by ensuring meaningful change for everyone across the country. Everyone deserves to live in a safe, high-quality home that forms part of a highly functioning and healthy built environment. Everyone deserves to be listened to and treated with respect when they raise issues or concerns. We must ensure that everyone can trust that this will happen.

217. We undertake this work in tribute to the 72 lives lost and those forever changed. We know there is still a long road ahead for the Grenfell community. Their determination to look forward and to fight for justice is nothing short of extraordinary. The government will support the community now and for the long term. That is the responsibility of service and the duty we owe to you and the memory of every one of the 72.