Business and training: Mike’s message
37
Self-regulation is often
not enough
By Mike Muller
For many visitors to London, the trip into town from Heathrow
Airport comes as something of a shock.
As you drive down the Westway — the raised
motorway that goes into the heart of the city — you
pass within a couple of hundred metres of the burnt-
out shell of Grenfell Tower. It is a shocking sight.
The fire in this 23-storey block of flats killed around
80 people — the exact numbers have still not been
confirmed because some bodies were burnt beyond
recognition, leaving few traces behind.
The disaster provides some important insights into
matters that affect the plumbing industry. The Brits have
been working hard to downsize their government and
reduce regulations and r ed tape. The building industry
was one area of focus. Even where regulations were left
intact, the number of people enforcing them has been
drastically cut. The number of fire safety officers fell by
an estimated 40%.
The idea was that, instead of telling people how to do
their jobs, they should be trusted to make sensible
decisions at their own initiative. The Grenfell Tower
disaster has revealed the dangers of that approach.
The professionals responsible for design and
construction should be ensuring that the materials
specified are appropriate and that workmanship is up
to standard. That might have worked in the old days
when designs and specifications were prepared by
independent architects and engineers. But, given the
way that many projects are managed today, that is a
bit unrealistic. Often, the professionals responsible for
design, specification, and supervision are employees
of the owners and are under pressure to cut costs
wherever possible.
It seems fairly obvious that the Grenfell Tower disaster
was directly caused by a desire to cut costs. The
external cladding used to improve insulation was not
fire-resistant — indeed, it was flammable and directly
caused the spread of the fire. But it was GBP200 000
cheaper than the fire-resistant version. The fact that it
did not comply with fire regulations was ignored.
Some of the people responsible for the decisions that
caused the disaster (and the connection between the
decisions and what happened is clear-cut) may be
charged with manslaughter. And charges of ’corporate
manslaughter’ are also being considered against the
organisations they worked for or managed. This comes
too late to help the people who died. But it has gone
some way to persuading the UK government that it
cannot simply rely on ‘professionalism’ to ensure that
the builders do the right thing in the right way.
Mike Muller
Mike Muller is a visiting
adjunct professor at the
Wits University School
of Governance and a
former Commissioner
of the National Planning
Commission and Director
General of Water Affairs.
Meanwhile, the irony is that, in some sectors, regulations
continue to be enforced. Plumbing is one of them. Over
the British summer, I was watching the challenges of
upgrading a bathroom in a block similar to Grenfell
Tower. To get permission to install a new toilet pedestal
in a different position, to remove a bath, and to build a
walk-in shower required a site visit by two officials.
One of their main concerns was that rodding eyes
should be accessible — that is hardly a matter of life
or death. But their reasoning was that a blocked drain
in one flat would inconvenience other residents. Rather
than wait for problems to occur, they wanted to make
sure that the work was done correctly in the first place.
Let us hope that others learn this lesson. PA
Often, the professionals responsible for design, specification,
and supervision are employees of the owners and are under
pressure to cut costs wherever possible.
www.plumbingafrica.co.za
September 2017 Volume 23 I Number 7