If Judith Hackitt led the Covid-19 response ...

In the Industry Safety Steering Group's epic 22-page report published this week, Dame Judith praises the construction sector's response to Covid-19 as showing "what can be achieved at considerable pace when required" and that this approach can, and should be applied to building safety. It's really important to analyse why it hasn't, before carrying on as before.

It might be helpful to look at it the other way. If Judith Hackitt had been in charge of getting construction safely back to work after lockdown, this is what her approach might have looked like:

a. Define the functional requirement, for example:

b. Demand that every organisation takes ownership of the problem and develops the epidemiological competency to work out for themselves how to do that

c. Appoint somebody within each organisation to be responsible for implementing those safety measures

d. Introduce new laws that put that 'dutyholder' in jail when the inevitable 'outcome' is that everybody contracts Covid-19.

Thankfully instead, from scratch in a period of weeks, the industry was issued a detailed 39-page step-by-step well laid-out guide on how to create a Covid-safe workplace. It's easy to implement and control 2m distancing. It's not easy to regulate whether you are 'adequately' far apart with regard to your age, sex or body-mass-index.

The understanding of coronavirus transmission mechanisms and perhaps more importantly, the associated risks is complex, specialised and highly contentious even within the expert arena. The same is true of the fire-performance of modern building systems. This is something Dame Judith has refused to acknowledge from the outset and has stubbornly denied that prescriptive guidance is consequently a necessary part of establishing consistent safety standards across the industry.

An industry so clearly despised by Dame Judith has just emphatically demonstrated the capacity to follow clear unambiguous guidance on a highly complex safety issue without hesitation, even when it is costly and highly disruptive to do so. This destroys her fundamental belief that the industry cannot deliver safe buildings due to poor culture, lack of competency and a chronic unethical determination to cut corners to boost profits at any opportunity.

If the CLC etc helped produce the Covid guidance, then congratulations to it. In contrast, what industry was drip-fed over two years after Grenfell from MHCLG's Independent Expert Panel was a flow of confusing Advice Notes that conflicted with statutory guidance and were broadly based on the principle of "seek professional help". This famously comprised Advice Note 14 which in turn has led to EWS1 and its widespread, devastating consequences. It must surely be obvious why the polarised response to fire safety has been commensurately confused, inconsistent and in her view, inadequate and the fault of industry? It should also be obvious from the failure of EWS1 and reports that due to a lack of suitably qualified and insured experts that it could take 10 years to clear the inspection backlog, that the wishful-thinking principle of 'seek professional advice' was doomed from the outset.

Culture-change and competency initiatives are welcome and necessary, but they are undermined by regulations that don't reflect society's needs and poorly worded guidance that derives from a principle of allowing the cheapest possible materials that achieve the lowest acceptable standards.

Dame Judith now is in a difficult position. Anybody who has been involved recently in delivering a residential tower block envelope will understand the huge impact that the combustible ban has had. But Hackitt can't really acknowledge the positive impact of the ban because she firmly believed that it wouldn't help. It was Dominic Raab's despairing efforts to appease an enraged public at the end of the day she published her review in May 2018, that led to the combustible ban. That was a rare moment of leadership.

The ban has manifestly led to the biggest step forward in high-rise cladding fire safety and another example of what can be achieved in construction with simple, easy-to-follow and easy-to-enforce guidelines. The ban requirements are much clearer. There are no desktop study or fire-engineering shortcuts. Designs are highly scrutinised. Industry has responded with innovative and thoroughly-tested new products. There has been a trend towards third-party certification to prove compliance. Test and classification reports are picked apart word-by-word by a new, terrifying breed of design-team member - the consultant facade engineer.

We mustn't end up with an industry that is really good at following bad guidance. Huge fundamental changes are still needed. 'Life safety' is demonstrably unacceptable by society as the underlying principle for fire safety guidance. People do not accept losing all of their possessions and their home in the event of a fire. The purpose of building regulations needs to be re-stated. Our test standards are woefully inadequate but there's no regulatory leadership. Whenever I've attended a meeting, there's been no agenda or remit. I know of a building that is about to be clad for the fourth time. We've built a legacy of buildings that will ensure we will have several major fires a year for the foreseeable future, yet there is still resistance to regulatory change.

In the meantime, we need to extend the benefits of the combustible ban clarity to residential buildings over 11m and all schools, hospitals and hotels.

And keep washing our hands. Stay safe.