Former KCTMO chief executive admits personal failings over historic safety issues at Grenfell Tower

Through his evidence today, Mr Black painted a picture of an organisation in disarray when he joined in 2009 from Circle Housing, now part of Clarion Housing Group, claiming he was under “gigantic pressure” as many of his executive directors left during his first months in charge.

Early in the session, Mr Millett asked Mr Black if he accepted that “if people felt unsafe in their homes, at least in numbers, then that would tend to indicate a fundamental and perhaps existential problem with the way the TMO was working”.

“I’m not sure if I agree with that,” Mr Black said.

Later he was asked about KCTMO’s emergency plan, which despite being last revised in February 2016 contained information about Grenfell Tower which was 15 years out of date by the time of the fire and was previously described as “obsolete… for many years” in the inquiry’s phase one report.

A recommendation from the 2009 consultants’ report had been to have an up-to-date emergency plan for Grenfell Tower.

“The reality is that information should have been updated by staff and the whole thing I’ve suffered throughout my career working with people is the ability to forget to fill in the paperwork,” Mr Black said when asked why it had become so out of date.

“So again whether I apologise… previously, you know, it didn’t make me happy that it was out of date.

“I don’t know why people didn’t do, because actually this was escalated down to lower management to do as part of their roles and should have been keeping it up to date.

“So, in a sense, I can’t get away from it; it’s out of date is, I think that there was more up-to-date information available, but it wasn’t there, so I just have to accept that responsibility.”

Pushed by Mr Millett on whether he accepted responsibility as chief executive for his staff’s failure to update the information, he said: “As a CEO, my job isn’t to fill in 400 or 500 or 650 individual sheets or check them individually, that’s why I have a staff team, management structure.

“So if they fail to do it, yes, the buck stopped with me but I can show a trail where actually this was not my responsibility to fill in. I accept my responsibility as chief exec, but not to fill in the details like this because that sits with my local team as they are employed to do.”

Pressed again on whether he was ultimately responsible for the failure to keep the emergency plan up to date, Mr Black replied: “Pass.”

But after an intervention from inquiry chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick, Mr Black accepted that he “ultimately [had] to take responsibility for the way the system works or doesn’t work”.

On the subject of personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs) for disabled residents, Mr Black told the inquiry he had an “aspiration” to put them in place early in his role but that it later proved too difficult.

“There is evidence and evidence and evidence that in general it doesn’t work for all of general needs”, he said, adding that “the government is still struggling to move it from a reactive service to a proactive service”.

The inquiry continues.