RBKC staff were ‘rabbits in headlights’ due to lack of structure in Grenfell response, inquiry hears

The inquiry heard last week how the HALO role was considered “pivotal” in the event of a significant emergency, but the council did not have the position filled in the period before the fire started.

Senior officers had been asked to take on the role, but declined, saying they were too busy. 

The role involves bringing together organisations such as the police and the voluntary sector to oversee the humanitarian response. 

Ms Redmond was only given the framework document that outlined the role at 2pm on the day of the fire, and the absence of this appointment was previously described by Richard Millett QC, lead counsel to the inquiry, as a “significant deficiency”.

In today’s evidence, Ms Redmond revealed that she was only asked to take on the role as the tragedy was unfolding. She said: “It surprised me that no one had stepped up to do it.”

Mr Millett asked if this amounted to what he described as a “why me?” moment. Ms Redmond agreed. 

She pointed out that at the same time as filling the HALO role, she was still attempting to ensure the adult social care team could respond both to Grenfell and meet its routine care commitments. 

“Did you consider at that point that there were sufficient resources available to RBKC for it to meet the humanitarian needs of those affected, as well as its routine care commitments?” asked Mr Millett.

Ms Redmond said she did not think the adult social care team could meet those needs as “they did not have very many staff” and “there was hardly any of the managers around”. 

The inquiry heard that Ms Redmond had made her feelings known more than once that she did not feel she was the right person for the HALO position. 

She thought the position should have been given to someone from within RBKC or the council should have appointed someone more familiar with the local community. 

She said there seemed to be some confusion between the council and the British Red Cross about where responsibility for certain tasks fell. 

Ms Redmond described housing staff trying to find people at hotels who were not there, “distressed people” being sent away from rest centres, and how the absence of a dedicated helpline contributed to the confusion.

She recalled entering the room where the initial response was being co-ordinated from and described a lot of people and noise from the telephones.

She had told some of her colleagues “to slow down and get some structure. Everyone is running around like rabbits in the headlights. We need to co-ordinate things”.

The responsibility for the HALO position was eventually handed over to a pan-London group called London Local Authority Gold, which took over responsibility for the response on 16 June – two days after the Grenfell fire. 

Ms Redmond admitted that a lack of familiarity with HALO hindered her ability.

Later she discussed the challenges around assigning survivors with key workers in the days after the blaze. 

The inquiry heard that there was a lack of clarity about the nature and scope of the key worker role as there was no management plan in place. By 19 June, 96 key workers from councils all across London had been drafted in to help with the response.

But some bereaved, survivors and families had still not been allocated a key worker.

Mr Millett read an email chain that began on 20 June from Mona Hyatt, director of the West London Clinical Commission Group (CCG) at the time.

Ms Hyatt was trying to provide assurance that the CCG would hand out appointments “as a matter of urgency” after one person had to be restrained at the Westway Sports Centre when they were told that they would have to wait a week for an appointment and others had threatened suicide.  

The inquiry heard how some residents felt abandoned by RBKC as they were having to deal with key workers from outside of the borough and were angry that some had still not seen anyone from the council a week after the fire.

The inquiry continues.