Grenfell victimisation

The first stage of the Grenfell Inquiry confirmed much of what we knew already: that the building refurbishment breached fire regulations which themselves are probably lax compared with countries such as the USA and the emergency response was brave but lacking in common sense.  So nothing much surprising, even though it took over 2 years. Indeed, the fact that the second stage may not report until 2022 is depressing, not surprising. No wonder it takes us so long to build a railway or a nuclear power station.

Much ordure has been heaped on the head of the London Fire Brigade commissioner Dany Cotton, mainly for the "remarkable insensitivity" of her evidence, saying she would not change anything done on the night and comparing the incident with a spacecraft landing on the Shard, even though cladding fires have happened before including one at Lakanal House in south London which killed six people in 2009. One wonders why she didn't say that, in hindsight, more people might have been saved by changing from "stay put" much earlier, though that wasn't necessarily obvious at the time. Some have speculated that Cotton's stonewalling approach might have flowed from legal advice to try to avoid liability for the fire brigade. But it doesn't take the forensic legal mind of a retired judge to point out that, as the fire brigade belatedly switched from "stay put" to "evacuate" that doing so earlier might have helped.

Ms Cotton was also criticised for her "apparent lack of curiosity" when she arrived on site at 3am. Now I made a whole management career out of asking simple questions - the most revealing responses often flowed from questions I had thought almost too dumb to ask - but the situation on the ground at that time at Grenfell didn't really lend itself to detailed quizzing of her subordinates about what they were doing and why.

The issue of building regulations, practice, checking and inspection will surely prove to be more substantive and to hold out the prospect of saving lives in the future without resorting to last ditch efforts by emergency services working in life threatening conditions. But in the meantime the resentful cry has gone up about Ms Cotton's remuneration. "Grenfell fury at £234,000 boss's plan to retire at 50 with pension pot of £2M" said the Daily Mail, for example.

Now I'm not sure why the LFB commissioner earns £234k, a lot more than the prime minister. The job has scale, but limited complexity - there are a lot of fire stations and folk in them all charged with doing the same things. But she does earn £234k. "She should not get any pay off" said one Grenfell survivor, arguing that Ms Cotton should be stripped of her pension. Another described Ms Cotton's pension as "like winning the lottery".

Now one can argue that some public sector pension schemes are wildly generous, wholly unaffordable in the private sector. (Hypocrisy alert - I benefited through being a member of such a scheme for most of the first half of my career....) Ms Cotton can retire aged 50 on a full pension with 32 years service, 3 years of it as commissioner. And in the nature of final salary schemes folk like Ms Cotton who complete their career with a stratospheric salary get their whole pension based on that salary, even though their contributions were based on a much lower average salary across tgeir career. This form of subsidy by the people who stay in the same grade all their career has always struck me as a Robin Hood in reverse kind of stealing from the poor to give to the rich. ("Yes, but don't tell them" said one company pension manager when I made that remark many years ago). And I don't know whether Ms Cotton is benefiting from any added years enhancement if she retires early - I suspect not given the way I understand the fire brigade and police pensions schemes are set up. But if she is not, it's ever so simple. Pensions are just deferred pay. Ms Cotton has earned this benefit through her career and is entitled to now claim it. There appears to be no case that she has not done her job - she hasn't been suspended or investigated to my knowledge. If she was sacked I feel sure she would successfully claim unfair dismissal at an industrial tribunal. But even if she was culpable, she had worked through all her career to that point and earned her pay doing it.

So Dany Cotton should be allowed to retire in peace and reflect on her lack of sensitivity at her leisure while I reflect on just how unforgiving and vengeful our society has become, always looking for someone to blame, even if they were just doing their job.

In the meantime there are more important things to address. Building regulations and how we check compliance certainly. Public sector pension schemes - yes to that too, though politically difficult the current apartheid like divide with the private sector is unjustifiable.

I am left with one other uncomfortable and currently almost unsayable thought. How did such an apparently limited individual as Dany Cotton come to be commissioner of the London Fire Brigade? I accept that the Inquiry might not have revealed all her management competencies. But on what we saw? We need more women in high profile jobs throughout our society but maybe this one was over promoted - a comment that obviously you could equally make had she been male, but there is pressure to appoint women these days.

But she was put in the role and, if she wasn't up to it the LFB should look at its appointment process. As she was put in the role and presumably up to Grenfell was performing satisfactorily she is entitled to her pay, including the deferred pensionable element. After all there are plenty of women arguing currently that if you do the job the pay should be the same, however well you do it (though mostly these are female employees at the BBC.....)

Leave Dany Cotton alone with her no doubt uncomfortable thoughts and let's move on to the more important issues. Can someone give Sir Martin Moore-Bick a prod to hurry up? There I go, looking for someone to blame....