Scathing report into the Grenfell disaster follows a lamentable procession of similar indictments of public  institutions

“The fire which last Wednesday morning engulfed Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, killing many of its residents, ranks as one of the worst-ever peacetime disasters. The building was clad in flammable material and went up like a firework, with people trapped inside. The shock is immeasurable, the horror almost unbelievable, the grief permanent. It will never be forgotten. Can it ever be forgiven? It is unlikely there is just one person – some junior clerk in a building regulator’s office, say, who overlooked a flaw in a plan he or she was checking – who can be labelled a mass murderer and condemned for it, while the rest walk away. Any search for particular scapegoats must be suspect, a device to avoid the wider burden of responsibility that lies elsewhere, and which is very heavy indeed.”

Our chief leader writer, Clifford Longley, wrote those words a few days after the fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST on 14 June 2017. Seventy-two people died. The final report of the six-year public inquiry, released yesterday, concluded that their deaths were not the result of one person’s incompetence or carelessness or lack of training, as Cliff had immediately guessed was unlikely. The wider burden of responsibility lay elsewhere, just as he thought he did. But the breadth and depth of the failures of central and local governments, of building and planning controls and of the fire service revealed by the report are frightening, and the “systematic dishonesty” and greed of manufacturers which led to the tower block being clad in combustible materials – one was found to have “deliberately concealed” the true extent of the danger of using its product – truly stomach-turning.

The scathing report into the Grenfell disaster follows a lamentable procession of similar indictments of institutions, both public and private, that failed to meet even minimal standards of decency, honesty and justice. The list includes the Hillsborough crowd-control disaster, the contaminated blood disaster in the NHS, and the Post Office scandal. The inquiry into child abuse found that the Catholic Church had put self-preservation above the safety of children. In our leader column this week, we look at what has gone wrong with so many British institutions. What all these scandals have in common is a culture of institutional callousness, a climate of indifference bordering on contempt. The notion of a “cover up” appears again and again in these reports, along with dereliction of duty, buck-passing and avoidance of blame. A consistent feature is how those who lead institutions react to being criticised: they close ranks, watch each other’s backs and tell half-truths – or downright lies.

Speedier investigations (it’s over seven years since Cliff and others pointed to the general direction of where responsibility for the Grenfell catastrophe lay), criminal prosecutions, greater accountability and better checks and balances are necessary but not sufficient. The root problem is culture and character as much as “the system”. People want prevention rather than punishment, to feel secure in their homes and communities, to be respected and properly rewarded in their work. People flourish when work and service to the community is done out of pride and satisfaction rather than out of fear of failure to reach performance targets. When the Aristotelian virtues of justice and prudence, moderation and courage are practised they become habitual and build character. The “hard” stuff of legislation and regulation is relatively easy to do; the “soft” stuff of formation of character and creating cultures of respect is more slippery and sensitive. Only if we get both right can we begin to be confident that Grenfell will never be allowed to happen again.

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