Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Angry councillors
DUNDEE councillors of all parties have agreed that an independent inquiry must be carried out into the local authority’s £4.4 million roofing blunder as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, the council’s chief executive Gregory Colgan has said he wants to say sorry to all tenants and residents affected.
“I wish to apologise sincerely for the significant inconvenience that the further work needed will cause and I am grateful for the patience and understanding of those affected,” he said.
Council leader John Alexander and Labour leader Kevin Keenan joined forces at a meeting of the city council’s policy and resources committee last night to demand that an investigation into what went wrong takes place immediately.
Liberal Democrat leader Fraser Macpherson said that an update on the issue needs to be brought back to councillors by next February.
He also spoke about the anger all round of the shocking waste of public money and drew attention to other services the £4.4m could have been spent on.
Referring to the council’s recent decision to withdraw the city’s Blether Bus for the elderly, he said the money could have funded this for 88 years to come.
All three councillors, along with Conservative leader Derek Scott condemned what has already been described as a “gross error” that will cost the taxpayer £4.4 million to rectify.
As revealed exclusively by the Evening Telegraph a week ago, the error has seen hundreds of council homes in Dundee fall beneath legal British safety standards.
A report to the council’s policy and resources committee by the council’s executive director of city development, Robin Presswood, and executive director of neighbourhood services, Elaine Zwirlein, explained the full extent of the problem.
The report stated: “The purpose of this report is to inform the committee on a review of working practices on roofs installed by construction services (CS) and inspected by the council clerk of works (CoW) in the period 2015 to 2019.”
The problem surrounds a change in British Safety Standard regulations in 2015 that the council failed to pick up on until late in 2019.
Papers leaked to the Tele reveal the full extent of the issue – affecting 262 owners and 894 tenants.
The report before the committee added: “Officers have concluded that the roof installations during this period did not meet best practice as set out in the British Standards.
“Works to be undertaken to bring the affected roofs up to the standard recommended in British Standards is an estimated £4.4m.”
Moving that an independent review must be carried out, councillor Alexander said: “The committee requires officers to obtain an independent and external view, in addition to the internal audit process, to provide assurance that any and all failures identified within this report and any subsequent findings that stem from the internal audit investigations are fully and unquestionably addressed.
“Such work should reinforce accountability, transparency and confidence in service delivery.
“The committee instructs officers to provide a detailed overview of how the corrective actions detailed differ from those undertaken during the roofing work carried out between 2015 and 2019.
“This work must be undertaken as quickly as possible with an update by February 2022.”
Councillor Keenan proposed a similar amendment but agreed to work alongside the administration leader to get a speedy resolution.
He said that he was also keen to find out if any further similar problems were yet to emerge, adding: “I move that the committee agrees to instruct the chief executive Gregory Colgan to commission an Independent Inquiry by a suitable expert with a remit to report on the reasons why the roofs were not installed to the British Standard, recommend any actions which the council should take to prevent this ever happening again, and make recommendations regarding any other matters arising during the inquiry which the expert believes should be considered by the council and that the report should be brought back to this committee by February 2022.”
In a bid to reassure councillors that action had already been taken to attempt to answer what had gone wrong and to make sure it can’t happen again, Mr Presswood said that six significant steps had already been taken.
He said these were that services had amended their approach over quality management, an internally-coordinated programme of professional audits was carried out, design information is now enhanced to highlight the full requirements of British Standard are met, a full review of all housing projects was carried out by the council to ensure there are no further issues, clerk of work checking procedures have been enhanced and records and photographs of each stage of work is now utilised prior to final site checks
Mrs Zwirlein admitted: “Lessons have been learned across all parts of our services.”
She also moved to reassured councillors, tenants and residents that there were “rigorous” standards applying to gas and electrical safety in all properties connected to the council.
Councillor Alexander concluded: “I want this thoroughly and independently investigated as quickly as possible.”