Corporate report

Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2: Annual Report February 2026

Published 25 February 2026

Ministerial foreword

The fire at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017 claimed 72 precious lives. It will mark families, a community, and our country for years to come. The courage and persistence of the bereaved, survivors, and the wider North Kensington community continues to inspire so many. 

We must keep constantly in mind that the failures of public bodies, industry, and regulators that allowed this tragedy to happen should never have occurred. The tragedy was preventable, and it should have been prevented. While we cannot change the past, but we can confront its lessons honestly, act decisively, and work to ensure that such profound failures can never be repeated. 

The government has accepted all the recommendations that the Grenfell Tower Inquiry made to it, but we also made a broader commitment: to deliver the coherent, long term reforms that residents have demanded and deserve – so that people all across our country, and social housing tenants in particular, live in safer, better housing as a direct legacy of the Grenfell tragedy. We will rebuild trust by putting people first, strengthening protections, and ensuring that those responsible for designing, constructing and managing buildings meet the highest standards. 

This first Annual Report following the Grenfell Tower Inquiry sets out the progress we have made: stronger oversight; advances in construction product reform; clearer guidance; higher professional standards; improved enforcement; faster remediation; and better preparation for emergencies.  

But there is more to do. Some reforms require legislation; others require sustained cultural change. We are committed to delivering both. We continue to work closely to support the Memorial Commission and the community as they plan a lasting memorial. The coming weeks will see an important step along that road, as we pass legislation to provide us with legal authority to fund that memorial. 

It is our responsibility to ensure that people are safe, and feel safe, in their homes, and that the failures that have undermined that safety in the past can never happen again. Our dedication to that task will not falter.

The Rt Hon Steve Reed OBE MP 

Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government

Executive summary

The Grenfell Tower tragedy was an event that should have never occurred. 72 innocent lives were lost because of the fire, in a space in which they should have felt, and been, safe. 

A year has passed since the government’s response to Phase 2 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, a day that resurfaced the profound and harrowing memories of those most deeply affected by the tragedy.  

The Grenfell Tower, Lancaster West Estate, and North Kensington communities remain unwavering in their dedication to see change delivered, and this government remains committed to implementing meaningful and lasting reform.  

The work of Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his team in Phase 2 of the Inquiry resulted in 58 recommendations being made. Government and the other responsible organisations accepted all these recommendations. 

In the response to the Inquiry, the government set out plans to implement these, noting it would take at least four years as some recommendations required new legislation to be passed. Work is underway on all recommendations, and we remain on track to complete them within that timeframe.  

As of 25 February 2026, government has reported on the implementation, completion and formal discharge of 12 recommendations, including two of the remaining Phase 1 recommendations. We anticipate that 70% of the recommendations will be closed by the end of 2026. 

Theme	Number of recommendations	In progress	Complete
The construction industry	28	24	4
Fire and rescue services	13	9	4
Response and recovery	14	14	0
Vulnerable people and Phase 1 recommendations	6	2	4
Total	61	49	12

Progress reports were published in May, September and December of 2025, detailing work being undertaken to progress each recommendation and key developments in wider reform. 

The following Annual Report sets out a detailed account of the work undertaken over the past year, alongside the milestones and plans for the year ahead and beyond. It reflects the ongoing work to strengthen the systems and processes that form the built environment to protect residents and ensure buildings are safe. The report is divided into thematic chapters that align with the government’s February 2025 response. The annex contains an update on the progress made against each individual recommendation, along with a delivery timeline for those recommendations that remain open.

Key progress and developments in 2025 include:

Strengthening the building and fire safety system

Over the past year, we have made demonstrable progress towards a more coherent and accountable regulatory framework. We have now brought building safety, fire safety and emergency response functions under a single departmental lead, enabling more consistent oversight of risk and a more integrated approach to regulation and enforcement. On 27 January 2026, the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) was established as its own legal entity, moving from the Health and Safety Executive to an arm’s-length body under the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, a key milestone in the path toward a single construction regulator. The BSR has driven improvements in culture and standards across the built environment, and the government is now taking further steps to ensure the higher‑risk building regime operates in a proportionate and effective way. Alongside the move, a consultation was launched on applying building control to telecommunications works. The proposals will help relieve pressure on the system, improve consistency, and ensure the BSR’s expertise is targeted at the most complex and highest‑risk work. These changes reflect government’s commitment to ensuring guidance and knowledge are targeted to areas that need it most, bringing together regulatory practice and industry capability while doing so.

Driving system-wide reform through clearer rules and expectations

We have continued to strengthen the rules that underpin safe design, construction and management of buildings. Our work this year has focused on making expectations clearer and addressing gaps identified by the Inquiry, so that we can continue to move at pace through the next phase of implementation. This includes the Construction Products Reform White Paper, published alongside this report, which proposes comprehensive changes to strengthen oversight and close regulatory gaps, aiming to ensure products are properly tested, certified and used. To drive the pace of construction products reform, we are publishing a consultation in parallel to the white paper on a general safety requirement to bring unregulated products into the regulatory regime. We intend to bring forward secondary legislation later this year. In addition, work continues to progress on the fundamental review of statutory building safety guidance. The BSR began shaping the review, engaged widely with the sector and, in July 2025, appointed an expert panel to support and inform the review. An interim report is expected in spring 2026.

Raising competence and capability across the built environment

Following the commitments made in February 2025, we have taken significant steps to improve professional standards across construction, fire engineering, building control and fire risk assessment. Over the past year, new bodies of technical advice, competency frameworks, and sector-wide engagement have begun to put in place the stronger, more consistent professional culture required by the Inquiry. Alongside this, targeted investment has begun to expand workforce capacity in key areas where demand has increased. Over 2025, more than 1,200 professionals across fire engineering, building control and construction completed updated competency training aligned with the new frameworks. The Fire Engineers Advisory Panel’s competency statement has now been adopted by 35 higher education institutions, informing updated degree and continued professional development pathways. The Building Control Independent Panel reviewed over 220 submissions of evidence to shape its recommendations, due later in 2026.

Improving accountability and strengthening enforcement

We have focused on ensuring those responsible for keeping people safe are held to account when standards are not met. Over the past year, government has consolidated new regulatory tools, expanded enforcement capacity, and put in place improved mechanisms for tracking performance. This includes establishing new routes for intervention where safety risks persist and supporting local regulators to take more timely and effective action. This past year, local regulators issued 124% more formal notices and undertook 140% more inspections compared with the previous year. The Joint Inspection Team supported more than 110 building assessments, leading to 15 enforcement actions where risks remained unresolved. The Remediation Enforcement Unit will be fully staffed by the end of March 2026, enabling direct intervention in the highest-risk buildings.

Supporting residents and placing their voices at the centre

A core priority since February 2025 has been strengthening residents’ rights, improving transparency, and ensuring concerns are acted upon quickly and respectfully. Over the last 12 months, we have taken forward reforms to consumer regulation in social housing, enhanced routes for resident feedback, expanded resident training and support, and continued to work with those affected by the Grenfell Tower tragedy to ensure lived experience continues to inform policy development. More than 4,500 residents accessed training and rights information through government funded programmes, while the expanded Resident Panel contributed directly to over 20 policy decisions, including approaches to transparency and complaint resolution. The Make Things Right campaign reached an estimated 1.8 million tenants, with a measurable increase in early-stage issue reporting.

Accelerating remediation and improving support for those living in affected buildings

Ensuring homes with serious safety issues are made safe remains a central focus of our work. Over the past year, we have taken steps to remove barriers to remediation, strengthen accountability for those responsible for unsafe buildings, and support residents facing delays or uncertainty. By the end of December 2025, 2,168 buildings had started or completed remediation works, including 1,475 fully completed. Developers have determined the remediation pathway for 93% of buildings covered by the Developer Contract and begun or completed work on 41% of buildings with confirmed defects. The Cladding Safety Scheme has completed an initial review of all four-storey+ Ordnance Survey data records. The report sets out progress made, including enhanced regulatory powers, new routes for oversight, and work with industry to improve the pace and quality of remediation.

Building national resilience and improving emergency preparedness

This year we have acted on the Inquiry’s recommendations relating to emergency response, focusing on improving local and national coordination, strengthening the role of Category 1 responders, and ensuring the needs of vulnerable residents are central to planning and preparedness. Updated national guidance and clearer expectations for partners support a more resilient system capable of responding effectively to complex emergencies. Throughout 2025, more than 2,000 responders completed new training aligned with the updated National Resilience Standards and Amber Book. Five Local Resilience Forum Trailblazer areas are now testing integrated resilience leadership models, with early findings due in summer 2026. Revised guidance on supporting vulnerable residents was published in April 2025, accompanied by updated expectations for local authorities’ statutory duties.

Related announcements and documents being published alongside this report

The government announced that it will shortly introduce legislation to enable the construction and maintenance of the Grenfell Tower Memorial. This memorial will honour those who lost their lives, and those whose lives were forever changed by the tragedy. It will be a space of dignity and peace, where people can remember, reflect, and pay their respects. As recommended by the independent panel, a private, sacred space of memorial will also be created for those most deeply impacted by the tragedy. Government is committed to supporting the independent Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission and the community in the creation of a fitting and lasting memorial, ensuring those impacted, and those who tragically lost their lives, will never be forgotten. 

The government is taking forward a programme of significant reform to strengthen the construction products framework and ensure a more robust, transparent and trusted system. In response to the construction products reform green paper, government has published a white paper, which sets out clear policies and next steps, focusing on improved safety and accountability. To drive reform, the government is also consulting on a general safety requirement to bring unregulated products into the regulatory regime, with plans, subject to parliamentary time, to introduce secondary legislation later this year.  

This government remains focused on ensuring residents feel safe in their homes, expectations are clear and accountable, and industry has the information it needs to meet its responsibilities. This underpins our commitment to delivering all accepted recommendations and ensuring the failures that led to the Grenfell Tower tragedy cannot be repeated.

Chapter 1: Residents at the heart of the system

While the Inquiry did not make specific recommendations about residents, including those who live in social housing, this government is committed to rebuilding trust that this system will provide safely designed and constructed homes, and that these homes will be maintained. Vitally, we must ensure residents trust that their voices, queries and concerns will be listened to through clear processes, so they feel safe and well informed.

 Social housing

In our 2025 response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 report, we committed to learning from the Inquiry’s wider findings about how residents had been treated.  

These reforms are a central part of our plan to deliver a decade of renewal for social and affordable housing. A progress update on the plan was published on 28th January 2026. 

Over the next decade, we will invest £39 billion through the Social and Affordable Homes Programme to build around 300,000 new homes, with at least 60% for social rent. More people will have access to affordable, good-quality homes, reducing overcrowding and long waiting lists. 

Since April 2024, a stronger, more stringent regulatory system has been in place and acted upon to protect tenants. Last year new regulations were introduced to protect tenant safety and new standards have been published that will ensure homes are improved over a sustained timeframe, so they are safe, warm and cheaper to heat. Key reforms include:  

• Phase One of Awaab’s Law began on 27 October 2025. It means social housing landlords must fix serious damp, mould, and other urgent problems in set timeframes. Over 2026 and 2027, government will expand the regulations to cover all hazards listed under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, except overcrowding.  

• New electrical safety regulations came into force on 1 November 2025, which requires all landlords to carry out stringent electrical safety checks for new tenancies every five years, with the vital focus of keeping tenants safe from electrical faults. They must also test any electrical appliances they provide. These rules will apply to all tenancies from May 2026.   

• Public consultations on the Decent Homes Standard and Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards closed in September. We published the response to the consultations on 28 January 2026 setting out robust standards that landlords will have to meet to provide warm, decent and damp-free homes. 

• Through the £2 million Social Housing Innovation Fund, we will award grants in March 2026 to test innovative approaches to resident engagement (see further detail below). 

• We are giving residents more opportunities to shape and scrutinise the housing services they receive by requiring landlords to be more transparent. We continue to make sure that residents’ voices are heard as we develop national housing policy through our Resident Panel, which enables residents to share their experiences directly with ministers, and a new resident stakeholder forum, which brings together a range of organisations that represent or work closely with social housing residents. These two channels provide a structured route for ensuring residents’ perspectives are heard across a wide range of social housing policy issues.  

• We have funded training and online resources for residents to know their rights and how to use them through the Four Million Homes programme and Make Things Right campaign. The Four Million Homes grant comes to an end on 31 March. We will set out how we will continue to support residents later in the spring.  

• We are carrying out a review of the Right to Manage regulations and guidance, which govern the establishment, operation and oversight of Tenant Management Organisations (TMOs). This follows a call for evidence which highlighted issues with clarity of responsibilities between TMOs and their parent landlords, information sharing, and governance and financial arrangements. The review will also consider how more tenants can be encouraged and supported to use the Right to Manage to take control of their housing management, with appropriate support and oversight. 

• Steps have also been taken to strengthen the role of the Housing Ombudsman, to support better outcomes for residents on issues they raise through their complaints. From January 2025, the Ombudsman has been able to publish guidance on good practice, offering sector-wide advice to improve landlord-resident relationships. This guidance is intended to promote consistency and raise standards across the sector. The Ombudsman Service is currently receiving high numbers of enquiries to the service. Despite a 400% increase in the number of complaints investigated by the Housing Ombudsman from 2020/21 to 2024/25, the Ombudsman’s latest Annual Report shows that 99% of high-risk cases are determined within 6 months (against a target of 95%) and 89% of all cases are determined within 12 months (against a target of 80%). The Housing Ombudsman is working towards 50% of all investigations being completed within 6 months from the date the case is accepted for investigation.  

Together, these vital changes to the regulatory system, large scale investment into affordable housing and improved processes for tenants’ concerns to be acted upon are creating a fairer, safer and more responsive social housing system that puts residents first.

 Respect for residents

It was clear from events leading up to the tragedy in 2017 that too many voices had gone unheard by too many responsible organisational bodies leading to devastating consequences. This government is determined that we learn from these injustices and ensure that tenants’ voices are not only heard but reliably acted upon.  

The inquiry did not make recommendations for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), but it was clear that significant change was needed. The government has therefore taken an active interest in seeing that necessary improvements take place, engaging with both the council and community on lasting change. 

The Corporate Peer Challenge carried out by the Local Government Association (LGA) to review the Council’s finance, performance and governance as part of identifying sector led improvement was published in November 2025 (LGA Corporate Peer Challenge: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Local Government Association). Overall, the review found that ‘the organisation has made good progress on its improvement journey, but RBKC recognises that it needs to do more – both to improve further and to demonstrate to all residents that the council has genuinely changed.’  

The peer review team made a number of recommendations, including developing a long-term future for the borough and to consider an integrated approach to place-based stewardship and neighbourhood working, and reviewing the charter for public participation. 

To provide assurance on scrutiny, RBKC appointed an Independent Scrutiny Function in July 2025. This function continues to monitor and scrutinise the delivery of the Restorative Justice programme, which provides personalised support, education and training for bereaved family members, survivors and local residents until 2029. RBKC has also committed to continuing to work with the community to develop the programme in line with changing needs; seeking regular feedback and involving community members in shaping the programme. In September 2025, the Education Hub was launched. RBKC continues to make progress on the final aspects of the education and training support provided as part of the programme. 

Government continues to work with RBKC and support their efforts on ongoing culture change. Regular meetings are held between government and the leader of RBKC in addition to continued engagement with the council’s progress at an official level, including through independent advice and information from the Regulator of Social Housing and the Local Government Association.  

To ensure cultural change is felt by residents, government listens to the bereaved, survivors and the community to hear whether RBKC has succeeded in delivering this meaningful change. Officials continue to meet with residents to support resolution of their individual cases. We continue to work with the council to ensure that they have robust assurance systems in place to deal with issues, as they arise, in a timely manner. The work of government with RBKC and their internal progress as a council are a vital part of rebuilding community relations and trust. Both government and the council understand that building this trust in council working and assurance processes is an ongoing commitment that must hold residents’ needs at the centre of planning and delivery. 

In February 2025, the then Deputy Prime Minister - the Rt Hon Angela Rayner MP - met bereaved families, survivors and residents in the immediate community to share her decision that Grenfell Tower will be carefully taken down. This decision was reached after listening carefully to the community and considering independent expert advice. Work to carefully take down Grenfell Tower is progressing, and we continue to engage, and share information with the community during this sensitive piece of work. We expect the work to continue until at least spring 2027.  

Government is fully committed to supporting bereaved and survivor families, the immediate community and the independent Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission in the creation of a fitting and lasting memorial, to honour those who lost their lives, and those whose lives were forever changed by the tragedy. As a vital part of this important work, today (25 February 2025) we have announced legislation that will provide government with the appropriate spending authority to support the creation and long term management of a fitting and lasting memorial, second site where the Grenfell Tower is laid to rest, archive and permanent exhibition.

Tenants’ engagement with landlords

Following the Grenfell tragedy, we heard from residents how important it is to feel respected, to have opportunities to engage meaningfully with their landlord, to be consulted when decisions are made about housing delivery and to be able to access redress when things go wrong. 

As part of the new stronger consumer regulation regime, Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs), are giving residents a clear picture of how their landlord is performing and allows them to hold landlords to account. They also help landlords identify where they need to improve and provide the Regulator of Social Housing with valuable insight into whether consumer standards are being met. TSM data has now been published for 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025, giving residents more transparency than ever before.  

We have continued to deliver the Make Things Right awareness campaign to inform residents about the standards landlords must meet, and how to take action if those standards are not met. This campaign is currently focused on raising awareness of Awaab’s Law. Future campaigns will highlight and explain other key reforms, such as access to information requirements, to ensure residents are fully informed of their rights.  

Over the last year we have continued to grant fund the Four Million Homes programme, which provides information and training to residents about their housing rights and how to engage with their landlords. The Four Million Homes programme is delivered by the Confederation of Co-operative Housing (CCH) and has been supported by a government grant which comes to an end on 31 March 2026. We are grateful to CCH for their expertise and dedication to delivering high-quality training and webinars, which have been accessed by over 4,500 tenants to date. The grant funding enabled the creation of online guides and training videos, which will continue to be hosted on the Four Million Homes website. New government support for tenant training and awareness will be made available by the end of September 2026.  

To encourage innovation, we launched the £2 million Social Housing Innovation Fund on 27 October 2025. This fund supports projects that test new ways of giving tenants more influence over decisions about their homes and landlord services. Residents will benefit from practical initiatives that strengthen their voice and improve accountability. We received nearly 200 bids and will award grants to 15 to 30 projects in March 2026. To ensure tenants voices are placed at the heart of this work, an advisory panel made up of tenants, social landlords and innovation experts, convened in January 2026, will inform decisions on the final portfolio of projects supported by the fund.

Tenant voice at a national level

It is crucial that those with lived experience can influence national policies that impact how their homes are managed, be part of sharing ideas for reform, and provide feedback on the implementation of existing policies.  

We therefore extended the Social Housing Resident Panel in October 2024 and expanded its scope to cover all social housing policy. Following an open application process, in September 2025 over 130 new members were selected from 1600 applications to join the Panel. The 250 Panel members share their experiences directly with ministers and officials, helping to shape policy that reflects residents’ views and lived experiences. 

We have also established a quarterly resident stakeholder forum from September 2025, bringing together organisations that represent or work closely with social housing residents. This complements the Resident Panel, creating another clear and structured route for feedback and ensuring residents’ perspectives are heard across a wide range of social housing policy issues. 

Government recognise that a national tenant representative organisation is a key ambition from many tenant-led groups. To maintain meaningful engagement on this important conversation, Ministers will continue to hold meetings with these groups about a tenant-led national representative organisation.

Chapter 2: Construction Products system reform

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry found that the construction products system required substantial reform.  

The Construction Products Reform Green Paper, published in February 2025 (alongside the response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 report), reaffirmed the government’s commitment to system-wide reform of the construction products sector and made clear government would set out their steps for long term reform. The green paper was well received, with responses to the consultation provided by a range of stakeholders. Alongside this Annual Report, the government has published the Construction Products Reform White paper, the response to last year’s green paper. 

The recommendations made by the Inquiry that are relevant to this work are: 

• construction products reform (13, 14)  
• the development of a construction library (24)

In keeping with our commitment in the 2025 response we have published, alongside this report, the Construction Products Reform White Paper. This sets out our vision for long-term construction products reform to create a trusted, proportionate regulatory system that ensures safe construction products, safely used. 

The white paper confirms the core objectives to ensure that products are safe and used safely; that industry can grow and innovate, supporting the economy and delivery of 1.5 million safe homes over this Parliament, and beyond, that residents can trust; and, that all those in the product chain act responsibly including manufacturers. It also provides more detail on system-wide reforms to achieve those objectives and a proposed path to implementation. This includes further detail on how three of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry recommendations will be taken forward as part of the broader reforms.  

Reforms include:  

Progressing measures to strengthen the regulatory regime

We will introduce a general safety requirement to bring currently unregulated products into the regulatory regime, along with measures to maintain consistency with the reformed EU regime for those products regulated against standards where this meets our objectives for safe products.  

Significantly strengthening oversight of the testing and certification of construction products

This includes a new licensing regime for all testing and certification bodies to ensure they operate in the public interest alongside proposals for public sector test facilities. 

Confirming the vision for product information requirements and digitalisation

This will support product selection and installation, and product traceability. 

Strengthening enforcement

This focuses on a greater role and powers for the national construction products regulator to drive visible enforcement which will deter bad actors. 

The white paper serves as the government response to the green paper and lays the foundations for a construction products regulatory framework to meet the UK’s needs. It confirms the direction set through the green paper by addressing the regulatory gaps and critical issues in this complex and significant sector that has largely been unreformed since the Grenfell tragedy. 

In parallel, we are publishing a consultation on the proposed regulations for a general safety requirement to bring all products into the regulatory regime. The consultation will run for 12 weeks, alongside proactive engagement with industry. 

The white paper paves the way for the introduction of a proportionate general safety requirement to bring unregulated products into the regulatory regime at the earliest opportunity. A significant proportion of products are currently unregulated, so we are consulting in parallel to enable regulations that will close regulatory gaps, strengthen accountability, and restore confidence in construction product safety. 

Together, these system-wide reforms will make people safer by preventing unsafe products from being used in the construction of homes and other buildings. They will ensure all materials are properly tested, proven safe for their intended application, and compliant before they can be placed on the market. Strong penalties will deter unsafe practices, while greater transparency will help builders, designers and other users make safer choices about the products they select. By creating a regulatory system that puts safety first, these reforms rebuild trust in the materials used to construct homes, buildings and infrastructure.

Chapter 3: Clear standards and expectations

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry found that statutory guidance was unclear, inadequately maintained and in need of significant review, including improvements to Approved Document B, the processes for updating it, and the bodies responsible for advising on its content. 

The recommendations made by the Inquiry that are relevant to this work are: 

• reviewing the definition of a higher-risk building (2)  
• reviewing statutory guidance (5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12)  
• membership of bodies advising on changes to statutory guidance (9)  

The Inquiry did not make recommendations on the regulation of social housing providers, noting that the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 had enabled the Regulator of Social Housing to play a more active role in setting standards and ensuring that they are met. 

This includes the power to introduce and strengthen standards for staff competence and conduct and improve transparency and information sharing through the introduction of new Social Tenant Access to Information Requirements. The Act also requires landlords to identify and address health hazards within the timeframes set out in Awaab’s Law.

The definition of a higher-risk building

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry raised concerns that the existing definition of a higher-risk building may be too narrow as it did not reflect the full range of buildings where the consequences of a fire or structural failure could be most severe. The Inquiry concluded that the definition needed urgent review to ensure that the enhanced protections introduced through the new building safety regime were focused on the right buildings. 

In response, the Building Safety Regulator carried out an initial review of the definition during 2025. This review examined evidence on building height, use, occupancy, and the risks associated with fire and structural failure. The Regulator confirmed that the current definition continues to capture the buildings that present the greatest potential for catastrophic harm and therefore remains appropriate at this time. The findings were published in December 2025, alongside plans for further work to keep the definition under regular review. 

Although the specific recommendation from the Inquiry has now been delivered, the definition will not remain static, our work will continue beyond the recommendation. To ensure the regime continues to protect residents effectively, the Building Safety Regulator will review the definition at least once a year. This means that, as new information becomes available (whether through incident data, research, or experience from the first years of the new regulatory system), the definition can be updated. 

As a result, the types of buildings covered by the higher-risk regime may expand or reduce over time. This approach ensures that regulatory oversight always reflects the best available evidence, so that the buildings presenting the highest risk continue to receive the strongest protections.

Approved Document B and Fundamental Review of Building Regulations guidance

Since the government’s response in February 2025, the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has continued to take forward the Fundamental Review of Building Regulations guidance. Over the past year, this work has moved from scoping and early engagement into a more detailed phase of analysis and evidence-gathering, supported by strengthened expert input and structured oversight. This work has been taken forward in parallel with the continuous review of Approved Document B (ADB). 

In July 2025, BSR appointed a six-member expert panel, bringing together specialists from academia, industry and technical disciplines to inform the development of revised guidance. Throughout the year, BSR maintained regular engagement with stakeholders across the sector, as well as with the Building Advisory Committee, ensuring that emerging proposals reflect practical experience, current fire safety evidence and the Inquiry’s recommendations. This work has focused on making the structure and intent of statutory guidance clearer, improving usability, and addressing longstanding ambiguities identified by the Inquiry. 

Although we had anticipated that a public consultation on proposed updates to ADB would take place in autumn 2025, it became clear that further engagement and ministerial consideration were necessary to ensure the proposals put forward are robust and evidence-based.

BSR will launch a public consultation on proposed updates to Approved Document B, the statutory fire safety guidance within the Building Regulations, this summer. 

Following publication of the ADB consultation, BSR will collect and analyse responses and refine proposals. The conclusion of the review of the broader suite of Approved Documents will set out the next phase of work to update and maintain statutory guidance, ensuring it remains clear, evidence-led and aligned to the government’s broader commitments on building and fire safety.

Clearer standards for social housing properties

We are meeting our commitments to ensure that landlords are clear on their responsibilities and that the regulatory system works to support and protect tenants when standards are not met. We are progressing key reform on electrical safety and energy efficiency standards, and in October 2025 launched Phase 1 of Awaab’s Law (please refer to Chapter 1 for more detail on these reforms).

Private rented sector standards

The Renters Rights Bill received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025 and is now an Act. The government published an implementation roadmap and a suite of guidance for landlords and tenants on 13 November 2025. The former outlined the planned phase implementation of the Act, starting with the core Chapter 1 reforms which included the abolition of section 21 and movement to new tenancy reform system, capping of rent in advance, banning of rental discrimination and rental bidding and uprating of financial penalties, on 1 May 2026. The Act and these reforms mark a vital shift in the private rented sector, providing renters with greater protections and agency over their renting experiences.  

The government is also improving the energy efficiency rules for private rented homes. At present, landlords can only rent out a property if it meets at least Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Band E, unless they have registered a valid exemption. Last year, the government consulted on raising this minimum standard.  

On 21 January 2026, alongside the Warm Homes Plan, the government confirmed that landlords will need to upgrade their properties to meet EPC Band C by October 2030. Landlords will also be able to choose between two different routes (“smart” or “heat” metrics) depending on what works best for their property. This change is designed to make homes warmer, reduce energy bills, and cut carbon emissions. 

To protect landlords from excessive costs, there will be a £10,000 spending cap per property. A new exemption will also be introduced for lowervalue properties. If the £10,000 cap would amount to 10% or more of the property’s value, the required spending limit will be reduced. Guidance will be issued to explain the new rules, and government will work with landlords, tenants and industry groups to ensure the guidance is clear and practical. These reforms are part of vital changes to the private rented sector to ensure this system is fair and affordable for both landlords and renters.

Chapter 4: Competent professionals and trades

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry found that a number of key professions and trades involved in assuring building safety lacked the necessary competence. It identified inconsistent qualifications, poor understanding of fire safety requirements, and an absence of reliable professional standards, contributing to unsafe decisions during the design and construction of buildings. 

The recommendations made by the Inquiry that are relevant to this work are: 

• reviewing building control functions (22, 23)  
• the fire engineering profession (15, 16, 17, 18)  
• fire safety strategy for higher-risk buildings (10) 
• mandatory accreditation of fire risk assessors (26) 
• the College of Fire and Rescue (29, 30) 
• building control approval for higher-risk buildings (20)  
• the licensing of principal contractors (21)

Competence within social housing

We have met our commitment to direct the Regulator of Social Housing to set a new standard for the competence and conduct of social housing staff. The Regulator is consulting on these proposed changes until 3 March 2026.  

The standard will come into force in October 2026, followed by a three-year transition period before senior housing managers and executives must be working towards a relevant qualification. The transition period will be four years for registered providers with fewer than 1,000 homes.  

The new requirements will require housing staff to have the right skills and behaviours to provide a high-quality, respectful service. The new standard is a key marker of reform and should enable residents to feel confident that their concerns will be heard and addressed, and that landlords will engage with them to ensure timely delivery of good services.

Buildings

In April 2025, we announced the appointment of five members to the Building Control Independent Panel, chaired by Dame Judith Hackitt. This included three members from the Industry Safety Steering Group (Dr David Snowball, Elaine Bailey and Ken Rivers) and Rt Hon Nick Raynsford.  

Over the past year, the panel has progressed through several important milestones. In June 2025, we published the panel’s Terms of Reference and membership, outlining the scope of the review and the approach to evidence gathering. In July, the panel’s problem statement and accompanying call for evidence were published. In autumn, the panel reviewed responses and began developing their findings and recommendations to government. The panel will finalise their report to government this year, which will be considered and followed by a formal response.

Fire engineers

Following the establishment of the Fire Engineers Advisory Panel in April 2025, the panel was tasked with providing expert advice to government on the fire engineering profession. In line with recommendation 17 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report, its primary objective was to produce an authoritative statement setting out the skills and knowledge expected of a competent fire engineer. The panel concluded its work at the end of last year and delivered an authoritative statement defining core competencies for fire engineers. In addition, an accompanying next steps framework has been produced by the government outlining a high-level approach to future regulation of the profession. These documents mark a significant milestone in the reform of the fire engineering profession. 

Work this year will focus on building upon these foundations. As set out in our next steps statement, we will establish a transitional board tasked with supporting MHCLG with the development of the framework for future regulation, competency standards and implementation pathways. Government has also committed to seeking advice on expanding current higher-education provision and is considering targeted funding.

Fire risk assessors

Government accepted recommendation 26 of the Inquiry in full, committing to introduce legislation that will make it mandatory for anyone acting as a fire risk assessor to have their competence independently verified by an accredited certification body. This is to ensure people carrying out this critical safety role have been properly assessed and meet consistent, professional standards. 

In August 2025, the British Standards Institution published BS 8674:2025 Built Environment – Framework for Competence of Individual Fire Risk Assessors – Code of Practice. This new British Standard sets out the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours a competent fire risk assessor is expected to have. It provides an agreed benchmark to support the profession and help underpin future regulatory requirements. 

As set out in the Single Construction Regulator Prospectus published in December 2025, government will shortly consult on proposals for the future regulation of fire risk assessors. The consultation will outline the changes needed to fully implement recommendation 26 and ensure consistently high competency standards across the profession. We expect to launch this consultation by the end of May 2026. 

To support this work, we have established advisory groups across government, the devolved governments, and the sector. These groups meet regularly to provide expert insight and ensure a coordinated, UK-wide approach. 

Once we have considered the findings from the consultation, government intends to introduce primary legislation to deliver the new mandatory accreditation system, when parliamentary time allows.

College of fire and rescue

The government has accepted the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s recommendation to establish a college of fire and rescue (recommendations 29 and 30) in principle. The government’s ambition is to create a college that will enhance skills, knowledge and leadership across the fire and rescue sector.   

Last year, the government established a college of fire and rescue task and finish group, under the Ministerial Advisory Group for Fire and Rescue Reform, to advise on the potential form and functions of the college. Through these sessions we have identified the potential functions of a college of fire, as well as the key principles for determining the most appropriate delivery model for the college, and we have explored the potential funding models needed to establish and run it.  

In December, the Minister for Building Safety, Fire and Democracy approved a plan for key policy proposals concerning potential functions, delivery models and funding models for a college, to be pursued ahead of a planned consultation. 

Subject to ministerial agreement, we intend to launch our green paper consultation on the college of fire by May 2026.

Licensing of principal contractors

The government is strengthening the rules for who can take charge of building work on higher-risk buildings, such as high-rise residential blocks. To do this, we are developing a new licensing scheme for principal contractors. Only contractors who meet the required standards would be allowed to oversee work on these buildings. This is intended to improve safety, raise competence, and give the public greater confidence in how major building projects are run. 

As part of this work, we are also considering a new requirement for senior leaders in construction companies. Under this proposal, a director or senior manager would need to personally sign a statement confirming they have taken all reasonable steps to make sure the building complies with building regulations when it is finished. This aims to increase accountability at the top of organisations and ensure safety is taken seriously at every stage. 

We have also begun a wider review of the dutyholder system (the legal responsibilities placed on designers, contractors and others involved in building work). This review will report in autumn 2026 and will help determine how the new licensing scheme should be designed to support safety, clarity and accountability. 

In December 2025, through the Single Construction Regulator Prospectus, we committed to launching a call for evidence in 2026. This invites views from industry, residents, professionals and other stakeholders on proposals for reforming built environment professions, including the introduction of licensing for principal contractors.

 Principal designers

Over the past year, the government has worked to improve how the new higher-risk building regime operates, including the gateway process and the duties placed on those responsible for design and construction. As the sector continues to adjust to significant regulatory change, we recognise the need for clearer guidance on existing responsibilities, particularly for principal designers. In 2026, we will continue this work, feeding it into the wider review of dutyholder roles due for publication in autumn 2026. 

At the same time, the government is considering the Inquiry recommendations 20 and 21, which propose requiring a senior manager or director to formally confirm that a building complies with building regulations as designed and constructed. Last year, we held stakeholder roundtables to explore how greater senior-level accountability could be delivered within principal designer and principal contractor organisations. Building on this engagement, we are undertaking a call for evidence on options to strengthen and clarify accountability in late spring 2026.

Improving the training system

The government is working closely with industry to provide high-quality training opportunities and build a diverse workforce fit for the future. The June 2025 Spending Review provided an additional £1.2 billion for the overall skills system per year by tax year 2028 to 2029. This includes funding to support over 1.3 million 16 to 19 year-olds access to high-quality training and supporting 65,000 additional learners per year for 2028 to 2029, including in construction. 

The government has also committed £625 million for construction skills, as announced at spring statement 2025, to recruit an additional 60,000 construction workers by 2028 to 2029. This includes additional funding to deliver more construction courses, skills bootcamps, foundation apprenticeships, industry placements. This funding also established 10 new Technical Excellence Colleges, announced in August 2025. This will enable the industry to draw on high-skilled, competent, British talent and open up opportunities for homegrown workers to access well-paid jobs. 

The government has also announced a Post-16 Education and Skills white paper, reforming the further education sector to ensure high-quality training leading to good jobs. This is on top of previously announced apprenticeship reforms that mean up to 10,000 more apprentices will be able to qualify per year, including in construction. These reforms will form a core part of our plan to transform the housebuilding industry in the long-term housing strategy. 

The government is investing £1.5 billion to support young people into education, employment and training through the Youth Guarantee and Growth and Skills Levy to deliver more opportunities for young people, and support us to provide work experience, training places and job opportunities. The investment in the Youth Guarantee will create around 300,000 more opportunities to gain workplace experience and training. In addition, it will provide guaranteed jobs to around 55,000 young people aged 18 to 21. This will include opportunities in the construction industry.

Cladding worker capacity

Industry have identified a risk that there could be a shortfall in skilled cladding workers to meet current demand. Additionally, the acceleration of remediation will create further demands for skilled cladding workers, against a limited supply base of qualified UK workers.   

To address this, the Construction Industry Training Board has secured a supplier to deliver a new Rainscreen Façade Installer Training programme. The first cohort, launching in February 2026, will support the upskilling of façade installers and site supervisors, provide recognised qualifications, and raise competency standards, helping to expand the talent pipeline required to sustain accelerated remediation. 

Cladders have also been added to the immigration salary list, making it easier for employers to recruit skilled workers from overseas. This change is expected to boost visa applications and increase available capacity in the near term, strengthening the workforce and supporting faster progression of crucial remediation projects.

Chapter 5: Clear accountability and effective enforcement

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry found that accountability for building safety was weakened by fragmented and overly complex regulatory arrangements, leading to unclear responsibilities and ineffective enforcement across the bodies overseeing those who design, build and maintain homes. 

The Inquiry considered that recommendations on the regulation of social housing providers were unnecessary, as the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 had already equipped the Regulator of Social Housing with stronger powers to set and enforce standards. 

The recommendations made by the Inquiry that are relevant to this work are: 

• creating a single construction regulator (1) 
• appointing a Chief Construction Adviser (4)  
• bringing responsibility for fire safety under a single government department (3)

Improving government structures

In February 2025, the Prime Minister announced that responsibility for all national fire-related functions would move from the Home Office to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). This brought fire safety together with building safety and emergency response under one Secretary of State. 

This change took effect on 1 April 2025, when all fire functions formally moved to MHCLG. Staff transferred on 1 July 2025, and the budgets followed in January 2026. This went further than the Inquiry’s recommendation, which focused only on fire safety, by placing all fire responsibilities within a single department. 

Bringing these functions together means government can now take a more coherent approach to keeping people safe from fire in their homes, especially as part of the wider building safety reforms introduced after the Grenfell tragedy. It also creates a single lead department for managing and coordinating the response to major residential fires and supporting communities through recovery. 

All aspects of fire-related work now sit within MHCLG: fire safety, national fire strategy, reform, funding, resilience, pensions, data and analysis, and the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate. Aligning these functions with building safety, construction product safety and emergency management reduces duplication and ensures clearer accountability. 

Although responsibilities have moved, MHCLG continues to work closely with the Home Office and other partners to maintain strong relationships across the emergency services. The Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles, which guide how police, fire and ambulance services work together during major incidents, remain overseen by the Home Office. MHCLG, the Home Office and emergency service partners will continue to collaborate to ensure effective joint working. 

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) also remains sponsored by the Home Office. A new governance model is being developed to support MHCLG’s engagement with HMICFRS on fire-specific inspections, supported by a Memorandum of Understanding to set out clear roles and responsibilities. 

Taking a holistic approach to fire and building safety will help government, fire and rescue authorities, local authorities and the Building Safety Regulator work together more effectively. This will improve how risks are identified, managed and responded to, leading to a more coordinated and responsive system that helps ensure residents both are safe and feel safe in their homes and communities.

Reform of regulatory institutions: a single regulator for construction and a Chief Construction Adviser

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry highlighted that the current system for overseeing building safety and construction is fragmented, with responsibilities split across several organisations. This has led to inconsistent standards, gaps in oversight and unclear accountability. To address these issues, the government committed in February 2025 to create a single construction regulator; a body with the authority, expertise and independence needed to oversee the safety and quality of the built environment from end to end. 

Over the past year, significant steps have been taken to put this commitment into practice. 

In June 2025, the government strengthened the governance arrangements of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), improving its leadership, capacity and ability to operate effectively as the foundation of a future single regulator. 

In November 2025, a statutory instrument was laid to transfer key building safety functions from the Health and Safety Executive into a new arm’s length body within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). This change is designed to bring functions together under one department and remove fragmentation; one of the central problems identified by the Inquiry. 

In December 2025, the government published the Single Construction Regulator Prospectus Consultation, seeking views on how the regulatory system should operate in the long term. The consultation explores options for integrating responsibilities across building control, construction product oversight, and professional competence into a more coherent and effective system. 

On 27 January 2026, the new BSR became operational as an independent arm’s length body. This marks an important shift in how building safety is governed, and is a key step towards a fully integrated single construction regulator. 

During 2026, the government will consolidate the organisational and practical changes already made to strengthen the BSR. The consultation on the single construction regulator will close on 20 March 2026, and the government will publish its response in the summer. This will set out the final design choices for the regulator, including where responsibilities will sit, how functions will be integrated, and what legislative changes will be required. Legislation to establish the single construction regulator will be introduced when parliamentary time allows. 

To support this reform, the government appointed an Interim Chief Construction Adviser (CCA), Thouria Istephan, on 1 October 2025. Over the past year, the CCA has worked across government and with external partners to provide independent expert advice on construction, building safety, regulatory reform and technical standards. Alongside this Annual Report, the CCA has published a statement setting out their priorities and intention to publish an independent report at the end of their term. 

Recognising the need for consistent, expert and science-based leadership across construction and building safety, the government will replace the interim arrangements with a new, permanent role: the Chief Construction and Scientific Adviser (CCSA). 

The CCSA will: 

• Provide ministers and officials with a single, authoritative source of independent technical challenge on construction, science and engineering issues. 
• Strengthen MHCLG’s ability to make confident, evidence based decisions on building safety and construction reform.
• Reduce fragmentation between policy development and practical implementation. 
• Improve access to a wider range of specialist expertise across government and through the Government Chief Scientific Adviser network. 

The process to recruit a Chief Construction and Scientific Adviser (CCSA) is already underway. We intend for a CCSA to take up their post at the end of the Interim CCA’s term, which is due to conclude at the end of September 2026. 

Together, strengthening the BSR, consulting on a single construction regulator, and establishing expert technical leadership are designed to deliver a safer, more coherent and more accountable construction and building safety system.

The regulation of social housing

This government is committed to making sure social housing landlords are held to account and that residents can trust the system to protect their rights. 

Following the introduction of proactive consumer regulation in April 2024, over the last year the Regulator of Social Housing has continued to hold registered providers of social housing to account for delivering the outcomes set by the consumer standards. It has continued to conduct routine inspections of large registered providers, publishing regulatory judgements showing its findings.  

The Regulator has identified instances where registered providers are failing to deliver the outcomes set by the consumer standards and is working with these providers on their plans to promptly address the issues identified. It has also set out learnings from its regulation for all social landlords. 

Government has directed the Regulator to introduce new rules from October 2026, called Social Tenant Access to Information Requirements (STAIRs), requiring landlords to publish key information about how they manage homes. From April 2027, tenants will be able to request details directly. We also plan to extend Freedom of Information rights to tenants of Tenant Management Organisations, providing tenants with greater agency to better understand their homes. These changes will give residents more practical tools to see how their landlords operate, providing them transparently with the knowledge to hold them to account.

Making accountabilities clearer in social housing

We committed to review the governance of delegated management organisations so residents can be confident their housing management is fit for purpose, and effective oversight and accountability is in place, regardless of who delivers it. Last year we carried out a call for evidence to understand the current relationship between councils, tenant management organisations (TMOs) and arm’s length management organisations. In light of this evidence, we have now begun a full review of the Right to Manage Regulations which govern the establishment, operation and oversight of TMOs. We will work with TMOs, councils, and tenants to identify the changes needed to the regulations and statutory guidance. The review will also consider how more tenants can be encouraged and supported to use the Right to Manage to take control of their housing management, with appropriate support and oversight.

Getting buildings fixed

Eight years on from the Grenfell Tower tragedy, there is no justification for any building to remain unsafe. Our goal is clear: to remove all barriers to remediation, get buildings with unsafe cladding fixed faster and allow residents to feel safer in their homes. In July 2025, we updated our Remediation Acceleration Plan, setting out progress on fixing buildings faster, and additional steps to remove barriers, strengthen accountability and speed up remediation. Actions set out in the Remediation Acceleration Plan have laid the groundwork to ensure every priority residential building with unsafe cladding is remediated. 

We will seek to introduce new primary legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows which will drive forward the remediation of historic unsafe cladding. This Bill will create certainty about which buildings need remediating, and give regulators the powers they need to compel the most reluctant entities to take action, or face severe sanctions. We also intend to legislate to introduce a remediation backstop to ensure works are carried out and buildings are made safe, even where a landlord has consistently failed to respond to enforcement.  

Our latest data, published on 29 January 2026 shows that, as of 31 December 2025, there were 4,126 residential buildings over 11 metres in height with unsafe cladding enrolled in government remediation programmes. Of these, 2,168 buildings (53%) had begun or completed remediation, including 1,475 buildings (36%) where works had been fully completed. At the end of December, government was monitoring the remediation progress of an estimated 48% to 72% of all residential buildings with unsafe cladding expected to be remediated or mitigated through departmental programmes. A further 1,300 social sector buildings had applied to the Cladding Safety Scheme and were undergoing eligibility checks. While significant progress has been made on remediation, government is aware there is pressing work still to be done to ensure the safety of all residents in their homes based on the infrastructure of residential buildings. 

In July 2025, we announced a joint plan with social landlords and regulators that will accelerate remediation of social housing in England. At the heart of the joint plan is a commitment by government to more than £1 billion of new investment to give social landlords equal access to government remediation schemes for the first time. 

53 developers have signed the developer remediation contract, therefore committing to fix or pay to fix 2,497 11m+ buildings in England with life-critical fire safety defects, at an estimated cost of £4.2 billion. Of these, developers are directly responsible for remediating 2,354 buildings rather than being funded by the Building Safety Fund or Private Sector ACM Cladding Remediation Fund. By the end of October 2025, 39 developers have signed up to the joint plan to accelerate developer-led remediation and help improve the residents. Together they account for 95% of buildings to be remediated by developers under the contract.  

By the end of October 2025, developers had collectively determined whether remediation is required in 93% of buildings covered by the Developer Remediation Contract and had started or completed remediation work in 41% of buildings where defects have been identified and they are directly responsible. 

The Building Safety Levy will start being charged on certain building control applications from 1st October 2026. The government has published guidance and is undertaking a comprehensive programme of engagement so that developers, local authorities, Registered Building Control Approvers and the Building Safety Regulator can prepare for this change.   

Government is working with the sector to identify and overcome blockers to remediation, including through the Remediation Action Group (RAG). In 2025, we published dispute-resolution guidance, a template access licence agreement and guidance for responsible entities to clarify how the Developer Remediation Contract works in order to reduce frequency of disputes between responsible entities and developers about the scope of works needed. Additionally, through the Remediation Acceleration Plan, we committed to empowering mayors to work with local regulators using Local Remediation Acceleration Plans (LRAPs). These bring together expertise, local knowledge and resources to create single area strategies. To date, 10 Mayoral Strategic Authorities have published their plans and the remaining two are in progress.  

The Cladding Safety Scheme (CSS) has completed its review of all four-storey+ Ordnance Survey data records and where appropriate, buildings with suspected unsafe cladding are being written to formally and encouraged to apply to the scheme through the CSS’ pull in process. 

To support the delivery of the wider remediation programme, in April 2025 the government announced the £20.6 million Waking Watch Replacement Fund 2023 would be extended to March 2026, with up to £21.11 million additional funds being made available to support the installation of a common alarm system, replacing waking watch measures in residential buildings where a waking watch is currently in place in England. Plans to launch a new long-term fund were also announced as part of the Remediation Acceleration Plan update in July 2025. This fund will help to keep residents safe in their homes and protect leaseholders from the cost of interim measures until remediation can be completed. We plan to launch the new fund in April 2026.

Strengthening enforcement activity

We continue to support capacity and capability in the enforcement system with vital investment and new powers. In the 2025 to 2026 financial year, we increased funding to ensure local regulators have the capacity to drive remediation where appropriate and empowered mayors to develop regional plans (10 have published plans to date) to bring greater coordination and engagement across the regulator sector. 

Greater collaboration, increased funding, shared data, and regular departmental engagement has seen significant results from local authorities. By the end of June 2025, inspections had risen by 140%, with a 124% increase in formal notices, compared to the period prior to the department’s funding. We are continuing to fund the Joint Inspection Team (JIT). This is a multi-disciplinary team of building safety experts who support local authorities with buildings with unsafe cladding to enforce fire safety and building regulations. They are involved in a range of activities, from the inspection of buildings right up to and including prosecutions. They also provide training.   

We designed and are launching a new Remediation Enforcement Unit (REU) within the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), which will intervene on the most high-risk 18 metres and higher residential buildings with unsafe cladding, supporting local regulators to address risks for 11 to 18 metre buildings. The REU is currently recruiting and will be operational from March 2026.  

We are bringing together building level data and intelligence, into a single platform, delivering efficiencies in collaborative working through the National Remediation System (NRS), run by the Cladding Safety Scheme. The NRS will enable regulators, mayors and government to coordinate progress on the remediation of unsafe cladding across England. To date, significant progress has been made in rolling out the NRS. Since April 2025, 400 users from 150 organisations have gained access, reflecting the system’s collaborative focus.

Taking action against construction product manufacturers

In our response to the Inquiry’s report, we announced that the Cabinet Office had launched investigations into seven organisations criticised by the Inquiry, using new debarment powers introduced in the Procurement Act 2023. However, on 10 July 2025, Cabinet Office announced a pause to these investigations at the request of Crown Prosecution Service and the Metropolitan Police who had significant concerns that debarment investigations could unintentionally prejudice any criminal investigations and any future criminal proceedings. 

This decision was taken to protect the integrity of any criminal proceedings and was not taken lightly.   

The pause does not prevent the Cabinet Office from resuming these debarment investigations in the future or from undertaking future debarment investigations. If a supplier is convicted of a criminal offence that is a mandatory exclusion ground under the Procurement Act 2023, this would potentially enable the government to take a stronger stance.

Chapter 6: Cultural change and oversight of recommendations

The past year has seen a renewed government-wide focus on cultural transformation. The Inquiry made clear that deep-seated cultural failings marked by complacency, fragmented responsibilities, risk aversion and a lack of candour were central to the tragedy at Grenfell Tower. Our commitment over the past 12 months has been to move from acknowledgment to action.  

The recommendations made by the Inquiry that are relevant to this work are: 

• a public tracker of recommendations made by select committees, coroners and public inquiries (25)

Improving transparency and oversight of implementation of recommendations and other reports received by government

Both government and parliament have important roles in providing oversight, accountability and scrutiny. 

What government is doing 

The government recognises that in the past inquiry recommendations have been made and accepted but not implemented. In July 2025 we launched the first Public Inquiries: Recommendations and the Government Response dashboards, to track the implementation of recommendations. The dashboards will be updated and continue to evolve to include all inquiries from 2024 onwards, and refreshed quarterly. dashboards will be an enduring mechanism for monitoring and tracking government implementation of inquiry recommendations. They It will allow the public to track the progress of implementation and ensure inquiry recommendations do not get lost. This commitment to transparency enhances both public scrutiny and accessibility in line with this recommendation. This recommendation is now closed and has been fully discharged. 

The government is continuing to explore ways to improve transparency and accountability of recommendations made to it by public inquiries. We will continue to listen to the views of groups which have been impacted by public inquiries so that the government’s progress toward implementing of inquiry recommendations is properly scrutinise. 

What Parliament is doing 

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) and the Liaison Committee are undertaking work to consider how Parliamentary oversight of recommendations can be strengthened. The report from the Infected Blood Inquiry includes recommendations for Parliament on two key areas: how to respond to calls for public inquiries and how to scrutinise the implementation of recommendations resulting from future inquiries. As a result, in December 2025 PACAC launched an inquiry that will examine those issues to inform consideration of the broader recommendations from the Infected Blood Inquiry and to guide the approach to other future inquiries. 

Prevention of Future Deaths Reports 

Prevention of Future Deaths (PFD) reports are issued by coroners in the course of investigating an individual death, where they identify a concern that, in their view, requires action to prevent or reduce the risk of future death. While the primary purpose of an inquest is to answer the four ‘statutory questions’ about a death (who died and ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ they died), PFDs play an important additional role in contributing to public safety. In 2024 (latest data available), there were 713 PFD reports issued, an increase of 25% compared with 2023.  

PFD reports alongside responses are published at Reports to Prevent Future Deaths - Courts and Tribunals Judiciary and the Ministry of Justice is continuing to work in close partnership with the Chief Coroner’s Office and other key stakeholders to enhance visibility, accountability, and the impact of PFD reports — to help support system wide learning and drive meaningful change. 

1. We have provided further information and advice to coroners to ensure the timely direction of reports to the most appropriate recipients - those with the authority and capability to take action. In parallel, the Chief Coroner’s Office continues to strengthen transparency by publishing online the name of recipients who fail to respond, ensuring public visibility of non-compliance. This information is available at - Non-responses to Prevention of Future Death (PFD) reports - Courts and Tribunals Judiciary.

To drive systemic improvement, we have also established a cross-government PFD Oversight Working Group bringing together all departments that routinely receive PFDs. This group shares best practice and helps tackle any barriers that hinder timely dissemination, learning, and implementation. This initiative is designed to strengthen internal structures within government departments and public bodies for handling PFD reports, ensuring they can respond effectively and consistently to concerns raised. We welcome the fact that several departments have established—or are exploring—the creation of dedicated teams to lead this critical work.

Tracking progress against Grenfell Tower Inquiry Recommendations

While conversations about broader oversight are ongoing, government remains committed to providing regular updates on our progress to implement the recommendations from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s Phase 2 report.  

This currently takes the form of an Annual Report published in February and quarterly progress reports in May, September and December. These updates are translated into the 11 most widely used languages within the Grenfell community to make sure they are accessible to those most directly affected by the tragedy.  

We will review these reporting arrangements at the end of 2026 at which point we anticipate approximately 70% of the recommendations will have been implemented. This will allow us to make sure the frequency and nature of the reports supports our commitment to transparency around progress and that updates are meaningful.

The culture of the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of all civil servants to uphold the Civil Service’s core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality. The department has disciplinary policies in place that are used where staff do not meet expected standards of conduct or performance. 

The government has introduced the Public Office (Accountability) Bill – also known as the Hillsborough Law. Learning lessons from devastating disasters and scandals – including Hillsborough, Orgreave, Windrush, the infected blood scandal and Grenfell, the Hillsborough Law will place new obligations on officials to help investigations to find the truth, and ensure candour is embedded at the heart of public service. 

The law will introduce changes, including: 

• A new legal Duty of Candour at inquiries, inquests and investigations. Public officials and authorities will be legally required to assist investigations, providing information and evidence with candour; proactively; and without favouring their own position– with criminal sanctions for egregious breaches. 

• Public servants will also be placed under new duties of candour relating to their day to day work. These “professional duties of candour” will be set out in mandatory codes of ethics and will be tailored to the sectors to which they apply.  

• A new offence of misleading the public, with criminal sanctions for officials who engage in cover-ups.  

• The legislation also includes the largest expansion of legal aid in a decade for bereaved families – providing non-means tested help and support for inquests where the state is represented.  

The Hillsborough Law underlines the government’s commitment to learning the lessons from failure and ensures public servants are confident in challenging wrongdoing. It will require public servants to respond positively to challenge from others, including from external sources, and end the pattern of defensiveness highlighted by inquiries. All departments are working to create this change; in MHCLG we have committed to ensuring we put the people we serve at the heart of policymaking.

Processes within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Since 2017, MHCLG has been on a journey of continual improvement to ensure we operate in a robust and effective manner. In the past year, across the department we have had a significant focus on candour, working with our people and leaders to examine the barriers to candour and we will continue to encourage and enable our people to be more candid when discussing delivery progress, risks and the work of the department. We continue to work with teams in the department to explore further ways in which we can encourage a culture of candour, transparency and openness to challenge from external sources.  

MHCLG continues to operate under the principles of its risk management framework, which reinforces the need to consistently and effectively manage risks. The framework is due for review in spring 2026 as part of a broader risk improvement initiative. The initiative focuses on ensuring risk considerations actively inform strategic decision-making: one of the key pillars of this work is developing a strong risk culture through strengthening staff capabilities and engagement with risk at all levels of the organisation. 

MHCLG continues to have a comprehensive whistleblowing policy that reflects cross-government best practice. The policy is overseen by the department’s Audit and Risk committee. The policy is supported by multiple routes for staff to raise a concern, including the option to raise matters anonymously and with an external body. In line with National Audit Office recommendations for the Cabinet Office, a survey to understand the experiences of whistleblowers will be implemented

Working in partnership with industry

The Inquiry was clear that industry shared responsibility for the failures that led to the Grenfell tragedy. In response, government set out clear expectations for stronger leadership, higher standards, and a shift in culture across the sector. 

Over the past year, government and industry have continued to work together to embed better practice, strengthen competence, and raise levels of transparency and accountability. While there is still significant progress to make, collaboration has increasingly focused on moving away from defensive behaviours and towards shared responsibility for delivering safe, high quality outcomes. 

As part of this, government brought together representatives from industry, regulators, academia and residents through the Single Construction Regulator Advisory Board, helping to shape proposals for long term regulatory reform and ensuring a broad range of voices inform future system design. 

Sector leadership has also begun to emerge. Industry bodies have developed plans to support safer design, construction and maintenance practices, and to promote a culture in which building safety is prioritised throughout the lifecycle of a project. Continued engagement and commitment across the sector will be essential to sustaining this shift. 

The industry has worked closely with the Building Safety Regulator and the government to improve understanding of regulatory requirements and support consistent, high quality compliance. Collaborative work on best practice guidance, training, and practical support for industry reflects a more constructive relationship while maintaining a firm focus on effective enforcement. 

Alongside this, industry is also working towards delivering a more competent and capable workforce, including through government supported, sector-led initiatives. While this work is in its early stages, these efforts will help to resource the industry to be sufficiently equipped to meet the demands of a safer and more accountable system. 

Across the sector, many individuals and organisations have already played a positive role in driving change. However, the scale of transformation needed remains significant. Lasting progress will depend on all parts of the supply chain, large and small, demonstrating clear commitment to safety, professionalism and accountability at every stage of delivering and managing buildings.

Chapter 7: Delivering together

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry found that residents and the wider community were let down by severely inadequate arrangements for supporting people before, during and after the tragedy, highlighting failures in emergency response, gaps in planning for vulnerable residents, and significant lessons for central government and frontline responders in working together effectively.  

The recommendations made by the Inquiry that are relevant to this work are: 

• reviewing the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (42) 
• Category 1 responder partnerships with voluntary, community and faith organisations (43) 
• revising and consolidating advice for emergency response (44, 45) 
• national standards for local resilience forums (47) 
• verification of training provided by local authorities and Category 1 responders (48) 
• Fire control switches and lift keys (27) 
• Reviewing recommendations in the Phase 1 report following the Phase 2 report (57).  
• Reconsidering advice in paragraph 79.11 of the Local Government Association Guide (58)

Improving resilience, response and recovery

To strengthen partnership working between Category 1 responders and voluntary, community and faith sector organisations, we launched a public consultation in July 2025, to assess the proportionality of an enhanced statutory duty. Promoted through stakeholder networks to increase the reach, the Stronger Partnerships consultation received 165 completed responses, before closing in September 2025.  

The consultation collected valuable data on the complex potential effects of an enhanced statutory duty, and the government published a response to the consultation in December 2025. This year, we will undertake an impact assessment on the implications of potential changes to existing statutory duties and consider non-regulatory changes to strengthen partnership working. This impact assessment, alongside the outcomes of the consultation, will help inform the government’s decision on how to strengthen this vital partnership working.  

In July 2025, we published the UK Government Resilience Action Plan, which sets out the government’s strategic vision for a stronger and more resilient UK and the steps being taken to deliver this. The Resilience Action Plan will deliver against three objectives in this Parliament to:  

• Continuously assess how resilient the UK is to target interventions and resources effectively;  
• Enable the whole of society to take action to increase their resilience;  
• Strengthen the core public sector resilience system.  

The action plan articulates an ‘all hazards approach’ to build resilience across the increasingly volatile and varied risks we face. It complements both the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence Review, by building domestic resilience to ensure ‘security at home’ and underlining the importance of the whole of society approach.  

The action plan recognises that the consequences of emergencies are often disproportionately felt across society, and assessing and planning for people who are vulnerable in different types of emergencies is core to the action plan. The government engaged with a range of organisations when reviewing our approach to resilience, including representatives from the voluntary, community and faith sector, who work tirelessly to support those who can be the most impacted in emergencies. We are committed to ensuring that our national and local emergency planning is more closely connected with our communities and the people we serve.  

We have taken steps to modernise our national resilience guidance and ensure it puts greater emphasis on the need to consider the unequal impacts emergencies can have on different individuals and communities. The government published an updated Central Government Concept of Operations for Emergency Response and Recovery, now titled the Amber Book - Managing Crisis in central government, in April 2025, which expressly recognises the need for humanitarian considerations to be embedded into the response and recovery from an emergency. The guidance stresses the importance of providing tailored support to vulnerable and at-risk groups, the important role of Voluntary, Community and Faith Sector organisations, and the requirements to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty (set out in the Equality Act). This is to ensure interventions have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations when exercising their functions.  

Government has also reviewed its wider resilience guidance as part of a programme of work to harmonise publicly available guidance. As part of this review, we have identified priority updates, including the National Resilience Standards for Local Resilience Forums (LRFs). The review and update of future guidance will continue to put further emphasis on how responder organisations can embed humanitarian considerations, provide support to vulnerable people, and implement best practice on working with Voluntary, Community, and Faith Sector organisations.  

To improve capabilities to better understand how best to help at-risk groups in emergencies, the Cabinet Office published revised guidance on Identifying and Supporting Vulnerable People on GOV.UK in April 2025. The guidance was updated to include feedback and content ideas from local responders, the Voluntary, Community and Faith sector, and other representative groups. The guidance explains the need to identify vulnerable people in collaboration with these groups to reach different networks of people, alongside legislative requirements included in the Equality Act 2010.  

The National Occupational Standards (NOS) were independently reviewed and published on 28 April 2025. The new Standards provided clear expectations of the knowledge and skills required of those in emergency and resilience roles. Throughout the year thereafter, the UK Resilience Academy has promoted and embedded the NOS in its Resilience and Emergencies curriculum.  

The Cabinet Office has also worked with the Social and Behavioural Science for Emergencies working group, run by the Government Office for Science, to develop new guidance to improve the identification and assessment of disproportionate impacts of emergencies to Vulnerable People in the National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA). The guidance was issued to Lead Government Departments in November 2025. Work is underway to review the NSRA methodology, to deliver a more effective assessment of vulnerability during crises, and make this more accessible to policy-makers and operational leaders undertaking planning and preparedness activities.  

Local resilience forums (LRFs) are critical for delivering coordinated, place-based risk planning, emergency response, and recovery. They bring together key agencies, such as emergency services, local authorities, and the voluntary sector, to build resilience in partnership with communities. It is vital that local responders have the capacity and capability to prevent, plan for, respond to and recover from the full range of risks that we face.  

In April 2025, MHCLG selected five LRFs in England to join the Stronger LRF Trailblazer Programme. The programme aims to foster local resilience leaders who understand their communities’ identities and strengths and can harness them effectively, and who understand and build strong plans to counter the risks relevant to their local areas. Selected areas will try things that will be beneficial for their areas, while also providing lessons for other local areas. They will:   

• test different approaches to strengthening LRF leadership, including through recruiting Chief Resilience Officers   
• clarify new methods to strengthen accountability to local democratically elected leaders; and   
• consider how resilience can be more integrated into wider local policy and planning, in tandem with wider work on English devolution and local government transformation.  

Since 2021, MHCLG has provided LRF capacity and capability funding to employ staff and support multi-agency preparedness, response and recovery efforts, and to train, exercise and carry out risk-assessments, enabling improved local capacity and readiness. We recognise the importance of continued investment in LRFs and we are working to determine what future funding will look like.  

Government recognises the important lesson from the Grenfell Inquiry that there was a need for greater clarity on duties on local authorities in times of emergency crisis. MHCLG is refreshing guidance on local authorities’ preparedness for civil emergencies to ensure the key duties on local authorities are clear, in consultation with LGA and SOLACE.  

In December 2025 MHCLG, the LGA, SOLACE and the UK Resilience Academy finalised plans for a local resilience training programme for local authority chief executives and officers that will offer access to both face-to-face and online learning covering the resilience duties on local authorities and set the expectation that all regard this as an integral part of their responsibilities. We will run a pilot to test the new training offer by spring 2026. Feedback on the scoping and design has been positive, and it has allowed continuous improvement through the process. This course is the first of its type which applies a whole of society resilience cycle lens.  

MHCLG has also identified existing arrangements that local government could use to report on the quality and frequency of resilience training and development.   

To improve local authority resilience in London, London Councils have carried out the following work. All relevant documentation supporting the regional local authority response system has been reviewed by a Standardisation Board which reports to the Local Authority Regional Resilience Board. Additionally, briefings for new Chief Executives to London now include more emphasis on the need for early engagement with affected local authorities and their involvement in all Strategic Coordination Group meetings.   

The final consultation on London Local Authority Gold Operating procedures has been completed by London local authorities. The updated version of the procedures was circulated to all London local authorities in September 2025.   

The London Local Authority Concept of Operations, which includes all elements of the local and regional local authority response and recovery system is in the process of being reviewed and the next iteration will be published by the end of March 2026.   

A new local authority specific regional gold training offer has been developed over the past year. This training is focused on chief executives, senior officers on the aspiring chief executives programme and officers on local gold rotas. To date, three courses have been delivered, and a further course is scheduled to take place in February 2026. This course is now embedded into the annual London local authority regional training programme. From April 2026, the focus will be on delivering a minimum of four courses per year and developing a refresher training to complement the main course. The pilot refresher course is expected to take place towards the end of 2026. This new training provides toolkits and guidance for local authorities to improve their understanding of the risk landscape and leadership skills for contingency planning and crisis response.

Improving evacuation plans

To improve vital evacuation plans in emergency situations, the government laid the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 in July. These regulations mandate Residential Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans in high-rise and higher-risk residential buildings and come into force in April 2026. Under the regulations, residents with disabilities or impairments will be provided with a person-centred fire risk assessment to identify necessary equipment and adjustments to aid their fire safety and evacuation and a ‘Residential PEEPs statement’ that records what they should do in the event of a fire. Fire and Rescue Services will also receive information on vulnerable residents in case they need to support their evacuation. The resident’s consent is required throughout the process. 

The government has committed funding for 2025 to 2026 to support social housing providers deliver Residential PEEPs.  

Following the laying of the Residential PEEPs secondary legislation, to further inform the guidance, the draft document on Residential PEEPs was circulated to disability advocacy groups and other stakeholders for input in advance of publishing the final guidance in December 2025.

Improvements in fire and rescue

On a national scale, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) launched an Organisational Learning Good Practice Guide consultation which closed in July 2025. After review of the consultation responses, the Good Practice Guide was taken to the Guidance, Learning and Scrutiny Panel in and the Guide was subsequently published in December 2025. After engagement with key stakeholders, the NFCC Organisational Learning team has committed to developing an Organisational Learning Library to provide services across the UK with greater access to lessons learned from across the UK and internationally.  

As part of the London Fire Brigade’s (LFB) continuous improvement, their Operational Policy and Assurance department has reviewed, updated and re-published its Operational Learning Policy, which includes the adoption of the NFCC Fire Standards.  

The Operational Learning Policy (PN825 and associated documents) has completed its consultation and was published in December 2025. The policy covers effective standing arrangements for collecting, considering and effectively implementing lessons learned from previous incidents (local, national and international), inquests and investigations. The arrangements set out an agile approach to learning including key performance indicators for the early and timely distribution of risk critical learning and the completion of formal structured debriefing. 

To improve LFB’s management of communications at incidents, a new suite of four e-learning modules was rolled out to operational staff in January 2025 with all these modules having a completion rate of above 90%.  

Mandatory e-learning modules on ‘water management and planning’ were also launched in January and April 2025 for all station-based staff and level 2 officers, alongside a knowledge check to confirm their understanding. The e-learning modules work to increase operational staff knowledge and competence in relation to maximising available water supplies at incidents and their understanding of how to increase water supplies, when necessary, through engagement with water undertakers. The 90% target for staff completing e-learning was met in October 2025. Knowledge check completion to the required standard reached 79% by December 2025, with the 90% target expected to be met by March 2026. The knowledge check provides assurance that operational staff have understood the e-learning and are able to effectively apply the learning at incidents.

Fire and rescue service culture and wider reform

The government is committed to improving the culture within fire and rescue services. To support this, a Culture and Integrity Task and Finish Group has been set up under the Ministerial Advisory Group for Fire and Rescue Reform. The group first met in June 2025 and brings together a wide range of people from across the fire and rescue sector to focus on how cultural change can be achieved as part of wider reform. It will meet again in early 2026 to refine a shared vision for the future and develop a clear plan for delivering change. 

The group’s key purpose is to agree what a positive culture should look like, how progress will be measured, and how different initiatives across the sector can work together effectively. It will identify good practice, reduce duplication, and highlight where further action is needed to remove barriers to improvement. 

Government will continue to work through the Ministerial Advisory Group and with partners across the sector to maintain momentum and ensure long term commitment to cultural reform. 

We are also continuing to fund the National Fire Chiefs Council’s People, Culture and Leadership Programme, which supports services to embed new standards and measure progress. This includes the Code of Ethics, new Fire Standards, the Direct Entry pilot scheme, and the creation of the People, Culture and Leadership Hub. Government will continue working closely with the NFCC as this programme develops.

The report continues on another page. An update on progress and milestones of recommendations is available.

You can also view the progress of recommendations for the following areas:

• the construction industry
• fire and rescue service
• response and recovery
• vulnerable people and Phase 1 recommendations