Taskforce says survivors must be rehoused more quickly and council staff need to display more sensitivity

Around 227 children from Grenfell Tower and neighbouring blocks are still living in emergency accommodation almost five months after they were made homeless by the fire, MPs have heard during a Commons update on the local council’s handling of the disaster.



Council staff dealing with traumatised survivors of the blaze need to display “a greater degree of humanity” and more emotional intelligence, according to a critical independent report published on Monday.



Survivors must be rehoused more quickly, with 320 households still living in hotel accommodation, the report by the Grenfell Recovery Taskforce adds.

The communities secretary, Sajid Javid, told the Commons: “The report is clear that the process is not moving as quickly as it should. There can be no doubt that there are families who desperately want a new home but for whom progress has been painfully slow. Almost five months after the fire, this must improve.”



The report says relations between residents and the council still need to be improved. “The historical relationship between the local community and the council has been described to the taskforce as at best ‘distant’ and at worst one of ‘neglect’,” it says.



The report is critical of the fact that the tower still remains uncovered. “It is reprehensible that it has remained uncovered for so long,” it says.

There is also concern that doctors, social workers and other groups trying to help survivors have no access to a “common and comprehensive list of survivors and displaced residents”.



The taskforce was established by the government in July, at a time when the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea was being widely criticised for its handling of the fire, to scrutinise progress and advise officials.

Javid said 122 out of 204 Grenfell Tower households had accepted an offer of either temporary or permanent housing, and 73 had moved in – 47 into temporary accommodation and 26 into permanent new homes.



The shadow communities minister, Andrew Gwynne, said the figures for families still waiting to be rehoused were much worse than those cited by Javid, pointing out that if the numbers made homeless in adjoining blocks were also included then 311 households were still in bed and breakfast accommodation, including 227 children.

He reminded the minister of the six-week legal limit for housing families with children in bed and breakfast accommodation. “For many survivors, things are far more bleak than the picture painted by the secretary of state,” he said.



Javid said the people of North Kensington had been failed by the council’s “sluggish and chaotic response” in the immediate aftermath of the fire, but the council’s record was beginning to improve.

“The council today is a very different place from the council that failed its people,” he said. But he noted that council workers still lacked the specialist training needed to work with traumatised survivors and needed to display “greater empathy and emotional intelligence”. He said training was needed for frontline staff.

Elizabeth Campbell, the leader of Kensington and Chelsea council, said: “The taskforce clearly says that we need to move quickly on getting people out of hotels and into proper homes so that they can continue their recovery in a safe and suitable place.

“We understand the need to change the council – the way it works, the way it listens, and the way it acts. A new leadership is in place and we will do all that we can to put communities at the heart of the work we do and the services we provide.”



The taskforce will continue to report back to the government on the council’s progress.

