Kensington and Chelsea Council is facing potential risks in fulfilling its commitments made in response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, according to a recent meeting of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee.
The committee convened on Thursday, 20 November 2025, to discuss progress on the council's 45 commitments stemming from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 report. While progress has been made, the council faces challenges including ensuring residents are informed, maintaining focus on the Inquiry's findings, and managing capacity and resources.
One key area of focus is ensuring the lessons learned from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry are applied across all council operations. The council is developing a program to maintain organisational memory, creating an internal platform with lessons learned from staff, external inquiries, reports, and resident testimony. The Inquiry Oversight Group is also exploring options for capturing key learning from the response and recovery effort to ensure it is not lost and can be shared with partners.
According to the meeting summary, nine of the 31 commitments linked to specific projects are complete, with 22 underway. The remaining 14 commitments are core standards to be embedded in the council's work, with four having been embedded and work ongoing for the remainder.
Several key risks were identified in the A4 Update on the Council's Grenfell Tower Inquiry Commitments:
- Communication: Ensuring bereaved, survivors, and residents feel adequately informed about progress.
- Focus: Maintaining sight of the Inquiry findings during implementation.
- Capacity: Addressing capacity constraints and competing priorities.
- Culture: Overcoming cultural resistance and organisational inertia.
- Sustainability: Sustaining commitments and changes over time.
- External Shocks: Managing the impact of significant events. The mitigation for the impact of shocks includes keeping developments under review and discussing them with bereaved, survivors and residents.
- Financial Pressures: Addressing the impact of financial resources or increased pressures on council budgets. The report states that most Inquiry commitments are being delivered within existing budgets but some will require specific additional resource and that the council is discussing options for funding this work and will update the Overview and Scrutiny at its next meeting.
- Cross-Departmental Coordination: Monitoring and managing cross-council commitments effectively. The report identifies the risk that cross-council/department commitments are not monitored or managed effectively, meaning implementation work is fragmented, duplicated or not completed. To mitigate this, the council has established cross-cutting delivery groups to support groups of commitments that require greater cross-Council ownership. These groups are ensuring that this work remains rooted in the specific failings identified by the Inquiry or in the post-Inquiry engagement work, that clearer goals are set for activity in each area and that there is sufficient grip and focus of those commitments that require further specificity and definition.
To address these risks, the council has established cross-cutting delivery groups:
- 'Community presence and trust' delivery group
- 'Coming together for safety' delivery group
- 'Employee lifecycle' delivery group. The introduction of the 'Employee lifecycle' delivery group, chaired by the Director of HR, will work to mitigate the risk of cultural resistance and organizational inertia. Work with a small group of staff has explored ways to increase staff's connection to Grenfell, building on staff feedback through the recent engagement survey.
The committee also received updates on the Grenfell Support Programme (2024-2028), which provides support to bereaved and survivors, the immediate local community, and education and training support. According to the A5 Grenfell Support Programme, the Dedicated Service currently supports 801 bereaved and survivors. For the 2025/26 financial year, 43% of individuals have opted in for support from a named Dedicated Service Worker, and 57% have chosen to opt out.
As of 10 October 2025, 2,480 households have applied for support from the Grenfell Community Support programme, representing approximately 44% of the area's population. Eligibility for the Grenfell Community Support is based on the area within 500m of the tower which is located within the blue boundary as shown on the map that is accessible by accessing the Overview and Scrutiny Committee papers from 5th May 2025. Eligibility is discretionary for people who were living or are living in the extended area slightly outside the area of support (between the blue and the green boundary). These residents are able to access support from the Grenfell Community Advocacy Team, but their eligibility for the wellbeing grant and the leisure centre membership is subject to a decision following a conversation with them to understand their situation. The report stated that 70% of households are accessing both the wellbeing grant and leisure centre membership, 15% of households have only accessed the wellbeing grant, and 15% of households have only accessed the leisure centre membership.
Targeted support has been delivered to nine of the eleven local schools near Grenfell Tower through the Grenfell Education Hub since its launch in September.
Despite progress, the council acknowledges the need for sustained effort to address the risks and ensure the commitments translate into tangible improvements for the community.
