Less than a quarter of cladding funding spent

Ministers pledged £400 million in May 2018 to strip social housing towers of aluminium composite material (ACM) panels, but only £133 million has been spent to date.

The ACM panel removal pledge was made as a result of them being deemed similar to those which spread the fire at Grenfell Tower in west London, killing 72 people in June 2017.

A new National Audit Office report has found that the government has spent less than a quarter of what it promised to replace the dangerous Grenfell-style cladding, leaving 300 highrise buildings still not fixed three years after the disaster, and more than half of the 154 affected blocks still needing work.

The spending watchdog says that progress is being made in removing dangerous cladding, but the pace of works has been faster in some types of building than others and progress in the private residential sector has been slower than the government expected.

It also reveals that, of an additional £200 million earmarked in May 2019 to fix private blocks, only £1.4 million has been spent and only 14 per cent of the affected buildings have been fully fixed.

MPs will now launch an investigation into the programme through the Public Accounts Committee and the NAO.

Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: "MHCLG has made progress in overseeing the removal of dangerous cladding from many buildings, particularly in the social housing sector. However, the pace of progress has lagged behind its own expectations, particularly in the private residential sector. It has a long way to go to make all high-rise buildings safe for residents.

“Going forward, it is important that the Department successfully manages the administrative challenges of funding building owners to carry out remediation work, particularly given its intention to commit a further £1 billion in full by the end of March 2021.”