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Officials working on a review of building safety regulations following a deadly cladding fire were limited to a 鈥渓ight touch鈥� approach because the government had squeezed the team鈥檚 resources, the Grenfell Inquiry has heard.

Former senior civil servant Richard Harral told Monday鈥檚 hearing that officials were working on a 鈥渓ess than bare-bones capacity鈥� following staffing cuts at the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Harral, who was head of technical policy for building regulations at the department from 2014 to 2017, was part of a team leading a review of building regulations in response to the 2009 Lakanal fire.

The blaze, in Camberwell, south London, killed six people after the building鈥檚 non-compliant cladding panels had caught fire.

Following a 2013 inquest, coroner Frances Kirkham advised the department to revise a section of approved document B (ADB), the part of building regulations which deals with fire safety.

But officials had expanded this review, firstly to cover the entire 300-page ADB and then to a wider review of building regulations.

The inquiry has already heard this was done because the government had established a requirement that new regulations could only be added if existing ones were removed.

The review team had concluded that the changes recommended by Kirkham could only be achieved by looking at the regulations as a whole, so that ADB would not need to be the sole target for regulations that needed to be removed.

But this meant that Kirkham鈥檚 original request was expanded into a major piece of work which delayed the process by years. Yesterday, the inquiry heard that almost no progress had been made by the time of the Grenfell fire in 2017, almost eight years after the Lakanal fire.

Harral said a restructure at the department in 2011 had reduced headcount by 40%, and a commitment had been put in place from 2015 to cut staff by 5% each year.

鈥淲e had been squeezed so much that we were literally鈥� the only way we could keep up with what was going on was this very light鈭抰ouch approach to reviewing and considering,鈥� he said.

He added that the scope of the review was 鈥渧ery large鈥� and 鈥渃omplex鈥� and that there was no protocol within the department for how to deal with the coroner鈥檚 recommendations.

Asked if the team鈥檚 approach to the review was the only way changes to ADB could be approved at the time, Harral said the processes on deregulation were 鈥渁bsolutely rigid鈥�.

He said: 鈥淵ou had to go through these processes. We had no other way through. You know, the regulatory requirements applied to life safety measures as much as they did to other measures.鈥�

Counsel to the inquiry Kate Grange QC asked: 鈥淪o you were just stuck between a rock and a hard place?鈥�

Harral replied: 鈥淵eah. I mean, it was鈥� this is what the policy was intended to do: it was intended to make it difficult to introduce new regulation and to achieve more than the cost of that new regulation and deregulation.鈥�

The inquiry has heard that a 鈥榦ne in, one out鈥� rule on new regulations introduced in 2011 had been toughened to 鈥榦ne in, two out鈥� in 2013 and 鈥榦ne in, three out鈥� in 2016.

Harral said that the proposed changes to regulations could potentially impose a 鈥渜uite significant cost鈥� on the industry.

The inquiry continues.