Clarion Housing manager told staff how to fake fire safety sign

Footage released by Sky News shows a manager from Clarion Housing telling an employee to fake a fire safety notice.

🚨‘Don’t tell anyone or I’ll come find you” “My team is always on point, we always meet our targets.”

A Clarion Housing Association manager tells staff how to fake a fire safety notice 8 years on from Grenfell.

Pleased to have worked with @SkyNews on this. pic.twitter.com/6YVRpltW7P

— KWAJO- Social Issues Campaigner (@Kwajotweneboa) October 22, 2025

As first reported by Sky News, the recording shows the manager saying, “Don’t tell anyone I told you this”. She then tells him how to pretend he’d put up important fire safety notices.

She then instructed him to put it on a “plain bit of wall” and “take a picture”. We then hear her bragging about her management style. She said:

My team is always on point, we always meet our targets.

Sky News then revealed that:

The conversation took place in 2022. It was reported to Clarion’s HR team in September 2023. However, an investigation only began in September 2024 when the recording was sent to Clarion management.

The manager involved was only sacked this summer — almost two years after it was first raised with Clarion.

The notice was alerting residents with disabilities or other vulnerabilities to contact Clarion. This was so they could undertake a “person-centred fire risk assessment”. This is a key requirement under post-Grenfell fire safety regulations.

Corporate greed

Clarion Housing is supposedly a not-for-profit company which has 125,000 homes. However, Clare Miller, the CEO, earns £447,439 every year.

Its website states:

Clarion makes a difference. It is committed to providing quality affordable homes and creating thriving communities across the country. As a not-for-profit, all Clarion’s surplus is reinvested into new and existing homes, services and community support.

I guess that commitment doesn’t include preventing death-by-fire.

More dodgy practices in the UK housing sector ? Never https://t.co/2Jv7WZ4c5y pic.twitter.com/ZQUia3jHC9

— Jay (@JibbaJabb) October 22, 2025

Maybe if they paid her less, they could afford real fire safety signs.

“I’m trying to help you meet your targets.”

As horrifying as this is, I’m not surprised or shocked.
Increasingly, it seems, Housing Associations have a corporate mentality and corporate greed is the root of all evil. https://t.co/F1N0AjlWSE

— Lorna_TVeditor (@Lorna_TVeditor) October 22, 2025

Lessons learnt from Grenfell

This comes eight years after the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which killed 72 people. The independent inquiry into the disaster found that the deaths were “all avoidable” and that the government had “badly failed” the victims. It also found that some of those who played a part in “sowing the seeds of disaster” had shown “incompetence, dishonesty, and greed”.

So, eight years on, you would think that lessons had been learnt on the importance of fire safety.

But overall, shocking stuff – and an eye-opener regarding real world culture, despite a lot of the high minded statements about change post-Grenfell. Hopefull (another) wake up call to root some of this stuff out.

— Peter Apps (@PeteApps) October 22, 2025

As the Canary previously reported,

the catastrophic event was not just an accident but the culmination of years of institutionalised neglect, racism, classism, and discrimination against the predominantly low-income, Black, brown, and disabled residents of the tower.

It seems that once again, the people in power are brushing over the safety of people in social housing.

This is absolutely disgusting, putting vulnerable people’s lives at risk.

Thank goodness that this was recorded. https://t.co/WqxYz7Ir23

— 🇯🇲🇰🇳Ĵ𝓞𝐞𝔶 (@momentswithjoey) October 22, 2025

Not only is this a serious failure of fire safety, its systemic ableism writ large. Fake fire safety notices to go along with fake concern for vulnerable and disabled residents. https://t.co/mg2hdrAmJp

— Chris Connor (@ChiDeltaWithNOR) October 22, 2025

Social media users were quick to point out that fake fire safety signs are not the only problem with Clarion.

Anyone who’s ever dealt with Clarion knows what kind of HELL it is!

I was being being transferred from one place to another for safety, Clarion offered me a place with mud flooring, no hot water for 6 months & windows which wouldn’t lock & could be opened from outside. https://t.co/QqC4NXQUCr

— Payzee (@payzeespeaks) October 22, 2025

From not having hot water or fire extinguishers to disrepair and asbestos — it is clear that Clarion’s ‘quality’ affordable homes are that only by name.

Clarion had the cheek to recently write to residents begging them not to make housing disrepair claims. They said it would reduce money for repairs but obviously did not commit to improving its repairs service…

Very tempted to make a claim for the next time prolonged issue

— NetMaintainer (@NMaintain454) October 22, 2025

This is very concerning

I questioned my fire safety where clarion claimed the fire extinguishers they charged me to check £200 each were locked away in a basement lift shaft which was screw tight shut – zero access

Full story: https://t.co/h4HDWcO0tW

pic.twitter.com/qyIH0Z6D2S

— Mr B – Leaseholder (@o8OiO8o) October 22, 2025

Oh yes clarion trying to scam £388.12 for work they say has been done, nothing here has been done, we have scaffolding all around our flats to scrap paint off that has been peeling for over 4 yrs it’s asbestos so can’t be touched by us, but the front of it where the guttering

— Paula (@Paula82464841) October 20, 2025

The UK’s housing sector is balls deep in accusations and complaints. And now, Starmer is cutting affordable housing targets and slashing regulations to limit how many properties can be built in close proximity to each other. This is in a bid to “increase density” – and sounds a lot like another disaster, waiting to happen. 

So-called not-for-profit Social Housing providers are paying bosses over £400k a year. Meanwhile, they leave tenants in mouldy, asbestos-filled properties. It’s clear the system is not broken; it’s working exactly as intended.

Until there’s real accountability and investment in homes that are truly affordable and safe to live in, nothing is going to change.

Feature image via Clarion Housing Group/YouTube