5.4.1 ESP had reserved the right within their letter to Galliford Try to undertake their own investigations. After a short delay, ESP proceeded to instruct WRD to undertake cavity wall tie inspections on all 17 projects, including the four Phase 2 schools that Galliford Try was responsible for making good.
5.4.2 On 9th March 2016, following consideration of the 29th February Report, the appointment of WRD was extended by ESP to undertake a series of appropriate intrusive surveys, i.e. opening holes in the walls at appropriate intervals so they could determine whether there was any presence of similar defects associated with the lack of wall tie embedment in the other external walls of Oxgangs School and in the external walls of any of the remaining 16 schools that had been completed as part of the PPP1 schools programme. Initial visual inspections at these schools had previously failed to identify any areas of concern.
5.4.3 The City of Edinburgh Council advised ESP that the three-month period they were proposing for undertaking structural surveys was not acceptable to the Council and that these should be completed much sooner than this so as to more quickly identify any further risks. This requirement for acceleration of the surveys was agreed as appropriate by ESP who anticipated that these surveys could be completed over the following two to three weeks. A letter was sent by the City of Edinburgh Council to the schools and to parents of school pupils advising them that surveys of the schools would be commencing.
5.4.4 In recognition of the potential significance of the findings of the WRD Report, the Chief Executive of the City of Edinburgh Council on 18th March 2016 initiated regular meetings of a Corporate Incident Management Team ("CIMT") with membership, including himself, of senior members of staff from all relevant Departments within the Council.
5.4.5 The remit for the CIMT was to assist the Chief Executive in the overall strategic management of and operational response to the issues that would emerge from the discovery of defective construction at the schools.
5.4.6 Over the next ten weeks up to 20th May 2016, a meeting of this team was held almost daily and from that date on at very regular intervals until all pupils had returned to their own schools. The Inquiry was provided with minutes of these meetings, which have proved useful in assisting the Inquiry in the formulation of this chronology of events.
5.4.7 In mid-March 2016, due to the requirement for a more rapid completion of this work, WRD augmented the size of the engineering inspections team by appointing Harley Haddow, another Edinburgh-based structural engineering firm, to assist them with the undertaking of the structural surveys on behalf of ESP.
5.4.8 The undertaking of these investigations was made significantly more difficult than it might have been by the reported inability of ESP, Amey, Galliford Try or the City of Edinburgh Council to provide access to sets of good quality as-built drawings of the original construction of the PPP1 schools.