Persimmon, the housebuilder that paid its chief executive a £75m bonus in 2018, has been accused of shoddily building homes that left its customers exposed to an “intolerable risk” in the event of fire.

An independent review of the company published on Tuesday found Persimmon had a “systemic nationwide failure” to install fire-stopping cavity barriers. Persimmon has been at the centre of political and public anger over the poor quality of its homes and the vast bonus paid to its former boss Jeff Fairburn

The review, which the company commissioned following a deluge of customer complaints, said the failure to meet minimum building standards was “a manifestation of poor culture” at the firm.

The report by Stephanie Barwise, QC of law firm Atkin Chambers, who also represents victims of the Grenfell fire disaster, urged the firm’s directors to “reconsider Persimmon’s purpose and ambition”.

“Persimmon has a nationwide problem of missing and/or incorrectly installed cavity barriers in its timber-frame properties”, the review said.

The report added that while the firm had reacted quickly when this problem had been identified, it had only inspected the eaves of properties, and not assessed whether the same problem was occurring in party walls and around windows and doors.

The failure to install cavity barriers in timber-frame buildings poses a significant fire risk, and has been reported as a key reason for the rapid spread of fire in a block of flats in Worcester Park, south London.

Persimmon has now undertaken more than 16,000 inspections to check cavity barriers have been correctly installed. The company said it would take all reasonable action to identify and remediate every house that has been affected.

The review found a “culture of non-observance” to safety checks, and said staff treated them as a “mere box-ticking exercise ... stemming from a belief that any single stage is not important, as another check or inspection will follow later”.

“There is a need for a fundamental change in Persimmon’s culture to ensure that quality of build and customer service are central to its approach to business and its corporate identity,” the report said.

“Persimmon’s culture must change: many of Persimmon’s employees, customers and stakeholders wish Persimmon to change, and in a changing regulatory environment, Persimmon cannot afford the stigma of a corporate culture which results in poor workmanship and a potentially unsafe product.”

The report concluded Persimmon “has traditionally been more a land assembler and seller of houses rather than a housebuilder”, and said the company’s former leaders were motivated by bonuses that “were widely perceived as excessive”.

Fairburn had been in line for a £110m bonus in 2018 before it was scaled back to £75m amid political and public outrage. The wider management team had been set to collect about £500m worth of bonus shares.

The huge share awards were attacked by politicians, charities and corporate governance experts, who described the payouts as “obscene”, “corporate looting” and a reward based on “taxpayer subsidies”. Persimmonhas been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the government’s help-to-buy programme, which has lifted sales and boosted house prices across the UK.

The Barwise review said Persimmon should make sure its bonus and pay policies are “consistent with its purpose and strategy, and the culture it is seeking to foster”.

Persimmon’s chairman Roger Devlin said the company was now “prioritising the customer over the pure profit motive”.

“The review clearly shows that the surest route to improved customer satisfaction is through the delivery of consistent build quality and service and we acknowledge that we still have work to do,” he said.

“As we focus hard on the changes that we are making, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise once again to those Persimmon customers who have been affected in the past.”

Persimmon’s latest annual profit topped £1bn, the biggest ever made by a UK housebuilder, and a large chunk of that was related to the taxpayer-funded help-to-buy scheme.

The company’s shares fell 3.7% to £27.21 following the publication of the review. Persimmon’s shares had soared on Friday after the Conservative party’s election victory. The Labour party had pledged to take action to tackle badly built homes and construct 150,000 affordable homes.