Calls for public inquiries to publish interim reports
The follow-up process to public inquiries is nearly always inadequate, a major study has reported this week, as hearings began in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.
Since 1990, the government has spent £639m on 68 public inquiries, including the 12-year £190m Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday, the seven-year Chilcot Inquiry into the UK’s role in the Iraq war and the 2011 Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking.
There are currently eight public inquiries underway. Lord Moore-Bick held a two-day procedural hearing in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry this week, nearly six months after the tragedy, and is due to begin hearing evidence early next month. The inquiry has obtained more than 230,000 documents from contractors, suppliers and others.
However, a report by the Institute for Government, ‘How public inquiries can lead to change’, casts a worrying shadow on the process. It found that only six public inquiries have been fully followed up by select committees to see what government did as a result.
One in seven public inquiries took at least five years before a final report was released. And while some have led to reform—such as gun law reform after the Dunblane massacre or the creation of the Rail Accident Investigation Branch after the Ladbroke Grove and Southall rail crashes—there are no formal checks or procedures in place to make sure they lead to meaningful change.
The report calls for reform, including: greater scrutiny from MPs, with select committees examining progress on implementation of recommendations each year; expert witness involvement in developing recommendations; and government being made accountable for its response to inquiry recommendations. To counter the effect of inquiries that drag on for years, the report calls on public inquiries to publish interim reports in the months, rather than years, after events.
The Institute’s programme director and report author, Emma Norris (pictured) said: ‘Our report finds that the aftermath of inquiries is being neglected.
‘The implementation of findings is patchy and there is no proper procedure for holding government to account for change. Government needs to systematically provide a full and detailed response to inquiry findings and select committees need to make the follow up to inquiry recommendations a core part of their work.’
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