SUMMARY
Inquiries into matters of major public concern are
now an integral feature of the governance of this country. They
establish disputed facts, determine accountability, restore public
confidence, and make recommendations for preventing recurrence
of events and taking forward public policy.
Until the passage of the Inquiries Act 2005, inquiries
had a large variety of different statutory bases. The Act replaced
them with a single system for the setting up and conduct of public
inquiries which, by and large, has worked well. But it was also
possible for ministers to set up inquiries without any statutory
basis, and this is still the case. Such inquiries have no power
to order the production of documents or the attendance of witnesses,
or to take evidence on oath. Public confidence in them is not
as high, but still ministers persist in setting them up. One reason
is that they are supposedly quicker and less expensive than inquiries
set up under the Act. We show that this is not necessarily the
case.
There is no consistency in ministerial decisions
on setting up inquiries. Ministers tend to do so only when there
is irresistible public or parliamentary pressure; and when they
decline to set an inquiry up, adequate reasons are not always
given. We suggest that failures of regulatory and investigatory
bodies should at the very least be grounds for considering setting
up an inquiry.
A major criticism of the Act has been that it gives
ministers powers they did not previously have to limit attendance
of the public, restrict the disclosure of documents, withhold
material from publication in the report of the inquiry, and even
bring the inquiry to a premature conclusion. It was predicted
that dire consequences would follow, and public confidence would
collapse. This has not happened, but we recommend stronger controls
on the powers of ministers.
A major cause of the unnecessary length and cost
of inquiries has been that the secretariat of every new inquiry
has had to start from scratch working out details of appointment
of staff, procurement of office premises and a venue for public
hearings, establishing a website, preparing budgets, procurement
procedures, arrangements for electronic handling of documents,
transcripts of evidence, and many other basic matters. As a result,
some inquiries have bought new custom-made IT systems costing
millions of pounds more than the systems used by other inquiries
of comparable length.
Each inquiry is required to summarise lessons learned
for its successors, but this requirement is not followed. One
of our major recommendations is that there should be a unit within
Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service responsible for all
the practical details of setting up an inquiry. This recommendation
alone should result in major savings. Other recommendations on
procedure could save months at the end of inquiries, with corresponding
savings in cost.
The responsibility of an inquiry ends when its report
is published; at that stage the responsibility of the Government
begins. Its response to recommendations of inquiries is often
slow, and its implementation of them slower still. Parliament
must do more to hold ministers to account.
No inquiry has been set up under the Act since 2011,
but a number of non-statutory inquiries have been established.
Ministers have in the Act what should be an effective framework
for inquiries. Unless there are strong reasons to the contrary,
they should use it.
| 
