Public Inquiries | Enhancing Public Trust: Key recommendations from the House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee report
On Monday, the House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee published its report on recommended reforms to the work of statutory inquiries. The report is published in the context of 18 public inquires taking place in the UK this year alone, and recent significant developments in the Grenfell Tower, Infected Blood, Post Office and Covid-19 Inquiries. Some of the report’s recommendations extend beyond statutory inquiries, to include major inquests.
Implementation Monitoring [Chapter 4]
Perhaps the most significant calls for reform are around monitoring the implementation of public inquiry recommendations. At present, inquiries present recommendations for change to Government or public bodies, and it is for Government to decide which recommendations to accept or reject. There is no statutory mechanism requiring publication of reasons for Government decisions on acceptance, or for monitoring whether accepted recommendations have been carried out. Inquiries have no power over implementation of final report recommendations – once that report is produced the inquiry ceases to exist.
The HoL Committee found insufficient implementation monitoring has made inquiries “less effective”, “risks the recurrence of disasters” and did not provide value for money because “too little is done to ensure that the desired outcomes of inquiries are achieved.”
It recommended that formal implementation monitoring should be undertaken by a new joint select committee of parliament, the Public Inquiries Committee (or alternatively a sessional committee of the House of Lords) to fulfil the following functions:
- Centralised online publication of public inquiry reports and responses;
- Monitoring implementation of accepted public inquiry and major inquest recommendations via policy research, correspondence with government and evidence sessions with Ministers and officials;
- Publishing reports on recommendation implementation and maintaining an online tracker of the status of individual recommendations;
- Making recommendations to the Inquiries Unit of the Cabinet Office on best practice for establishing and running public inquiries;
- Scrutiny of Government sponsorship of and formal response to individual inquiries;
- Conducting research and meta-analysis of recommendations common to multiple inquiries, to identify systemic policy failures and prevent future disasters.
Other key recommendations of the report
Establishment and Conduct of Inquiries [Chapter 2]
Ministers are encouraged to think outside the box in their approach to establishing inquiries, rather than defaulting to a judge-led statutory model. For example, the report encourages Ministers:
- To be flexible in their approach to selecting the legal basis of an inquiry and appointment of the chair (including the option of a non-judge) or panel, working on a case-by-case basis.
- Keep in mind the option of holding a non-statutory inquiry (given its relative agility) and converting it if witnesses fail to cooperate.
Aligned with the aims of ensuring effective implementation and preventing future disasters, the report recommends:
- Ministers should consult victims and survivors’ groups before publishing the terms of reference.
- To minimise delay, Ministers should consider setting indicative deadlines in the terms of reference when establishing an inquiry.
- A requirement for interim reports or online updates on the inquiry’s activities should be considered by Ministers in long inquiries, to help maintain public confidence.
In respect of The Inquiries Unit [Chapter 5], the report recommends inquiry terms of reference should contain an obligation on Chairs and Secretaries to produce (at a minimum) a lessons-learnt paper (on legal and policy challenges) and a working paper (on logistics), detailing what went well for the inquiry and what could be improved in the future, to be considered by the Inquiries Unit of the Cabinet Office.
In the section titled Running and Sponsoring an Inquiry – the Recommendations from the 2014 Report [Chapter 3] it is noted that many recommendations of the HoL Committee in 2014 remain unfulfilled and should be actioned.
The Statutory Inquiries Committee report is essential reading for practitioners wishing to take stock of the inquiries landscape and look ahead to potential reform.
Laura Stephenson is a specialist inquest, inquiry and professional discipline practitioner. She worked as part of the team of counsel to the Infected Blood Inquiry and is now instructed as Senior Junior Counsel to the Covid-19 Inquiry. Her current work also includes representation of an Interested Person in the Inquests into the Deaths of the Patients of Ian Paterson.
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