Inquiries under scrutiny

Despite spending at least £239m since 2005 on inquiries the government makes no attempt to oversee whether objectives have been achieved or recommendations implemented, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) report published in the week the Grenfell Inquiry began hearing from victims’ families.

The report, Investigation into government-funded inquiries, published this week, found that departments vary in how transparent they are about actions taken in response to recommendations. For example, of the eight inquiries examined by the NAO that made recommendations, readily accessible information on progress was only available for half of these.

The report found that all inquiries face the challenge of maintaining public confidence and keeping within an acceptable timescale and cost. The average duration of the 26 inquiries completed since 2005 was 40 months. According to the report, departments were not able to provide evidence that they had consistently monitored and scrutinised the cost and progress of the inquiries they sponsored.

Moreover, no single department is responsible for running inquiries across the government and there are no formal criteria to determine the type of inquiry. Following two parliamentary select committee reports, the Cabinet Office and Ministry of Justice have committed to various actions to improve the effectiveness of inquiries but none of these commitments have been fulfilled. The NAO report cites, as an example, the recommendations to share best practice from inquiries and publish guidance for inquiry chairs.

The costs for the ten inquiries examined by the NAO ranged from £0.2m to £24.9m. Legal staff costs were the biggest expense—an average of 36% of an inquiry’s cost, although this varied from less than 1% for the Morecambe Bay Investigation to 67% for the Mid Staffordshire Inquiry.

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry, led by retired Court of Appeal judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, opened in September 2017. It will look into the deaths of 72 people in the fire and aims to determine: what happened, why, and what can be done to prevent anything similar happening again. The first part of the inquiry will look at how the fire developed, and the second part will look at how the tower became exposed to the risk of a major fire.