Inquiries Round Up

It is almost a year since I last wrote a "round up" about the various on-going inquiries - Law and Lawyers: Covid 19 and other inquiries - 29 July 2022. Frome time-to-time "updates" were added to that post.

An ICLR Roundup:

In their Weekly Notes, the ICLR has included a useful "round up" showing the state of play at those inquiries which are either still on-going or have concluded taking evidence but have yet to issue reports.

Weekly Notes: legal news from ICLR, 14 July 2023 - ICLR

Other reports:

In addition to the ICLR's round up, it is worth noting:

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse - final report - The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse | IICSA Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and the government's response - Response to the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The Manchester Arena Inquiry final report issued in March 2023 - Reports – Manchester Arena Inquiry and see Manchester Arena Inquiry reports - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Covid-19 Module 1 - Guardian article:

The Guardian's Social Affairs Correspondent, Robert Booth, has looked at the 6 weeks of evidence presented to Module 1 of the Covid-19 Inquiry - A nation off-guard: what the UK Covid inquiry has revealed | Covid inquiry | The Guardian. 

Module 1 was concerned with Preparedness and concentrated on how prepared the UK HEALTH and CARE sector was to cope with an epidemic and it was clear that the principal focus was on plans to deal with the impact of an epidemic of influenza. As the former Health Secretary (Matt Hancock MP) told the Inquiry, there was little emphasis on prevention of either that or any other epidemic. 

A Module 1 report from the Inquiry itself is likely to be some time away but the Chair, Baroness Hallett, has said that reports will be issued in a timely manner so that actions can be taken by government to address any identified deficiencies.

Monitoring Recommendations:

The remit of most, perhaps all, Inquiries ends when the final report is issued. Ministers usually make a statement in Parliament and, in time, a government response is published indicating which recommendations have been either accepted or rejected. 

Ministers are often apt to treat a set of inquiry recommendations like an a la carte menu from which they pick and choose whereas the inquiry itself may have seen them as a linked package.

Yet another issue is that, despite the large expenditure involved in inquiries, government can be slow to implement event those recommendations it accepts and inquiry reports usually appear to receive only minimal attention in Parliament.

Is there a need for a monitoring process? Some think that there is - see

We need to keep talking about Grenfell: Grenfell 6 years on | Inquest

Independent Body to monitor implementation of recommendations.