Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Tuesday 3rd November 2026
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10:01
Lauren Edwards
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Lauren Edwards
To this meeting of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee. Today we will be. Order! Order! We can start. Good morning and welcome to be holding our fifth session of our inquiry into the recommendations of the Infected Blood Inquiry. And we welcome Doctor Emma Eaton from Nottingham Trent University. Doctor Rebecca McKee from the Institute for government, and Professor Richard Kirkham from Sheffield University to give evidence.
So good morning all. Could you please introduce yourselves for the record?
So good morning all. Could you please introduce yourselves for the record?
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10:01
Lauren Edwards
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Lauren Edwards
Brilliant. Thank you for coming in this morning. We appreciate you giving up your time to talk with us and share your expertise. I will kick off the beginning of the meeting with a couple of more general questions. The first ones to Doctor Rebecca McKee in assessing the problem to to be addressed. What can you tell us about the number of inquiries that were established after that 2005 act, and particularly the number of recommendations that they've generated?
10:02
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yes. Thank you. So in terms we have at the Institute for government, we have an explainer where we kind of track the number of ongoing inquiries and also have some stats on recommendations. So pulling those from there. Since 2005, we've tracked 63 inquiries, both statutory and non-statutory, that have been launched across the UK. Obviously, those are established by UK government ministers as well as those in Scotland and Northern Ireland as well. That compares with 41 in the previous 20 years before that. So we're finding is that there's more inquiries that are running. They're also running for longer.
And I think what's interesting about that, because there are more and they're running for longer, there are more consecutive inquiries happening at the same time. And so you can see a real increase in that. And in January this year, there were 27 announced or ongoing public inquiries across the UK at one time. So 27 we're at 22 at the moment. And there's hasn't been fewer than five ongoing at the same time since 1997, which is just a huge number of inquiries that are ongoing, which we can then, through the rest of the session, talk about some of the kind of issues and why that happens.
But I just would just to say that that doesn't mean that the government always jumping to launch an inquiry at the very first moment. There are also issues with inquiries not being launched and delays, which then lead to issues with how inquiries are set up and design, and then feed into the recommendations as well. On recommendations are explainer. We've counted over 3000 to 3175 recommendations from 54 inquiries. That's between 1990 and 2024. And there's also a public tracker that Matt Lucy, so former Cabinet Office civil servant, has put together online. And that holds just under 2000 recommendations.
The tracker also says that 85% of those have been accepted in full or in part. And I think that's what's really interesting as well. The there's a huge number of recommendations that have been made, a huge number that have been accepted and very few that are then implemented. And that's this implementation gap that us and others have talked about. And the third inquiry which recently published, looked at that in kind of sharp relief. So looking at 29 earlier inquiries and found that around 300 recommendations of around 1400 had been adopted. So I think that's a it's interesting to look at kind of the link between recommendations and whether they're accepted and whether they're implemented.
And we might talk a bit more about that.
And I think what's interesting about that, because there are more and they're running for longer, there are more consecutive inquiries happening at the same time. And so you can see a real increase in that. And in January this year, there were 27 announced or ongoing public inquiries across the UK at one time. So 27 we're at 22 at the moment. And there's hasn't been fewer than five ongoing at the same time since 1997, which is just a huge number of inquiries that are ongoing, which we can then, through the rest of the session, talk about some of the kind of issues and why that happens.
But I just would just to say that that doesn't mean that the government always jumping to launch an inquiry at the very first moment. There are also issues with inquiries not being launched and delays, which then lead to issues with how inquiries are set up and design, and then feed into the recommendations as well. On recommendations are explainer. We've counted over 3000 to 3175 recommendations from 54 inquiries. That's between 1990 and 2024. And there's also a public tracker that Matt Lucy, so former Cabinet Office civil servant, has put together online. And that holds just under 2000 recommendations.
The tracker also says that 85% of those have been accepted in full or in part. And I think that's what's really interesting as well. The there's a huge number of recommendations that have been made, a huge number that have been accepted and very few that are then implemented. And that's this implementation gap that us and others have talked about. And the third inquiry which recently published, looked at that in kind of sharp relief. So looking at 29 earlier inquiries and found that around 300 recommendations of around 1400 had been adopted. So I think that's a it's interesting to look at kind of the link between recommendations and whether they're accepted and whether they're implemented.
And we might talk a bit more about that.
10:04
Lauren Edwards
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Lauren Edwards
10:05
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah. I don't have the breakdown in front of me. I know that in the last few years or ten years, statutory have been the predominant model that the government has taken to launch. I would say, though, that they can be different beasts, but often actually the same issues that we might discuss are actually very similar in terms of kind of how they're set up, how they're conceived, the lack of clarity around their purpose as well, and also how the public view them as well.
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Lauren Edwards
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Lauren Edwards
Would you have that data that you'd be able to send us afterwards about the breakdown? Thank you. That'd be really, really helpful. Do you have an idea of why the explosion? I mean, you said that the the it's not necessarily the first thing the government reaches for. Why do you think there has been such an increase, particularly since the last particularly over the last couple of decades?
10:05
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
We in our report that we published last December, one of the things I was really keen to do was drill down. So we talk about cost, we talk about time, we talk about lack of impact. And those are the problems. And a lot of the time we see that the solutions are aimed at those three core things. But actually we really wanted to drill down into what those drivers are, that kind of drive, what's going on. So we looked at, for example, that, you know, decisions to launch an inquiry are inherently political under our system.
And that just means that you need to make sure that when they're being set up, that ministers who take that decision are well supported and there's good guidance. And our assessment is that they are they are not. And that compared to other countries such as New Zealand, where there's far more guidance and support for ministers , when they're setting that up, we kind of leave ministers a drift to kind of make that decision. There's no clear shared purpose, often about what an inquiry is meant to achieve, which can lead to it can lead to kind of delays about whether an inquiry will be set up, but it can also lead to an inquiry being established under a certain form, full statutory inquiry, for example, when actually that's not necessarily needed for the purpose.
And I think we can we can talk a bit more about that as well. And also that just means that it's kind of over promising. And again, means that sometimes you're launching an inquiry when another model might have worked better, or actually they're still recommendations from a previous inquiry that that haven't been implemented. And then there were some other drivers that we looked at that linked specifically to kind of cost and lack of implementation. So, you know, low trust often meaning that ministers feel like they should pull for a statutory inquiry, struggle to secure chairs, for example, that both the government want and the kind of victims and survivors are happy with as well, limited knowledge sharing between inquiries about what works.
And that's kind of held at the Cabinet Office and then kind of risk around relying on precedent and not wanting to have risk, meaning there's a kind of lack of innovation in the model, which I think is, again, why we're seeing inquiries taking longer, as well as just more inquiries being called for as well.
And that just means that you need to make sure that when they're being set up, that ministers who take that decision are well supported and there's good guidance. And our assessment is that they are they are not. And that compared to other countries such as New Zealand, where there's far more guidance and support for ministers , when they're setting that up, we kind of leave ministers a drift to kind of make that decision. There's no clear shared purpose, often about what an inquiry is meant to achieve, which can lead to it can lead to kind of delays about whether an inquiry will be set up, but it can also lead to an inquiry being established under a certain form, full statutory inquiry, for example, when actually that's not necessarily needed for the purpose.
And I think we can we can talk a bit more about that as well. And also that just means that it's kind of over promising. And again, means that sometimes you're launching an inquiry when another model might have worked better, or actually they're still recommendations from a previous inquiry that that haven't been implemented. And then there were some other drivers that we looked at that linked specifically to kind of cost and lack of implementation. So, you know, low trust often meaning that ministers feel like they should pull for a statutory inquiry, struggle to secure chairs, for example, that both the government want and the kind of victims and survivors are happy with as well, limited knowledge sharing between inquiries about what works.
And that's kind of held at the Cabinet Office and then kind of risk around relying on precedent and not wanting to have risk, meaning there's a kind of lack of innovation in the model, which I think is, again, why we're seeing inquiries taking longer, as well as just more inquiries being called for as well.
10:07
Lauren Edwards
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Lauren Edwards
I mean, that implementation gap that you mentioned is, is really key because these inquiries are often being launched because something very serious has gone wrong. Do you have any examples where a recommendation not being implemented following a statutory or a non-statutory inquiry has actually led to material harm?
10:08
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
I think the most cited examples are the ones that the Lords committee found. So the House inquiry recommendations that the Grenfell inquiry found could have prevented. Grenfell from happening. And I think Sir Brian Langstaff also said in his report that actually the decision to delay launching that inquiry itself caused compounding harm on the victims as well. So there's a couple of examples I think have been pulled out by previous investigations. I don't have anything new to add to that. One thing that I would add, though, and I don't know if Emma might want to pick up on this, but there's new evidence coming out of Nottingham Trent University looking at the impact on staff, particularly in maternity, maternity staff of compounding reviews and inquiries on kind of the culture and ways of working there as well, which I think is another kind of angle that's quite interesting to look at.
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Lauren Edwards
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Lauren Edwards
10:20
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
To add on the opening set of questions? I was struck by Rebecca's statistics, and we see the increase in. inquiries over a period of time. And just to add that there is a context here that in the rest of the Ministry of Justice system, you do see other sort of patterns which aren't so dissimilar. So I look at the complaints branch, and we've got various complaints processes set up all over the place. They're also seeing an ever. increasing amount of complaints going through through their processes. And I know that's a different, different aspect of administrative justice, but it just sort of does indicate perhaps a change of public.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Decreasing trust. perhaps in politicians and the political process to arrive at solutions, but also in the background. These are years of austerity, right? So we've got increasing strain being put on the system. And I think we've got a lot of that playing out as well. The other thing I was thinking about is fascinating to hear that discussion about just sort of the general. frustrations with the.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Inability of the under-use of the inquiry system, how it could be made more effective. The tools are there already. Again, that's a familiar pattern with the Ministry of Justice system over many years. I know this committee looks at the Ombudsman quite a lot, and you can see similar sort of narratives that the institution could be more be used more. It could be used more intelligently, it could be given greater powers. But there's an inherent reluctance in our system to to do that. So we're constantly on this sort of process of trying to put pressure on the government to, to work the system better.
And I echo what you just said. Yes. Unfortunately, part of your role is to be that that pressure, as I understand sort of the cabinet manual's being rewritten. Some of this could you know, we could this could be a moment to inject some of that sort of more sort of.
And I echo what you just said. Yes. Unfortunately, part of your role is to be that that pressure, as I understand sort of the cabinet manual's being rewritten. Some of this could you know, we could this could be a moment to inject some of that sort of more sort of.
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10:25
John Lamont
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John Lamont
It work. Thank you chair. Good morning. Doctor McKee you spoke very clearly about the numbers of ongoing enquiries are ongoing just now and and just how they are at record levels. And I just wondered. And just to pick up what Professor Kirkham was saying there. What what do you attribute that to? Is that is that because of the. 2005 act, is it to do with public awareness of that option or the media's awareness, or is it just the government of whatever color sees an inquiry as a way to park an issue?
10:26
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
I mean, how how would you assess the reason for that demand? I mean, I think it's quite a complex kind of context that's going on. I think, as Richard was saying, that there's obviously things going on in society that we're seeing more failures happening in general. There's increasing demand on other bits of the wider system, the ombudsman system as well. I think the key thing when we looked at ministerial decision making is, is really just this kind of lack of.
transparency about how those decisions are being made. And that just feeds.
transparency about how those decisions are being made. And that just feeds.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
That these decisions are being made sort of without much thinking about the trade offs and what other models would work. And so it's kind of difficult to really get a view into what's going on there. But it's quite clear that there isn't a very good kind of framework of options. There really isn't any good guidance that's.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
And there really isn't any good evidence of what works and kind of the lesson learning. So that leads us. I think there's wider issues going on that are all feeding into this, but the area that we really thought was important to hone in on was that ministerial decision making, because I do think it's quite clear that decisions are either being kind of rushed or they're being pushed, then rushed, or they're being designed poorly, so that .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Talking about the about the decision making that the inquiry is about? I think that interconnected the decision of whether to hold an inquiry or not, and then the decision about the kind of form and function of the inquiry, a decision that the ministers take at the beginning. And I think that issues with both of them are leading to the situation we have now, with more inquiries .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Of recommendations. Can you tell us a little bit more about that please. Yes. So Lampard inquiry from the very. outset was looking at ensuring that the work that it does is. maximizing the chances of bringing about change, which is really important. So it wanted research done on what makes. recommendations more.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
And then on the processes of oversight and scrutiny and so forth. There is a lot that an inquiry can do during its process to increase the likelihood of implementation. And a lot of the themes that came out there were for an inquiry to think about. recommendations and. implementation from the very beginning. Sometimes you'll see inquiries run, do the inquiry, and then at the end they sort of think right now, what recommendations are we going to make? You can see that it works better when they're actually as they're gathering evidence, they're thinking about, well, where's this going?
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Be aware of what's happening elsewhere. So, for example, we have an awful lot of. inquiries looking at changing the health service, but the risk is that the NHS is just battered left, right and centre with. recommendations that don't always coincide. They don't take all other budgets into account and so forth. So taking that into .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
They need to make sure that what they're recommending is realistic. There's no point making a. recommendation that actually is never feasible and could never happen. So it's about. engaging with policy makers and those who are going to be responsible for. implementation throughout the inquiry as well, rather than treating it as a tag on at the end where the. recommendations are produced. And then somebody goes, well, that's not possible.
That .
That .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Improved to ensure the. deliverability is better? Yeah. Just quickly on the back of Emma's point there, I think that point is really important about the lack of central coordination. And Sir Brian Langstaff published his final letter earlier this year, which had an appendix with lessons. reflections in it. But even he said, you know, these are only really applicable to an inquiry like this, and there will be different challenges. And actually, we just don't have any part of government that is doing that. systematically or doing that well and feeding those lessons back into the system. So I think that's a really important gap on kind of the.
design of recommendations. I mean, they they need to be tested. As Emma said, they can't be created in a vacuum. And you see chairs will take their role, kind of they'll take their role however they want to take it. And they can be designed, you know, sometimes take all that information, feed it in and put. recommendations back out, which are then for government or others to consider. Other chairs have taken a different model. For example, the Mid Staffordshire and Bristol inquiries had expert seminars that were there to kind of test and address some of the.
recommendations earlier on. One of the areas I think is quite interesting is that health policy itself is quite good at doing kind of soft. systems testing to check if I pull a lever here in this system, what happens to this thing over here? And actually that doesn't happen in inquiries. They are because of kind of the structure and the ways of working. And as Emma said, the, the kind of ad hoc nature of inquiries, they aren't being asked to really wrestle with what's going on.
How does that impact a budget? How are their compounding.
design of recommendations. I mean, they they need to be tested. As Emma said, they can't be created in a vacuum. And you see chairs will take their role, kind of they'll take their role however they want to take it. And they can be designed, you know, sometimes take all that information, feed it in and put. recommendations back out, which are then for government or others to consider. Other chairs have taken a different model. For example, the Mid Staffordshire and Bristol inquiries had expert seminars that were there to kind of test and address some of the.
recommendations earlier on. One of the areas I think is quite interesting is that health policy itself is quite good at doing kind of soft. systems testing to check if I pull a lever here in this system, what happens to this thing over here? And actually that doesn't happen in inquiries. They are because of kind of the structure and the ways of working. And as Emma said, the, the kind of ad hoc nature of inquiries, they aren't being asked to really wrestle with what's going on.
How does that impact a budget? How are their compounding.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Other inquiries, other things going on in these settings? And sometimes it might be, for example, that an inquiry has taken, for example, the Covid inquiry, four years or two years to get to this evidence session on this module. And in that time, improvements have been made. But the terms of reference of the inquiry are very much about what went wrong. And so the inquiry itself can't necessarily deal with or pick up on some of the good practice that's been happening as well. So it's the ad hoc kind of. nature that I think feeds into it.
But it's also that inquiries need to be tested, and they can't be created in a vacuum, in a vacuum. They also need to be measurable. They can't be something that can just be ticked off and say, yes, accepted, done. What is it? What's the outcome you're actually trying to achieve? And how can you say that the change has actually. happened and that that can then be. independently checked as well. And thirdly, they really need to take account of the people in the system. So frontline staff, the. organisations that are under review. I think it's really important to think about how these recommendations are piling up and the burden is .
But it's also that inquiries need to be tested, and they can't be created in a vacuum, in a vacuum. They also need to be measurable. They can't be something that can just be ticked off and say, yes, accepted, done. What is it? What's the outcome you're actually trying to achieve? And how can you say that the change has actually. happened and that that can then be. independently checked as well. And thirdly, they really need to take account of the people in the system. So frontline staff, the. organisations that are under review. I think it's really important to think about how these recommendations are piling up and the burden is .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
In terms of a recommendation as opposed to this ad hoc model. That is a separate point. And it's more complicated than that. Whether it should be a single chair, whether it should be a panel, will very much depend on the public inquiry itself and the subject matter and so forth, and the core purpose and what the inquiry is for it. That alone doesn't.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Going to be implemented or able to be capable of being implemented. It's not that they're being allowed, and I don't think a panel would make any difference. They're listening to the evidence and they're making. recommendations on the evidence. And I do think inquiries are doing their best to make the best.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
What's best practice, what can we do to make our. recommendations as good as we can to make them as implementable as possible? So that's a very good thing that the inquiry is learning from previous inquiries. I think there's also the other side you've got to remember, is government departments and public bodies and engagement with public. inquiries at huge public expense. They have. representatives there every day of the inquiry, listening to the evidence and learning. And that role shouldn't be simply to defend the position of the government department or the bodies. They should be engaging with the process as a learning process.
They should be learning as it goes on. They should be inputting and informing the inquiry. So I'm not. blaming the inquiries. The inquiries get the best evidence they can and make the best. recommendations they can. I think they should. definitely be taking from the research and taking the best practice from past inquiries to. maximise the strength of the recommendations. But I think there's also a lot to be done by the government, their sponsoring departments, the public bodies. engaging with it. There's this, again, this thing that's developed over a few years where they're almost passively sitting back and there's a confusion.
They're treating them almost as if they're a court. The purpose of the inquiry is to learn lessons so they can do their jobs better and bring about change and.
They should be learning as it goes on. They should be inputting and informing the inquiry. So I'm not. blaming the inquiries. The inquiries get the best evidence they can and make the best. recommendations they can. I think they should. definitely be taking from the research and taking the best practice from past inquiries to. maximise the strength of the recommendations. But I think there's also a lot to be done by the government, their sponsoring departments, the public bodies. engaging with it. There's this, again, this thing that's developed over a few years where they're almost passively sitting back and there's a confusion.
They're treating them almost as if they're a court. The purpose of the inquiry is to learn lessons so they can do their jobs better and bring about change and.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Be implemented. Professor Kirkham, do you have any thoughts on any of that? I just find it fascinating, isn't it? I mean, it's it's 2026. And, you know, we've been discussing inquiries, I suspect, for about the best part of. 70 or 80 years. And you're still having these sort of discussions now, maybe just that we're on a kind of a learning process, right? And we're getting there now. But it's fascinating that it is also ad hoc, that it seems to be in inquiries themselves that are doing the learning from their predecessors. And yeah, there needs to be this, this central point of knowledge, I guess, in guidance in the system.
And look, there are other players out there which which are good at writing. recommendations that have experience. You've got the National Audit Office, for instance, looking at the work of the health services safety. investigatory body. They've got quite a lot of constructive sort of guidance on how to do this sort of work. I don't know whether these whether it's as much a matter of having a panel or just having kind of a standing advisory board to an inquiry or something like that, which might sort of help to, to add this, this wisdom, but I find it fascinating.
And look, there are other players out there which which are good at writing. recommendations that have experience. You've got the National Audit Office, for instance, looking at the work of the health services safety. investigatory body. They've got quite a lot of constructive sort of guidance on how to do this sort of work. I don't know whether these whether it's as much a matter of having a panel or just having kind of a standing advisory board to an inquiry or something like that, which might sort of help to, to add this, this wisdom, but I find it fascinating.
10:54
Lauren Edwards
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Lauren Edwards
So ad hoc. Thank you. I mean, it certainly sounds like it's, it's not only about. guidance about how to do public inquiry. Well, it's also about culture change in departments themselves. And, and I think it's interesting because obviously the previous Work and Pensions Secretary was talking a lot about changing culture and departments around the test and learn approach that they want to sort of have across the civil service have in particular, have more, more people willing to take risks. And, and I think what you're speaking to there is a broader culture change that needs to happen not only around the department themselves taking risks, but also how they engage with public inquiries around .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Of change? Do you think it has to be the Prime Minister, or is it Cabinet Office? I think change in inquiries is all the way through the life cycle of the inquiry. I think it's got to start. I mean, the fact there's no guidance from the very beginning for ministers, there's no clarity from the very beginning what they are and what they're meant to do. So it's all the way through. There needs to be inquiry chairs. Often it's the first time they've been involved in a public inquiry. There's no induction, there's no explanation. Sometimes they can default to what they know well.
So often we see inquiries run quite like a court because we have a judicial chair, and they need to accept this is a very different body. This is a very different role. This has to run in a very different way. You can't just default to what you're familiar with. So there needs to be a mindset change all the way through. There needs to be a mindset change about engaging with survivors and participants who may come back to that later. But nearly every. inquiry and every time an inquiry is announced, it talks about putting the needs and interests of survivors and the bereaved at the heart of the process.
Nobody knows what's meant by that. Often it's a tick box.
So often we see inquiries run quite like a court because we have a judicial chair, and they need to accept this is a very different body. This is a very different role. This has to run in a very different way. You can't just default to what you're familiar with. So there needs to be a mindset change all the way through. There needs to be a mindset change about engaging with survivors and participants who may come back to that later. But nearly every. inquiry and every time an inquiry is announced, it talks about putting the needs and interests of survivors and the bereaved at the heart of the process.
Nobody knows what's meant by that. Often it's a tick box.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Just talking at them as opposed to listening to them and actually being informed by them. So that has to change as well. And this huge problem, I mean, we're talking about improving inquiries and so forth, but we need to recognize the biggest. problem is the lack of. implementation at the end, as if that has nothing to do with the government's .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Better outcome for inquiries? So . that's really important. Government's role is to address the matter of public concern, Parliament's role to scrutinise. At the moment there are gaps in the knowledge. Neither is doing that job well, but that's because there are gaps in the knowledge. So the first gap is there's no scrutiny of what's happening on the ground. For effective monitoring, you've got to have top down oversight, but also bottom up scrutiny.
If you have a body, whether that's a parliamentary committee or someone else who is just asking for. self-reported information about.
If you have a body, whether that's a parliamentary committee or someone else who is just asking for. self-reported information about.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
It actually does more harm than good because you're just amplifying an organisation saying, no, it's great. We've done half of them. And that's just then reported back by the parliamentary committee. So you need bottom up scrutiny. You need somebody who. understands the technical. detail and the actual.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
And their job is to follow that inquiry for maybe 3 or 4 years and actually not be told what's happening, but check what's happening and see what's happening in terms of implementation and verify it. They report directly to Parliament, and then Parliament has the information it needs to hold the government to account. The other gap is this system wide learning, which is a different thing. And sometimes the two get conflated. But this is we need a.
dedicated unit or body that tracks. recommendations and. implementation and.
dedicated unit or body that tracks. recommendations and. implementation and.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Inquests. reviews and so forth. And that is about tracking it, seeing what what is changing, what's improving. And the role of that is to prevent this recurrence. And the fact that we have another inquiry in the future. On the same matter, one of the reasons we're getting so many more. inquiries is. because we're just inquiring into the same thing time and time again. There's no implementation. I think there's currently five sets of. recommendations from inquiries into failings in maternity care. No time to actually implement and change anything. And then things are going wrong. They're all reporting the same failures.
It's all the same lessons. Nothing's being implemented. And then something goes wrong again. We just have another inquiry. We just have another inquiry. It's not solving anything. We would have less. inquiries if we actually implement and solve the matters that the previous inquiry has required into. So you've got you need some form of independent scrutiny, bottom up. You definitely need some. systemic thematic learning. And another problem is we get an abrupt loss or breaking knowledge between an inquiry and those overseeing it. So you have the chair and the inquiry team and so forth who've spent years and know these matters inside out.
And that goes into the report and the recommendations. And then it's being. overseen by a whole new set of people who are new to it, who don't. necessarily know the right questions or who to call in, and so forth. So you need to bridge that gap between the two. implementation monitors, bridge that gap in knowledge. There are. occasions where a chair might be available or might have the time, and there are reasons sometimes why that's appropriate and why that's not appropriate, but that can bring that continuity of knowledge. But you need to address that complete break.
Otherwise, you're having a complete conversation in isolation with bodies that are saying, yes, it's going great. We're implementing everything. And that body of knowledge isn't there to actually question that test, that push back on that. So it remains the job of government to address the matter of public concern. Parliament to scrutinise that. But you need to fill that gap so that in order to do that task effectively, you need to be getting accurate bottom up. information and you need to be able to have that overview so you can track if there are trends, recurring patterns, recurring failures, and that's where the gaps are at the moment.
So there's various ways. What's really interesting is when you look at inquiries and what groups of survivors and the bereaved are doing is they are at the moment trying to fill those gaps that have been left by government and Parliament, and they're stepping in to try and fill that. patchwork to make things happen. But that's not right. They're doing that because the job is not being done elsewhere. So there are various I don't know if you want to talk about them, but there are various. suggestions for how it might be. addressed in terms of. oversight and scrutiny.
I don't think there is at all a one size fits all model that the model is for every inquiry, whether. statutory or.
It's all the same lessons. Nothing's being implemented. And then something goes wrong again. We just have another inquiry. We just have another inquiry. It's not solving anything. We would have less. inquiries if we actually implement and solve the matters that the previous inquiry has required into. So you've got you need some form of independent scrutiny, bottom up. You definitely need some. systemic thematic learning. And another problem is we get an abrupt loss or breaking knowledge between an inquiry and those overseeing it. So you have the chair and the inquiry team and so forth who've spent years and know these matters inside out.
And that goes into the report and the recommendations. And then it's being. overseen by a whole new set of people who are new to it, who don't. necessarily know the right questions or who to call in, and so forth. So you need to bridge that gap between the two. implementation monitors, bridge that gap in knowledge. There are. occasions where a chair might be available or might have the time, and there are reasons sometimes why that's appropriate and why that's not appropriate, but that can bring that continuity of knowledge. But you need to address that complete break.
Otherwise, you're having a complete conversation in isolation with bodies that are saying, yes, it's going great. We're implementing everything. And that body of knowledge isn't there to actually question that test, that push back on that. So it remains the job of government to address the matter of public concern. Parliament to scrutinise that. But you need to fill that gap so that in order to do that task effectively, you need to be getting accurate bottom up. information and you need to be able to have that overview so you can track if there are trends, recurring patterns, recurring failures, and that's where the gaps are at the moment.
So there's various ways. What's really interesting is when you look at inquiries and what groups of survivors and the bereaved are doing is they are at the moment trying to fill those gaps that have been left by government and Parliament, and they're stepping in to try and fill that. patchwork to make things happen. But that's not right. They're doing that because the job is not being done elsewhere. So there are various I don't know if you want to talk about them, but there are various. suggestions for how it might be. addressed in terms of. oversight and scrutiny.
I don't think there is at all a one size fits all model that the model is for every inquiry, whether. statutory or.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
There should be someone assigned to oversee, and there should be a form of. scrutiny to give that oversight body the information that they need. And then to one side, you need this thematic learning, and it will change depending on the subject matter, which parliamentary committee is appropriate or which body is appropriate or which scrutinizer is appropriate.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
You have oversight and you have scrutiny. Okay. Do you want to add to that? Yeah, I'll add to that. I mean, we're quite aligned on this, I think, but I've used the phrase accountability architecture quite a bit recently because one of the issues is we've talked about inquiries are ad hoc, and we often talk about there being a. patchwork of how inquiries are working and how they're being implemented and monitored. And that obviously has negative connotations. And it obviously isn't working at the moment, but it can mean that you then sometimes want to reach for a one size fits all.
solution that we think will encompass all of and solve all of the issues and actually from, from really delving into what are the underlying drivers. I think it actually just needs much more. structure around the one size fits all approach. And no single institution can do everything. But if there's a clear. allocation of.
solution that we think will encompass all of and solve all of the issues and actually from, from really delving into what are the underlying drivers. I think it actually just needs much more. structure around the one size fits all approach. And no single institution can do everything. But if there's a clear. allocation of.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Kind of minimum standards and how how Parliament might engage on that as well. And there's a role then for Parliament to to scrutinise and look at those plans. Do they do they feel sensible? So the guardian of that system, rather than kind of playing the role of doing all of that work itself and within that kind of wider accountability architecture, there's obviously the role for government who owns the response and owns the delivery of. Cooper recently announced the D. H C. recommendations hub, which I think is an interesting model, but there's there's a role for government there.
There's a role for a tracker. There's a few different trackers that have appeared.
There's a role for a tracker. There's a few different trackers that have appeared.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
As Emma was saying, having that kind of. comprehensive public record that the public that the government that inquiry chairs and others can look to, to look and see these kind of trends and, and repeated failures. There's a role for Parliament in playing the very important role of the. democratic accountability and summoning ministers and kind of keeping political attention. Then there's the inquiry specific experts. We talked about. implementation monitors. These are technical or policy. experts who may have been, for example, involved in some way in the inquiry earlier and really know the detail, but importantly, really, really know the area in which the.
recommendations are being targeted at. There could be, for example, a role for the CEO of the inquiry is kind of talking about value for money and the role of individual parliamentary committees, for example, the housing committee's work they've done on Grenfell and some work that the health committee did, I think, in. 2013 as well, looking into inquiries. And then, of course, there's work that inquiries themselves can do. So interim reports, I think, have proved quite successful for some inquiries. But then the role I think of Parliament or maybe specific role for Pacac is to kind of scrutinise and look at those plans and then play the backstop role.
So an
recommendations are being targeted at. There could be, for example, a role for the CEO of the inquiry is kind of talking about value for money and the role of individual parliamentary committees, for example, the housing committee's work they've done on Grenfell and some work that the health committee did, I think, in. 2013 as well, looking into inquiries. And then, of course, there's work that inquiries themselves can do. So interim reports, I think, have proved quite successful for some inquiries. But then the role I think of Parliament or maybe specific role for Pacac is to kind of scrutinise and look at those plans and then play the backstop role.
So an
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Parliament, or maybe specific role for Pacac is to kind of scrutinize and look at those plans and then play the backstop role. So an implementation monitor, for example, might be able to say, I'm getting absolutely nowhere. I'm nearing the end of my term. Here are some specific issues. And pull a lever which then gets. escalated rather than Parliament, which has a huge number , competing. priorities and a set amount of time playing the role of.
monitoring and. scrutinising that kind of bottom up scrutiny, as Emma said. Across all.
monitoring and. scrutinising that kind of bottom up scrutiny, as Emma said. Across all.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
And actually, if you can set this out in a in a plan that just gives a lot more confidence about what's going to happen next, and it helps to kind of stop or bridge the break between what happens when an inquiry closes and what happens afterwards. But I think it's just useful to think about it as I think it's not the right thing to pick, to try and lean towards there being one solution for absolutely everything. And actually, inquiries can have different structures that kind of sit around the.
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Peter Lamb
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Peter Lamb
Parliament as a backstop for when those plans don't work. I mean, for whatever reason, central government seems reluctant to have an implementation body. It has been suggested to us that Pacap might take on a role as an oversight body in terms of overseeing the. implementation of these plans, with other scrutiny committees. Looking into the detail. What sort of. challenges might there be to such an approach?
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
And conversely, what what benefits might there be to such an approach? I mean, some of the some of the challenges, I think, are specifically resource challenges we do at the Institute for government, a lot of work with select committees. You know, we facilitate sessions helping them think about their work programmes and ways of working, being effective and being impactful. There's an awful lot of work that committees are already doing. If you look at the core tasks, there's a wide range of of things we actually recommended in an earlier 2017 report that public inquiry should be added on as as a core task.
But that's when we were looking at far, far fewer public inquiries ongoing at the same time. And we no longer think that that's the case. One of the other issues, I think, and it shouldn't be.
But that's when we were looking at far, far fewer public inquiries ongoing at the same time. And we no longer think that that's the case. One of the other issues, I think, and it shouldn't be.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
I suppose, all of the monitoring and oversight job to Parliament or to Pacac, is that you just redirect that. mistrust that the public might have. And I think that could be be quite dangerous. So I think, in my view, that there's a very important role for Pacac and for Parliament to play. Honing in on the scrutiny role that Parliament does so well and is really the the role it can play in order to kind of help to fix this system. But I think that sits alongside complementary functions that might sit, for example, with implementation monitors, with some of this other accountability.
architecture and where it's most, the role it can most strongly play is in. scrutinising some of the early.
architecture and where it's most, the role it can most strongly play is in. scrutinising some of the early.
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Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
There is sort of similar themes I find find going on, I think. I think the the Ombudsman sector itself could be part of the solution. It has it has some of the requisite skill sets, and you have to be willing to empower the institution to be able to take on some of the roles and perhaps contribute around the edges of this. There are some examples around the world that I think find where the Ombudsman helps. So. I think this committee will well know that. comparatively other. institutions around the world will have own initiative, powers of.
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Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
And some of the issues which might come up in inquiry. An ombudsman might be able to actually sort of. proactively get on top of those issues at an early stage and take some of the heat off this kind of ad hoc process. I there are I have found an example where an ombudsman has been used in a couple of examples from Canada, where it's been used as part of this kind of monitoring. process in Manitoba, it's like a permanent role in terms of just the equivalent of our coroners process that the inquiry is there will the inquest will make.
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Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
And a big inquiry set up, which had many of the themes which we've been talking about here. identified the lack of follow up on previous recommendations. If you gave full ownership to the government that these things tend to disappear. And so the solution there was to to ask the Quebec Ombudsman to, to set to act as the monitor. So you might have in certain.
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Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
An institution. And we've had reference to the National Audit Office as well being used, an existing institution being used as that monitor, as that body of wisdom that that can use their powers to get involved. The trouble in this country, though, is, you know, with my example from the Quebec Ombudsman, that again, was on quite a lot of powers. It had its own initiative. It could it could activate this this work.
It got an extra budget in which to do this. And it's done a series of follow up.
It got an extra budget in which to do this. And it's done a series of follow up.
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Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
A couple of follow up reports. And those follow up reports have made recommendations of their own. So there are there are bits of the system which could be used to help out, but they're all struggling under the same problem. If they're not sort of given sufficient powers or autonomy or budget, it's quite difficult. And you're going to get these similar patterns .
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Sam Carling
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Sam Carling
Thank you Sam. Thank you very much. This has been a really interesting discussion so far. I wanted to ask a couple of questions. First of all, around the role of government during an inquiry, which I think you touched on slightly. And I'll just come to yourself. And first of all, is there anything more you might want to add on that? But also, I think just thinking about some of your earlier comments around the kind of workability of recommendations and how we make sure that there's the right dialogues going on over the course of an inquiry.
How do we balance that with the need to make sure that there's no space for someone to allege that there's been kind of undue coziness, or that the government might have sort of watered down recommendations in trying to make them workable.
How do we balance that with the need to make sure that there's no space for someone to allege that there's been kind of undue coziness, or that the government might have sort of watered down recommendations in trying to make them workable.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Okay. So government. during there is a. frustration and a lot of challenges for inquiries when engaging with government. departments in terms of defensive behavior. And, you know, we talked about that mindset change that we need them to accept that this is a learning process and they should be working with the inquiry, because the whole point of the inquiry is learning so that they can address what they need to address. So that's a major part of that . In terms of the watering down the. I don't see that as the issue. The inquiry is independent. The inquiry is looking at the facts and looking at the evidence base and making recommendations.
And they are the they are the.
And they are the they are the.
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Sam Carling
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Sam Carling
Everybody across the board, and they're informing their own . recommendations in terms of what we currently have, we have this government. dashboard around sort of looking at what they've done so far in certain inquiries. Is that working very effectively? Obviously, it's nowhere near the full picture, but .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Is there anything you would suggest that could be could be done to that in the short term? Better than nothing. What we need, we need a lot more transparency. So it's a start in that you're getting inquiry reports and recommendations. In the past there would be hard to find, but they need to. include independent scrutiny. What we have, for example, is we have the government dashboard about Covid and where it is on implementation. And this thing I'm saying about people stepping in to fill the gap. You've then got the Covid 19 bereaved families that are running their own dashboard in terms of how they perceive implementation.
And the two are very. different because the government one, has no element of this independent scrutiny. It's just the. self-reporting data. So in an ideal.
And the two are very. different because the government one, has no element of this independent scrutiny. It's just the. self-reporting data. So in an ideal.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
You want the terms of reference, you want the reports, you want the responses to the recommendations. You want the. implementation plans. That's another place that people are stepping in to fill the gap. Inquiries are increasingly. asking people to produce implementation plans because there's no central requirement to do it. You'd want implementation plans there. You'd also want the reports of the. implementation monitors there.
So you've got that.
So you've got that.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
As opposed to otherwise. You're just. amplifying the self-reported. data on that central dashboard. And in an ideal world, you'd also want that thematic analysis there as well in terms of tracking across the board. So it's a first step, but there's a huge amount more that needs to be done in terms of transparency. And there is so much being. invested in these inquiries to produce this knowledge and data as to how we can improve things.
And it's just being put on fire and sent off to the national archive, and it .
And it's just being put on fire and sent off to the national archive, and it .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
The government saying it's done certain things in the family to disagreeing, or is it? Yeah, I think there's disagreement over the extent to which there's been effective implementation. When we talk about implementation, you just you don't just want tick box implementation. You need. scrutiny of whether it's real.
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Sam Carling
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Sam Carling
You need accurate scrutiny to feed into it. I think that's a really valuable point. It chimes some of the experience I've had with the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, which I've taken something of an interest in, and one of the implementations in there on mandatory reporting. The government has said they've done it. But two of the former, two of the former panel members wrote a letter in to try and it was the only thing they could do to try and express some concerns about that. So that's really useful to understand. Is it possible to specify when scrutiny of an inquiry recommendation should begin and end?
How at what point will we say, right. So we .
How at what point will we say, right. So we .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Are accepted, there should be a plan and an indication of when they're going to happen. And that should be scrutinised. I think implementation monitors in Australia, they're usually a point of about 3 or 4 years. I'm saying that that's one method. There are other maybe you can use a body to scrutinise or other things depending on the inquiry, but some form of. implementation and they track it through. But what's also good is you find that when you have that sort of.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
They can work side by side and it keeps the momentum going and they can work together to ensure that they meet the. implementation plan. So you're talking a discrete period of time then in terms of tracking those themes that should be open ended across inquiries, across inquests and so forth. So where.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Those holistic lessons. To learn across all of them. I think it needs a dedicated team whose job it is to track that. information across inquiries, whether that's sat within the National Audit Office or somewhere else. But and I know that's seen as an extra expense, but that to me seems. extraordinary to not have something that's taking that learning. If we are leaking.
1.5 billion into.
1.5 billion into.
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Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
Roles and so forth. There should be a dedicated unit. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if I put my sort of academic ideal type kind of scenario, yes, you would have a dedicated body, but that may be the interim solution. You give it to a body that's already existed. But yeah, you need somebody to be with the incentive to sort of really draw together those lessons, but also to act as the fire alarm for you guys when, when one of these monitoring reports, monitoring teams are struggling and I don't know exactly what the answer is to that, but it feels like you need that kind of autonomous body to, to raise the alarm to you.
I agree there's a limit on what any select committee in Parliament can do. You're always going to have other things to get involved with your own resource constraints. Your team's changing all the time, so institutional knowledge is lost. You'll always find a few other things, perhaps a bit more interesting. Maybe. I don't know as well to be quite difficult, but you are brilliant at doing that scrutiny. So yes, somewhere in the system you need.
I like that phrase, a dedicated .
I agree there's a limit on what any select committee in Parliament can do. You're always going to have other things to get involved with your own resource constraints. Your team's changing all the time, so institutional knowledge is lost. You'll always find a few other things, perhaps a bit more interesting. Maybe. I don't know as well to be quite difficult, but you are brilliant at doing that scrutiny. So yes, somewhere in the system you need.
I like that phrase, a dedicated .
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Luke Taylor
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Luke Taylor
Role of Parliament in the accountability framework. Luke Taylor, thank you and thank you for your contributions so far. So what role do you see Parliament playing in the accountability architecture? And I guess there's the broader parliamentary role and then. specifically around what select. committees can do and how they can be.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Encouraged to, to take more of an active role. I think there's there's two things there. I mean, I've already set out that I think that there is an important role for whether it's PAC to play in. scrutinising the early decisions that are made. I think there needs to be. This comes alongside having a framework, having guidance, having something open and transparent about how decision making is happening, and then can scrutinise those decisions, because it's as much important about how a decision is made as, as who who is making it. And ministers need to be able to.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Without much consideration of those trade offs and some of the language used. We haven't talked necessarily about the language yet, but language around kind of leaving no stone unturned, getting to the truth. We're finding ministers sometimes using that less now because they've been called out a bit about it, but it's actually really damaging because it sets completely the wrong. expectations around what an inquiry is and what it can do. And it doesn't deal with some of the trade offs and decisions about what an inquiry will do speed, cost, time impact. And so I think there's an important role to, to, to kind of get in and really scrutinise what's going on there in terms of kind of the.
recommendations and what happens kind of after an inquiry has finished. There's a there's a role for departmental select committees, and they've already been doing this somewhat. I have a statistic somewhere which I will correct if I'm wrong, but I think it was when we looked up to our report in 2017. There was about six out of 64. I'll find the correct statistic. Inquiries had actually been followed up with full, full follow up from select committees. It's a very small number, but there are instances of where that's been done and where that's done. Well, there are I mean, one of the issues with public inquiries that government finds difficult is that they can often be cross-cutting.
And actually, select committees have a lot of flexibility now in their ways of working, whether that's getting or joint inquiries or, you know, one off evidence session, for example, they can look across and work together. So there's a role for departmental select committees to kind of engage and pick up on some of those issues. And then, as I mentioned, I think a role kind of when the. implementation plans kind of go wrong, implementation. monitors may feel like they need a kind of to pull that lever and there's a backstop that Pacac can play there. So I think there's some distinct roles, but I would really I really strongly feel there needs to be far more scrutiny of ministerial decisions at the outset and the establishment of an inquiry, because getting that wrong just sets everything else off in the wrong direction.
And the Covid inquiry is one example of that. I think under the the second of their aims, or what the inquiry is supposed to achieve in the terms of reference, there's.
recommendations and what happens kind of after an inquiry has finished. There's a there's a role for departmental select committees, and they've already been doing this somewhat. I have a statistic somewhere which I will correct if I'm wrong, but I think it was when we looked up to our report in 2017. There was about six out of 64. I'll find the correct statistic. Inquiries had actually been followed up with full, full follow up from select committees. It's a very small number, but there are instances of where that's been done and where that's done. Well, there are I mean, one of the issues with public inquiries that government finds difficult is that they can often be cross-cutting.
And actually, select committees have a lot of flexibility now in their ways of working, whether that's getting or joint inquiries or, you know, one off evidence session, for example, they can look across and work together. So there's a role for departmental select committees to kind of engage and pick up on some of those issues. And then, as I mentioned, I think a role kind of when the. implementation plans kind of go wrong, implementation. monitors may feel like they need a kind of to pull that lever and there's a backstop that Pacac can play there. So I think there's some distinct roles, but I would really I really strongly feel there needs to be far more scrutiny of ministerial decisions at the outset and the establishment of an inquiry, because getting that wrong just sets everything else off in the wrong direction.
And the Covid inquiry is one example of that. I think under the the second of their aims, or what the inquiry is supposed to achieve in the terms of reference, there's.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
That are now years on from from when an incident happened, either delaying things from changing or no longer kind of relevant, but retraumatising people throughout the process. And I pour that inquiry out. But it's not the, you know, the only one. And actually scrutiny of what's happening when an inquiry is set up and ensuring it's.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
What they can and what they can't deliver, and pushing back about the they're being delivered to, you know, they're there to deliver justice and leave no stone unturned and so forth, making it clear that it is the government's. responsibility to address matters of public concern, not the public inquiry. We're losing that message. Making sure that when the decision is made, it's very clear what the purpose is and that they. identify a core. purpose and. scrutinising whether that is the. appropriate choice in terms of core purpose, and whether the model that's being chosen and the terms of reference are suitable and aligned with that core purpose.
Pushing for the development and. publication of guidance, publicly available guidance. So everybody. understands what the core purpose and the. different models are and the strengths of the various different models scrutinising decisions to hold or not hold, making sure there's adequate reasons given and there's adequate transparency around that. As I said before, proactive engagement with calls for inquiries, not leaving that to the survivors and the bereaved to push for scrutinising responses, making sure there are timely responses. I'm not convinced by this. Six months for response. Previous select committee suggested three months. If government and departments have been engaging with and.
Pushing for the development and. publication of guidance, publicly available guidance. So everybody. understands what the core purpose and the. different models are and the strengths of the various different models scrutinising decisions to hold or not hold, making sure there's adequate reasons given and there's adequate transparency around that. As I said before, proactive engagement with calls for inquiries, not leaving that to the survivors and the bereaved to push for scrutinising responses, making sure there are timely responses. I'm not convinced by this. Six months for response. Previous select committee suggested three months. If government and departments have been engaging with and.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
They're saying, oh, well, that was a previous. administration's inquiry. Maybe so. But the matter of public. concern continues in that. responsibility continues as well in terms of oversight and parliamentary oversight. I think it's important to. remember the oversight and scrutiny is of the government's actions. And in order to scrutinise the.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
That sort of scrutiny, but absolutely to scrutinise the actions of government. I just add. Sorry. There's one example. I think, picking up on what Emma said as well about the early guidance as well, and the kind of the power of select committee and scrutinising some of those ministerial decisions. It was interesting that the ministerial code was updated so that ministers are required to consult the Cabinet Office before establishing an inquiry, which I think is very welcome. But it was pacac that heard in February last year in an evidence session that actually the Cabinet Office wasn't consulted over the grooming gangs.
inquiry at all. And I think that's just it's very useful to be able to look at what you know, is in on paper, government is saying it's doing. But what's actually happening in practice, which again, just helps to ensure that the solutions are directed in the right place. If that's not .
inquiry at all. And I think that's just it's very useful to be able to look at what you know, is in on paper, government is saying it's doing. But what's actually happening in practice, which again, just helps to ensure that the solutions are directed in the right place. If that's not .
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Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
Richard, you want to add? I it's really quite comprehensive, so I don't have anything to add except just to say I also add in in as far as the Cabinet Office inquiries unit does seem to be the. The game in town at the moment that you're scrutinising the work of that outfit as well, and trying to put pressure on that to .
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Luke Taylor
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Luke Taylor
And select committees, but what what do you think particularly select committees can do that other. mechanisms cannot. What is uniquely suited to select committees to ask. You mentioned obviously. cross-cutting and Pacac has a unique opportunity to do that. And then you spoke about the. departmental select committees. What is it that that needs to be really focused upon in those? In those arenas, rather than the broader.
parliamentary party? Minister, questions and scrutiny .
parliamentary party? Minister, questions and scrutiny .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
In in bill committee and that sort of stuff? I think for select committees, they're incredibly useful as a as a kind of focus point. I mean, Parliament in itself, but a select committee is importantly exist beyond the government cycles. And I know membership will change, but there is. continuity in kind of the clerks and the institutional memory that also exist. And so it's a useful point for the public to look to as this select committee continues to exist and and can, if it wants to pick up and scrutinise some of those decisions. And it's also the powers to call for persons papers and records as well.
It's something that other parts of this accountability architecture that we talked to don't. necessarily have, although it might be something to consider.
It's something that other parts of this accountability architecture that we talked to don't. necessarily have, although it might be something to consider.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Monitors may be able to do that, but that would require legislative change. I think the other important thing is being able to have ministers come in front of you. So the infected blood inquiry was the first inquiry, I think, that had ministers to to give evidence around the delivery of the compensation scheme. That is something that select committees can do by default as they as they want to. And that shouldn't be underestimated. And that the example I pointed to earlier about being able to reveal how decision making was actually happening in government, I think is an incredibly powerful tool that select committees have also visible publicly.
People will kind of look to committees to be able to kind of to provide that scrutiny as and when. But I think that just that needs to be deployed. And carefully is not quite the right word, but in the right way. So I do think that there is a risk if committees take on all of the kind of monitoring and all of that role, it really dilutes that role. It risks breaking down the public trust. But the scrutiny that committees .
People will kind of look to committees to be able to kind of to provide that scrutiny as and when. But I think that just that needs to be deployed. And carefully is not quite the right word, but in the right way. So I do think that there is a risk if committees take on all of the kind of monitoring and all of that role, it really dilutes that role. It risks breaking down the public trust. But the scrutiny that committees .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Hauled in. I don't know if there's anything else to add, just simply that it is particularly that power to be able to question ministers and some of the pushback with other suggestions about independent bodies that would would deal with this. I think that is disquiet about those suggestions, because that is the appropriate forum, parliamentary committee to call in the ministers and just to distinguish. implementation monitors, those powers are very much directed at power to look at the. implementation on the ground and ask organisations what they're doing and so forth. That would not involve. scrutinising the actions of ministers and so forth.
That .
That .
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Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
Appropriately within the role of Parliament to do that. And I would have thought the high bar would be you're not implementing the recommendations, or at least the explanation you've given so far for not implementing. recommendations just isn't good enough. I would have thought that would be the. And yeah, this .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Huge question. Yeah, it's it's recognising the difference, as you say, between burden and involvement. And too often the burden is falling on them because they are plugging the. gaps of things that aren't being done by the government and by Parliament currently. And they feel that if they don't, then change will not come. And that absolutely needs to be addressed. And that's addressed by people fulfilling their roles as they should be doing in their responsibilities.
A lot of work has to be done on engaging better with them and actively listening and involving. A lot of that comes as well from it starts going wrong at the very beginning about this lack of clarity about what a public inquiry is and who it's for, and some of the messages about it being for
A lot of work has to be done on engaging better with them and actively listening and involving. A lot of that comes as well from it starts going wrong at the very beginning about this lack of clarity about what a public inquiry is and who it's for, and some of the messages about it being for
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Isn't happening at the moment. There's a lot of work to be done there. I would just add that I think that the thinking about kind of the, the role that they can play and then thinking about reducing the burden are two things that maybe have slightly separate solutions. And actually, there's some really interesting ways of working that come from other countries, for.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
I think, in terms of the burden. I mean, as we've talked about families, victims, survivors, they've become the monsters by default. And really we need to fix that now in the state really has to take over the burden of, of tracking and following up so that they can have a voice. The families have a voice without having to be the monsters in that. And I think the main thing there is just really being honest about what inquiries can do, what that inquiry will achieve, and having that clear purpose and setting those realistic expectations, I think is the most important thing.
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Lauren Edwards
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Lauren Edwards
Thank you. Any final questions from other committee members? No. Final devil. Devil's advocate. Question from me. We talked a little bit about the. pragmatism of some of the. recommendations from public inquiries. To what extent do you think the number of. recommendations associated with inquiries is a problem affecting. implementation and learning the.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
The reluctance to leave that out of the recommendations. I think if there was a proper. dedicated unit that was tracking through the learning, so they didn't feel those learnings were going to be lost and they were forming part of the learning in the picture. Then maybe inquiries would be more comfortable in terms of. focusing on the key ones to bring about change. So I think it's something that .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Addressed in the whole other panel members. Yeah, I'd just add to that. I think that obviously volume isn't the same as quality. And I think we we really need to like dig into this point about quality of recommendations and how they're formed as well. I had a quick look before I came here, and the last three inquiries that had been established by UK government that had reported made.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
For example, and some make a lot. But the effect of the volume of recommendations the government is failing to prioritise. And it's where we're seeing this thing that acceptance is just becoming a formality. And then that's where you're seeing the kind of. implementation gap. And then monitoring just becomes really difficult and, and. unimaginable as well. But I think that .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Recommendations than, say, the ones in 1990? Or is it. relatively similar? It's quite mixed. Emma might know more about this. The ones that I've looked at, it's much more down to kind of the length and. complexity of the inquiry. So again, having a very broad range of things to look at. I mean, a, a longer inquiry means inevitably you're likely to have far more recommendations that touch across all of those things and also sets you up at a higher risk of then those.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Systems testing that I was talking about, which also creates a wider problem. Yes, it is mixed. I think it can come down to the chair as well. I think it can also be partly addressed by greater clarity from the beginning about the core. purpose and the reason why the inquiry is being. convened and the focus. I think a lot of this is about. improving the focus and.
effectiveness of inquiry so that we can make sure you. There's no question that the cost of inquiries can be cut very .
effectiveness of inquiry so that we can make sure you. There's no question that the cost of inquiries can be cut very .
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Lauren Edwards
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Lauren Edwards
On an ongoing basis is emphasises the point. Thank you very much. I think I mean, certainly if I take away a central message from this session personally, it will be that if the. Government and Parliament wants to show that they care when things go wrong and that we care about making sure it doesn't happen again, we need to be much more focused on. implementation more than we are. The politics of maybe being seen to be doing something and conducting an inquiry as valuable as that might be. And I think you've all made really helpful suggestions, or three of you, about how we can be better about Parliament holding government to account, and how government can be better about demonstrating its care in that way.
So thank you all very much for coming along today. We really thank you for your time. And that's going to conclude today's evidence session. We did have a follow up, but I don't think we need it now. So I think, doctor McKay, I think you said that you would send me the information about the statutory non-statutory split. I've actually got one of my clerks has found a very helpful graph from the Institute for government, which very clearly shows the trends since 1990.
So you won't need to provide that. But .
So thank you all very much for coming along today. We really thank you for your time. And that's going to conclude today's evidence session. We did have a follow up, but I don't think we need it now. So I think, doctor McKay, I think you said that you would send me the information about the statutory non-statutory split. I've actually got one of my clerks has found a very helpful graph from the Institute for government, which very clearly shows the trends since 1990.
So you won't need to provide that. But .
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