Page 112 - When Things Go Wrong

Recommendations

Establishing public inquiries

1. A dedicated Central Inquiries Unit should be developed within the Cabinet
Office (para 2.7).

2. The Unit should advise inquiry secretariats on best practice. This will involve
updating and maintaining publicly available ‘Inquiries Guidance’ (para 2.20).

3. The Unit should ensure that lessons learned papers are completed by inquiries
secretaries and should analyse and disseminate core findings from completed
lessons learned papers (para 2.21).

4. The Unit should conduct standardised procurement exercises for the physical
and digital infrastructure of inquiries (para 2.22).

5. The Unit should provide a repository of chairs’ reports, lessons learned papers,
statements of values and procedural protocols from previous inquiries, as well
as retaining a database of previous secretaries and solicitors (para 2.23).

6. The Unit should have a public-facing role, taking questions from the media
and ensuring that the information it compiles is held on a publicly accessible,
clearly structured website (para 2.24).

7. The Unit’s team should be supported by an Independent Advisory Board. The
Board should include representation from bereaved people and survivors of
catastrophic events. Membership of the Independent Advisory Board should
be published (para 2.13).

8. At the close of a public inquiry or special procedure inquest, members of the
inquiry/inquest team should be seconded to the Central Inquiries Unit for
between six and twelve months in order to share recent experience. Civil
Service Human Resources should work to ensure that such a period is
recognised as a valuable element of civil service career progression (paras
2.17 and 2.19).

9. Where a public inquiry is established to investigate one or more deaths, the
inquiry, where possible, should be required to answer the four statutory inquest
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