Page 65 - When Things Go Wrong

While it may provide some reassurance that Government Departments are
urged to “think through” inquiry chair appointments, the lack of rigour and
transparency presents something of an anomaly in the context of public
appointments. Ministerial appointments to boards of public bodies or advisory
committees, for example, follow the ‘Governance Code for Public
Appointments’, 176 which sets out principles for appointments; the composition
of assessment panels; measures to ensure transparency; and steps to promote
diversity.

4.9 Accounts from former chairs do not inspire confidence. Sir Robert Francis QC,
Chair of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, gave the
following account to the Lords Select Committee:
As far as appointment is concerned, like most chairmen, I had the
experience of being phoned up out of the blue and asked to decide within
an hour whether I would like to chair the inquiry because the minister was
in a hurry to make an announcement. I am frequently asked, probably with
some surprise, ‘Why were you chosen?’ I have absolutely no idea, or
about the process. 177

Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, Chair of the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry,
added: “my experience was even more dramatic from that, in so far as I was
phoned at about 8.30pm to be told that the Secretary of State was delighted
that I had agreed to take on this inquiry, which I might say left me with little
room to negotiate”. 178

4.10 Legitimacy can be undermined by this top-down approach. Consultees from
the community affected by the Grenfell Tower fire told us that their confidence
in the inquiry was diminished from the outset given the widespread perception
that the Chair was a political pawn.

176 Cabinet Office, Governance Code on Public Appointments (December 2016).
177 Select Committee on the Inquiries Act 2005, supra note 30, para 113.
178 Ibid.
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