13th June 2023
The Covid Inquiry started taking oral evidence from witnesses today, and there is one snippet of news which you may have missed – and that may make all the difference.
Here it is on the Guardian live blog:
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Of the recent(ish) inquiries with which I am most familiar – the Hutton Inquiry, the Chilcot Inquiry, the Leveson Inquiry, and the Daniel Morgan Inquiry – there has been (if I recall correctly) a common problem.
Yes, there was great apprehension and even excitement on the eve of publication – often after years of suspense.
And then: the report drops.
Volumes and volumes of text, often with schedules of evidence, are all plonked into the public domain.
Time-poor reporters (and their attention-poor readers) scramble to get a sense of the report – often relying on executive summaries.
There are word-searches and there is scan-reading, and there is a hurried hunt for juicy quotes and any smoky gun.
If we are lucky, we may also get a meaningful ministerial statement.
And then: it is all over in a day, leaving the report to specialists and eccentrics.
In a few days, the report will pass into history, and it can be quickly forgotten.
The report may have taken considerable time and resources to put together, but the all-or-nothing manner of its publication can in turn mean that there will not be any similar effort into the media and the public engaging with the report when it is published.
This is why it is sensible – and welcome and refreshing – that the Covid inquiry are not saving everything to one big report at the end of the process.
As well as public, streamed sessions, and an admirable website hosting useful documents, the Inquiry can encourage ongoing engagement by issuing these interim reports.
And, if this is done well, then we may end up up with that rare thing: an Inquiry where the findings and recommendations last longer than a news cycle.
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The same was done with IICSA, the child abuse public inquiry. Its final report appeared last October, but was preceded by about 20 reports on the individual investigations carried out.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t guarantee effective government engagement. The government persistently said that it would wait for the final IICSA report before announcing its response. When it finally did announce its response, it claimed to have accepted 19 of the 20 recommendations in the final report “in principle”.
But a closer reading of the government response showed a huge gap between “in principle” and “in practice”. Of the 20 recommendations:
– Five were rejected outright in effect.
– Five have no tangible action planned, pending further formal or informal consultations.
– In eight cases, the promised action was so vague as to be meaningless.
– In two cases, it was claimed that this was already being addressed in the Online Harms Bill currently going through Parliament.
The morning before the government provided its response, it was trailed in the press that it would be announcing a redress scheme for victims. But that turned out not to be true. What was announced was a consultation on how a redress scheme might work.
Appointing Hallett to chair the inquiry is the one and only thing for which Johnson can be applauded.
The appointment was surely a sin of omission on his part: customary lack of attention to the boring minutiae bolstered by confidence that he’d squirm and glad-hand his way from any ensuing difficulties.
Fair point
Not the only thing. He also appointed Kate Bingham to head the vaccine taskforce and she did a good job.
True but this one may be one he may regret?
This is a welcome approach and helps to head off those attempting to “frame the narrative” from outside.
I agree. I was involved in a Planning Inspectorate examination of a development consent application and the contemporaneous publication of all correspondence, evidence and submissions was a great help to “time-poor” volunteers as well.
Point well made. The executive summary of the Chilcot Report is 200 pages.
The summary!
Would you say there is a danger with publishing interim reports that persons scheduled to appear before the Inquiry in later modules may become cagier or less co-operative if they interpret interim reports as biased or overly hard on colleagues or allies fearing similarly harsh treatment for themselves?
There is a risk, and nothing is risk-free. But I suspect it is more likely to get future witnesses to pull their socks up.
One can imagine the look of transfixed horror upon Sir Humphrey’s face
This is indeed positive but alongside their publication
there needs to be a process by which those to whom recommendations are made are called back to the Inquiry to report publicly on the actions taken in response to the recommendations. Too often inquiry recommendations disappear into the ether which is an insult to bereaved families whose overwhelming desire alongside truth and accountability is the hope that these inquiries and needless deaths result in systemic change so that future lives are protected.
Some inquiries have tried to monitor implementation of recommendations but unless that is put in their terms of reference what would be their authority to do so? Ministers set the terms of reference (after consultation with the chair).
Funding is also an issue. Inquiries are very costly affairs – (probably not far off £100 m already for Covid-19).
Monitoring of recommendation implementation really has to be left to Parliament. If only that were more effective and not dominated by the executive.
Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse – numerous reports as it went on.
Grenfell Tower – several reports. (Final one still in preparation).
Glad that Covid-19 following suit.
If I were a Treasury official, which (thank god) I never have been, I could think of lots of reasons why publishing inquiry reports in stages was a bad idea, not least since total implementation costs wouldn’t be assessable under the very end.
A better reason would be that those conducting inquiries don’t have to pay for implementing their recommendations. The necessary expenditure can only be decided by ministers who have to weigh the costs against other priorities.
It’s easy to say with hindsight that better preparation for a pandemic was more important than better or more treatment of cancers or heart conditions.
Lest it be thought I’m a conservative skinflint, I’m not. “The language of priorities is the religion of socialism” as Aneurin Bevan once said.
“And then: it is all over in a day, leaving the report to specialists and eccentrics.“
I’ve never been called a specialist before!
I would be interested in your thoughts as to the constitutional implications of evidence under oath to the inquiry from the Head of the Civil Service that might contradict any Ministerial statements to date on the handling of the pandemic. The unfortunately timed illness of Simon Case and consequent delay in his attendance at the inquiry to give evidence has set my imagination racing about a break of trust in such circumstances between PM and Civil Service Head, and how any subsequent and necessary vacancy filling would be managed within the bounds of the Nolan Principles?
I’ve attached this to your June post because it relates to the inquiry.
PS I don’t have any inside track on all or any of this!