Inquiry into Public Inquiries

Public Inquiries

Between February 2011 and January 2015, CEDR investigated the Public Inquiry system to look at the methodology of system and whether there was ground for change. Our research found that the Public Inquiry process had frequently adopted a default adversarial process and had not utilised potential alternative process models. We also found that the Public themselves did not understand the Public Inquiry process.

As a result of our work, we published "Setting Up and Running a Public Inquiry: Guidance for Chairs and Commissioning Bodies" in January 2015 which we launched at the House of Lords. This work is a culmination of the work that we conducted with a taskforce of Former Inquiry Chairs, lawyers, former civil servants and interested parties. Since publication, the guidance has been requested by a number of Public Inquiries. You can download a copy of the Guidance here.

Other Activities on Public Inquiries

In developing our work for the Public Inquiry project, we produced an interim report which set out 12 recommendations for change of the Public Inquiry process in December 2012 and provided a description of the impetus for change. This can be downloaded here.

Further we held a symposium in 2013 where Former Inquiry chairs and other experts came together to share their views on CEDR's recommendations.

Finally in 2014, Dr Karl Mackie CBE, CEDR's Chief Executive, gave evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Inquiries Act 2005.

We continue to be involved in Public Inquiries work and we have provided comment to the media and others. We invite interested parties to contact us.

HR Investigations

In 2015, we moved our attention to Private Investigations (those carried out by organisations and private bodies rather than by the Government or a Public Body). A focus of our work came on Investigations carried out by HR Departments and whether there were changes to that could be made to benefit the process and those involved (both those subject of any investigation and the organisations who are carrying out the investigation). In January 2016, we released our research on HR investigations.