Chamber and committees

Thank you. One of the things that prompted our inquiry was concern about the cost of public inquiries, and that aspect has been covered in the media over the past 24 hours in particular. Since 2007, public inquiries in Scotland have cost £258.8 million. Over the same period, public inquiries in the UK have cost more than £1.5 billion. Such inquiries are becoming increasingly expensive.

One of the issues that I want to ask about is the opportunity cost. The Scottish Police Federation gave evidence to the committee in the spring. It was not very happy, to put it mildly, about the impact of inquiries on its ability to deliver services. If, for example, an inquiry falls under the responsibility of the police, it comes out of their budget. The Sheku Bayoh inquiry alone has cost the police more than £25 million. As you know, with the resignation of Lord Bracadale, that inquiry remains uncertain. The SPF said that the £25 million figure is equivalent to the cost of 500 police officers for a year.

When inquiries are started, what cognisance is taken of the impact that they will have on the services of the relevant organisation? The Emma Caldwell inquiry will also impact on the police. Certain politicians in the Parliament are also calling for an inquiry into grooming gangs. If that goes ahead, we could end up with three inquiries, all impacting on police resource.

Okay, but when people clamour for a public inquiry, they do not think that it will be five or 10 years before they get an outcome. When an inquiry takes five or 10 years, a lot of people are dissatisfied, first, at the length of time it has taken and, secondly, with the fact that recommendations are not always implemented. It might be that one Government brings in an inquiry to get something off its desk, but it is another Government that ends up in office when the report comes in.

With regard to practicalities and saving money, I think that there should be indicative timescales, because there should be a disciplined approach to public inquiries, as there is everywhere else. The national health service has to work to budgets, even in areas where it is saving people’s lives, so I do not see why inquiries cannot have at least a strong indicative budget and timescale.

Let us look, for example, at some ways that we could save money. First, there seems to be a reinvention of the wheel; numerous witnesses have talked about that. When an inquiry is called, there does not seem to be any central body or resource for people, facilities or training so that the inquiry can get started. When an inquiry is agreed, it might take a year or 18 months before it even starts, because there is all that faffing around at the start.

A second area is solicitors. We know about the huge amount of money that solicitors are paid in this regard, but my understanding is that solicitors and counsel who rely on funding from the Scottish Government are on a reduced hourly rate and have their fees pored over. That is right, because it is public money. However, other bodies that are also publicly funded, such as health boards, understand that they are paying their counsel commercial rates.

It seems to me that one way to save money would be for all lawyers who are paid out of public funds, whether directly or indirectly through the Government, to be subject to the same hourly rates and careful scrutiny of fees. Would that be a way forward as a start?

But they do not necessarily think that that is going to happen with their inquiry. They think, perhaps, that theirs will be an open-and-shut case.

A lot of people think that an inquiry is a silver bullet, but obviously it is not.

In giving evidence, Thompsons Solicitors said that inquiries do not always have to be led by judges. Indeed, they are not always led by judges in other countries. Thompsons said that a judge does not have to be involved in a bricks-and-mortar inquiry—the trams inquiry being one example, which was led by a judge, although it did not necessarily have to be. That is an obvious area where a judge does not have to be involved. What are your thoughts on that?

A judge sits for 205 sitting days and deals with 34 trials in that time, on average. If there are three judges sitting on inquiries, as is the case now, that means that more than 100 trials are being delayed. There is an opportunity cost. Justice for one individual or group of individuals through a public inquiry could come at the cost of several hundred other people getting justice in other areas of Scottish life. I do not ever hear anybody say that, including ministers. I do not think that the public are aware of that, and I certainly was not aware of it before this committee inquiry started. It is a question of balance, and I am not convinced that we have that.

There is no requirement, but there seems to be considerable pressure for them to be a judge.

We heard the same point even from people in the legal profession who gave evidence, who, one would argue, clearly have an interest.

Another issue is transparency about the costs of inquiries. John Sturrock wrote:

“There is insufficient transparency and scrutiny in particular around control over timescales and costs.”

We were also told:

“there is no consistency in the way inquiry costs are recorded making meaningful comparisons very difficult.”

I go back to the Sheku Bayoh inquiry again. I understand that significant compensation was paid to members of the family. I do not know whether it is in the public domain how much was paid out or who it was paid to, but surely that should be in the public domain, because it is taxpayers’ money.

That is not connected to the inquiry, but was it not as a direct result of the inquiry that it—

Of course, and, sometimes, changes are made before inquiries even start. One argument that Police Scotland made was that some of the concerns that were raised about, for example, the Emma Caldwell inquiry had been addressed, with changes being implemented, before the inquiry even began. That is one of the reasons why the police are harrumphing about that particular inquiry.

Fatal accident inquiry recommendations have to be responded to within eight weeks. Would it be sound if something similar were introduced for public inquiries? Even if that were not done through a legalistic mechanism, it would be good practice if Governments of whatever shape and size responded to recommendations within eight weeks. They would not necessarily have to say that they will implement every recommendation—although that would be great for those on whose behalf the inquiry had been set up—but it would certainly be good if the Government had to respond to Parliament within eight weeks.

Thank you for that. That concludes our evidence taking on the cost-effectiveness of Scottish public inquiries. We will consider all the evidence that we have received as part of our inquiry, and publish our report next month.

That concludes the public part of our meeting, and we move into private session.

Yes. To clarify, the committee’s role is not to make recommendations on the merits or otherwise of individual public inquiries. It is to look at how such inquiries can be delivered much more effectively and efficiently, and in particular in a cost-effective way, and at whether the reasons for taking forward such inquiries are consistent, shall we say.