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.

The total cost of the Sheku Bayoh inquiry is £51 million if you include both sides, because there are two sides to the issue—that is what we are looking at.

As I pointed out earlier, and as John Mason mentioned, there are significantly more UK inquiries, and the UK Government has spent about £1.5 billion.

We have not really touched on terms of reference. I think that we have to be clear and robust in setting terms of reference. We can look at the Piper Alpha and Dunblane shooting inquiries, for example. Those incidents were very traumatic for all those who lived through them and remember the details, and 167 men died on Piper Alpha and 16 children and a teacher died in Dunblane, and yet those were very short, succinct and straightforward inquiries that cost a fraction of the inquiries that we are talking about. I think that Lord Cullen’s inquiry into Piper Alpha cost under £2 million and lasted for just over a year.

As Professor Cameron stated in written evidence,

“It has to be recognised that inquiries are a source of substantial income for some large legal firms and as such the question arises as to the extent to which they are motivated to keep costs to a minimum and within budget.”

We have seen almost an explosion of legal costs. Do you find it inappropriate that some legal firms have people going on television demanding the establishment or extension of inquiries when they themselves have a direct pecuniary interest?

In her written evidence, Dr Ireton, who specialises in this area, said:

“there has been remarkably little evidence-based work commissioned on what inquiries cost, how they manage those costs, and how spending compares against original budgets.”

She also said that they are

“often ... concluded with minimal formal evaluation or system-wide learning.”

Is the Scottish Government going to alter that as we move forward?

We will make recommendations in our report, but it will be up to the Government to act on those.

We talked about public inquiries, with their interim reports, making changes as they go along. I would hope that the Government, seeing where we are coming from, would already be looking to make some changes.

To be honest, I do not think that you have been defensive at all.