介绍： Public inquiries: Question time
The child-abuse inquiry is not going well. What makes for a successful one?
From The Economist 20161022

Audio:

0:00




TO LOSE one inquiry chairman may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose three looks like carelessness. If the ongoing inquiry into whether the British estab...

介绍： Public inquiries: Question time
The child-abuse inquiry is not going well. What makes for a successful one?
From The Economist 20161022

Audio:

0:00




TO LOSE one inquiry chairman may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose three looks like carelessness. If the ongoing inquiry into whether the British establishment overlooked decades of child abuse were not so serious, it would have become a farce. In recent days Lowell Goddard, the New Zealand judge appointed as the investigation’s third chairman, has been accused of racism and misconduct. (Justice Goddard, who stood down in August, strenuously denies the allegations.) The problems highlight how inquiries have changed and what challenges they pose.

Britain is keen on public inquiries. That is partly because of its political set-up. The government sits in Parliament, so people are reluctant to entrust MPs with the job of investigating problems in which state institutions are implicated. Canada, with its similar system of government, is also enamoured of them, says Kent Roach of the University of Toronto. America, whose executive and legislature are separate, tends to hand over such matters to congressional committees.

Rules laid down in 1921 governed how inquiries were run until 2005, when a new act was introduced. That was in part inspired by the Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday, the British army’s massacre of 13 civil-rights marchers in Northern Ireland in 1972. It marked a turning point. Though widely regarded as a success, the cost—around £195m ($240m)—was prohibitive. The government introduced the 2005 act in part so that the expense of future investigations could be limited. Inquiries became narrower in their scope. Lord Hutton’s scrutiny of the death of David Kelly, a government weapons-scientist, cost a mere £2.5m and heard evidence for just 22 days. The child-abuse inquiry breaks with that trend. The budget for 2015-16 alone was £17.9m. Theresa May, who initiated the investigation as home secretary, has ordered an interim report by the end of 2018, but the inquiry has no end date.


Its vast remit has prompted criticism. It will examine instances of child abuse dating back to 1970 in institutions in England and Wales as wide-ranging as the army, churches, the police, Parliament, schools and health services. But the subject of such investigations does not necessarily determine their length or cost. The Saville inquiry focused on events that took place over a matter of minutes. The investigation took 12 years. Meanwhile the hearings for an inquiry into child abuse in Jersey, examining wrongdoing as far back as the second world war, took two years (it has yet to publish its report).

Success has more to do with how well inquiries are managed. Each is set up individually; there is little institutional memory because there are no institutions associated with them. Judges, the preferred chairmen, rarely lead more than one. It takes years out of their career and often means moving to a different part of the country for the duration. Alexis Jay, a former chief inspector of social work for Scotland who is now leading the child-abuse inquiry, ran a successful investigation into the sexual exploitation of children in Rotherham. Her experience is a point in the current inquiry’s favour. Trevor Buck, a professor of socio-legal studies at De Montfort University, reckons a central unit should be established to capture the knowledge gleaned from previous inquiries.

Success also depends on how aims are defined. Inquiries determine facts and allow the airing of grievances. They also make recommendations which may lead to change. The Scarman report into the Brixton riots of 1981 led to improvements in policing. But no mechanism exists to guarantee that such proposals are acted on. And if inquiries take too long, they become irrelevant. The child-abuse investigation has been running for two years and has yet to hear any evidence. Whatever the challenges, it must get a move on.


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