The government has accepted a recommendation for public inquiries to include a deadline, as it reports the average time for inquiries to conclude is now five years.

The government was responding to a House of Lords report ‘Public Inquiries: Enhancing public trust’. It concluded that lessons to prevent further tragedies are not always being learnt.

Peers' recommendations included consulting with victims and survivors on an inquiry’s terms of reference where appropriate, getting lengthy inquiries to publish interim reports, and strengthening the Cabinet Office’s inquiries unit, established in 2019, to ensure best practice is shared between inquiries.

One of the recommendations accepted by the government, which published its response on Monday, was that, when establishing an inquiry, the sponsoring minister should consider including an indicative deadline in the terms of reference. Inquiry chairs will need to seek the permission of the minister if they wish to exceed the deadline, under this recommendation.

In its response, the government revealed that, in the financial year 2023/24, the direct public cost of live UK inquiries was more than £130 million. Statutory inquiries that have produced their final report in the past five years took on average nearly five years to complete their work.

The government recognised ‘there is serious and growing criticism of their cost, duration and effectiveness’, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office Minister wrote. ‘The government agrees that in some circumstances, including an indicative deadline in the terms of reference may be appropriate, taking into account the circumstances and potential scope of the inquiry. 

‘The government also recognises that the duration of an inquiry is difficult to determine with accuracy at the point it is established, before evidence has been collected and assessed and before the number of witnesses is known, and therefore such indicative deadlines may need to be revised. 

‘In all cases, however, a chair should ensure that there is sufficient public transparency on the progress that they are making in delivering their terms of reference, and this will be reflected in the published guidance.'