Why SNP's £250 million public inquiry bill could have been a lot smaller

Holyrood’s Public Administration Committee concluded, predictably, that “greater care should be taken when instigating public inquiries to reign in costs”. Amen to that – the evidence is damning. Since 2007, more than £250 million of our money has been spent, often with limited results.

To be clear, there are matters so important that public inquiries are essential. Inquiries into the Piper Alpha disaster, the Dunblane massacre and the contaminated blood scandal are good examples, likewise the ongoing child abuse and Covid inquiries.

Others are less edifying, some coming squarely into the category of ‘we told you so’. The design and building of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital is one example of that. We were well warned by medics that it was dangerous to put all our eggs into one giant new basket.

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Drawing obvious conclusions

As for the long and expensive Edinburgh Tram Inquiry, dogs in the streets could have told you that an engineering project of this complexity was beyond the competence of council officials, yet it took years and millions to reach conclusions that were evident from the start.

You could have cut and pasted the conclusions of the inquiry into the building of the Scottish Parliament. Same causes, same conclusions, which were then largely ignored.

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Other long and costly inquiries could have been answered by other means. A 60-day duration review is a good discipline but there are other options. There was no need for a public inquiry into the death of Sheku Bayoh, the young man who died in police custody in 2015.

A fatal accident inquiry and an external independent police inquiry could have answered all the questions. Instead we have had years of grandstanding and racial smears, and the chair, Lord Bracadale, recently decided to resign. After five years, with millions spent from the public purse, we still don’t have the answers.

Tunnel thinking

The latest public inquiry, into the initial investigation of the murder of Emma Caldwell, a young woman killed in the west of Scotland in 2005, will be another costly and unnecessary one.

Anyone with an elementary knowledge of homicide investigation can see what went wrong. Tunnel thinking by senior investigators, a fixation on one line of enquiry to the exclusion of other hypotheses. A lack of checks and balances to intervene. It’s straight out of chapter one of how not to investigate serious crime.

But we don’t have to guess what went wrong. The second, thoroughly professional investigation which led to the conviction of Iain Packer exposed all the faults of the first investigation. No need for an inquiry.

The Justice Secretary could have simply made a statement in parliament based on the findings of the second investigation, and if there was evidence to pursue criminal charges, the Crown Office could have pursued them. There you go, job done, and millions saved.

Public inquiries are a vitally important tool to answer major questions of public policy and public safety. But they should be a last resort, and carefully controlled with timescales and budgets.

Tom Wood is a writer and former police officer