Tag: public inquiries
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Jonathan Collinson: From Learning to Lawyering: When Can Political Accountability Have Legal Consequences?
The responsibility for holding the government to account for its failings is the core constitutional role of a range of ‘watchdog’ bodies outside of Parliament, such as inspectorates, commissioners, public inquiries, independent reviews, and ombudsmen. Accountability is seen as a tool to make and keep governments, agencies and individual officials effective in delivering on their…
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Cassandra Somers-Joce: Public Inquiries, the Public Record, and Governmental Accountability
“Public inquiries are one of Britain’s only growth industries,” the Financial Times has suggested recently. Research from the Institute for Government demonstrates that there were 69 public inquiries launched between 1990 and 2017, compared with 19 in the previous 30 years. Several high-profile public inquiries are open at time of writing, including the Grenfell Inquiry, the Covid-19 Inquiry, and the Post…