We must allow the Grenfell Inquiry to take its time

Oral hearings in the Grenfell Inquiry begin today –  342 days after the fire. This may seem like a long time, but inquiries are slow moving beasts; and the Grenfell Inquiry owns a particularly difficult set of questions and issues even by the standards of most public inquiries.

Sir Martin Moore-Bick has taken the past year to fully understand the issues and build relationships with the affected community. Developing the terms of reference – which define the scope and priorities of an inquiry – involved months of consultation with the victims and their families. This was done to ensure that the inquiry represented their concerns.

The risks that have been faced

The public concern which drives every inquiry can easily turn against it. We have seen signs of this in the 156,600 signatures on a petition calling for the inquiry to appoint a more diverse and representative panel.

Initially the Government declined to appoint any more panellists. This was heavily criticised by the Commons Petitions Committee, who said that the Government had failed to show “appropriate sensitivity and compassion”. An updated response was softer in tone, but still declined to grow the panel.

Then recently, in a significant U-turn, Theresa May announced that she would appoint two further panellists. They are yet to be named.

In part this recognises the added complexity of technical questions about the fire which have been identified over the past year. It also reflects a wider and growing public concern about representation and government attitudes. This has intensified following the recent scandal about the Windrush Generation and how the Government handled both the issue itself and the response.

… and the risks to come

The looming risk to the Grenfell Inquiry is that its work is delayed or derailed by concurrent police investigations, which are taking place largely independently. Individuals who face criminal charges are often limited in their ability to testify before an inquiry without putting themselves in legal jeopardy. As such, inquiries generally give way to criminal proceedings.

The Grenfell Inquiry is trying to manage this by sequencing its work. The preparatory work that has been done over the past year has built a strong basis for an investigation of the technical questions. The hope is that hiving off thornier questions about accountability until later in the investigation will allow the inquiry to avoid any problems.

But recent precedent is not encouraging. A failure to manage this issue was one of the main reasons that the Hyponatraemia Inquiry took eight years to hold its first oral hearings; and was forgotten by government in the process. Lord Leveson’s attempt to manage this issue, by shifting the criminal-focused portions of the inquiry to a ‘part two’, also failed, leaving a sense of ‘loose ends’. Part two of the Leveson Inquiry never took place, and was formally killed off by the Government earlier this year, to the continuing disappointment of many backbenchers.

The Grenfell Inquiry can learn from the best

This inquiry faces a wide range of challenges. It must help the community to heal. Then it also needs to outline effective ways to make homes safer and prevent a repeat of this tragedy. Importantly, it must do all this while articulating an understanding of the issues of systemic inequality and disadvantage facing the victims and survivors.

Since 1990 there have been 69 public inquiries. The Grenfell Inquiry can look to three of the best as models of how to be effective:

• The Hillsborough Independent Panel shows how to mend deep and painful divisions between a community and the authorities. It used a process of radical disclosure to shed light on what really happened. This helped to heal the rifts created by both the tragedy itself, and the deeply-flawed Taylor Inquiry which followed.
• The Piper Alpha Inquiry followed the deaths of 187 people in an oil rig fire. Lord Cullen worked with the offshore oil and gas industry and government regulators to identify the necessary technical changes that needed to be made. His well-targeted recommendations led to wholesale reform of offshore drilling, making it much safer.
• Following the death of Stephen Lawrence, Lord Macpherson’s report is most notable – out of all inquiries in the past 30 years – for bringing about meaningful cultural change. The way it managed to embed the concept of ‘institutional racism’ helped to precipitate constructive shifts in attitudes within Government and the authorities.

If you want a meaningful outcome, you must be patient

Inquiries typically take several years; the average is around three. Grenfell will take time. While the maxim that ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ is important to consider, it is also crucial to keep sight of the scope of what this inquiry is trying to do. If we want it to be effective, to give answers and closure to the community, to find better ways of regulating housing, and to ensure that such a tragedy never happens again, then we must be patient.

Read our explainer on public inquiries.