Holyrood’s Finance Committee to examine cost-effectiveness of public inquiries

It will be the first time a Holyrood committee has examined the matter in depth.

The Finance and Public Administration Committee will consider issues including:

• how and why public inquiries are established
• whether they deliver value for money and the extent to which spending controls are necessary
• what measures could be implemented to ensure the effectiveness of public inquiries while maintaining their independence
• alternatives to the current model of public inquiries.

Finance and Public Administration Committee convener Kenneth Gibson said: “Public inquiries often involve significant sums of money.  It’s an issue our members have raised concerns over in recent months.

“No Holyrood committee has examined the topic of statutory public inquiries before – in any level of depth – so this parliamentary investigation is timely and appropriate.”

Mr Gibson added: “We want to examine whether public inquiries represent value for money, and whether spending controls can ever, realistically, be applied given the independent nature of inquiries.

“This has the potential to be a really interesting piece of work given the significant sums of money that public inquiries often involve.”