Inquiries, commissions and reviews since 2007: FOI release

Information requested

• How many public inquiries, commissions and reviews have been commissioned in Scotland since 2007; and,
• Which have been completed and have published reports, and which are still gathering evidence or have yet to report.

Response

General information on Public Inquiries can be found on pages 52/53 of the attached link: SN06410.pdf (parliament.uk)

A comprehensive picture of public inquiries that have been commissioned solely by the Scottish Government since 2007, is as follows:

• The Campbell Inquiry (Fingerprints)
• The Penrose Inquiry (Contaminated blood)
• The Vale of Leven Inquiry (Hospital-acquired infection)
• The Stockline Inquiry (Gas explosion)
• Edinburgh Tram Inquiry
• Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry
• Sheku Bayoh Inquiry
• Scottish Hospitals Inquiry (Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow / Royal Hospital for
• Children and Young People and Department of Clinical Neurosciences in Edinburgh Covid Inquiry

In addition, there are two UK inquiries, with a UK wide ambit that therefore include Scotland within their scope (these were commissioned by UK ministers):

• The inquiry into infected blood products
• The inquiry into prosecutions of postal workers in relation to failures of the Horizon IT system.

The following public inquiries have completed and have published reports which are in the public domain:

• The Campbell Inquiry (Fingerprints)
• The Penrose Inquiry (Contaminated blood)
• The Vale of Leven Inquiry (Hospital-acquired infection)
• The Stockline Inquiry (Gas explosion)

The following public inquiries are live and have yet to report:

• Edinburgh Tram Inquiry
• Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry
• Sheku Bayoh Inquiry
• Scottish Hospitals Inquiry (Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow / Royal Hospital for Children and Young People and Department of Clinical Neurosciences in Edinburgh
• Covid Inquiry

Some information on reviews is available on the Scottish Government website. I am attaching a link to this below (please see Class 3: "Policy advisory Groups and independent reviews”). However, this information will not address the full scope of your request relating to reviews and commissions.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/guide-to-information/pages/classes-of-information/.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. The reason for this is that to locate and retrieve that information we would need to conduct a search of all of the records of the Scottish Government. Under Section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. For example, you may wish to more closely define the type of commission or review you are interested in and restrict your request to a specific business area of the Scottish Government, as this would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted. You may also wish, in tandem with this, to consider narrowing the time frame.

You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website
at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.