Why having a public inquiry into Sandie Peggie-NHS Fife case would be a terrible idea
Judging by past experience, a public inquiry into the dispute between Sandie Peggie and NHS Fife would probably be an expensive waste of time
How we will miss it when it is over. Over the summer, the Sandie Peggie employment tribunal has been as reliable a source of comedy as any end-of-the-pier show. If only the basis for it wasn’t so important and serious.
We will have to await the outcome but one thing is certain, someone will call for a wider inquiry. It might be into the policy or practice but some sort of investigation will be demanded. That would involve more lawyers and expense, only to produce some recommendations which would be ignored and then forgotten. That’s how things work nowadays.
Figures from the Institute for Government show that before 1997, there were never more than three public inquiries running in the UK at the same time. At the moment, there are 21 – the highest number ever.
Trams inquiry lasted nine years
From the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry to the Covid-19 Inquiry, on the surface they have become the natural means of establishing the facts in matters of public interest. Alternatively, they are a handy means of kicking the can down the road.
Take the long-running Edinburgh Trams Inquiry. Lord Hardie’s probe into why the city’s tram project was £400m over budget and five years late was started in 2014 and ran longer than the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War. It took nine years to report and cost more than £13m.
The report concluded there had been “a litany of avoidable failures” and that “poor management and abdication of responsibility on a large scale have had a significant and lasting impact on the lives and livelihoods of Edinburgh residents, and the reputation of the city”.
When the report was finally issued in September 2023, Lord Hardie wasn’t available to answer questions from the media but he did issue a 48-minute video statement on YouTube. To date, it’s been viewed a grand total of 694 times.
Lessons learned?
Of course that is no way to measure the success of these things. We should look instead at the changes made, the individuals punished and the lessons learned for the future.
What are they? The actions of some individuals were heavily criticised but no one lost their job. Instead City of Edinburgh Council said they’d already made changes to ensure the same thing couldn’t happen again and the Scottish Government said: “The inquiry took too long, was too costly and in some instances the evidence heard does not support the conclusion drawn.”
So what was the point when the bungling and the hopeless duck and weave out of the way long before a conclusion and the competent have already changed things to avoid a repetition? Let’s see where we get to with the Scottish Hospitals and the Covid-19 inquiries but the idea that ineptitude will be punished or processes will change feels like wishful thinking.
It’s hard not to conclude that only one group really benefits from the modern proliferation of these public probes. On its website, one leading Scottish law firm explains inquiries can be slow moving due to “the sheer volume of evidence to work through with many hundreds or even thousands of documents to examine and hours of witness testimony to analyse”. Well, that is handy… and very profitable.
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