Scotland's public inquiries have cost nearly £200 million

The Scottish government has paid £150.4m in running costs, with a further £36.4 spent on the dozens of public bodies taking parts. Figures obtained by BBC Scotland also revealed £3.3m has been spent on the salaries of those chairing the inquiries, which are examining the Covid crisis, hospital safety, child abuse and the death of Sheku Bayoh. They also asked dozens of public bodies how much participating in the inquiries had cost them.

Those who responded had spent a total of £36.4m in preparing and giving evidence. However, a number of organisations said it was not possible to work this out.

The biggest costs came from taking part in the complex Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, which has been running for almost eight years. A total of £24.9m has been spent by the public bodies participating.

Police Scotland’s Public Inquiries and Fatal Accident Inquiries division has cost £20.6m since 2019 but the force said it was not possible to break down how much of this related to three of the ongoing public inquiries.

Officers dealing with the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry response are in a different team and Police Scotland said it had spent £11.6m on the inquiry so far. Nearly all of this was staffing costs.

Since July 2016, the government has provided the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, which is investigating cases of abuse of children in care, with £1.9m to pay Lady Smith for her role as its chairwoman.

Lord Bracadale, chairman of the Sheku Bayoh inquiry, has been paid £512,512 since November 2020.

Elsewhere, Lord Brodie has received £614,400 for being in charge of the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry since 2020.

James Mitchell, Professor of Public Policy at the University of Edinburgh, called for one of the Scottish Parliament’s committees to investigate the effectiveness of public inquiries.

He said: “I think it would be dangerous to say we should not have public inquiries but we have got to be careful that they are not just used to push an issue off the agenda.

“In some cases we are certainly getting value for money from public inquiries, in other cases maybe not so much.

“Without wanting to add to the number of inquiries, we could do with some reflection to figure out how we could do it much more cost effectively - but also effectively in terms of what follows from them, in terms of are they acted upon?”

Prof Mitchell added this scrutiny was even more important given the state of the public finances.

A Scottish government spokesperson said: “Public inquiries provide important opportunities to establish facts and to learn lessons for the future in the most transparent means possible.

"In many cases, such as the Scottish Covid Inquiry, they are set up with the support of the Scottish Parliament.

“Public inquiries operate independently of government and it is for the chair – who has an ongoing duty to avoid unnecessary costs – to direct how he or she carries out its functions.”