The government has announced a public inquiry into the murders of Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King and Alice DaSilva Aguiar in Southport in July 2024.
The inquiry will look at the murders in the context of rising youth violence, online radicalisation, and extremism. As with all inquiries, the aim will be to work out what has gone wrong, provide accountability, and recommend necessary changes.
The government has chosen, for now, to establish the inquiry on a non-statutory, or “ad hoc”, basis.
Use of non-statutory inquiries
Statutory inquiries have some significant advantages over their non-statutory counterparts – principally, powers to compel witnesses to attend, and to demand the release of documents. But they are often seen as cumbersome.
Historically, ad hoc investigations were a popular alternative to inquiries set up under the “clunking instrument” of the statutory framework that preceded the Inquiries Act 2005.[1] Non-statutory inquiries were used to investigate high-profile incidents including the Profumo affair (1963), the Hillsborough disaster (1989), and the death of Dr David Kelly (2004).
The 2005 Act consolidated and streamlined the procedural rules around statutory inquiries, but their unwieldy reputation has lingered. Non-statutory reviews are still regularly preferred, usually on the basis that their flexibility will allow a more fleet-footed response in the aftermath of a crisis (though, in our experience, that expectation is not always borne out).
A report by the House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee (which was established in 2024 to hear evidence on the efficacy of inquiry law and practice) suggested that independent panels or ad hoc inquiries can lead to more frank and open evidence from witnesses; they may also allow victims and survivors to be treated more appropriately (for example by allowing them to address the chair directly, rather than through counsel to the inquiry). [2]
It has also been noted that ad hoc inquiries, which allow greater privacy, are often used when government or public bodies are themselves under investigation, and/or when the extent of sensitive material involved necessitates a greater reliance on closed hearings.[3]
Recent criticisms of non-statutory inquiries
Ad hoc inquiries are regularly criticised as preventing a full and frank investigation; affected groups and individuals often anticipate that they will have greater rights of participation, and more access to documents, in a statutory context.
The then Home Secretary came under intense scrutiny, for example, for not putting the inquiry into the murder of Sarah Everard onto a statutory footing. JUSTICE argued that the “institutional defensiveness” of the police meant that the inquiry was doomed to fail without robust statutory powers. They cited the chair of the Daniel Morgan inquiry, who had said that its non-statutory status made her work more difficult because “we could not compel witnesses to testify, nor could we compel the Metropolitan Police to disclose documents in a timely manner.”[4]
Similar complaints are already being levelled against the government in relation to its proposed local reviews into grooming gangs, with Conservative (and some Labour) MPs claiming that only a national statutory inquiry will be able to get behind any attempted cover-up. The Home Secretary, however, has argued that “effective local inquiries can delve into far more local detail and deliver more locally relevant answers, and change, than a lengthy nationwide inquiry can provide”, citing the fact that the new “Hillsborough law” has imposed a statutory duty of candour on public officials engaging in such investigations.[5]
Conversion of inquiries
It is not uncommon for ad hoc inquiries to be put onto a statutory footing if their expanding scope, or difficulties in obtaining evidence, demand it.
That was the progression, for example, of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. It was established on an ad hoc basis, to allow the chair “to work quickly” in establishing the facts; once the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of 39 postmasters, however, the government determined that “the context for the inquiry has changed”, and that the grant of additional statutory powers “will ensure the inquiry has access to all the information it needs to establish the truth”.[6]
Similarly, in June 2023, a non-statutory inquiry into the deaths of mental health inpatients in Essex was – following a threatened judicial review by affected families, who felt that the inquiry would be ineffective without the power to compel witnesses – given statutory status under the 2005 Act (becoming the Lampard Inquiry).
The Southport inquiry
In this case, the Home Secretary has launched an ad hoc inquiry, but has already hinted at conversion, saying that the inquiry “will begin work initially on a non-statutory basis so that it can move quickly into action, but with statutory powers added later as required.”[7]
The inquiry may well be able to maintain its ad hoc status during the fact-finding stage, but as it expands its focus to an array of alleged institutional failures – and beyond that to the vexed issue of online radicalisation and the responsibilities of tech companies – it might well find that the voluntary cooperation model is insufficient.
[2] p10 Public inquiries: Enhancing public trust
[5] Yvette Cooper announces inquiries into grooming gangs – BBC News
[6] Government strengthens Post Office Horizon IT inquiry with statutory powers – GOV.UK