Public Inquiry Research Articles

СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ОТЧЕТНОСТЬ: НАЗНАЧЕНИЕ, ОСНОВНЫЕ ПРИНЦИПЫ ФОРМИРОВАНИЯ, СТРУКТУРА

At present, the participation of enterprises in social events has increased significantly. In this connection, questions of the reflection of non-financial information, which satisfies public inquiries about the organization’s activities, become more relevant. One of the effective tools, that provide a holistic view of the social and economic activity of the enterprise, is social reporting. The article studies and clarifies the economic essence of the concept of “social reporting”, discusses the basic principles of the formation of social reporting and its structure. Social reporting should include the following sections: the strategy of the organization; functional structure of the organization; types of activities, legal form, size of organization; managment structure; changes in the structure, scale, form of ownership of the organization in the reporting period; business processes; stakeholder engagement; innovative development of the organization; performance indicators in the field of interaction with society. To reflect the performance indicators of innovation, environmental protection activities and performance indicators in the field of interaction with society, the article proposed forms of social reports. They propose to reflect such indicators as the share of costs associated with research and development of technologies, the acquisition of innovative products, the introduction / use of R&D results, new technologies, new technology; expenses for environmental services; the costs associated with the overhaul of fixed assets for environmental protection; costs for the protection and rehabilitation of land, groundwater and surface water, the cost of biodiversity conservation and protection of natural areas; the cost of socio-economic development of the region; the cost of charitable assistance in the field of culture, education, sports, health. The proposed social reporting format is an effective tool that increases trust, quality, reliability, and transparency in customer relationships; promotes brand awareness and investment in the environment, community, human capital; improves the quality of business management, competitiveness and quality of products; increases the efficiency of personnel management, ensures the safety and economy of natural resources

Conflicts of power, landscape and amenity in debates over the British Super Grid in the 1950s

AbstractThe ‘Super Grid’ network of high-voltage power lines transformed the landscapes of England and southern Scotland in the 1950s. This article examines debates over the siting of pylons, with a focus on the public inquiries into the proposed lines across the Pennines in Lancashire. It brings together archives on electrification from the newly nationalised British Electricity Authority, preservationist groups and local government to reveal deeper insights into processes of local and national decision-making about and popular attitudes to the rural landscape. It uncovers how the public inquiries exposed tensions and differences about the definition of amenity, not just between the electricity industry and preservationists, but also between interests representing urban industrial districts and the National Parks, northern and southern England, and within the preservationist movement. The conflicts over pylons and amenity shows how narratives of landscape preservation were contested and riven with class, region and economic differences in the postwar period.

Whatever Happened to Councillors? Problematising the Deficiency Narrative in English Local Politics

Calls for councillors to change are nothing new, even from staunch defenders of local democracy. But one critical question has been sidestepped: Why have councillors been persistently constructed as a ‘problem’ for local government? This article draws upon Foucault to detect the emergence and sedimentation of an overriding problematisation of councillors. Our genealogical analysis of a range of public commissions and inquiries, policy documents and academic discourses reveals a ‘deficiency narrative’, forged during the managerialist turn in the 1960s and subsequently reframed in the 1990s and 2000s through the lens of community leadership. We show that the exclusions and methodological limits of this imaginary blinker studies of councillors, leaving an unhelpfully normative stance within local government studies. Such deficits also lead to a ‘smoothing out’ of the complexity of local politics, downplay local dynamics and political work, and miss important insights into the practices of local democracy.

Healthcare scandals and the failings of doctors

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore whether official inquiries are an effective method for holding the medical profession to account for failings in the quality and safety of care.Design/methodology/approachThrough a review of the theoretical literature on professions and documentary analysis of key public inquiry documents and reports in the UK National Health Service (NHS) the authors examine how the misconduct of doctors can be understood using the metaphor of professional wrongdoing as a product of bad apples, bad barrels or bad cellars.FindingsThe wrongdoing literature tends to present an uncritical assumption of increasing sophistication in analysis, as the focus moves from bad apples (individuals) to bad barrels (organisations) and more latterly to bad cellars (the wider system). This evolution in thinking about wrongdoing is also visible in public inquiries, as analysis and recommendations increasingly tend to emphasise cultural and systematic issues. Yet, while organisational and systemic factors are undoubtedly important, there is a need to keep in sight the role of individuals, for two key reasons. First, there is growing evidence that a small number of doctors may be disproportionately responsible for large numbers of complaints and concerns. Second, there is a risk that the role of individual professionals in drawing attention to wrongdoing is being neglected.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first theoretical and empirical study specifically exploring the role of NHS inquiries in holding the medical profession to account for failings in professional practice.

Cultural revolution

Cultural revolution

대형 인명사고･공적 관심사에 대한 영국의 공적 조사위원회 제도와 그 시사점

대형 인명사고･공적 관심사에 대한 영국의 공적 조사위원회 제도와 그 시사점

Thinking security through the event: Materiality, politics and publicity in the Litvinenko affair

While the turn towards materiality over the course of the last decade has enriched studies of security in a variety of ways, the security field continues to pose challenges for materially oriented thinking. This article argues that while recent materially oriented work on security has been concerned with events, working through the question of the event as a central analytical strategy is a promising way of addressing such challenges and developing broader insights. The article develops this argument by working through a particular event, the killing of the former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 by means of the radioactive element polonium 210. Approaching the event via the archive and report of the public inquiry that subsequently took place into it, and reflecting further on the utility of Bruno Latour’s idea of dingpolitik for materially oriented work on security, the article explores transformations of materiality, politics and publicity, and draws out how polonium 210 came to figure in the killing and the inquiry as actant, trace and evidence. In conclusion, the article reflects on the conceptual value of working through events and the methodological issues raised in the analysis.

Policy learning and the public inquiry

Can public inquiries learn lessons in ways which can reduce the likelihood of future failure? Political science research has consistently stated that the answer to this question should be an emphatic no and defined the public inquiry as an ineffectual lesson-learning mechanism. This article, however, contends that this conventional wisdom needs to be revisited. Drawing upon policy learning research for its theory, and 100 interviews across four international cases for its evidence, this article returns to the question above and finds that inquiries regularly produce ‘instrumental’ and ‘cognitive organisational’ forms of learning, which propel substantive reform agendas. By contrasting these outcomes against the types of learning that inquiries struggle to produce, the article delivers a nuanced evaluation that indicates that we need to reconsider what we think we know about these important institutions.

Blowing the whistle: Perceptions of surgical staff and medical students in a public South African hospital.

Whistleblowing is defined as raising a concern about wrong doing and has gained prominence in the UK National Health Service (NHS) following the publication of the Francis Report (the report of the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry) in 2013. The report revealed that lack of diligence and a reluctance to speak out about poor practice amongst staff had contributed to increased patient morbidity and mortality. In the wake of this report, a new framework was introduced by the NHS to help workers raise concerns regarding other staff and poor working practices in general. Nevertheless, it has been suggested that this new framework has not helped to increase whistleblowing or prevented staff who do raise concerns from being penalised. Furthermore, it has been claimed that such implementations will encourage defensive medicine and reduce the willingness of staff to report concerns, despite the important role of whistleblowing in helping to prevent catastrophic events and improve care. Further research is required to understand why healthcare professionals are reticent regarding whistleblowing. Moreover, while some research in the nursing and allied health community exists, this study is important as it adds to the limited evidence amongst medical students and staff in general.

The Never-Ending Story? Or, Does the Roman Catholic Church Remain Vulnerable to Charges of Improper Handling of Clergy Child Sex Abuse?

Abstract This article explores whether the Roman Catholic Church’s response to the clergy child sex abuse scandal shields it from further charges of improper handling of cases. It begins by noting the current topicality of institutionalized abuse and how several high-profile public inquiries have recently been established to investigate child sex abuse across a range of secular and religious organizational settings. Although numerous religious institutions have become embroiled in clergy child abuse crises, the Catholic Church has come in for particular scrutiny and condemnation on account of its distinctive institutional characteristics which have exacerbated its own abuse scandal in a uniquely severe way. The Church’s own understanding of this issue is that a culture of antinomianism has taken root within the clerical hierarchy and that, were canon law to be applied properly, the crisis would be resolved. This contrasts quite dramatically with the typical external understanding of the crisis which sees the canonical legal system as part of the problem, namely the Church’s refusal to cooperate fully with the secular criminal justice system and effective assumption of a criminal jurisdiction of its own. The article concludes with a final prognosis of the prospects of fundamental legal and cultural change.

Human Rights as Therapy: The Healing Paradigms of Transitional Justice

A shift has taken place over the past several decades in the dominant model of testimonial practice in public inquiries and truth and reconciliation commissions in many parts of the world, from an evidence-based “Nuremburg” model that seeks to establish the culpability of perpetrators through material evidence to a “victim-centric” model oriented toward truth-sharing, empowerment, and healing of those who experienced (and often continue to experience) the traumatic consequences of the crimes of the state. This paper considers the variety of forms that this latter model has taken, beginning with the formative TRC in South Africa and including material from recent or ongoing truth commissions and public inquiries in Columbia, Timor-Leste, and elsewhere. The bulk of the data for this paper is drawn from a long-term study of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools (2010-2016) in which survivor experience was widely recognized as being accompanied by the immediate risk of “triggering” through exposure to information on government-sponsored web sites and participation in TRC-sponsored events. The long-term healing benefits of survivor-affirmative testimonial practice are often touted but little known, and appear to vary considerably, influenced by both the meaning attributed to traumatic events and to the cultural and political values attributed to testimonial practice.

Частная инициатива и профессиональные сообщества как фактор формирования градостроительного права в Российской империи

This work is the first in a series of materials devoted to the forms of manifestation of private and public initiative in the construction law of Russia during the empire and the Soviet period. We center on the phenome-non of “private initiative” as a factor in city formation and construction law. The strength of this factor is illustrated by separate plots of the city-planning policy of the Russian Empire and local lore historical material. We actualize the problem of representation forms of private initiative and public inquiries. Factors of the construction law formation, besides objectively existing legis-lative activity of the state and the rule-making activities of local authorities, were the proposals of the professional community. We analyze the forms of such proposals (appeals) to the authorities in the context of the active formation of civic consciousness of the intellectual professional elite of Russia concerning city-planning activities and city-planning regulation. Private initiative is understood as a psychological, normative-generating base of social relations, which are the basis for the current complex of city-planning activity regulators. We draw conclusion about the representation of private public inquiries for a comfortable urban living environment in the form of proposals by the professional community to the state, which were formulated imperatively. We draw conclusion about the specific applied nature of legislative proposals in the field of city-planning regulation, which were generated by technical experts and territorial representatives.

Revisiting the Pledge by the UK Regarding the 'Five Techniques'

In 1977, the UK pledged to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that it would discontinue five different interrogation techniques being used in Northern Ireland that amounted to human rights violations. The ECtHR affirmed that the “Five Techniques” violated human rights. However, in the years since 1977, the UK has apparently continued the use of those Five Techniques. As recently as 2018, multiple investigations and public inquiries have uncovered use of the Five Techniques by UK forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Committee Against Torture expressed its concern in June 2019, in reaction to the sixth periodic report of the UK, that allegations of torture were well-founded. This article questions whether, in addition to violating human rights of the victims by performing those techniques on them, the UK is additionally responsible to the ECtHR for violating its pledge. Pledges made before international courts and tribunals, in the solemnity of proceedings, can be legally-binding, creating new legal obligations to comply with the content of the pledge. The UK Attorney-General gave the pledge before the ECtHR during the Ireland v UK case. The pledge was preceded by another statement by the Prime Minister before Parliament on the same topic, ending use of the Five Techniques. Jurisprudence before the ECtHR, but also other international courts and tribunals such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), shows that making such a statement is usually treated as creating a new legal obligation. In addition, the International Law Commission (ILC) has developed guidelines on how to determine if a unilateral statement is merely a political remark, or whether it is legally binding. Following both the jurisprudence of the courts and the ILC guidelines, the pledge by the UK must be regarded as binding.

Lessons for Government from Recent Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries

Lessons for Government from Recent Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries

A socio-technical systems framework for risk management in financial services: Some empirical evidence from a case study of the Irish Banking Crisis

This paper describes a framework which addresses predominant failure to incorporate human factors in systemic financial systems. This framework recognizes the additional human factors brought to an already complicated financial technological environment. The contribution of this paper is to set out a framework which can be used to inform policy and reframe risk management in Irish banking more generally. Its shows how society at large can draw formal, scientifically reliable and rich insights from costly public inquiries to learn lessons from catastrophic failures such as the banking crisis of 2008-2009.

Analysis of public inquiry in the preambles of the constitutions of post-Soviet states using language markers

Based on the integrated use of comparative, statistical and hermeneutic research methods, in order to obtain a synergistic effect, the authors study the preambles of the constitutions of the newly formed states of the post-Soviet period. The authors propose an assessment of the content of the Preamble of Constitutions as the primary source of public inquiries, reflecting on the features of state policy, a concentrate of goals and objectives set by the society and the state. A variety of methodological tools will reveal the object of research from unexpected sides, to reveal the entirety of the phenomenon under consideration. In this study, comparative, statistical, and hermeneutic methods which are quite common in the humanities will be applied. The above-mentioned methods will be used in cooperation in order to obtain a synergistic effect. The results, expressed in the frequency of use of identical public queries, will be further included in the Google Books Ngram Viewer program, which analyzes the frequency of use of language units based on the Russian-language sources introduced in it from the 18th century to the present day and numbering 8 million editions.

How suicide-bereaved family members experience the inquest process: a qualitative study using thematic analysis

ABSTRACT Purpose: Suicide bereavement confers unique risk and distress. In several countries, bereaved family members are called on to attend an inquest, an official public inquiry into deaths caused by external factors. The current study aimed to explore how suicide-bereaved family members (n = 18) experienced the inquest process, through qualitative semi-structured interviews. Method: Participants were identified via coroner’s records and had previously taken part in a case-control study. Results: Qualitative findings indicated four overall themes with respect to family members’ experiences of the inquest process: “inquest as fearfully unknown”, “structural processes of the inquest”, “enduring public and private pain to obtain answers” and “gaining answers and making sense”. Most family members experienced distress and fear as a result of several elements of the inquest process. Some participants had positive experiences but these did not outweigh the distress experienced by the majority of family members regarding their overall experience of the inquest process. Conclusions: Key recommendations include informing family members of the main aspects and purpose of the inquest process beforehand, adapting the process to maximise the privacy and comfort of the bereaved relatives, and restricting graphic evidence being heard, where possible, to minimise distress experienced by family members.

Public Inquiries’ Terms of Reference: Lessons from the Past – And for the Future

Public Inquiries’ Terms of Reference: Lessons from the Past – And for the Future

Fracking the Future: The Temporal Portability of Frames in Political Contests

Despite scientific consensus on the need to rapidly decarbonize economic systems to limit global warming, the exploitation of fossil fuels continues unabated. This begs the question, why do we continue down this path? We argue that one reason is the way in which fossil fuel expansion is temporally framed. In this article, we examine the disputed development of hydraulic fracturing of shale gas (‘fracking’) in the United Kingdom. Through analysis of a series of public inquiries conducted by the UK Government we show how industry, government and NGOs have engaged in a framing contest in debating the future of fracking. The findings show how the framing of fossil fuel development was solidified over time through processes of certainty, simplicity and familiarity. We contribute by: (a) showing how actors mobilize temporality in constructing persuasive and actionable frames; (b) developing a theory of how frames gain temporal portability – a chronology between a dominant past and a recognized future; and (c) providing an alternative theory of short-termism in explaining the path leading us to a dangerous climate changed future.

Small Science: A Tool and Tips for Converting Food Science Demonstrations into Public Inquiry Experiences

Small-scale science activities provide an opportunity for engagement of diverse, large audiences at settings such as 4-H fairs. We present practical information for implementation of small-scale food science experiences in the Extension education context. Our focus is description of a tool for adaptation of activities for inquiry-based learning and tips for miniaturization of activities to save on costs and resources.