How to carry out an independent Inquiry

It is very easy to critise others, questioning the independence, who pulls the strings, foreseeable outcomes, enormous cost, length of time or selection of views considered. So when you come to look at an independent inquiry how do you avoid the same problems.

Independence.

This is absolute critical, if you have strong feelings about the topic, by this we do not mean concern about it, but a strong view as to the solution before you look, or have a level of involvement that makes your impartiality questionable or benefit in any way dependent on the outcome then you should avoid the topic.

To carry out an investigation, you will probably start with a concern about the subject and a feeling that it deserves independent investigation. The less you know about it before hand the better.

Terms of reference.

For any study you need to draw up terms of reference, as a guide to what you are going to look at. this should include the areas of the investigation initial questions, possible sources of information and where you can identify others who have views on the topic. You need to establish a plan of action, know how long you expect the enquiry to take and if you are going to look at regional or other variations.

Managing the study.

It is essential that you make notes as you go, rather then investigate a produce a gut feeling report. In your notes you should identify the views of various people, and their biases. with facts or statistics you should remember that you are give one collection, often favorable to the point of view of the person you are discussing things with. Note particularly any question you ask that does not get a straight answerer. Do not let the personalities of the people you speak to add weight to the information, a smelly bad tempered, hard done by individual will know far more about life in the gutter than any social worker. Ask everyone how they would overcome problems and sound out ideas that have been put to you, so as to get reaction. Beware of being swain by similar items in various magazines or books, as many writers crib ideas from each other, and often something accepted as fact in many publications will turn out not to be so. Often Writers are against a publishing time limit and checking out facts is just not possible.

You should never ever be even tempted to establish suspects, and to build a case against them. This technique will as often as not lead to spurious results.

Never accept the results of other studies at face value. Always investigate who wrote it and why. It may be that the writer had an involvement or view they wished to justify or wrote the report to justify being given further funds to investigate the topic further. You will be surprised at just how many reports identify nothing more than the need to look further, even when their is no real grounds. 

Be on the look out for someone who cannot defend themselves or not being willing to being given the blame, even if they seem happy for it to happen.  Have you noticed how often it was the dead train driver or pilot who's mistake it was?, or the person who retires on a very high pension or handout for taking the can.

Coming to a conclusion

You may feel the need to find a solution, or a cause. However  life is rarely black and white, and usually a range of shades of grays. To produce a report that lays out a number of possibilities or a compromise proposal is not as strong but is likely to be far more useful in the long run.

People will ask you if the answer is A or B, and expect a simplistic solution. They may even be conditioned to the point when given a less solid answer that suggesting further investigation will get to the bottom of it.

Often in our society we have been conditioned to need someone to blame, someone to be punished etc. Someone ho has to resign so a more senior person does not have to. none of this has anything to do with an independent Inquiry. You should be able to conclude that a useful and valuable member of the team made a mistake without needing them to leave. 

For years promotion within many banks has not been on the basis of achievement but on the basis of not making mistakes. If you don't do anything you cannot make mistakes. the reverse is true the entiprenour, the driving force, the activist will ,make mistakes but without them no progress can be made.

Creating your report

You will need to produce a summery, this is of course dangerous as it encourages a black and white view, adversarial position and scope for misunderstanding. The main report should not be excessive in length and should give details of what you discovered and your conclusions, giving reasons for your conclusions where you can. If you must publish working data, do so separately, and do not make your report dependent on it.

Content is important and we can help sort out English or spelling if necessary.

Publishing.

You have two choices publish yourself of through the IIS. Through the IIS more people are likely to see it. You can publish in written format, but in the future we are encouraging publishing on the internet as it is more available to more people. It can be published on your site or ours. We would suggest that the summery is always on our site.

Should you put your name to it.

There are some that will say an anonymous report could be written by a person with an ulterior motive. Likewise if you publish with your name their are those opposed to your viewpoint who will attack you and your experience etc, rather than the topic if they can.

On balance we would suggest you should publish initially enormously, and after a while add your name to the study if you wish, and it does not put you in risk.

What else do I need to consider?

Their are really only two other points, and the first of these is the law.

If their is any criminal action pending, you have to take great care. It is easy to criticize the press for giving a totally one sided view, supporting everything the police say and nothing the defendant says, however you will discover that in most cases this is all that the law allows them to do. 

On the civil side the laws of liable are played y those who can afford to risk very large amounts of cash. This does not mean you should liable anyone of course, but if you are going to say something about someone who can afford to buy the law and use it against you, you need to be aware of the risks.

Finally, we want to encourage you, and to point out that the written word is the sword of the modern day knight. Any improvement that you can make to society, to leave it in a better condition, or to stop the rot, may well live long after you. Its so easy to say something needs to be done, and perhaps you cannot do it, but you can at least identify how, where, what and perhaps who could.

What to do now

Think first, then when you have an idea email us, using an enormous email address if you like, to tell us what study you propose and we will tell you if we know of any others into the same topic. perhaps we can add some more ideas, or information we have. We will encourage you whenever we can.