Public Inquiry: Panacea or Placebo?

This article reviews and examines the role of the public inquiry as a mechanism for investigating disasters within the United Kingdom. A number of authors have considered the growing penetration of technology into our lives, as well as economic liberalisation, societal fragmentation and the globalisation of business, as factors that have contributed to a post modern view of the world. Within this context, this article considers the efficacy of the public inquiry as a tool for learning from disaster. Is an instrument born of the late nineteenth century suited to the demands of the early twenty‐first century? Data are drawn from the football and rail industries, both of which have witnessed a sequence of large‐scale accidents investigated through the public inquiry mechanism. Drawing upon literature from the fields of socio‐legal studies and crisis management, three broad areas are critiqued: the process, underlying aims, and impartiality of the public inquiry process.