Understanding issue salience, social inequality and the (non) appointment of UK public inquiries: a new research agenda

Owen Thomas and Sarah Cooper

Public Money & Management, 2020, vol. 40, issue 6, 457-467

Abstract: Why are public inquiries appointed and what factors are influential? Research shows that inquiry appointment is driven by issue salience, but how this occurs is unclear. The authors suggest that issue salience is driven by: (1) victim relatability, (2) visibility of failings and (3) perceived blameworthiness. This has three significant implications. First, highly salient issues may lead to the appointment of statutory-type inquiries, which might not be the most appropriate form to effectively address the causes of inequality. Second, if wrongdoing against minorities is not sufficiently relatable (as is often the case), there may be insufficient public salience to drive demands for an inquiry. Finally, inquiries may privilege the investigation of blameworthy behaviour and thereby overlook complex systemic flaws.Public inquiries are important tools for lesson learning in the wake of a crisis or controversy. We claim that ‘gold standard’ statutory inquiries tend to be appointed only when a crisis has publicly salient (i.e. relatable) victims, is perceived to be a result of systemic failings, and has blameworthy behaviour. It is important to appreciate that many public sector failures—particularly those in which widepsread inequality is a core concern—will often fail this threefold test, and therfore be misleadingly attributed to technical or individualized explanations, or be overlooked by government.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1080/09540962.2019.1689635

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