Efficient, focused and purposeful is the description agreed by the Work and Pensions Secretary, Peter Hain, and the Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini, for the public inquiry announced yesterday into the blast at the ICL/Stockline plastics factory. It will be the first test of provisions for a joint public inquiry set up by UK and Scottish ministers under the Inquiries Act 2005 designed to deliver "high-quality conclusions and recommendations quickly and at reasonable cost". It needs to fulfil all expectations.
Bereaved families, who want to find out how their relatives lost their lives, often achieve that only by listening to a great deal of painful evidence. For them, the most positive outcome is when, as a result, the authorities accept and act on the recommendations. In recent years there have been two particularly memorable inquiries which achieved that, both chaired by Lord Cullen. He made 105 recommendations - all of which were accepted - on safety for offshore workers at the end of the inquiry into the Piper Alpha disaster in which 167 men died. He also chaired the inquiry into the shootings at Dunblane Primary School, as a result of which he recommended changes to the licensing and holding of handguns (private ownership of handguns was later banned).
The prospect of an equally productive result has prompted the campaign for a public inquiry into the Stockline explosion, rather than a fatal accident inquiry, which would simply establish the facts surrounding the deaths. There has been a court case and an independent report by academics in occupational health and safety after the blast that killed nine people and injured 33 at the plastics factory in Maryhill, Glasgow, in 2004. ICL Plastics and ICL Tech were fined £400,000 at the High Court in Glasgow, but because they pleaded guilty to health and safety breaches, the issues were not aired in court. Since then, the report's authors have made public their concerns about the Health and Safety Executive, suggesting there has been greater focus on funding than effectiveness.
There are many questions still to be answered. We need to know how often and how thoroughly inspections were made of the equipment and the building where an industrial process involving chemicals and high temperatures was carried out in the middle of a residential area. There are further questions about the planning process which allowed this inauspicious mix, and about the fire controls and escape routes, given the potential hazards.
It is not only the bereaved families, the injured and their colleagues at ICL who are looking for strong recommendations and action. We all want to know that safety legislation is adhered to and inspections are not subject to budget cuts. A public inquiry chaired by a judge is the right vehicle to learn from this tragedy and make it less likely to recur.
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