The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
on; the
desirability of transferring cases to coroners who were local to
the families of the
deceased;
and how to handle cases where the deceased was based in
Scotland.
74.
The day before
the beginning of military operations against Iraq, Mr Gardiner
wrote
to Home
Office officials:
“There are
a few matters outstanding but, generally, I think we are reasonably
well
prepared,
although there are bound to be things we have not thought
of.”12
75.
There are no
indications that the Government put in place any contingency
plans
to support
Mr Gardiner’s office, or that the Government maintained
contact with
Mr Gardiner’s
office after those initial exchanges.
76.
The Inquiry
recommends that for any future major operational deployment,
the
Chief Coroner,
the department responsible for coronial policy (currently the
Ministry of
Justice)
and the MOD should develop contingency plans to increase the
capacity of
the
coronial system to handle fatalities. Those plans should include
the identification
of funding
in the event that it becomes necessary to increase the capacity of
the
coronial system.
77.
In May 2006,
in response to growing concern over delays in holding
inquests
into the
deaths of Service Personnel, Ms Harriet Harman, Minister of
State for the
Department
for Constitutional Affairs (DCA), was charged with resolving the
problem.
78.
By early June,
Ms Harman had brokered an agreement with the MOD to provide
a
substantial
package of support to Mr Gardiner’s office, including the
recruitment of three
Assistant
Deputy Coroners.
79.
Although the
package was announced in Parliament in June 2006,
discussions
continued
between the DCA, the MOD and the Treasury until February 2007 on
how
much the
MOD would contribute. The discussions concluded with the DCA
reluctantly
accepting
the MOD’s initial offer of £125,000.
80.
While the
discussions did not delay the provision of support to
Mr Gardiner’s office
(as the DCA
bore the costs as they were incurred), a disproportionate amount of
senior
officials’
and Ministers’ time was consumed in inter-departmental wrangling
over a
relatively
small amount of money.
81.
The additional
resources provided in June 2006 allowed Mr Gardiner’s office
to clear
the
existing backlog of inquests by October 2007, much sooner than it
would otherwise
have
done.
82.
From July
2006, the Government pursued a number of initiatives to make
the
inquest
process more responsive to the needs of the families of deceased
Service
Personnel.
The Inquiry commends Ms Harman’s efforts in pursuing those
initiatives.
12
Letter
Gardiner to Home Office [junior official], 18 March 2003,
[untitled].
164