It Should Never Happen Again: The Failure of Inquiries and Commissions to Enhance Risk Governance

In It Should Never Happen Again, Dr Mike Lauder questions the value of public inquiries. Every day, we hear about another inquiry being set up, or why the last one failed to deliver the hoped for outcomes. A great deal of time and taxpayers’ money is spent on inquiries and even more on implementing their recommendations, but the author suggests that those conducting inquiries might be considered (by their own test) criminally negligent in the way they do so and that it is no surprise that they do not lead to the learning they should. The focus of Mike Lauder’s research is the gaps between what is known, what knowledge is used by practitioners and those who judge them. He contends that the difference between the judicial perspective and that of practitioners who are judged by the inquiry process creates barriers that impede others from learning. Crucially, inquiry outcomes do not assist the leadership of organisations to improve risk governance. It Should Never Happen Again is based on research into high profile public inquiries and presidential commissions in the UK, the USA, Continental Europe, and elsewhere. Embracing issues ranging from terrorist attacks to pollution, fire and air disasters; criminal cases; banking and bribery scandals; and the state of public services, Mike Lauder contrasts the judicial perspective of those who inquire, the academic perspective of those who know and the practical perspective of those who are required to act, and offers new models for understanding risk and its governance.

Dr Mike Lauder MBE has worked in risk management for the last 30 years. He is now an independent researcher and a visiting fellow at Cranfield School of Management, where he undertook his doctorate studying risk governance and the process, outcomes, effectiveness and efficacy of public inquiries. He has a wide range of experience in this field covering his time in the military and as a consultant. He has practical experience of risk management as a military engineer, including work in bomb disposal and as a security specialist. He has worked in both construction and procurement project management and has wider experience of logistic operations and corporate financial planning. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and has published in Risk Management Professional, the magazine of The Institute of Risk Management. Mike Lauder lectures on the topics raised within this book.