STOP PRESS - CSA Inquiry Listening Meetings

The panel today, 21 January 2015, has made the difficult choice to delay all scheduled listening meetings until after the Home Secretary has made her decision on the future of the panel and has announced who will be appointed as Chair.

The purpose of the listening meetings was for the panel to hear the views of victims and survivor organisations about the work and direction of the Inquiry. However, given the uncertainty over the future shape of the Inquiry, the panel feels that all upcoming listening meetings would not fulfil that intended aim.

They also understand that for some victims and survivors the decision to attend a meeting might be both difficult and courageous, and did not think it appropriate to ask them to share their views about an Inquiry where there is a lack of certainty about its future shape.

The panel would like to apologise wholeheartedly to all those people who had expected to attend the upcoming events. The panel are committed to putting the experiences of victims and survivors at the heart of the Inquiry, and will strongly recommend that the listening meetings are restarted once the Home Secretary has made her decision.

To all those people who have previously attended a listening meeting, the panel have listened to what was said and have already made changes to their ways of working. The confidential records of those meetings are held by the secretariat and will be passed to the new chair for further consideration once they have been appointed.

This decision was taken after much deliberation and discussion, and the panel did not reach its decision lightly.

Issued by the Secretariat to the CSA Inquiry Panel
Published with permission by Team Inspire
22.01.15