OPINION Checklist complete Sudoku 7 5 The announcement of yet another public inquiry into the 1989 murder of barrister Pat Finucane brings the number of these running currently in the UK to 18. Others include the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry and the UK Covid-19 Inquiry (there is also a separate one of these in Scotland). The longest active public inquiry is the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, which opened in December 2014 and has cost 110 million so far. In addition to these statutory public inquiries, two nonstatutory inquiries and one independent panel also active. So what? you may ask. Arent they investigating important matters in the public interest? Well yes. But how much do they cost? The latest figures show that in 1990-2017, the UK Government spent more than 630m on public inquiries, with the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday the most expensive at 210m. The recently completed Grenfell Tower Inquiry took seven years and 173m. In 2023/2024, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry had 265 full-time staff earning 18m between them. Legal fees were 26m, giving a total of 44m for just one year. I wonder how long this one will run, and if they need any more staff Im available. It will offset my loss of Winter Fuel Payment! Driven to drink? In September, the Scottish Government released the latest figures for alcoholrelated deaths: 1,277 in 2023. Thats a record high. This despite introducing the world-leading Minimum Unit Pricing Policy and more than 200m spent so far this year on drug- and alcohol-prevention schemes. To be fair to Scotland, such deaths in the rest of the UK also rose and by a larger amount but Scotland still remains the worst-affected country for alcohol-specific deaths. 1 4 9 By Mike Buckley Public inquiries Difficulty: Medium 3 5 6 1 7 3 8 5 4 B m t a in g s R a t fl 2 6 9 7 1 4 8 8 2 8 3 9 7 9 6 7 I fo a t w c I n Caption competition D What on Earth is happenning here? Write a caption for this photo the best one will win 50. Send your entries to thelog@balpa.org using the subject line Caption competition. 2 f Last issues winner: E Congratulations to the David Marsden for their winning caption The manufacturers finally get their way on Single Pilot Operations 58 THE LOG Autumn 24 pp58-59 Checklist.indd 58 13/11/2024 14:48