Lord Woolf talks about a project to usher in a template for effective public inquiries. Suzanna Ring reports

 "I've always felt that we could do it better," says Lord Woolf, commenting on the UK's public inquiry process. The former Lord Chief Justice is hardly the first to question the ambiguous position of inquiries in modern public life, but he is among the most legally eminent.

Such comments reflect the extent to which inquiries have become increasingly prominent political tools for dealing with controversial issues and catastrophes, though the model and legal powers used often vary greatly. Major inquiries have included the Saville Inquiry into the 1972 'Bloody Sunday' deaths in Ireland; the Macpherson report on the murder of 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence; and, of course, the ongoing Leveson Inquiry into media standards in the wake of the phone-hacking saga.

However, with uncapped time frames and expenditure, these inquiries have in some cases racked up multimillion-pound costs for taxpayers – most controversially with the £200m pricetag for the Saville Inquiry, which took more than 10 years to report – raising questions over proportionality.

In response, the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) has launched an 'Inquiry into Inquiries' in co-operation with Woolf to address these issues in the hope that they can put forward policy recommendations to ensure that, "where you are going to have an inquiry, the inquiry should be regarded as much closer to the end of the story", says CEDR chief executive Karl Mackie.

"Once an inquiry is in motion, the Government doesn't want to touch it in case they are seen as interfering, but if the parameters were made more clear, the appropriate level of government interaction would be possible," says Woolf.

Creating a clear framework for inquiries is at the core of CEDR's decision to launch its project, with the disputes body and Woolf approaching the Ministry of Justice and the Cabinet Office earlier this year. Both have given their support to the project – with CEDR and Woolf planning to report their findings and policy recommendations in autumn 2012.

The key areas up for review are time, cost, efficiency and the appropriateness of judges as chair people, with the results from an independent public poll on the UK's public inquiry process already in.

From the survey, CEDR and Woolf have found that more than half (58%) of respondents think inquiries are too costly, while a similar figure (56%) believe politicians have too much influence over the process. Fewer than half (44%) believe public inquiries result in the recommended changes being made. The survey, covering a cross-section of society of 2,011 adults, also found that 56% of respondents felt public inquiries were too long, while 68% thought inquiry panels should include more members of the public, creating a jury-like structure.

Woolf and CEDR will review these results and use them to create guidelines of best practice. The initiative will also include discussions with experienced practitioners in the area.

One of the primary suggestions from Woolf has been to create a range of templates to correspond with different subjects. He says: "If you had a template of best practice for the different types of inquiries, there would be parameters in place to ensure cost and time doesn't spiral out of control.

"If you have an inquiry that takes an inordinate amount of time and money, it detracts from the reason for the inquiry itself," says Woolf.

The issue of an appropriate chairman has also been flagged by Woolf, with the current default to the judiciary to run the inquiry process not always relevant in his view (the veteran jurist concedes criticism of excessive use of judges could be applied to his own CV, given his role last year chairing an inquiry into the governance of cricket on behalf of the International Cricket Council).

"Inquiries are a hybrid process between politics and the judicial system, which is why judges have become the go-to people to chair them – but a judge is not necessarily trained for these kinds of situations. One of the main things we are looking to do is bring clarity around the varying types of inquiries and, that way, it would be easier to determine who would be best to run each individually," adds Mackie.

The venture is likely to make recommendations for less arbitrary deployment of inquiries, some of which currently deploy strong statutory legal powers – like Lord Justice Leveson – while others have no ability to compel witnesses to co-operate.

Berwin Leighton Paisner litigation partner and phone-hacking victim Graham Shear says: "I believe it important for those people with responsibility for any inquiry to have the flexibility and powers to investigate, demand evidence and deliver a comprehensive and timely report or finding. The judiciary has the expertise, training, gravitas and experience to deliver on these objectives, certainly where there is a prospect of complex factual and legal issues with overlap between the inquiry and civil claims and/or criminal prosecutions."

Leveson is a prime example of tension between civil procedures like inquiries and potential criminal prosecutions, with the inquiry occurring in the shadow of an ongoing police investigation into phone-hacking. Such complications have helped run up a legal bill of more than £2m in public funds since it launched in July 2011, with costs continuing to spiral as the inquiry goes on. More than half a million pounds was spent on barristers' fees (£536,100) between July 2011 and 31 January 2012 for the core counsel on the inquiry, with an additional £89,500 going to a team of more junior barristers assisting counsel, taking total fees to barristers over the six-month period to £625,600.

The Government has previously attempted to make inquiries more robust via the Inquiries Act 2005, which allowed for witnesses to be brought in under oath, among other measures, but did not, in Woolf's opinion, "go far enough in establishing best practice". It is now Woolf's and CEDR's hope to correct this.

Fountain Court head Tim Dutton QC adds: "Where an inquiry is set up in order to learn lessons, it is almost always helpful for those lessons – in the form of a sound examination of the facts and recommendations – to follow reasonably soon after the events. Public confidence in an inquiry can be harmed by delay and prolixity. If Lord Woolf can help with the process of inquiries, that is to be welcomed."

Career timeline

1955 – Called to the Bar
1955-73 – Member of One Crown Office Row
1973-74 – Worked as junior counsel at Inland Revenue
1974 – Treasury Counsel
1979 – Named judge in the High Court Queen's Bench Division
1986 – Became Lord Justice of Appeal
1992 – Appointed as a Law Lord
1996-2000 – Master of the Rolls
2000-05 – Served as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales