Child Abuse and Public Inquiry Methodologies

Abstract

This chapter examines the development of public inquiries into child abuse and the various policy processes and methods deployed to support them. It contains two central propositions: firstly, that the ongoing Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse provides an unprecedented opportunity to capture and disseminate more deeply the emerging knowledge of child abuse; and secondly, that there is now a significant need to establish in the UK a permanent centralised Public Inquiries Office to support public inquiry work in the child protection sector and elsewhere.