Chief Coroner guidance on coroners' records
Hillsborough Panel · Hillsborough: The Report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel · Issued 12 September 2012 · Addressed to: Ministry of Justice
Source — verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation
We recommend that the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice invite the Chief Coroner to prepare guidance for all coroners on the appropriate retention and archiving of documents in coroners' records. Particular care should be taken to safeguard records relating to inquests arising from mass fatalities, whether attributable to natural or civil disasters or to unlawful killing, and arising from deaths in custody, whether in police stations or in prisons.
Hillsborough Panel, Hillsborough: The Report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel · 12 Sep 2012 Source PDF →
Response — verbatim from government
●Ministry of Justice
Implemented. The Coroners (Investigations) Regulations 2013 introduced formal requirements for coroners' record retention. Under regulation 27(1), all inquest recordings must be kept for at least 15 years. The Chief Coroner, appointed under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, has issued guidance on coroners' records. The National Archives has also published appraisal and selection criteria for coroners' inquest files providing a good practice model for permanent preservation of significant cases including mass fatalities and deaths in custody. (Sources: Coroners (Investigations) Regulations 2013; Chief Coroner's Guidance No.4 Recordings; National Archives guidance on coroners' inquest files)
Ministry of Justice · 1 Dec 2012
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
No published activity has been recorded against this recommendation yet.
Each entry above links to a primary source — gov.uk written statement, consultation response document, or inspection report. The Index does not characterise government intent; it tracks what has been published.
How this page is built
Source and Response are verbatim from primary documents. The Evidence trail records published activity since — written statements, consultation outcomes, inspection findings, parliamentary references. The Index does not paraphrase or characterise intent; it tracks what has been published. Where the evidence is the absence of action (a missed deadline, a slipped timetable), that absence is documented from primary sources rather than inferred.
This recommendation's data is verified periodically against primary sources. The Index is monitored for staleness weekly.