Home / Inquiries / Southport Inquiry / SP23
← SP22 SP24 →
SP23

Coroner and inquiry Ofcom notification powers

Southport Inquiry · The Southport Inquiry Report: Phase 1 · Issued 13 April 2026 · Addressed to: Department for Science, Innovation and Technology

Government responseDepartment for Science, Innovation and Technology: Accepted (Jul 2026)

DeliveryNo statement from Department for Science, Innovation and Technology found

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology should consider extending the powers under the Online Safety Act 2023 to enable Senior Coroners to make a notification to Ofcom to obtain access to social media accounts of perpetrators (not just of a child who has died), and for statutory Inquiries to be able to make a notification to Ofcom to obtain access to the social media accounts of both a child who has died and also a perpetrator.

Southport Inquiry, The Southport Inquiry Report: Phase 1 · 13 Apr 2026 Source PDF →

Published evidence summary

AI-generated evidence summary

In July 2026, HM Government stated that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology had initiated a review of existing powers available to Senior Coroners and statutory inquiries to identify potential gaps (Home Office response, Jul 2026). It noted that any decision on next steps would be subject to ministerial sign-off and parliamentary process if required (Home Office response, Jul 2026). The record holds no update since the government's response of July 2026 (Home Office response, Jul 2026).

Sources

AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026.

Report-level response context

The government's response to Phase 1 (CP 1623, 2 July 2026) agreed with all 67 recommendations in one sentence, and names only 39 of them individually. Where a recommendation is not named, the response shown is the passage the response gives for the group it belongs to (the recommendations for organisations outside central government, or the recommendations to policing bodies), which is not a response to that recommendation alone; the response does not list the members of any group. The 10 recommendations for Phase 2 of the Inquiry to consider show no response: the response introduces them (paragraph 20) but answers none of them. The government accepts the recommendations that are for central government to deliver. Where a recommendation is for an organisation outside central government, the government's agreement is not that organisation's acceptance.

Government response

●Department for Science, Innovation and Technology · Accepted · 2 Jul 2026

Words of: HM Government, Government Response to Phase 1 of the Southport Inquiry (CP 1623), presented to Parliament by the Home Secretary, 2 July 2026

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is the lead department, with input from other government departments. Progress and next steps:
- DSIT has initiated a review of the existing powers available to Senior Coroners and statutory Inquiries, to identify whether are any gaps in the existing framework and whether there are any ways to expand or strengthen these powers.
- Any decision on next steps will be subject to ministerial sign-off and parliamentary process (if required).

Extract from: Government Response to Phase 1 of the Southport Inquiry

Delivery

No statement on delivery from Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has been found in the sources searched. This is separate from the response above.

How this page is built

The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.