Timely access to material for panels
Daniel Morgan Panel · The Report of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel · Issued 15 June 2021 · Addressed to: Home Office
Government responseHome Office: Accepted (Jun 2023)
DeliveryNo statement from Home Office found
Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation, Volume 1
Arrangements must be made in future to ensure that any Panel has timely access to the material required to do its work. Organisations that promise to make 'exceptional and full disclosure' should be prepared to do so both within the letter and the spirit of such a promise.
Daniel Morgan Panel, The Report of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel · 15 Jun 2021 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
AI-generated evidence summary
The Panel recommended ensuring future inquiry panels receive timely access to necessary material. In June 2023, the Home Office agreed that organisations must disclose material in a timely manner and noted that police HOLMES databases had become cloud-based (Home Office response, Jun 2023). In March 2022, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services found that while the Metropolitan Police Service should not have attempted to restrict access, the panel was ultimately not refused access (HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, Mar 2022).
Sources
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 1 Oct 2026.
Government response
●Home Office · Accepted · 15 Jun 2023
2.3.14. The Panel was critical of the stance taken by the MPS as to practical access arrangements for sensitive material. There were – in addition – several issues with the Panel’s access to the MPS’s HOLMES database. The government agrees with the Panel that organisations which make commitments to disclose material to non-statutory inquiries or panels should do so in a timely manner, and that all efforts should be made to ensure that future panels and non-statutory inquiries are able to access relevant material at a convenient location, including at their own premises where security requirements allow. Since 2020, police HOLMES databases have become Cloud-based, making the system accessible for the first time via a corporately managed device for those with the appropriate security clearance and purpose.
Extract from: Government response to the report of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel
Delivery
No statement on delivery from Home Office has been found in the sources searched. This is separate from the response above.
What other bodies have found
●HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services · 22 Mar 2022
We have acknowledged elsewhere in this report that the MPS should not have attempted to prevent all the Panel members from seeing all unredacted material, and that the Panel’s access to HOLMES should not have been in doubt. However, we are satisfied that, ultimately, the DMIP wasn’t refused access to anything.
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.