Background
In December 2004, the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) published its Report on Deaths in Custody. Based on evidence from the organisation INQUEST, the committee recommended that the Home Office and Department of Health should establish a cross government expert task force on deaths in custody.
Another result of the committee’s inquiry and INQUEST’s evidence was that in July 2004 the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) suggested that there was a need for a system to capture cross sector learning following deaths in custody; a proposal which was met with a positive response from custodians and investigators involved in this area of work.
Meetings in March and June 2005 brought together key organisations in this area of work, such HM Chief Inspectorate of Prisons and the Prison and Probation Ombudsman’s Office, and it was quickly established that much could be learned by agencies sharing information and learning across institutions.
In October 2005, the government responded to the JCHR’s report by outlining its commitment to better co-ordinate the existing processes across government and to work with the key agencies to consolidate a new multi-agency forum to take this work forward.
The Forum met for the first time in November 2005 and, following work to draft their terms of reference, met again in February 2006 to agree their programme of work for the coming year. Details of our work over 2006 and 2007 are available via the above links.
More recently, in May 2007, the Government made a commitment to review the structure of the Forum, and asked independent reviewer Mr. Robert Fulton, a former Home Office Director, to review current arrangements and report to Parliament within 6 months. Mr. Fulton's Review is now complete and was recently published by the Government