I share concerns about the length of time that it takes to conclude such investigations and inquiries. A lot of work has been done to try to shorten those periods without compromising other things.
I will take some time to deal with the question, as a number of issues impose on the timescale.
First, the date that the death came to the attention of the Crown can occasionally impact on the timescale if that was not immediate. Secondly, on many occasions criminal proceedings may have to be considered. As I indicated, criminal proceedings will, in the public interest, take precedence over a fatal accident inquiry. That adds to the length of time.
The third aspect is the involvement of other regulatory authorities that have duties to carry out their own investigation and inquiry. Such bodies are not necessarily subject to timescales; more importantly, though, they are not subject to the control of the Crown in relation to the ingathering of that information, in the way that the police are when the Crown instructs the police to carry out inquiries. You will be aware that I wrote last year in order to ensure that sort of co-operation from the air accidents investigation branch on the Clutha incident. The First Minister also had to write.
The fourth aspect is that most fatal accident inquiries will require expert evidence of some sort, frequently from medical experts. It is not for the Crown to set priorities within its own organisation, so in many respects we are subject to how long the experts take to produce those reports. I am not saying that we do not have a good relationship with experts, but that all adds to the length of time that an inquiry takes.
As I indicated, it is important that, if the bill controls the timescale from the point at which it is decided to have an inquiry, the Crown has information out there—in the form of the charter that I mentioned—to indicate timescales from the point at which the internal timescale of 12 weeks to make a decision on a straightforward matter stops until the final decision is made.
Over the past three years, the specialists in the SFIU have been working on an approach that involves dealing with the older cases and trying to ensure that they do not compromise more recent cases—it involves working on cases in tandem. It is one of the reasons why there were so many FAIs last year—there were 68 FAIs last year, which is probably double the number in the previous year.
I share Elaine Murray’s concern, and that of families. We are continually actively working on timescales.