Bill for Scotland’s public inquiries grows to £258.8m, figures show

The cost of Scotland’s public inquiries has topped more than £250 million – with figures showing the bill having risen by almost £30 million in nine months.

Between 2007 and September 2025, the overall bill for the cost of such inquiries stood at £258.8 million.

That total, which covers five ongoing public inquiries as well as five that have been completed, is up by £28.8 million from December 2024, data from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Spice) showed.

Details of the costs were published ahead of Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes facing questions from MSPs on the mounting bill.

Ms Forbes will appear before Holyrood’s Finance and Public Administration Committee, which is carrying out an investigation into the cost effectiveness of public inquiries.

Ahead of that, the Spice research revealed: “The total cost of these inquiries, when completed inquiry costs are put into 2024-25 prices, is £258.8 million (thus far).

“This is £9.3 million more than when the last update was published in September.”

The Holyrood committee has been examining the cost effectiveness of public inquiries in the wake of the “growing demand” to hold them – with MSPs having considered whether this is “due to public service  delivery failure”.

Ms Forbes is expected to be pressed on the Government’s approach to commissioning inquiries when she appears before MSPs on Tuesday.

The committee is expected to publish its findings before the end of this year.

The most expensive inquiry is the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, a long-running inquiry into the abuse of youngsters in care in Scotland. As of September this year, the cost of that inquiry stood at £102 million.

The Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry had cost £45.5 million as of September 2025, with £29.1 million spent on the inquiry into issues with the construction of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus in Glasgow, and the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh.

Meanwhile, the bill for the inquiry into the events surrounding the death of Sheku Bayoh in police custody stood at £26.2 million by September.

This was before Lord Bracadale resigned as inquiry chairman, prompting the rest of the inquiry’s legal team to stand down and throwing the future of the probe into uncertainty.

No costs have yet been accrued by the most recent public inquiry to be announced, which will examine the original police investigation into the murder of Emma Caldwell in 2005.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Public inquiries provide important opportunities to establish facts and to learn lessons for the future in the most transparent means possible. In many cases they are set up with the support of the Scottish Parliament.

“Public inquiries operate independently of government. All matters relating to the operation of an inquiry are for the chair, who has a statutory duty to avoid unnecessary costs.”