As part of its duties under the Inquiries Act 2005, the Chair of the Undercover Policing Inquiry is required to submit a final report which sets out a summary of what it has done, what it has learned, and to make recommendations to the sponsoring body, in this case the Home Office. The recommendation includes what needs to be done to prevent the issues that gave rise to the Inquiry from happening again. This is a statutory requirement.
The Undercover Policing Inquiry Final Report is due in December 2026.
At the end of Tranche 1 it produced an Interim Report, published on 29 June 2023, setting out a number of findings. This included most notably the finding by Sir John Mitting that:
The principal, stated purpose of the SDS was to assist uniformed police to control public order in London. Long-term deployments into left-wing and anarchist groups did make a real contribution to achieving this end, even though this was or could have been achieved to a significant extent by other, less intrusive, means. The question is whether or not the end justified the means set out above. I have come to the firm conclusion that, for a unit of a police force, it did not; and that had the use of these means been publicly known at the time, the SDS would have been brought to a rapid end. [emphasis added]