Under the Inquiries Act 2005, an inquiry has considerable freedom on how to carry out its work and define its own structures.
Given its size, the Undercover Policing Inquiry uses protocols to inform its staff, core participants and the public how it plans to carry out this work. These provide the guidelines for the processes applied in given situations such as around the release of documents, and ensure the processes are being carried out within the law and other rulings made by the Inquiry.
It can be either arbitrarily imposed by the Inquiry itself or derived from the rulings of the Inquiry Chair. Not everything is subject to a protocol, but in the Inquiry the following have been made public:
- Costs
- Disclosure and Restriction Protocols
- Witness Statements
- Warning Letters
as well as several relating to evidential hearings and the protection of restriction orders.