Commentary on Sections Schedule 1: Children's Commissioner Section 4: Other inquiries held by the Commissioner
41.Subsection (1) enables the Secretary of State to direct the Commissioner to hold an inquiry into the case of an individual child, where the Secretary of State considers the case to be of wider relevance or have implications for other children. In contrast to the power under section 3, the Commissioner could under this section carry out an inquiry into a case which only has implications for a small group of children. So, for example, he could hold an inquiry into the case of a child in a children's home or a residential school if the issues involved were relevant in general to children in such an establishment, or if they were only relevant to children in that particular establishment. It is envisaged that the Commissioner will play a role in determining whether a case is relevant, for example through his ability to offer advice to the Secretary of State.
42.The Commissioner may hold the inquiry in private (subsection (2)) and he must make and send to the Secretary of State a report in relation to the inquiry as soon as possible after he has completed it (subsection (3)).
43.Subsection (4) requires that in most cases the Secretary of State publish the report as soon as possible. Under subsection (5), however, where he thinks it would be undesirable for the identity of the child to be made public, he may publish an edited version of the report (making only those amendments necessary to protect the identity of the child), or, if it is not possible to publish a version of the report without identifying the child, withhold publication altogether. Subsection (6) requires the Secretary of State to lay a copy of each report published by him before each House of Parliament.
44.Subsection (7) gives the Commissioner a range of powers to assist him in carrying out an inquiry under this section. By virtue of the application of subsections (2) to (5) of section 250 of the Local Government Act 1972 the Commissioner will, when conducting an inquiry in England, be able to summons people to attend to give evidence or to produce documents and to administer oaths and take evidence on oath; it will be an offence to disobey a summons by for example refusing to give evidence or by tampering with documentary evidence; the Secretary of State can direct parties to the inquiry to pay his costs and make orders for parties to pay the costs of other parties to the inquiry.