Cabinet Office will apologise to Sir Brian Langstaff - Wrongly shared Inquiry report with DHSC

Factor 8 has unearthed a potential breach of the Infected Blood Inquiry's Second Interim Report General Restriction Order (GRO) by the Cabinet Office.

Evidence obtained through freedom of information requests has raised significant concerns about transparency and fairness.

Ahead of publication on 5th April this year, inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff had ordered that the Second Interim Report must be kept confidential and not be disclosed or published in any form unless and until the Second Interim Report was published on the Inquiry's website. 

Breach of the order can result in a fine or prison sentence.

The GRO was in effect until the report was published on the Inquiry website at around 11:30am on 5th April. Core Participants, including the department of health and social care (DHSC), were permitted to receive an advanced copy of the report at 10am on the day of publication, subject to confidentiality.

However, the Cabinet Office provided DHSC with a copy of the report shortly after 8:30am in what appears to be a violation of the GRO. This early access gave DHSC an undue advantage, jeopardising the essence of fairness the Inquiry seeks to uphold. 

While DHSC had some three hours advance sight of the report, due to the wrongful disclosure, victims and families had approximately half that time before responding to media enquiries.

This incident is particularly noteworthy because the Cabinet Office took over as the sponsoring department of the Inquiry from the DHSC in 2017 due to a lack of trust by victims and families.

This new revelation raises numerous questions. Firstly, if the Cabinet Office has broken the general restriction order once, can it happen again? 

Secondly, how can victims, families and the public trust the Cabinet Office with the upcoming final report due to be published by the end of the year?

Internal cabinet office emails which show the wrongful disclosure happened were initially withheld when they were first requested by Factor 8 earlier this year. After this refusal, Factor 8 applied for an Internal Review and submitted substantial arguments about why the information should be released.

On 24th August, the cabinet office's Head of Freedom of Information wrote to Factor 8 to say that the documents would be provided.

After piecing events together, we took our findings and the evidence to the relevant departments earlier this week.

A Senior Press Officer in the Cabinet Office confirmed to Factor 8 that the Infected Blood Inquiry's second interim report was "mistakenly" shared before the GRO was lifted and expressed the department's recognition that the premature sharing of the report "should not have happened". 

Furthermore, the Cabinet Office will now send a written apology to Sir Brian Langstaff.

It will be for Sir Brian to determine the extent of the breach and whether further action is necessary.

For Infected Blood Scandal victims and their families, this incident is yet another reminder of the many wrongs they have endured and raises essential questions about how a level playing field in public inquiries can be ensured when the public is facing government departments.