How to hold the government to account on public inquiries

Prof Alexis Jay’s inquiry into child sexual abuse lasted seven years, and interviewed 6,000 victims and survivors. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian

Regarding your editorial on the child sexual abuse inquiry (28 May), it is time for the government to be held formally accountable for its response, or lack of, to the recommendations of a public inquiry through the House of Commons select committee structure.

Unfortunately, once a public inquiry concludes, the powers and support function of its secretariat ends too. There is no ongoing parliamentary procedure for holding the government to account on what happens to the recommendations once they have been made by a public inquiry.