The cost of the Manchester Arena bombing public inquiry - which has uncovered serious failings by the emergency services - has risen to £31.6m.
Financial statements published on the inquiry website show the cost to the tax-payer since the inquiry started on October 22, 2019, up to September last year.
Most of the money - some £21.2m - has been spent on legal fees while the rest has been spent on the purpose-built inquiry room, IT, external affairs and staffing including the chairman, Sir John Saunders.
Some 22 people died and a thousand others were hurt when Salman Abedi detonated a huge improvised device in his backpack as mainly young concert-goers were leaving an Ariana Grande gig at Manchester Arena in May 2017.
The cost of the arena inquiry is dwarfed by the most expensive on record, the 12-year-long Bloody Sunday Inquiry, which cost £191.5m, according to a Cabinet Office written answer placed before Parliament in 2012. The inquiry into the killing spree by Dr Harold Shipman cost the tax-payer £21m while the Leveson Inquiry into press standards cost £5.4m. The Iraq Inquiry cost £10m and last year it was reported that the Grenfell Tower inquiry had cost the public purse £117m.
Analysis of the arena inquiry financial statements reveals the cost has risen by almost £5m compared to March last year when the M.E.N. looked into the cost for the the first time. The final total is likely to rise further although not by much as the inquiry finished hearing evidence and submissions in March last year.
The first of three inquiry reports, published in June 2021, found 'serious shortcomings' by the venue's owners SMG, their security contractor Showsec and British Transport Police (BTP). Sir John ruled the terrorist should have been identified that night and, had he been, 'the loss of life and injury is highly likely to have been less', a conclusion that angered families of those who died.
Sir John's second report ruled one of those who died, John Atkinson, could have survived if the emergency services response had been better. It also highlighted a series of failures by the emergency services on the night of the attack.
Mr Atkinson wasn’t tended to by any paramedics in the foyer where the bomb went off and his early care was left to former pizza shop boss Ronald Blake, who held a makeshift tourniquet fashioned from his wife's belt and folded t-shirts for almost hour.
Partly because of austerity cuts, Greater Manchester Police failed to keep up-to-date plans in place for major incidents and then, when a key training exercise revealed a key command position would become overwhelmed in the event of a real attack, they failed to learn lessons, Sir John's highly-critical report said.
Because of previous training exercises and experience of major incidents, GMP 'knew' its Force Duty Officer - a key hub who is supposed to communicate with the other blue light services - would become overwhelmed during a terror attack. The failure of the FDO on the night of the 2017 attack, Insp Dale Sexton, to communicate with other blue light agencies 'played a major part in the total failure of joint working that night', said Sir John.
The cost of the long-running inquiry to the tax-payer has been revealed in a series of financial statements published on the inquiry's website and covers a period from October 22, 2019, when the inquiry began, to September 30 last year.
Of the £31.6m cost so far, some £21.2m went on legal costs, lawyers who worked for the inquiry and others who represented families or public bodies.
Some individuals whose evidence was deemed important by the chairman also attracted public funds to pay for their lawyers, among them the bomber's older brother Ismail Abedi.
Ismail Abedi, 28, had been due to give evidence to the inquiry but fled the UK, in August 2021, in what the inquiry believes was a deliberate attempt to avoid giving evidence. He is believed to be in Libya, living under a new name, with his wife and children. The police officer who led the investigation has told the inquiry he suspects Ismail was aware of Salman's radicalisation, adding he also appeared to be 'sympathetic' to Islamic State.
Another individual who attracted public funds was Abdalraouf Abdallah, 28, from Moss Side, a convicted terrorist friend of Salman Abedi. He did give evidence and said the attack was still 'haunting me'.
The financial statements also show £5.1m was spent on IT and £2.2m on the inquiry room which built especially for the inquiry at Manchester and Salford Magistrates' Court. Some £1.9m went on paying inquiry staff, including Sir John.
The vast majority of the inquiry was broadcast on YouTube albeit much of it on a ten-minute delay to ensure sensitive information was not made public. Stenographers worked to prepare a transcript of each public hearing which was posted on the inquiry's website alongside other documents and pictures shown during hearings, ensuring a vast digital archive of the evidence.
Some £800,000 was spent on 'external affairs' while £380,000 went on 'health services'. The inquiry provided consultant clinical psychologists and bereavement counsellors for the affected families.
