| Abstract: | The paper argues that discussion about procedural reform of the public inquiry system in academic public administration has taken an overly formal view of procedures and has failed fully to understand how and why there is widespread criticism of‘Big Public Inquiries’from those who participate in them. Following a review of the central problems with the existing public inquiry process, it is suggested that the work of Basil Bernstein on the‘classification’and‘framing’of knowledge can be readily utilised to develop a perspective for studying natural justice in big public inquiries m a sociological rather than merely a legal sense. |
