The newest annual monetary assertion from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry reveals that it spent £20.7m within the yr to the top of March 2023, taking its whole expenditure to £170m.

Some £69.7m, or 41 per cent, of its spending went on charges for legal professionals representing core individuals of the inquiry.

Core individuals embrace victims and the bereaved as nicely others who panel chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick imagine could be “deprived if not supplied with authorized help”. These embrace the Hearth Brigades Union, cladding installers Osborne Berry and self-employed design subcontractor Kevin Lamb.

Through the monetary yr, hearings had been solely held as much as the top of July 2022, and shutting statements for part 2 got in November 2022.

The inquiry panel’s remuneration and authorized prices have value £28.2m up to now, together with £4.8m in 2022/23.

The inquiry, ordered the day after the hearth that killed 72 folks in June 2017, is paid for from taxpayer funds. The monetary assertion is on the inquiry’s prices alone, so doesn’t embrace different taxpayer cash spent on participation, for instance by the London Hearth Brigade and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

It additionally doesn’t embrace prices paid by non-public corporations akin to Kingspan, Celotex and Rydon Development for his or her authorized illustration.

It was introduced in Could that publication of the second and closing report of the inquiry wouldn’t happen till subsequent yr.

A press release from the inquiry on the time mentioned: “We recognise that everybody concerned within the inquiry desires the report back to be revealed as quickly as doable and we totally perceive the significance that has for them and for the broader public.

“Nevertheless, additionally it is vital that, as what we hope will likely be considered the definitive model of occasions, the report is full and correct.”

In April greater than 900 folks affected by the blaze – together with the bereaved and people compelled from their houses – agreed a settlement with corporations together with contractor Rydon and public sector our bodies price a reported £150m.

It’s anticipated that selections on doable legal prosecutions in relation to the hearth will happen after the publication of the inquiry’s second report.

Nationwide Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) chair Martin Hewitt advised The Guardian in March that the six years that the victims of the hearth had suffered with out discovering out if anybody would face legal expenses was “upsetting and fallacious”. An NPCC spokesperson later clarified to Development Information that he was referring to the general public inquiry delaying the legal investigation.

Nevertheless CN lately highlighted that the size of time the victims and bereaved have needed to wait is way from distinctive in well being and safety-related investigations, with a number of others that don’t have public inquiries hooked up dragging on for as lengthy or longer for solutions.