The Bichard inquiry team has hailed the use of technology as key to speeding up public inquiries after the first stage of its investigation into child protection procedures came to a close.

A spokeswoman for the inquiry, which was prompted by the conviction of Ian Huntley for the murder of Soham schoolgirls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, said: 'The inquiry has referred to and processed more than 2,000 documents in a very short space of time, some of which contained sensitive information.

'Our aims were to be as open and accessible as possible, fair, thorough, organised and report as quickly as possible - technology has played a major part in enabling us to achieve that.'

The 16-day inquiry heard 64 witnesses, while the total cost to the taxpayer is expected to come to less than 2 million - making it substantially cheaper than similar public inquiries.

Sir Michael Bichard, the chairman of the inquiry, expects to submit his report to Home Secretary David Blunkett by the end of next month.

Technology allowed electronic transcripts of the evidence to be shown live during the inquiry, while documents referred to were immediately displayed to the public and media on plasma screens in and outside the hearing room.

Relevant parts of the documentary evidence could be highlighted on screen, allowing witnesses and the public to follow proceedings.

Having the documents scanned and made available electronically also meant that they could be printed off and e-mailed immediately.

'This was particularly important for the media to report the hearings and evidence accurately and fairly,' the spokeswoman said.

To do this, the inquiry's technology provider, Kroll Ontrack, used case preparation software IConect and Concordance to create a Web interface, alongside the TrialPro case presentation system.

The inquiry's stenographers, Smith Bernal, used Wordwave's Livenote transcription service.

Kelvin McGregor-Alcorn, a director of Kroll Ontrack, said: 'Our first role in these projects is to define in a consultative perspective what is trying to be achieved.

This includes holding discussions with the various parties, looking at the physical environment of the inquiry room, and assessing how many screens are needed.'

Training of the various members of the inquiry team, including Sir Michael and the various counsel, in how to use the systems was also undertaken.

'It is important to keep things as simple as possible to make everybody comfortable,' Mr McGregor-Alcorn added.

Claire Hourigan, Kroll's project manager for the inquiry, said it was also essential for documents to be made available on screen easily.

She said: 'You often had witnesses who had to refer to someone else's transcript and you have to have the facility to put those up very quickly.'

Philip Hoult