152. The Officer Working Party was superseded by a Safety of Sports Grounds Advisory Group, but apart from the change of the name the system continued as before. Mr Bownes attended the inspections and meetings of the Advisory Group together with the representatives of the police, the fire service, the department of health and consumer services, and the building engineer's division of the Council. The latter was an engineer and ought therefore to have been alive to the same issues as Dr Eastwood.
153. The Advisory Group seems to have worked in a very informal manner. A short passage from Mr Bownes' evidence gives the flavour of it:-
"Q Who was taking the lead in the working party as you understood it? A That is a good question, sir. Leads were coming from several different directions really. Q Who chaired it, if anyone? A Nobody as such, sir. It was an inspectiqn rather than a meeting as I understand it. Q Who decided what should be inspected? A Effectively the group itself, sir, it seemed to me. There was also some input from the Club representative as to, if you like, an element of direction as to what should be looked at. Q Apart from the inspections the working party met, presumably, or did they only meet on inspections? A No, sir, I have referred to three previous meetings. Q Who took the chair when it met? A I suppose it could be said that I did, to some extent. Q There is no point in having inspections unless you form conclusions as a result of that inspection, is there? A That is correct. Q There must presumably have been some meeting following the inspection at which you all sat down together and decided what, if anything, should be done. A There was not, to my recollection, no. Q How did you decide what should be done, if anything needed to be done? A There were discussions on the site, particularly in relation to barrier 144, which took place at the time. Q Nothing more than that and no record anywhere of any decisions that were made? A No, sir."
The decision to remove barrier 144 was assented to on behalf of the City Council by Mr Bownes. It was not referred to the General Purposes Panel. Whether Mr Bownes strictly had any power to assent to it is to say the least very doubtful. But he himself admits that he was ill-equipped to do so. He knew very little about football grounds. He had read the file passed on from South Yorkshire County Council and assumed all had been run satisfactorily by them.
154. It was recorded, however, in a report which Mr Bownes drafted that "the conditions (in the Safety Certificate) give some cause for concern as they appear to be inadequate or inappropriate in some areas". The report to the General Purposes Panel suggested that new Safety Certificate conditions should be drafted.
155. The task of revising the Safety Certificate was begun in June l986.In July 1987, a draft was sent to the fire service to which they replied in August. In September 1987, the Panel was informed that the redrafting was
