In the chapter, I develop the first comprehensive account of expected inquiry functionality, covering the whole of an inquiry’s lifespan, which has three interlocking elements. This approach adopts a critical perspective on inquiries. This places public inquiries firmly within the dominant British Political Tradition (BPT), which represents a set of ideas engrained in British government legitimises an elitist and top-down form of government. Within the chapter, I summarise the key functions of public inquiries, the different parts of inquiry process they relate to, and how they fit within the BPT. The chapter ends by drawing on the concept of (de)politicisation, which is used to explore how governments use formally independent bodies for their own purposes, to develop the idea that inquiries might be utilised from without by political elites.