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 The Officer Working Party was superseded by a Safety of Sports Grounds Advisory Group, but apart from the change of the name the system continued as before.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.

The Advisory Group seems to have worked in a very informal manner. A short passage from Mr Bownes' evidence gives the flavour of it:-

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.

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.

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 Rh