beginning of his term of office, the Contrôleur Général has systematically made the inspection reports, opinions and recommendations public, after periods of time justified by the necessity of first obtaining comments from the authorities responsible for the places inspected (local level, in the first place, and then ministers). Apart from the fact that such public announcement is not an obligation resulting from the law, it needs to be reconciled with the number of inspections conducted every year (almost 150) and the need to ensure the quality of the reports resulting from these inspections. This quality and the pertinence of the observations recorded in the reports is dependent, in particular, upon the nature of the collective responsibility involved in the drafting and rereading of reports. Collective responsibility is a guarantee of quality which requires time, moreover the period required by the Contrôleur Général for rereading the whole of the reports and ensuring the overall consistency of the recommendations sent to ministers also has to be taken into account. Finally, it also (regrettably) needs to be noted that, so far, the periods required for the publication of inspection reports do not constitute any hindrance to their basic pertinence, since the pace of change in the mode of organisation and operation of institutions (the main subject of the inspections) remains compatible with the slowness inherent to the elaboration of documents subject to inter partes assessment and collective responsibility. The responses made to findings by the local managers of the places inspected bear witness to the variable attention paid to the observations elaborated by the inspectors. It is sometimes difficult to realise the concrete effects of inspections, beyond declarations of principle concerning the close attention given to respect for fundamental rights. In particular, it needs to be emphasised that since the findings are only sent to the head of the institution, broad distribution thereof to the staff concerned as a whole is a good indicator of the level of importance given to the findings issued. Thus, some hospital directors state that they have broadly distributed the report among the personnel and managerial staff, that centre meetings are held concerning the various observations and that the latter are also included on the agenda of the institution’s Medical Committee. Conversely, it is manifest that certain heads and directors of institutions do not sufficiently disseminate the findings and only respond to them in a partial and formal manner. Neither is it rare to see assertions in the responses from heads of institutions which contradict the inspectors’ observations on specific points, without properly sustained argument. Thus, the head of one medical centre, whose letter is appended to the response from the director of a hospital, reacted to the inspectors’ findings concerning lack of follow-up care for patients and absenteeism among certain doctors, stating that: “Medical follow-up care for patients is properly organised and medical schedules are followed, with the occasional exception.” In one police station in the South of France, strip searches are conducted in the security entrance leading to the police custody cells. At the time of their visit, the inspectors ascertained that this place does not enable respect for the privacy of persons in police custody. In response, the Director General of the French national police force (whose letter was passed on to the Contrôleur Général in response to the sending of the inspection report, via the intermediary of the head of the Interior minister’s private office) writes: “This operation, which sometimes requires the persons to be completely undressed, is conducted by a senior police officer in the security entrance allowing access to the cell. This place is out of view of other police officers and cannot be referred to as a “place of transit”.” Still on this issue of protection of the privacy of persons in police custody, in an autonomous territorial gendarmerie of the South of France, the head of the Interior minister’s private office responded that “most of the recommendations concerning building infrastructures were taken into account with a view to the protection of human dignity.” However, the further 65