Planning the interview

This chapter is about the planning that an interviewer should complete before conducting an interview. Planning an interview is important in any country; however, England and Wales will be used as an example throughout this chapter. Planning is not a luxury that can be dispensed with when the interviewer is busy; it is integral to the interview process. In the absence of planning, interviewers are unlikely to have a clear idea about what they are setting out to achieve and how they might best achieve it in the interview. This is likely to have an adverse consequence on the structure of the interview, notably on the sequence in which the various investigative topic areas are introduced, and on the efficacy of the techniques used.