Armed Forces (Service Complaints Commissioner) Regulations 2007

I thank everyone for their contributions, and will try to answer the points that have been made. We are talking about a new area, so it is understandable that some people will have such concerns about the impact of a new system. The noble Lord, Lord Astor, started by suggesting that the services were not happy with the procedure that we have suggested. I emphasise that there has been a great deal of consultation on the actual processes to be adopted, and there have been significant discussions across the board. The principles and policies that we are putting forward in these statutory instruments have been endorsed by the service personnel executive group, which acts on behalf of the principal personnel officers of the three services, who are members of their respective service boards. I hope that that will allay some of the fears of several of your Lordships, who have expressed concern on the basis of their experience of the old system or of the Armed Forces generally. We are not simply imposing a new system on the Armed Forces without any consultation or consideration of the difficulties that might develop. We have done this carefully, taking on board any considerations that have arisen through those channels. I hope that that particular aspect will reassure the noble Lord, Lord Astor, and others who have had similar concerns. The noble Lord, Lord Astor, also asked about the commissioner. I hope that he will welcome the appointment of Dr Atkins. She is extremely experienced, as I pointed out earlier, and was recruited through the normal Civil Service Commissioners’ recruitment code. The competition was open. Recruitment consultants trawled for people with the right kind of background, and I would have thought that work with the police complaints system was quite a good foundation for doing work of this kind. Dr Atkins’ appointment is for three years, and it is envisaged that she will work for approximately two and a half days a week. The salary, pro rata, is £105,000. She begins her appointment on 1 December, but is already taking a great deal of interest in this issue and is undergoing some of her induction and familiarisation with the Armed Forces, which again I hope will allay some of the concerns about her background. It is important—I am sure she thinks that it is important—that she visits establishments and talks to people in the three services. That is exactly what is happening at the moment. The costs of the new system will be found within the existing departmental budget. A small secretariat is being provided, but we must remember that there have always been complaints and that, on occasion, they have taken up a great deal of resources, especially when they have gone to defence counsel and been complex and dependent on people’s time. It is of course impossible to say at this stage what number of complaints we anticipate. During the past year, there have been 233 service complaints raised by Army personnel; in the Navy, there have been 73 complaints referred up from the commanding officer; for the RAF, there have been 220 service complaints during the past two and one-half years. Because we do not have a system common to all the services, those figures are not kept in exactly the same way. It is difficult to predict the future outcome; I give those figures just so that there is a baseline and a starting point with which to compare future figures. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for his comments welcoming the new system. There will always be people who want to go further and provide more independence; I think it right that we try to get a balance so that we have a system that has the confidence of everyone. That is very much what we are about in drawing up the statutory instruments. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, raised three questions, which I hope that I can answer. He mentioned the question of an officer having someone of the same rank on the panel and talked about the implications of mixed service panels. His request was that the service of the complainant should be the one from which panel members were drawn. He was very cautious, because he said, ““as far as is practicable””. That is exactly what we would say: as far as is practicable, that should be the situation. The noble and gallant Lord went on to ask about an independent member of the panel and whether that could be a retired officer. Yes, it could, although I think that we would expect panel members to be drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds. They will get induction and training and they will bring their different backgrounds, which I hope will be helpful. He also asked whether the commissioner could refer downwards a complaint made to her. That is the case. If a complaint is made to the commissioner, she will refer it to the complainants’ commanding officer, who will in the first instance look at that complaint to see what needs to be done. It can come back up the system, but in the first instance, it would go to that starting point. I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, for his comments about the meeting. I thought that it was useful and I appreciate what he said. He also expressed the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Astor, about the possibility for a troublemakers’ charter, but I hope that what I have said about the involvement of the services will be reassuring on that point. I hope that the mechanisms that we have built into the system will provide some security for the armed services that it is a system that they can use to everybody's benefit. The noble Viscount asked specifically about the training of lay members. As I mentioned, they will have to undergo training and induction. I know that he may have some reservations about independent members on the panel, but I remind him that there will always be two panel members from the armed services, so it is not a question of total independence or a total lack of experience. I hope that those comments will reassure your Lordships that the department has considered this very carefully and has sought to strike the right balance in the new system, which we hope will benefit everyone. On Question, Motion agreed to.