Military staff fear complaints may impact their careers

MILITARY personnel fear they will suffer discrimination if they raise issues within the Armed Forces’ “torturous” complaints system, a report has found.

Mariette Hughes, the Service Complaints Ombudsman for the Armed Forces (SCOAF) found the system failed to be efficient, effective or fair.

The annual report for 2022, which was critical for the seventh year in a row, found that there was a “persistent view that the system will disadvantage or discriminate against service personnel who raise complaints”.

Other key issues included a lack of flexibility in dealing with the nuances of individual complaints, as well as the system not dealing with complaints at the lowest level.

The three largest areas of complaint within the Armed Forces included career management; bullying, harassment and discrimination; and grievances over pay, pensions and allowances.

Female members of the Armed Forces continue to be disproportionately represented in the complaints system, making up 21 per cent of complaints, despite only forming 12 per cent of services personnel.

Despite the complaints service’s shortcomings, Ms Hughes welcomed improvements it had made to the system this year. She noted the independence of the system had improved since the removal of the chain of command from the service complaints process.

However, one anonymous member of the military was quoted as saying: “What was a simple complaint has now dragged on for eight months. It is nothing short of torturous.”

The report also noted that the Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey reported in 2022 that 12 per cent of personnel had experienced bullying, harassment or discrimination in the past 12 months, a 1 per cent increase on 2021.

However, only 7 per cent of those individuals went on to make a complaint, down from 11 per cent in 2021. The report said that the reasons given for not raising complaints were that 56 per cent of personnel did not believe anything would be done about it and that 51 per cent said “complaining would adversely affect their career”.

A Ministry of Defence (MOD) spokesman said it did not tolerate bullying, harassment and discrimination. They said the MOD is committed to “providing a fair, efficient and effective service complaints system to support service personnel when they feel affected”.