About us

The role of the Service Complaints Commissioner 

The Commissioner provides a rigorous and independent oversight of how the complaints system is working and reports back to Ministers and Parliament. Her role is to:

Helping Armed Forces personnel access their complaints system

The Commissioner provides an alternative point of contact for Service personnel, or anyone acting on their behalf, to raise concerns with their chain of command about their Service life. 

If you are a member of the Armed Forces and you want to complain about an aspect of your Service life, you can complain directly to your Commanding Officer or you can ask the Commissioner to refer your complaint on your behalf. Please note that concerns raised with the Commissioner do not become a formal Service complaint until they are raised within the Armed Forces using an ‘Annex F’ form to JSP 831 (Redress of Individual Grievances: Service Complaints).

The Commissioner has special powers where a complaint is about unacceptable behaviour such as:

In these cases the Commissioner has to be kept informed by law about the handling of a complaint and the outcome.

Overseeing and reporting on the complaints system

The Commissioner has set priorities for the Armed Forces to:

The Commissioner presents an Annual Report to Parliament each year on how efficient, effective and fair the Service complaints process has been. This report is available to the public.

Our Aims and Values

Our aims

To ensure all Servicemen and Servicewomen and their families have confidence in the complaints system and are treated properly, by:

  • monitoring individual complaints
  • focusing on outcomes and improvements
  • holding the Services to account for fairness, effectiveness and efficiency in their handling of complaints
  • working with the Services and MOD to see that lessons are implemented swiftly and effectively
  • accounting publicly to Ministers and Parliament

Our values

  • independence of judgement
  • fairness and justice
  • integrity
  • transparency and accountability
  • respect for diversity
  • proportionality
  • outcome focus
  • humanity.

The Service Complaints Commissioner - a biography

Service Complaints Commissioner, Nicola Williams [4 KB]Nicola Williams took up the post of Service Complaints Commissioner to the Armed Forces in January 2015. Before this, she held the post of the Complaints Commissioner for the Cayman Islands from 2009 to 2014, with a remit that extended over 93 government entities. Since 2009, she has also been a Crown Court Recorder sitting on the London and South Eastern Circuit.

Between 2004 and 2009, Nicola was a Commissioner at the Independent Police Complaints Commission, with particular responsibility for Kent, Sussex, the Ministry of Defence Police and part of the Metropolitan Police. She had previously been a board member at the Police Complaints Authority. Between 1985 and 2001, Nicola was a barrister in private practice and specialised in criminal law. Read the Commissioner's blog.

Background - the creation of a Service Complaints Commissioner

The new post of Service Complaints Commissioner was created by the Armed Forces Act 2006 with a remit which covers any complaint made after 1 January 2008. The appointment followed recommendations made by Nicholas Blake QC in his Review into the deaths of four soldiers at Princess Royal Barracks, Deepcut. 

The Act introduced a number of significant changes to the Service complaints system to make it fairer, more independent and more transparent. As well as the creation of the Service Complaints Commissioner, these included new joint standards for the three Services and a new Service Complaints Panel, with an independent member to consider some complaints on behalf of the Defence Council.

The first Commissioner was Dr Susan Atkins, who held the post until December 2014. 

'A system neither efficient, effective nor fair’?

Dr Atkins consistently reported to Parliament that the Service complaints system was not yet effective, efficient or fair and that her powers were not strong enough for her to effect the necessary change. She particularly emphasised the need for the system to work more quickly, arguing that undue delay in resolving cases (many Service complaints take longer than a year to resolve and some considerably longer) was unfair and damaging not only to complainants but to people being complained about, their colleagues and the Armed Forces as a whole.

A 24-week deadline for complaint-handling

In January 2013, the Commissioner set the Armed Forces a new target to resolve 90% of new Service complaints within 24 weeks. So far, the three Services have not managed to achieve this. Their performance against this target is reported in the Commissioner’s Annual Reports since 2013.

In 2014, partly as a result of Dr Atkins' reporting, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) announced substantial reforms to the Service complaints system. This would involve the change of the Commissioner's role to become an Ombudsman, with more powers. These reforms were formalised in the Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Act, which completed its journey through Parliament in March 2015.

Looking to the future - the role of a Service Complaints Ombudsman

The new Ombudsman will have powers to: 

  • review and overturn decisions by the chain of command to exclude a complaint or not allow a complaint to proceed, for example, for being out of time;
  • review the handling of a Service complaint once it has finished the internal process, if the complainant feels something is wrong with the way it was dealt with;
  • in certain circumstances, investigate the substance of a complaint once it has completed the internal process, and;
  • recommend action to the Defence Council to put matters right.

Read our factsheet to find out more about the creation of an Ombudsman. Please note that Service complaints need to be made within three months of the incident being complained about. You need to have very good reasons for making a complaint outside this time frame. If you want to make a Service complaint about something that is happening now, don't wait until the new system is in place — you may find that your complaint is out of time and won’t be accepted for investigation.

Further information 

 

 

 

 
To open PDF files you need Adobe Reader software, which you can download free from the Adobe Reader website.
©Crown copyright |Terms and conditions |Privacy and Cookies |Accessibility
<