Conduct of the inquiry
9. We received a substantial amount of written evidence
in relation to this inquiry, most of which was supplied by MoD
and the Armed Forces. We have noted and welcomed MoD's readiness
to assist the Committee and provide us with the information requested.
This has not always been the case in the past.[13]
Although we acknowledge that we have requested extensive amounts
of material from MoD for this inquiry, we are disappointed that
on occasions the material provided in response to our requests
has been convoluted or ambiguous. We suspect that in many cases
this is due to failings in recording or monitoring procedures.
We return to this issue later in the report.
10. We received submissions from professional bodies,
welfare organisations, academics and other interested parties.
We also received written submissions from the families of several
of those who have died in initial training establishments and
elsewhere in the Services. In addition, we have received submissions
from serving and former Service personnel. We are grateful to
all those who submitted written evidence, and in particular to
those families and individuals who provided us with a personal
perspective on some of the particularly disturbing and distressing
aspects of this inquiry.
11. We held ten public evidence sessions, during
which we heard from 37 witnesses. We held our first oral evidence
on 26 May 2004, with Lieutenant General Anthony Palmer, the Deputy
Chief of Defence Staff (Personnel), Rear Admiral Simon Goodall,
Director General Training & Education (DGT&E), Colonel
David Eccles, Chief of Staff, Army Training and Recruitment Agency
(ATRA) and Mr Julian Miller, Director General of Service Personnel
Policy, MoD. Over the following months we heard evidence from
academics and professional bodies,[14]
from welfare providers[15]
and the Adult Learning Inspectorate.[16]
We took evidence from Mr Dennis O'Connor CBE, formerly Chief Constable
and Chief Superintendent Craig Denholm of the Surrey Police. Brigadier
Mungo Melvin OBE, Director of Operational Capability, and Group
Captain Stephen Howard, RAF, Assistant Director of Operational
Capability gave evidence to us, accompanied by Rear Admiral Goodall.
12. Brigadier Melvin and Group Captain Howard provided
us with evidence on the three reports into Armed Forces initial
training establishments produced by the Directorate of Operational
Capability (DOC), which reports to MoD, the Vice Chief of the
Defence Staff (VCDS) and the Minister for the Armed Forces. DOC's
three reports—an appraisal in the autumn of 2002 and two
follow-up reappraisals in 2003 and 2004—recommended substantial
improvements to be made in the duty of care regimes. We have referred
in this report to DOC's reports as DOC(1), DOC(2) and DOC(3).[17]
13. We took evidence from the families of recruits
who died at ITC Catterick,[18]
and at Deepcut barracks.[19]
We also held a public informal meeting with families whose children
died overseas, or were no longer trainees, and therefore fell
outside the terms of reference of this inquiry, but whose experiences
the Committee considered relevant to some of the wider issues.
At our final evidence session, on 15 December 2004, we took evidence
from the Rt Hon Adam Ingram MP, Minister of State for the Armed
Forces, Colonel David Eccles, Chief of Staff, ATRA and Martin
Fuller, Director, Service Personnel Policy, Service Conditions,
Ministry of Defence.
14. We visited 15 training establishments where we
met a large number of Service personnel, including recruits, instructors,
supervisors, military and civilian welfare staff and officers.[20]
Our overall impression of initial training and many of our conclusions
and recommendations have been informed by views we heard in the
course of these visits. We offered recruits the opportunity to
contact us in confidence by e-mail with their experiences of life
in initial training. We received three responses to this invitation,
but we wish that more serving personnel had felt able to give
us their view of initial training. We also visited the Armed Forces
Chaplaincy Centre and the Defence Centre of Training Support at
RAF Halton to observe the courses at these establishments. We
visited the Peel Centre at Hendon Police College to discuss duty
of care issues in a comparable, disciplined service. The Chairman
attended the five day Army trainers' course at Lichfield.
15. We commissioned a review of reports into duty
of care and related issues from Mr Ivan Zverhanovski of Kings
College London, with the aim of identifying common themes and
the implementation of recommendations.[21]
We are grateful for his contribution to this inquiry; and for
the assistance of our specialist advisers: Rear Admiral Richard
Cobbold, Professor Cary Cooper, Professor Christopher Dandeker,
Professor Michael Kerfoot, Air Vice Marshal Professor Tony Mason,
Professor Stephen Palmer and Brigadier Austin Thorp.
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