My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for setting out his concerns so clearly. I am the first to agree that he has raised a very important issue in relation to Regulation 3(2) and the need for clarity for service personnel. Clearly, there must be a fair system for checking whether a decision that a complaint is inadmissible has been properly taken. I agree that the effect of the regulations may not be self-evident to the casual reader. In my experience, that is not unusual, but it is certainly a real issue.
The regulations exclude a complaint being made about a decision by the relevant officer, usually the commanding officer, that a complaint was inadmissible because, for example, it was excluded under these regulations or it was made too late. However, such complaints are excluded only because the main regulations which set out the procedures for making and handling a service complaint provide instead for the complainant to go straight to the ombudsman, who can review any decision made by the officer to rule a complaint inadmissible.
There is a duty to make regulations to provide for this under new Section 340B(4)(b) of the Armed Forces Act 2006, which the noble Lord rightly mentioned. The provision is in the Armed Forces (Service Complaints) Regulations 2015, but these are part of a suite of regulations subject to the negative procedure so they are not being debated today. The noble Lord was absolutely right to draw attention to those regulations and to say that they should be read with the regulations we are now considering.
It is fully recognised that it would be difficult and unacceptable for service personnel to have to navigate the different sets of regulations in order to find out what they were entitled to do. To make things clear, there will be a joint service publication explaining the entire process, including how to make a service complaint
and the right to go to the ombudsman. The aim in that regard has been to make the language as straightforward and accessible as possible. I can tell the noble Lord that the ombudsman will indeed be consulted and will provide advice. Moreover, I can reassure him that the current commissioner, who will in turn become the new ombudsman, has been closely involved in considering all the regulations and the joint service publication to ensure that the details of the system will be clear and will meet expectations. So I hope the noble Lord will be reassured that his point is well made and well received.
The noble Lord asked whether the ombudsman will be sufficiently resourced for implementation in January. The commissioner has assessed the likely volume of cases that will come her way in the first quarter of 2016 and has structured her new team to meet that expected demand. This year she has recruited an additional 15 staff, of whom 11 are investigators. The commissioner is pleased to acknowledge that the MoD has met her requests this year for additional resource to carry out the new role. The ombudsman is responsible for determining her own staffing needs. Having said that, her office will be keeping the staffing numbers under review as they gain experience of carrying out the new role. However, we believe that the ombudsman-to-be is satisfied that all is in place to handle the likely volume of cases that she will be required to consider.
I hope that that answers the noble Lord’s questions satisfactorily and that he will be sufficiently reassured to be able to give these regulations his approval. I am grateful to him for his general welcome of the instrument.