15.2 |
Conclusions: Civilian personnel
86.
The difficult
working conditions for civilians in Iraq were reflected in short
tour lengths
and
frequent leave breaks. Different departments adopted different
arrangements
throughout
the Iraq campaign, leading to concerns about breaks in continuity,
loss of
momentum,
lack of institutional memory and insufficient local
knowledge.
87.
Different
departments will continue to deploy civilian staff in different
roles.
Standardisation
of all aspects of those deployments may not be appropriate, but
greater
harmonisation
of departmental policies should be considered wherever
possible.
The same
approach should be applied to LE staff.
88.
At all stages,
including planning, departments must give full consideration to
their
responsibilities
and duty of care towards LE staff, who have an essential
contribution to
make and
will face particular risks in insecure environments.
89.
All civilian
deployments should be assessed and reviewed against a
single,
rigorous,
cross-government framework for risk management. The framework
should
provide the
means for the Government as a whole to strike an effective balance
between
security
and operational effectiveness, and to take timely decisions on the
provision of
appropriate
security measures.
90.
Standardising
tour lengths for civilians deployed by different departments
would
have eased
the overall administrative burden and, perhaps, some of the
tensions
between
individuals from different government departments serving in Iraq.
But the
environment
was difficult and individuals’ resilience and circumstances varied.
The
introduction
of the option to extend a tour of duty was an appropriate
response.
91.
Throughout any
operation of this kind, departments should maintain
two
procedures
for the systematic debriefing of staff returning to the UK: one to
meet duty of
care
obligations, the other to learn lessons from their
experience.
92.
It is
difficult to separate the issue of the seniority or personal impact
of individual
civilians
from the wider question of UK influence on the US, which is
addressed in
Section
9.8.
93.
In order to
identify individuals with the right skills, there must be clarity
about the
roles they
are to perform. Wherever possible, individuals should be recruited
for and
deployed to
clearly defined roles appropriate to their skills and seniority.
They must be
provided
with the equipment needed to perform those roles to a high
standard.
94.
The Government
should consider the introduction of a mechanism for
responding
to a surge
in demand for a particular language capability.
95.
The Inquiry
views the inability of the FCO, the MOD and DFID to confirm how
many
civilian
personnel were deployed to or employed in Iraq, in which locations
and in what
roles, as a
serious failure. Data management systems must provide accurate
information
on the
names, roles and locations of all staff for whom departments have
duty of
care responsibilities.
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