The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
“slightly
different” approaches given their differing geographical spread,
unit
organisations
and ethos.
•
With the
exception of the Royal Navy, which generally used qualified
welfare
workers,
“bereavement support personnel” were appointed on an ad hoc
basis
from the
junior officer cadre. While bespoke training for the entire cadre
was
neither
cost‑effective nor deliverable, it should be possible to provide
“awareness
briefings”
during general staff training, supplemented by “thorough briefings”
by
specialist
personnel when an individual was appointed to be a
VO.43
61.
Lt Gen Palmer
advised ACM Bagnall that he supported those findings,
but
commented
that ACM Bagnall might wish to “revisit” the conclusion that it
would not
be
financially or practically viable to develop a bespoke training
course for individuals
involved in
bereavement support.44
62.
ACM Bagnall
accepted the findings, but commented that existing single‑Service
or
tri‑Service
courses could include some coverage of bereavement support
procedures.45
63.
On 30 June,
Lt Gen Palmer provided Mr Hoon with an update on
work to improve
the BOI
process.46
The update
also covered progress on improving communications
with families.
64.
Lt Gen Palmer
advised Mr Hoon that it was “clear that we are failing to
meet
some
families’ expectations in respect of the quality and quantity of
information we are
providing
to them”. A key step in improving communications between families
and the
MOD would
be the appointment of a Senior Co‑ordinator in each of the Services
to
ensure that
families were briefed, through their VOs, on the progress of
investigations
and BOIs;
the role of the Senior Co‑ordinator, and progress in improving the
BOI
process, is
described later in this Section.
65.
Lt Gen Palmer
recalled the steps that had been taken to improve the tone
and
accuracy of
the MOD’s correspondence with bereaved families and advised
that,
as far as
practicable, all routine correspondence now followed standard
templates.
The
production of a joint casualty procedures manual47
and the
formation of a
Joint
Casualty Co‑ordination Cell (JCCC) by January 2005 would further
improve
communication
with families. As a “final filter”, all communication with families
was
now routed
through a single point of contact, usually the VO.
43
Paper MOD,
[undated], ‘Bereavement Support Training (Scoping Study) – Summary
of Findings and
Recommendations’.
44
Minute
Palmer to VCDS, 24 June 2004, ‘Inquiries into Unnatural Death and
Serious Injury: Improvements
in Process
and Briefing’.
45
Minute VCDS
to Palmer, 1 July 2004, ‘Inquiries into Unnatural Death and Serious
Injury: Improvements
in Process
and Briefing’.
46
Minute
DCDS(Pers) to APS/SofS [MOD], 30 June 2004, ‘Boards of Inquiry –
Improvements in Process’.
47
The first
Joint Casualty and Compassionate Policy and Procedures (JSP 751)
manual was published in
March
2005.
88