16.3 |
Military fatalities and the bereaved
109.
The study made
15 recommendations, including:
•
Commands
should establish a senior focal point with responsibility
for
pro‑actively
monitoring all investigations and BOIs.
•
There
should be a presumption across all three Services that a BOI
President
should be
appointed promptly.
•
A BOI
President should be required to exercise grip and co‑ordination
over all
Service
investigative bodies, and liaise with non‑Service bodies.
Presidents
should be
released from other duties.
•
There
should be a “renewed emphasis ... upon early commencement
and
conclusion
of all phases and maximum concurrent activity”. The standard
target
timescales
for all phases of the investigative and inquiry processes should
be
reviewed
and tightened. The time allowed for advisers and senior officers
to
comment
should be limited to six weeks.
•
All
communication with families should be routed through a “single
established
and known
contact”, who could explain the context of any correspondence
and
“head‑off
any infelicitous or insensitive drafting”.
•
A
“knowledgeable and consistent” officer should regularly brief
families on the
detail and
progress of the entire investigation and BOI process.
110.
The study also
reported that there was a significant increase in
public
expectations that
there should be a BOI into every incident, and that its
conclusions
should be
disclosed. That imposed a “heavy workload” on all three Services
but
especially
the Army.
111.
Lt Gen Palmer
wrote to Mr Ingram on 6 April, advising that all the
recommendations
in the
study had been agreed by the Services; the “main recommendations”
would
be
implemented immediately.72
The “main
advance” from the existing process was
that the
presumption that a BOI should be convened promptly, with a BOI
President
appointed
within 48 hours of the incident, would now be extended to the Army
(it was
already
standard practice in the Royal Navy and RAF). The President would
normally be
released
from other duties and would “play a wider role in determining and
co‑ordinating
the
activities of any other necessary investigations, notwithstanding
that he might decide
not to
convene his own Board immediately”.
112.
Lt Gen Palmer
set out how communication with the next of kin would be
improved.
All
communications would be routed through a single “personal contact
point”. The next
of kin
would be “briefed clearly, comprehensively and regularly” on the
investigation
and BOI
process. Information that would not compromise the BOI could be
released
to the
next of kin before the final report issued; a clear disclosure
policy consistent with
72
Minute
Palmer to Ingram, 6 April 2004, ‘Inquiries into Unnatural Death and
Serious Injury on Operations:
Improvements
in Process and Briefing’.
97