I call to order today’s House of Commons Defence Committee evidence session. This is a one-off special session for the pre-appointment hearing with the Defence Secretary’s preferred candidate for Armed Forces Commissioner. A very warm welcome to you, Ms Polly Miller-Perkins. This meeting was set up at very short notice, and a few Committee members have had to send their apologies, but we are very much looking forward to this interactive session with you. Rather than the usual two hours, it is only for one and a half hours, so without further ado we will get straight into the questions.

I did see the advert at the end of last summer, but for domestic reasons—there was a bit of flux in my domestic life at that moment—it was not appropriate for me to apply at that time. It was also sent to me by a number of colleagues, who suggested I might be a good fit. About three weeks ago I was contacted by Mr Bailey, who I have not spoken to for 10 years but with whom I worked previously. He inquired as to why I had not applied. My domestic circumstances, by this point, had firmed up—I have a robust home schedule now—so I put my CV forward for consideration. It became clear at that point that this would be an interim appointment, and in a lot of ways I am even more suited to an interim appointment. I have a long track record of getting into appointments, making a difference early and putting in place due diligence. Nothing I saw made me feel that this was not the right appointment for me.

Indeed.

I have read the Act. Despite the fact that I am, pending ratification, still in full-time employment, I also had a visit yesterday to meet the Armed Forces Commissioner team and to speak to the SCOAF before I came in front of you.

Correct.

Indeed.

As Lincoln Jopp just said, thank you for your previous service to our country. I want to get into the nuts and bolts of the independence of the role. You have been appointed directly by the Secretary of State, rather than through a competitive public appointments process. You have said that you are interested in reapplying for this role in a year’s time, when it will be up to the Secretary of State to decide whether he wishes to reappoint you. What can you say to persuade us, and others around the country, that that will not limit your independence in your first year in the role?

The first thing I would say is it was the independence of the appointment and the statutory powers that go with it that convinced me to apply for the role. I genuinely think the role can make a difference for service people and their families. To a certain extent, I have always had an approach of speaking truth to power, even before that phrase was particularly well known. That has served me well. Inherent in that phrase is the fact that, inevitably, you are potentially giving news that might be unwelcome to people who have some influence over your career. I have never had a problem with that, and I certainly see this as a vocation rather than a career move in that regard. The final thing I would say is that any job needs the right person, with the right skillset and personal qualities, at the right time. However good a job I do—and hope to do—over the next 12 months, when it comes to the open public appointments process, I may well not be the right person to take the role forward, even if I choose to apply at that point. I fully recognise that that is an option.

Do you see a need to protect the institutional independence of the role from both the Ministry of Defence and our armed forces? If so, how would you bring that about in practice?

It is about absolute transparency. It is fundamental to the credibility of the appointment that you have that independence. My intent would be to operate at all times with utter transparency. My preference for a way of working is that I do not tend to have sidebar conversations. I like to take notes of the meetings I have, and to be open about the way decisions are made. Certainly, when it comes to deciding what issues may need to be pursued, I would be a fan of a test and challenge panel, so that they can put some rigour behind the decisions we might make and the issues we want to pursue. It would be the same if we were to submit a report or make recommendations, so that there was utter independence behind that.

Good morning. Touching on what the Chair discussed there, you will be aware that the Committee has expressed concerns that this role is based on the German model. However, the German commissioner is different, in that the role here is funded by the Secretary of State and he approves the staffing arrangements. Also, in terms of your own appointment, you have been personally selected by the Secretary of State. You said to the Chair that you are no stranger to speaking truth to power or challenging those in authority to you. Can you give us any examples of that, and of anything you think might arise in the role? How would you navigate that and stand up to the Secretary of State, for example?

If I am honest, it is about having evidence-based recommendations—having utter rigour behind what you recommend. Also, in this role I would be reporting to Parliament, and I am entirely clear on that. On occasion, it is important to present your findings, so that we are all conscious that decisions have been made in full cognisance of the facts, whichever decisions are made going forward and whether or not recommendations are taken forward. In terms of examples of where I have done that in the past, there is the role I had out in Cyprus, where I was Deputy Commander, British Forces Cyprus. There are a significant number of people out there, and what is really interesting—if I can just make an aside for a moment—is that, because this is a British overseas territory, the role replicates that of a county council and social services, so you are dealing with a significant number of issues, including education, wellbeing and safeguarding. There were times when I was extremely clear in writing, through my chain of command and up into what was strategic command at the time, that there were issues that probably were unacceptable, including the quality of housing out in Cyprus and the fact that it was not seismically compliant. I made that case quite clearly and managed to get some funding by putting forward evidence-based, reasoned arguments.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming today and for your time. I have a quick question on independence. I noticed that you are a reservist. Are you going to be resigning your commission before taking on this role?

Absolutely.

I am a direct appointment of Parliament, to my understanding. I have not seen the contract as yet, but I am not a civil servant. My contract, including the remuneration package that goes with it, will reflect that, such that there is no pension, for example.

No.

I have experience of having raised a complaint. I had one complaint against me when the system first came out, about 20 years ago, and I have been a decision body and an appeal body in that process.

That is great, because you have done every role in the system. What are the problems with the system, and what needs fixing?

There are a number of issues with the system at the moment, a lot of which have already been documented by the ombudsman. I would be keen to look in more detail and get more understanding about what has and has not been done. If I look at the Fingleton review, I do not think the informal complaints process works particularly well. The ombudsman has recommended that there is a front door, and I would be a real fan of that, so that there is visibility of all complaints, whether or not they come to the ombudsman or the Armed Forces Commissioner’s office. There are issues with timeliness, as has been well documented in the ombudsman’s reports. To broaden the question, if I may, beyond the service complaints process, I am not entirely convinced that there is coherence in bringing together the recommendations and the review process for a lot of the recommendations that have been made independently in the past. Some of the ones that refer directly to the service complaints process are now being reviewed and managed by the ombudsman and her team. Some of them are being looked at by the Raising our Standards group. But there are still recommendations sitting there from previous independent reviews that either do not have a home or are not being appropriately reviewed. I would be keen to understand whether some of the actions that have been taken in response to those investigations, including the Wigston review, are actually effective.

One way of summarising what you have just said is that you are going to bring greater coherence to it, so that there is just one channel, and you have dealt with all the recommendations. What would be your top one, two or three priorities over the next year?

The first thing you need to do is establish the independence and credibility of the organisation. That involves outreach and education. There is an element of managing expectations. Although the Armed Forces Commissioner’s small team has done a good job in putting together some of the operating model that might be in place, a rule needs to be run over all that. The second thing is that we need to ensure that the secondary legislation is correct, and that the right processes and procedures are in place. As well as setting up organisations from almost a blank sheet of paper, the way I like to operate, in any department I go into, is to take it back to basics: what is the organisation charged with delivering? What operating model and governance have been put in place to deliver that? What processes, procedures and secondary legislation are required to deliver that? What resources are in place to deliver that? What risks and issues are you managing, and how are you managing them? Finally—this is a really important point for me—what checks and balances are in place to assess whether that is working properly?

What do you envisage as being the most difficult part of this role?

One of the most difficult parts of this role is potentially the initial period, when we do not know what is going to come through the front door of the Armed Forces Commissioner’s office. I am thrilled that this has been opened out to families, and I recognise that there is a lot of latitude, quite rightly, as to what constitutes a family. We do not know what is going to come through the door. There could potentially be a huge bow wave of issues that will need to be triaged and managed. We have to manage expectations, and we are going to have to communicate really well. People need to have faith in the system. A lot of reviews will need to be in place. It would be very easy to be overwhelmed by the volume of complaints and miss the requirement to look more strategically and systematically. We need to be careful about how that operates, and some significant reviews need to be in place as we go forward to make sure the system is working properly.

Thank you for being here. You have spent much of your working career, until quite recently, in the armed forces, whether regular or reserves. How would you persuade people who do not have any faith or trust in that system that you, having been a part of that culture until very recently, will be able to challenge that structure? What would you say to the people who have lost faith in that?

The first thing I would say is that I have also been a veteran and a military spouse, so I have covered the whole gamut of potential stakeholders. It is really up to me to educate, inform, get into the outreach and make sure people understand what my role is and what I stand for as an individual. Ultimately, that can be done through what the office actually delivers. While I would not be chasing quick wins as a priority, if there are any obvious things that we can be doing sooner rather than later—including being transparent about why it may not be possible to solve things in a short period—I would like to think that I can start to build that trust. Trust is not something I can just create on day one, and I recognise it is up to me to deliver that.

Something that I have learned from being part of this Committee with fellow members who have served is that this is a really small and tight-knit arena, so it does not surprise me at all that you have worked with Calvin. However, when you have worked as part of that really tight-knit and well put together team and been part of that culture and chain of command, how are you going to convince people that you are completely independent? How will you address that? You are coming out of a system that you have been part of, and you now have to challenge it. How will people who have lost faith in it trust you?

I chose to leave the armed forces well over five years ago because I wanted to challenge myself in other arenas. I have done other things. I clearly have a background in the armed forces, which has some advantages. I know what good looks like, and I may be able to challenge in a way that someone who is less informed about how the armed forces work might not be able to in the early part of their tenure. However, ultimately it is about what I deliver. It is about force of personality, credibility and my ability to communicate and deliver what I and the office stand for. That is going to have to be built over time.

It is a huge role.

Indeed.

There is an awful lot of pressure on whoever does this job. We have seen some horrendously tragic cases. Looking particularly at Jaysley Beck, despite a lot of the changes we are bringing in, her mum is not at all convinced that anything has changed or is likely to change. What will you do within this role to change that mindset and give those people reassurance that there are serious changes coming?

Transparency and communication are important. I am not the kind of person who leaves a stone unturned. If I am not convinced, no one else is going to be convinced, and I need to be able to communicate that. It is also important that we start to understand how accountability and responsibility work in the MOD and map that. To move to housing for a second, there have been multiple complaints, sometimes about relatively minor issues that one would think could be resolved quite quickly. I want to understand where those buttons are, because I suspect there are individuals in the system, if I can put it like that, who do not understand that they have the authority to make that change. All of that needs to be exposed so that we can shine a light in the right areas going forward. However, we need to be absolutely transparent about what we are doing, why we are doing it, where there are delays and where it is not possible to resolve something overnight. I think that that will start to help build that trust.

This is absolutely fundamental. First, the importance of the chain of command and of the authority is enshrined in the Armed Forces Act—there is no question about that. That is coupled with the fact that there is no intent to interfere in operational decision making in any way. However, it would be fair to say that, on occasion, the information that finds its way through the system and up to the chain of command may have some of the corners knocked off it before it gets there. I would like to delve into to what information they are actually privy to. I would like to think that this role could bridge the gap between what is happening on the ground—the lived experience—and the senior leadership of the armed forces, so that I am absolutely clear that I understand the issues that people are facing and the implications of those not being resolved.

Indeed.

The first thing I would say is that sometimes the ability to do something is all that is required to get the right behaviours, information or evidence to the commissioner’s office. However, if there is a genuine case where you feel that the only way you can get the information that you need to inform an investigation is to exercise those powers, I would have no qualms about doing that, but I would like to think that it would not be necessary to get to that point.

I am really interested to hear you use the word “accountability”. It is such an important word when it comes to the MoD. As a Committee, we have seen repeatedly that many of the MoD’s woes lie in that word “accountability”, whether it is procurement, for example, over who is accountable for Ajax; losses of data, where it is a case of, "Oh no, they have moved to another job and we can’t name them”; and so on and so forth. Obviously, that includes some of the very serious matters that you will be dealing with. How do you propose to grapple with that? What is your theory of change about how to make the MOD, and individuals therein, more accountable for things that happen on their watch?

It is something that I would certainly like to look into. I am really interested to know to what extent academia and behavioural science—drawing on all those tools in the past—have been used to influence some of the responses to some of the issues that come up time and again. It is never easy to do cultural change, but that is not a reason not to try and tackle the issues, particularly some of the most serious issues. In the end, mapping that accountability and authority will be really important, and I do not want it to become a Sisyphean task where after five years no one has been able to fully map the accountability and responsibility. At least trying to address some of those issues, and understanding what buttons can and cannot be pressed, is going to be really important going forward.

Accountability often comes from straight lines through organisations, rather than diffusion. Diffusion often leads to the opposite of accountability. Do you see part of your role as making recommendations to the Secretary of State where lines of accountability have been diffuse or blurred—where they need to be straightened out to stop things happening again?

It is possible that that would be a recommendation. You need to be really careful that whoever is accountable is not so detached from what is going on that realistically they are unable to execute their duties. That would be unreasonable to the individual. Potentially, you can put in place better accountability, better governance and better processes. It is quite clear that while it is very important that the armed forces have a hierarchical structure and it works very well in operations and in times of need, there can sometimes be undue deference to rank—above what is right and fair. We need to make sure that we do not overly rely on rank and regard it as the same as accountability and responsibility. That needs to be looked at across the board.

Another quick question from me. The process for your appointment was quite different from how these appointments normally work. Did you have a formal interview at any stage?

Yes, I had an interview with the Secretary of State; it was online.

Was it just with the Secretary of State?

He had some other individuals in the room—at least one of his spads. I am not sure who the other individuals in the room were.

Was there a time after the interview when they got in touch and said, “The job is yours”?

Yes. At the end of the interview, the Secretary of State mentioned that he was looking at other individuals, potentially, for an interim role. There was no question that a decision would definitely be made on any of those individuals, including me. It was about 24 hours before I was contacted and invited to take the role, subject to ratification.

No. As far as I am concerned, I would take the appointment as if I was going to be in post for five years. Certainly, from my perspective—I am not sure whether this is what you are asking—it is not a limited liability appointment. I would approach this as if I was going to be in post for five years, but I would obviously be cognisant of the fact that if there are going to be review processes, it would be wise not to make changes five minutes before the full-time incumbent comes in—not to make changes that they may not agree with. We need to be really careful, as we go through the process, to put in place reviews at appropriate times and then make a judgment on whether there are things that may need to be changed but could wait until the full-time incumbent comes into post.

As far as I am concerned, I am imbued with all the powers in the Armed Forces Commissioner Act from day one, and if I feel the need to exercise them, that is what I will do.

You touched on this before, but I would like to delve into some of your experience. As you said in relation to your priority, this is a major public-facing role, and you are going to be setting it up from scratch. Have you had experience of doing that sort of thing before? Are there things in your past that you can draw on and, doing that, what might you bring to it?

I think I mentioned this before. I have had experience of setting up organisations from a relatively blank sheet of paper. The most recent one I can think of is that I acted as joint military commander, in a reservist role, for the Armed Forces Day national event down in Falmouth in 2021. Albeit I was in a reservist role, it was a new location, new council, different team—new team—and ultimately that was a flash to bang of less than 12 months, so it would be a good example of where I was required to do that. Just for the record, although Armed Forces Day national events have been held previously, we did not follow a template in any way. We started from a bespoke sheet of paper and chose to do it in a slightly different way, which worked very well. I would add that if you go into an appointment that is not a blank sheet of paper and go through the due diligence that I spoke about earlier—going back to basics and doing some analysis of what that organisation is supposed to be delivering—that can sometimes be more difficult, because you are taking an organisation that thinks that it is doing swimmingly and that things were all working perfectly well before you arrived, and potentially asking some difficult questions and thinking about different ways of doing things. I like to take an open approach. I like to make a logical analysis, and step through that due diligence process, if I can call it that, to put in place the right organisation that is going to deliver effectively.

You mentioned Cyprus, which I thought was a really interesting example. What sort of issues were you grappling with there in a public-facing sense, with you having to speak to the media? How did you solve those challenges?

There clearly was a requirement to speak to the media. I have also been head of establishment at RAF Brize Norton, which as you probably know is a large base. People do seem to be interested when you have a senior female in charge of an organisation. I have done quite a lot of media in the past, including with the Armed Forces Day national event. There are several challenges. When I was out in Cyprus, a lot of it was not just external media facing; it was standing up in front of 10,000 service people and their families so that they understand what is going on, who is looking after their best interests and where we are with certain issues. It is about being available, transparent and honest.

How do you work with politicians?

I have limited experience of working with politicians, but everyone has their own drivers, wherever they might be. It is really important to understand what people’s particular drivers are, where they are coming from and what matters to them so that you can speak to them about those issues and present issues in a way that they can respond to. That is quite important.

Because you report to Parliament, you are going to have to use politicians—“use” is not the right word—and their platform, alongside your own in order to drive through the change that you want to bring. Have you had any experience of operating in that space?

I haven’t, but I would like to think that I have experience of asking the right questions and building the right relationships, and I hope that this Committee will be there to point me in the right direction and provide that guidance when required.

I see you have started already—very good.

I want to have a really transparent and good working relationship, including more of an opportunity to come in front of this Committee to update you on progress, and the risks and issues with the setting up of this appointment. There is potentially the opportunity for members of the Committee, should you have the capacity and the interest, to come on some of the outreach visits that the commissioner’s office chooses to do so that you can observe the commissioner—myself—in operation and get a better understanding at the grassroots level of the kind of issues that people are choosing to raise to the Armed Forces Commissioner.

I think we would hope to work really closely with you, so thank you. I have a final question about media scrutiny. The media are interesting. They are like a placid lake—they ignore you—and suddenly there is something, you become the story of the day, and intense scrutiny comes from all angles. Have you had any experience of that? Have you any idea of how you might deal with it? It is a bit hard with a hypothetical issue, but you will be making decisions about cases that are in the public realm and about which there has been much debate. You will have to make a decision, and you will come under a lot of pressure.

If I am under an awful lot of pressure, I would like to think that I am articulating myself well and making it entirely clear why those decisions have been made. In the end, obviously I have no control over how the media choose to report those issues or what angle they choose to take, but I would influence where I can to make it entirely clear, with a logical and transparent evidence base, why we are making the decisions, and the timescale that we are making them in.

This is a comment rather than a question, but you can sometimes shape the media narrative by getting ahead. You will enjoy doing that.

Hopefully, I will learn quickly.

The first thing I would say is that my remit is clearly about issues related to the general service welfare of individuals. While there is, helpfully, a broad interpretation of that phrase, I cannot necessarily comment on that specific issue. It would be important for me to maintain my independence when it comes to that. It would depend on whether it had a detrimental effect on service people or their families, and whether I felt that there was a link in any way to my responsibilities.

I think that it depends on the context and the issue they are dealing with. If it was entirely clear that there were issues in the background that made that statement problematic, it might be something that I would wish to raise.

I forgot to ask this before. You applied for the post on 19 March. What was the date of your interview with the Secretary of State?

It was 10 days ago, on the Friday, whatever that date was. I think it was the 13th.

When did your application go in?

I think I sent my CV across on the week before that, on the Tuesday.

On the 10th?

You sent your CV across on the 10th, and the 13th was your interview.

No, sorry, it was the previous week to that. My interview was about 10 days ago—the Friday. I submitted my CV for consideration the week before that, so 10 days or so prior. Obviously, at that point I had no idea whether I was going to be considered for interview or have an interview. I was made aware that there was going to be an interview about three days before the interview.

Just to follow up on my colleague, Mike Martin, you mentioned outreach visits, and my experience of commissioners, say the Children’s Commissioner, is that they are very reactive as opposed to proactive. Do you have any ideas, based on your knowledge of the role already and the volume of complaints coming through, where you might start doing your first visits?

I do not know the answer to that yet. I would like to have a look at what the ombudsman’s outreach visit programme has looked like, where they have been recently, where the largest volume of complaints is coming from, and if there are any hotspots that we want to address. Although it is really important for the commissioner to get out sooner rather than later, I think realistically we will learn pretty quickly from what comes through the door whether there is any specific area that we want to address sooner rather than later. I also recognise that it will take time. If it is not a no-notice visit, it will take time to advise people that the commissioner is coming. I do not yet know if there are processes and procedures in place for units to be aware that the commissioner is visiting and what that would look like, so I probably need to understand that. My gut feeling is that whatever I am addressing—whether it is issues or outreach—we are looking at areas where you are capturing the most people or capturing areas where the most vulnerable or the most serious cases are arising. Those will be my areas of focus initially.

What I was trying to get at is will you be proactive, not just reactive?

Absolutely.

The Secretary of State and Ministers have been very clear that this is also about building trust with the armed forces community, and you do not do that just by responding; you do that by going out there and being proactive.

Yes, very much so. I am well versed in running an organisation without having to be physically in the office every day; I can put in place processes and procedures to make sure that I am steering the tiller of the organisation while still being out and about. I think it is really important for me to be not only on send; I really want to know what people’s concerns are about this new appointment—how they think the processes should work. It is very easy for the Armed Force’s Commissioner’s team to have done a great job putting in place an early operating model, but it would be interesting to see quite quickly whether that is going to be fit for purpose.

Just a plea from me: I think the whole system is really complicated, and if I was going through something stressful, I would find it really difficult. It needs to be more simplified.

I agree.

I wanted to ask you about another issue. As you will be aware, there is often a lot of competition between the different services, and sometimes there are accusations that one is being ignored in favour of another. Your substantial experience has been within the Royal Air Force. How would you handle it if ever there was an accusation later that you are concentrating more on the welfare of RAF personnel rather than another service?

The first thing I would say is that, for whatever reason, I have spent most of my career in tri-service appointments, if I am honest, especially on operations in Africa and Afghanistan. I have worked for British Forces Cyprus, I worked for an Army two-star, and I have worked in organisations including the Joint Helicopter Command, which is quite often Army-led with Army processes. I am certainly well versed in the Army—less so the Navy, if I am honest—about how their processes and procedures work. The second thing I would say is that it is really important just to be dealing with the facts—getting to the root causes of the problem. I recognise that people always have perceptions. The reality and the perception can often be different. That is why it is so important that this office recognises that there are perceptions but deals in facts and evidence.

Good, good.

It is me again. All your predecessors have been lawyers or had professional backgrounds in complaints and front-facing organisations. As we know, none of them have had a career in the forces before you have. What are the advantages and disadvantages of that?

The advantages are certainty that I probably have a more strategic focus. There is always a natural tendency to revert to your comfort zone when you are a specialist in something, isn’t there? I certainly can avoid that temptation. I am well versed in utilising my team, including the current ombudsman, who is hugely experienced, leveraging the experience of my team to draw in expertise where I need it. It is important to have that more strategic overview, and I see that, in many ways, as an advantage. In terms of the disadvantage, there will always be those who feel it is important to be a subject matter expert in any organisation, for example, the Army needs to be run by somebody who is infantry, and the Air Force by a pilot—all that kind of stuff. I hold no truck with it whatsoever, if I am honest. You need to be the right person for the job, and that is not just professional competence; it is personality and personal qualities.

Where do you think you should be based?

Realistically, I should be based as close as possible to the organisation I report to, which is Parliament, as a default setting, while recognising that, in reality, the amount of time required and best spent in London working close to Parliament is a different matter. If you are going to get out and about, you have to get that balance right.

What would your views be if you were to be based in the MOD building?

I should have access to the MOD building, and I certainly do not think I should be required to have somebody book me in before I can walk through the doors, but it is very important to maintain that independence and be based close to Parliament, but not in the MOD building. That would be my preference.

I agree.

We have a very strong focus in this Committee on women in the armed forces, and the many issues we have seen and uncovered over the years. When I look back to one of our inquiries last year, when we had the head of each of the three armed forces in front of us, none of them could give me a straight answer to a question I posed: are women in the armed forces as safe as they would be in civilian life? We went around the houses for some time, with none of them able to say yes, which for me was quite concerning. What needs to change within the system so that we can get to a position where they can confidently say women are safe within the armed forces? I have to put on record that I categorically disagree with my colleague Lincoln Jopp on this, because I believe the chain of command has been an issue over the years, where people cannot go above or sidestep it. We need to look seriously at that.

My honest answer is that we are overriding millions of years of evolution as we seek to be a civilised society. There is an element of behavioural science and academia that can be brought in to understand some of these things. I do not think necessarily that segregating any minority is a way to draw the organisation together and make people feel they are working with a fellow colleague rather than someone who is female or has any other protected characteristic, if I am honest. I would need to look at it in more detail, but I would want to know what has been done so far to understand some of the driving behaviours behind that. It is an interesting question whether someone is as safe as they would be in a civilian role. It depends where you are and what role you are doing. I fully understand the point you are making, and more can be done.

No.

It is important to understand that the way we treat our people in the armed forces, including their families, has a knock-on effect, inevitably, on how effective they are at work. It also has a knock-on effect on whether they are willing to join the active reserve when they leave, which is quite important and timely at the moment. It is still true to say that a significant number of people who choose to join the armed forces do so because they know somebody who is a family member or a friend of a family member, and therefore the way they choose to represent the armed forces when they leave will have a knock-on effect on our ability to recruit. These issues are linked, I think.

I am not entirely sure what the benefit of that would be. There needs to be close interaction with the right subject matter experts. I would be absolutely interested in having reference groups, including the way that the Raising our Standards team use the networks in the armed forces to gain insight. It is important to draw on subject matter expertise across the services to inform your work. I am not entirely sure what the benefit would be of having a service person based in the office. I would have to be convinced of what the benefit of that would be.

I think so.

I have extensive experience of managing UK civil servants. Inherently, they have been working alongside me in most of the jobs that I have worked on in the past. They have been trusted members of the team—trusted colleagues. I understand some of the differences in the way they work. Obviously, a significant number of them are members of a union, so I understand that. I fully understand and have worked closely with civil servants throughout my career, and worked for them, in fact.

Before we close, we want to discuss thematic reports, starting with Emma Lewell.

What is your view on the use of thematic reports?

They can have some benefits. It would be interesting to see—I do not know the answer right now—what the initial thematic reports might well look like. It would be useful to get beyond the specifics of a complaint, where we feel that there are maybe root causes that have not been brought to the fore. In an ideal scenario, we will be highlighting issues that will be stopping complaints coming into the system, because we have identified things that perhaps need to change or improve in advance of those complaints being made. I think there is a role for thematic reporting. It would be interesting to see how that develops over time.

If there were a thematic report and you had your findings and recommendations, how would you go about making sure that something came of that? This place is full of reports where there is outrage and everyone reads them, and then they get put on a shelf, the day moves on and nobody does anything about it.

It comes back to the point I was making to Mr Martin earlier, which is about that overarching, holistic view, where we have our arms around everything and we are not just abdicating recommendations for someone else to implement. We need to make sure that recommendations are followed up in a timely manner, otherwise they can become out of date very quickly. I think that is really important.

How would you do that?

I would have a mechanism to track and address those complaints. Importantly, it comes back to the ownership and accountability. Who owns that recommendation? Who is responsible for implementing it? Who is best placed to implement that recommendation, and how are they reporting back into the commissioner’s office and then ultimately back to this Committee, if that is what is necessary?

Thank you very much indeed for coming in. It has been a shockingly bad process, don’t you think? To launch it in June 2025, then have the MOD come in and essentially say they cannot find anyone, and then appoint an interim. We are enormously grateful to you for coming in at such short notice, because this has not shown the Department at its best. I will allow you to comment on that, if you would like.

I was going to say, is that a question?

By the way, you do not need to answer that, because you are not responsible for the process itself. This pre-appointment hearing is about your capabilities.

It is also about the process, so they can improve the process going forward.

I have not been privy to what has gone on in the background of this process, beyond what I have already explained to the Committee. The work that can be done through an interim appointment to develop the role of the Armed Forces Commissioner and make sure it is more mature will help to inform who the necessary candidate might be when eventually the open recruiting system no doubt happens again and an individual is appointed.

Thank you for that. A mischievous suggestion on my part is that the Secretary of State really has no choice, so you can set your terms now before you finally accept the appointment when it is offered to you. If there is anything that comes out of this hearing or if you have any further thoughts, I think he will have to take your view, because he has to make this appointment if we approve it. I just put that thought in, because you could start to set the terms of your work up front in a way that might help you. I want to ask you a question. Imagine you do some work on a thematic report, and you come to the conclusion that there has been a shocking failure by the commanding officer responsible for a particular area. What then happens? What is your reaction? Is that something you could never mention in a report, or is that something you could mention in a report? Obviously, it is a structural problem with the way it has been handled that could be cured by changing that element of the chain of command. How do you feel about that?

I want to be open and transparent: I am not a fan of making changes behind closed doors. It is a bit like somebody making a bullying complaint and then being told by the individual, “Why didn’t you just come and tell me? Why did you feel the need to make a formal complaint about my bullying?” Well, because if I do not, no one else will ever know the patterns of behaviour that that individual is exhibiting, for example. I am not a massive fan of anything other than complete transparency. I would like to think that with any report I put forward, there will clearly be a period in which individuals have a right of reply. I would have to think very carefully about whether there is a requirement to name people specifically.

You would name their jobs; you would not necessarily name the individual.

Yes, but it would be clear to people, I am sure, who the individuals are that you might be talking about. It depends whether it is a fundamental failure of an individual or an organisational failure and therefore how you deal with it.

You wouldn’t be frit about it.

No, absolutely not.

Of course, it would be open to you to make a private recommendation in relation to a particular role that did not necessarily become explicit in the report.

Indeed. From the conversations I have had with the ombudsman, I know that she already gives very honest and immediate feedback when she goes on her outreach visits, if she feels that perhaps morale has in some way changed after a change of personality. I go back to the point that I was making before: in an ideal world, this is about preventing problems happening before they start. It is not about punishing people afterwards. If we are picking up on the right things, hopefully we can address root causes and raise the standards overall.

You will understand that we are sensitive on this because the Government have taken measures to restrict the power of the defence chiefs to speak publicly, and they have also briefed privately against the Chief of the Defence Staff. We are sensitive to issues about freedom of speech being appropriately exercised within scrutiny roles. I think you are saying that you are sensitive to that too, but you take a forward-leaning, public transparency-oriented approach.

Yes, and transparency is key to the credibility of the appointment.

That is something you have seen in your previous experience. Can you give us an example of where that worked out well for you or did not work out well and caused you to think about it?

If I am honest, I have always found that a transparent approach has worked out for the better, and maybe that is part of my personal qualities. Integrity is very important to me. However, whether you are able to make change or not, you need to be able to get up the next morning, look yourself in the eye in the mirror and start all over again. I would like to think that that is the approach I would take to any role.

So if you were going to do some work, for example, on issues affecting service families as well as service personnel, you would regard yourself as bound by internal concerns of integrity, as well as the formal role, to pursue that to the best of your ability, almost as a matter of justice for the families.

It is absolutely important that you are transparent. It has to be evidence-based. There should be no mischievousness in that and no point scoring. This is about utter transparency, getting to the heart of issues and potentially exposing some of the root causes of problems.

But it is also about naming things and assembling evidence where everyone knows what the problem is, but no one has quite got to the point of being able to state it authoritatively.

Absolutely. If it is evidence-based, that goes back to the point I made that sometimes when reports make their way through the chain of command, by the time they get to the very top, some of the sharp edges have been knocked off them. The opportunity to shine a light on where there have been issues and where there are areas we can make change is very important.

You will be protecting those sharp edges when the civil servants try to knock them off.

If that is what is required, then yes, I will.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. A lot of suggestions have been made about potential thematic reports. For example, Collette Musgrave from the Army Families Federation suggested that you could look at the fact that the covenant is not properly understood at the point of delivery in organisations. Is there one particular thematic report that you think should be prioritised or that you want to do?

I think it is the impact on families of the requirement to routinely move location and everything that goes with that—medical, dental, career implications for spouses and families, continuity of education, access to EHCPs. That is a massive issue that has been addressed in part but has not been looked at in the round.

My initial thoughts were that we would be looking at areas that affect the most people, areas that affect particularly vulnerable or minority groups, or the most serious issues. Those would be the early areas that I would look to be putting resource into. But I reiterate what I said previously: I am a real fan of independent test and challenge. I am a real fan of making sure that we bring on board the networks. Not only in advance, when you are deciding what you are going to investigate, but once you have drafted reports and potentially made recommendations, it is really important to get those independent voices to make sure there are not unintended consequences from some of your recommendations. However broadly and strategically we think we look, inevitably, we cannot look at things through every lens, so that is really important.

Ms Miller-Perkins, thank you very much for appearing before the Committee and providing us with insights into your potential appointment. I remind Committee members to remain here so that we can go into the private part of our session.