Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many service complaints relating to (a) bullying, (b) discrimination, (c) harassment and (d) assault have been made in each year since 2016.

There are no Service complaint reporting categories for ‘assault’, ‘catering’, or ‘equipment’. For common assault, actual bodily harm, and grievous bodily harm/wounding, these are offences that are dealt with under Service Law, not Service Complaints. If an individual has been the victim of a criminal act such as an assault, this will need to be reported to the appropriate civilian or military authorities and will be dealt with by the criminal justice system. Catering and equipment are not areas covered by Service complaints. There are different mechanisms for recording any issues in these areas. In addition, there are some issues that need to go through a separate complaints process before that can form the basis of a Service complaint. These are known as ‘Special to Type’ (STT). STT issues include housing complaints and issues regarding pay and allowances. Joint Service Publication 831 provides detailed guidance about what can and cannot be the subject of a Service Complaint and provides a comprehensive list of excluded matters: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/jsp-831-redress-of-individual-grievances-service-complaints

To review every Service complaint within scope to identify if ‘assault’, ‘catering’, or ‘equipment’ are referenced as part of the complaint would incur disproportionate cost.

The number of admissible Service complaints for Bullying, Discrimination, Harassment, Accommodation, and Pay is presented in the table below:

Notes to table:

- Discrimination

There is no reporting category for ‘Discrimination’. The available sub-reporting categories are:

• Age, Disability, Gender Reassignment, Marriage & Civil Partnership, Pregnancy & Maternity, Race/Ethnicity Discrimination
• Religion/Belief Discrimination
• Sex Discrimination and Sexual Orientation Discrimination

The Discrimination figures provided are for all sub-reporting categories

- Harassment

There is no reporting category for ‘Harassment’. The available sub-reporting categories are:

• Age, Disability, Gender Reassignment, Race/Ethnicity Harassment, Religion/Belief Harassment
• Sex Harassment
• Sexual Harassment and Sexual Orientation Harassment

The Harassment figures provided are for all sub-reporting categories.

- Housing

There is no reporting category for ‘Housing’. Within the ‘Terms and Conditions of Service’ reporting category there is a sub-reporting category of ‘Accommodation’ which has been presented in lieu.

- Pay

There is no reporting category for ‘Pay’. The available sub-reporting categories are:

• Allowances
• Basic Pay
• Charges
• Pension Entitlements
• Specialist Pay

The Pay figures provided are for all sub-reporting categories. Pay queries will have been through their STT process first and are normally a complaint about the policy on which the STT decision was made.