Conclusion
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I have upheld Mr A’s complaint about the MoD and the Agency, which I hope will now bring a lengthy and distressing complaints process to a close. I am sorry that my investigation has taken as long as it has and am grateful to Mrs A and to Mr A’s siblings for their continued patience and the assistance they have provided during my investigation of this complaint.
That Mr A and his siblings suffered at the hands of the UK Government is undeniable and it is good to see the MoD accepting that, at last. It is regrettable that Mr A did not live to receive that news personally and to see the injustice done to him and his siblings being remedied. I hope that my report, and the response to it from the MoD, will go some way towards giving Mrs A, and Mr A’s siblings, a sense of satisfaction that, at the end of a long and sorry episode, the UK Government has finally managed to ‘get it right’.
The MoD has agreed to all my recommendations and the response I have received from the Permanent Under-Secretary of State and her officials to redress these serious failings has been heartening. Of course, the real test will be in how well the MoD learns lessons from its mistakes and applies them to prevent anyone else suffering in the way that Mr A and his siblings have done.
I think the final words should go to the family. Responding to the draft report, Mrs B, one of Mr A’s sisters, wrote the following:
‘It is clear that the most honourable intent of the “debt of honour” Compensation Scheme, in certain circumstances, devolved into an administrative quagmire that, over many years, simply lost sight of its intention.’
That seems to me to sum it up precisely.
Ann Abraham
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
September 2011
