The Service Complaints Ombudsman for the Armed Forces (SCOAF) does not collect or produce statistics on the time taken between receipt of a completed application and allocation to an investigator. However, SCOAF does produce statistics on the time taken between first contact and allocation to an investigator, and the relevant statistics on this metric are provided below.
Year investigation application received | Number of SCOAF investigations where the time taken from first contact to the allocation of an investigator was: | ||
1 or more months | 2 or more months | 3 or more months | |
2016 | 21* | [c] | [c] |
2017 | 48* | 29* | 22* |
2018 | 112 | 100 | 96 |
2019 | 53 | 48 | 46 |
2020 | 44 | 39 | 39 |
2021 | 61 | 59 | 47 |
2022 | 74 | 64 | 37 |
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Year investigation application received | Proportion of SCOAF investigations where the time taken from first contact to the allocation of an investigator was: | ||
1 or more months | 2 or more months | 3 or more months | |
2016 | 6%* | [c] | [c] |
2017 | 12%* | 7%* | 5%* |
2018 | 32% | 28% | 27% |
2019 | 16% | 15% | 14% |
2020 | 15% | 14% | 14% |
2021 | 18% | 17% | 14% |
2022 | 21% | 18% | 10% |
[c] Confidential - These numbers have been suppressed as the number of SCOAF investigations in 2016 that took two or more months to allocate to an investigator from first contact, was four or fewer. | |||
* To the best of SCOAF’s knowledge, no completed application took more than 10 days to be allocated to an investigator. Source: SCOAF casework |
Prior to February 2018, cases were allocated to an investigator within 10 working days of receipt of a completed application. This occurred even when they did not have the capacity to actively progress the complaints they were allocated. In order to be more transparent and better manage complainant expectation, this practice was stopped. This resulted in investigators having more manageable caseloads in which they actively worked on all cases assigned to them. However, it also created an allocation backlog for all eligible applications for substance and maladministration investigations.
In 2019, a new process was introduced where all eligible applications for substance and maladministration investigations are triaged. The purpose of the triage is to conduct an early assessment of the application to determine whether the matter warrants further investigation by SCOAF.
Cases in the backlog are matters of substance and maladministration. There are no delays in processing applications for referral, admissibility reviews or undue delay. Addressing the backlog has been identified as a key focus for SCOAF; they have successfully recruited into a number of vacancies and are now fully staffed on the operational side of the organisation. It is expected that these new staff will assist in SCOAF’s ability to further reduce the backlog.
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