Promotions in the Armed Forces of Malta

Since I am confident that the Permanent Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister, Mr Joe Grima, would not deliberately mislead parliament, I must assume that the evidence which he presented on the subject of promotions in the AFM in response to the Ombudsman's report on the matter was partially incomplete in the interests of brevity.

Your report "Government defends AFM promotion procedures" (October 22) stated, inter alia, that: "It was conceded that the long intervals which elapsed between one promotion round and another in the past did not represent an ideal situation. The aim was to move to a system of annual promotion rounds. However, it was impractical for promotions to be made on a quarterly basis as the ombudsman was insisting. This was a massively time consuming activity which could [not] be done in three months."

I was the adviser to the prime minister on defence policy matters between January 1996 and February 1999. One of the areas which I had reviewed in conjunction with the Commander AFM was promotion procedures for Non-Commissioned Officers.

The policy on this was laid down, with the agreement of the permanent secretary and the prime minister, in an instruction issued on August 19, 1997 (file reference OPM/C/548/65) which itself was a refinement of work we had done in early 1996. This instruction was still in being when I left Castille in 1999.

This stated inter alia: "The new scheme for promotions to Non- Commissioned Officer and Warrant Officer will be one whereby promotions are issued as an on-going process, as often as three times a year, depending on establishment vacancies worked out on a Unit basis. However, although the trawl to fill vacancies will be done on a unit basis, any vacancy in any unit may be filled by the most suitably qualified individual for that particular post from any one of the other units. In such cases, a re-assessment of the promotion assessment reports in respect of the short-listed suitable candidates will be made on the direct authority of the Commander in order to select the best candidate for the post in the force as a whole. This will have the effect of encouraging promotion of the best candidates in the force, as well as cross-fertilising talent across units."

The reason, as I recall, for issuing that instruction was that the practice until then had been for promotions in the AFM to be carried out en masse at irregular intervals of anything from two to four years.

This was not the most satisfactory system for effecting promotions for a number of reasons, not least being the delay in filling vacancies and thus the distortion that occurs to the chain of command and soldiers' career pyramid.

I must surmise that the reason for not following the procedures laid down in August 1997 was either the imposition of a freeze on promotions for political or financial reasons or an administrative hiccup in the system.

It may also be that there was a deliberate reversal of that policy after February 1999. But, if so, I think that would have been mistaken. A system of regular promotions to fill vacancies broadly as they occur would have avoided the current furore.

I should add that I agree entirely with the permanent secretary's sentiment that "[Impartial treatment] cannot come at the expense of divesting the AFM of discretion to reward performance and initiative and to promote the persons best fitted for particular tasks".

Given the integrity and objectivity of the Ombudsman, I am sure that he too would concur.

Mr Scicluna was adviser to the prime minister between 1996 and 1999.