ANOTHER day, another Deepcut report. But still no public inquiry.

The Commons Defence Select Committee report does, though, throw up some very interesting ideas.

We wholly support an independent military complaints commission. In the wake of Operation Lancet on Teesside, we called for a properly independent police complaints body; in the wake of the Neale affair in North Yorkshire, we called for a properly independent medical complaints body.

In this modern world of openness and freedom of information, public services cannot operate in secret if they want the public to have faith in them.

Of course, it would be far better if there were no complaints at all for any kind of commission to have to investigate.

Part of the drive behind the Deepcut families' campaign is to ensure that their misery is not inflicted on anyone else in the future. The Select Committee suggests that a way forward is for the Army to look at the "appropriateness" of recruiting under 18-year-olds.

Is 16 too tender an age to be taught to kill? Too tender an age to be square bashed by battlefield discipline?

Quite probably, although rather than ban youngsters in search of a career from joining the regular Army, it might be possible to prepare them for it with a junior, full-time cadet force.

The most significant stride, though, would be for the Army to shed its arrogant and insensitive attitudes.

"In the past, insufficient weight has been given to the issue of bullying, which led to a tolerance of, or at least insufficient action being taken against, bullying," says the Select Committee.

Of course, Army life is very different from civvy street. But basic standards of humanity and compassion must still be required, particularly in a modern Army - both when it deals with its young recruits and when it performs its "nation-building" duties abroad.

However, the Select Committee report does not provide the answers the Deepcut families are looking for - the answers about how their children died and whether the Army tried to cover up their deaths.

Until they receive those answers, probably through a public inquiry, there will be insufficient evidence for the public to conclude that the Army has turned over a new less arrogant and more sensitive leaf.