Examination of Witnesses (Questions 560
- 579)
WEDNESDAY 19 JANUARY 2000 [Morning]
MR JOHN
SPELLAR MP, AIR
MARSHAL MALCOLM
PLEDGER, VICE
ADMIRAL SIR
IAN GARNETT,
GENERAL SIR
ALEX HARLEY,
AIR MARSHAL
SIR ANTHONY
BAGNALL AND
COMMODORE PETER
WYKEHAM-MARTIN
560. Yes. We feel strongly about that, too,
and I know we have a line of questioning on those issues, because
they are extremely important. There was an initiative, called
the Separated Services Initiative, that was introduced to measure
properly the way in which people are being used in the armed forces
and the effect on them. That really needs to be properly funded,
but I do not believe a decision has been taken yet on when that
is going to happen. Can you tell us a bit about it?
(Air Marshal Pledger) In terms of measuring time that
people are separated, currently one of the services does have
such a mechanism. You have already heard described by the Adjutant
General the activity that is going on currently to trial a similar
mechanism in the Army. I think the point I would make is that,
therefore, there are initiatives under way and what we have to
do is represent that in a way then that is usable management information.
We already, to an extent, have different levels of information
because there are remedial actions in terms of paying people for
exceeding some of the harmony rules that you have heard described.
However, I think the bottom line is that in setting up that system
we must recognise the different modus operandi of the three services
and measure something that impacts on their operational capability
rather than just defining a system that will give us a series
of numbers. So those are being taken forward with that overarching
objective.
561. Of course, naturally, but it was the measure
that you chose yourselves to use to be able to measure armed forces.
Therefore, it needs to be properly funded to give you the information
you want. Can you tell us anything about that? Is it going to
be a scheme that is going to be worthwhile, not only for you but,
I hope, for us?
(General Sir Alex Harley) Certainly we are doing work
now to be able to bring all this together on a tri-service basis
so there can be a tri-service way of measuring separated service.
However, as I tried to explain with the work the Land Command
are doing, it is not an easy matter. You are quite right, there
will need to be IT funding for this thing, but firstly we have
got to work out mechanisms on a tri-service basis for how to do
this. Once we have done that then, obviously, we will start to
look at the IT and we may be able to use some of the IT that we
already have. I wonder if I could come back to the Army's manning
where the Minister felt we were under most pressure. We do not
watch this situation just happening, with people being busier
and busier and just accepting it. If you look at the Army's overall
manning, we are making a tremendous effort at the moment to try
and increase the numbers by various schemes: to make better use
of the Ghurkas—we have kept the Ghurkas reinforcement companies
for longer and we are going to have an additional engineers and
signals squadron in the Ghurkas; we have specifically aimed at
keeping senior NCOs on in the Army longer, for those that volunteer
to stay on longer, and we have made substantial use of reservists
(ten per cent of those who are serving in Bosnia are reservists)
and, also, full-time reserved service from the Territorial Army.
If you compare the overall undermanning situation in the Army
compared with our establishment, without all those schemes it
is minus 5.6 per cent. If you add in all those schemes it is minus
4.1 per cent, including raising the establishment level to account
for those people. So that is one of the things that we do. We
have introduced post-operational tour leave, which is one month,
which everybody gets, absolutely dedicated within one month of
leaving an operational tour. That has gone down hugely well across
the Army, and I think all three services. We have done quite a
lot for families, connecting them up with internets, where they
are connected up, with their husbands who are away, and we have
included better arrangements for concessionary travel so they
can travel backwards and forwards from Germany. Recently we have
decided that we will move to a length-of-service based commission
for officers, which starts in April, because we realise, with
rather older officers, that they do not spend as much time as
we would like with their soldiers in junior units; there has been
quite a lot of difficulty with the operational pressures where
units have had to backfill each other, they have had to change
their locations quite a bit and so there is a disruptive chain
of command all the time. That has been compounded by the fact
that we have continued a system, which is that, by and large,
although most officers now have a university degree we have nonetheless
treated them as if they are qualifying from Sandhurst at 19/20
whereas, in fact, 85 per cent of them are qualifying at 24/25
now. There is a whole raft of these sorts of processes where we
try and alleviate things. If I can just have one more minute,
in an overstretched Land Command it is the time between operations
which is most painful to soldiers, so that when they come back
from operations they are carrying out all the duties of those
people who are away. Land Command looks very sensitively at this
situation, such that the only training that takes place is that
specifically tied to operational training. Therefore, all the
other sorts of tasks that people get caught up with—trials
of one kind or another, guard duties here and there, and other
exercises supporting other formations, and so on—get reduced
right down. We also try and introduce a Monday to Friday regime
so that people do not have to turn up on a Sunday night to go
training on Monday. So there is a whole wealth of these schemes,
and as a result of some of this retention has notched up a little
since last summer.
Laura Moffatt: A little.
Chairman
562. You are obviously trying very hard. You
can recruit as many soldiers as you want in Nepal. Does it not
look even more stupid the way in which the Ministry of Defence
has capped the number of Ghurkas? Has there been any attempt to
recruit more Ghurkas or to retain them longer?
(General Sir Alex Harley) We have looked at that.
We do expect to achieve our full manning targets by 2005, as is
laid down in the Strategic Defence Review.
Mr Blunt
563. It is 2004 in the Defence Review.
(General Sir Alex Harley) 2005.
Mr Brazier: It has moved a year.
Chairman
564. We can check on that before we leave.
(General Sir Alex Harley) We do expect to have full
manning by the targets we have been set. Therefore, apart from
extending the length of service of Ghurkas we have not chosen
to recruit lots more because we could then be stuck with a problem
of having—because they have a 15-year length of service—rather
more Ghurkas than we require. So that is not part of the strategy,
but we are using many of those gambits that I talked about to
try and fill the gaps that we have.
565. 2004/05 is a long time to have to wait
for a fully manned Army. Why not recruit Ghurkas for 5 years instead
of 15?
(General Sir Alex Harley) The process of manning is
such that you do not suddenly say, on 1 April, "You are now
expected to be manned to a completely new figure" because
you have a rolling programme of getting towards the target, which
is all about commitments and new tasks which the manpower is supposed
to fund. So every year the liability of manpower to do with the
jobs goes up, and it is stepped and funded on that basis.
Mr Hancock
566. How easy is it for a senior NCO in the
Army who wants to stay in to stay in?
(General Sir Alex Harley) How easy?
567. Yes. Is it the same for all trades?
(General Sir Alex Harley) No, it is not. It depends
on what his trade is, which part of the Army he is working in
and how well he is doing. Of course, we can make it quite flexible
that people can stay on for one, two or three years and we are
trying to make it as flexible as we can. I may not quite have
the figures right, but in the last year we have gone up from something
like 180 or so of those people to well into the 400s.
568. Do many of them seek to retrain at the
end of their career because they are facing not the option of
staying in, but they might if they were able to diversify their
talents into another area? What opportunities are you giving to
them?
(General Sir Alex Harley) Certainly from my perspective
I try and push the idea that if you have not quite got the right
person to fill a gapped position then why not retrain someone
by sending him/her on a course—some young sergeant—and
make sure that he is qualified to do that job. We are trying to
do this right the way across the Army. Sometimes it is not going
as quickly as I would like because people are worried about establishments,
but you must also remember that for every sergeant warrant officer
you keep in the Army you are stopping the rank structure for those
that are coming up through. So it has to be a very careful balance.
Nevertheless, it is a very successful thing and the Army is catching
on to using it rather more.
569. Can I ask that you give us some figures
in writing for that—and, maybe, for the RAF and the Navy
as well—because I think it is an interesting situation.
(General Sir Alex Harley) We can certainly do that.
570. We have these very well trained, and very
expensively trained, men who are now approaching 40, who know
they are coming to the end of their career but they are being
denied the opportunity for retraining. You will spend quite a
lot of money allowing them to train for a civilian job during
the last year or so of their service, but you will not allow them
to train to be reused within the armed forces—which, to
me, seems ludicrous.
(General Sir Alex Harley) As I say, we are trying
to use this rather more imaginatively than we have done in the
past. It has come around on a "needs must" basis, but
I think it is very good and it is very popular.
(Mr Spellar) I have to say, Michael, that I have observed
in the two-and-a-half years of being a Minister a much greater
flexibility in the services in looking at a number of these issues,
including the one you are raising. I found this system to be much
more rigid in 1997 than I do now.
571. I was thinking of your predecessor in Italy,
talking to RAF staff, who were very depressed about what had been
offered to them. The RAF had people problems but they were not
encouraging people to seek to retrain. I do not think, General,
there is a downward flow of your confidence that that is being
offered to people.
(Air Marshal Sir Anthony Bagnall) Can I just, perhaps,
pick up on the Royal Air Force, to give you two examples of the
flexibility we have introduced? Hitherto, if an airman had not
been promoted to sergeant he would not be offered an extended
career. Now we have cut back on recruiting—for 100 people
this year and 200 over the next three years—so that an SAC
or JT will be offered a long career opportunity to prove himself,
perhaps get promoted and get to a pensionable engagement. At the
macro-level—because we are short of pilots—we are
taking in navigators who demonstrated pilot aptitude potential
as they went through training but there was no scope for them
to fill a pilot's job and we are cross-training them to fill pilots
jobs and doing that very successfully.
Chairman
572. When military personnel leave they are
interviewed and give their reasons. What analysis has there been,
Minister, of the reasons given for people clearing off early?
(Mr Spellar) Many of the reasons have been identified
here, and family pressures are undoubtedly significant—and
the change in people's lifestyle. One of the results of evolutionary
changes is a greater percentage of spouses who work, and not just
work but have careers. At a certain stage this puts particular
pressure on—not least, at a time when we have a strong economy
and considerable employment opportunities.
573. Perhaps we can come on to that later. I
just wanted to bring it in to this.
(Mr Spellar) I do not know if Air Marshal Pledger
wants to identify some of the other areas that have been raised.
(Air Marshal Pledger) Presumably, Mr Chairman, you
are aware that we do run continuous attitude surveys as well,
to see what the current perspectives are. There is a whole range
of issues, and almost certainly, at the moment, op tempo would
head that list, I believe.
Mr Blunt
574. I am sorry, what would head that?
(Air Marshal Pledger) Op tempo—operational tempo.
Perhaps another one, of course, is today's society. There is an
expectation, shall we say, that people will have a portfolio of
employment opportunities rather than the through-life expectations
of the past. So we are not dealing with one particular issue,
and, again, we have a variegated approach to it.
Chairman: We will come back to that.
Mr Colvin
575. Let us pick up on one issue which Laura
Moffatt raised, which is separated service. I cannot understand
why in the White Paper there is no mention at all of the increased
enhancement of allowances for separated service. There is a good
story to tell, yet in the part on Policy for People you do not
mention it, and in answer to the questions this morning about
separated service there is no mention of the enhanced allowances
which can give an additional £1,000. Why is that? Was it,
perhaps, an after-thought on the part of the new Secretary of
State, because we only got the announcement on 20 December, which
is after we expected the original White Paper to be published?
(Mr Spellar) Not an after-thought but a considered
position. Also, there is £2,000 for even more intensive separated
service.
576. Why do you not mention it in the White
Paper?
(Mr Spellar) I think that is a matter of timing, actually,
in terms of that, but it is part of a wide ranging portfolio of
responses that we have made and, also, the guaranteed 28 days
leave on return from operations. All of these are designed, along
with many of these minor measures, to relieve some of the irritations
as well as the major impacts, in order to try and alleviate those
problems. That will not work for every individual, because for
some individuals it is a change—or an evolution—in
their personal circumstances which is the main driver. However,
what we are seeing is a net inflow into the Army over the last
few months. We are not building a huge edifice on that because
we want to see more robust figures over a longer period of time,
but we believe that is an indication, in statistical terms, of
the changes having some impact, and that is backed up, I have
to say, by anecdotal evidence in going round our various establishments,
and the response to a number of these measures from our service
personnel.
577. Can you give us a figure for the additional
costs of these higher separated service allowances over a year?
What is the estimate of the additional cost?
(Mr Spellar) About £12-15 million.
Mr Hancock
578. When do you start paying that.
(Mr Spellar) It is backdated from 1 December.
579. This year?
(General Sir Alex Harley) Last year. So anybody who
has had 240 days'—whatever it was—separated service
in the two years from 1 December last gets £1,000.
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