Examination of witnesses (Questions 297
- 323)
WEDNESDAY 1 NOVEMBER 2000
LIEUTENANT GENERAL
TIM GRANVILLE-CHAPMAN
and AIR MARSHAL
MALCOLM PLEDGER
Mr Viggers
297. The challenge which the Army faces in recruiting
sufficient personnel is a long-term one and you are out fighting
with many other perspective employers now. The way of life in
the Armed Forces is very different to the way of life in the civilian
field. What new initiatives are you considering to enable the
Army to meet its challenge in recruiting targets?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) I have to agree,
it is challenging. I would just say, the way we approach recruiting
is a fairly continuous campaign. We do not just lurch from new
idea to new idea, it is pretty continuous. To some extent, I suppose,
we are dealing with the same product. We are not like a business
that completely redefines itself, so you would not, I think, expect
me to say we have done something outrageously different from what
we have done in the past. I would say that the recruiting act
is a pretty sharp one already and, therefore, one is looking to
improve what is already a pretty reasonable product. That may
sound rather complimentary to ourselves, it is not meant to, but
it is quite a sharp act. However, there is definitely a need,
from time to time, for shift change. There have been some shift
changes. First of all, the marketing realm. We took stock of this,
this year actually, and asked ourselves did the world out there
know that we were recruiting. I think until five years ago they
probably did not. Our research revealed that about 93% of the
target population we assessed knew that we were in the business
of recruiting and, therefore, we could begin making a switch from
creating an image and a knowledge of the Army to getting a response
from those who we thought might be interested in us. As a general
rule of thumb we reckoned about 6% of those who we were targeting
would reveal that they were definitely interested, about 20 odd
per cent might say that they were quite interested and the rest
would say they were not interested in the least. Therefore, I
think in marketing terms we have switched from creating an image
and making sure people knew we were in the market to getting a
pretty targeted response. I do not know if you saw the latest
television advertisements, which probably were original, I have
certainly been told by many more senior people they were original,
because not a single uniform appeared in them, for example. If
you have not seen them I would commend looking at them. They have
been successful. They have created a remarkable response, higher
than we have ever had in terms of response from a television campaign
to date. I wait to see whether those responses then turn into
firm applications. I cannot give you the answer to that yet and
whether that has worked. If you look at that campaign as well
you will see that it has a pretty strong diversity element in
it, again intentionally, as you would expect. We have started
a youth membership scheme for 12-15 year olds called Camouflage,
it is only going a few months now but it has a membership of 10,000.
That, I think, will probably be seen as a market leader when people
look at it, and I would be very happy to show you it. It is a
magazine and membership of a website, and so on. That is going
very well. In the marketing area we have made some considerable
shifts. How we handle this as a whole—you are probably familiar
with this, as I think you are taking evidence from the Chief Executive
of the recruiting organisation later and he will go into detail
if you want him to—is that in essence we do this in a pretty
joined-up way. The Army is pretty diverse. We now do it in a very
joined-up way through the recruiting organisation, and I am much
involved in it. We have also gone very much back, in one sense,
to our roots, in that we have put the burden on the regional brigade
commanders to meet targets, to combine the efforts on the recruiting
front of the Cadet Forces, taking a point made earlier, and make
sure that where there are ethnic minority targets set they relate
to the region in which they are. All those, I think, are fairly
substantial shifts in emphasis, taken literally in the last year
or so. Now we know we are pretty reasonably into the market we
are now seriously seeking responses.
298. It is widely understood that areas in the
Army where there are transferable skills, skills capable of being
used in civilian life afterwards, are better recruited, like engineers,
signals, and so on. Much of the difficulty is with the infantry,
and the skills they learn in the Army, are not so easily transferable
into civilian life. Are you able to attack this and find qualifications
which can be earned in the Army, which will then stand the individual
in good stead when the individual goes back into civilian life,
thus assisting in recruiting?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) There are certain
things we do in this area. The infantry is probably one area where
there are least transferable skills. It rather depends which route
the person came in. If, for example, that individual came in via
the Army Foundation College, which is new, which takes junior
entrants, they will in the process of their year there receive
a good deal more than military training. It is very popular and
that is why it is largely over-subscribed. In the course of that
they will do a certain amount of personal development training
and get some qualifications. More broadly we have a strategic
partnership with the Department for Education and Employment in
which we are fulfilling the lifelong learning initiatives that
are part of that. All soldiers will have access to getting NVQs.
Military skills are being recognised in the NVQ Forum. Each soldier
from about now will have a Personal Development Record in which
all this is recorded. We are making very sure that the officers
and NCOs are getting rather better trained, in making sure they
bear down on their soldiers to make sure they keep themselves
up-to-date and indeed, their company, squadron, platoon make sure
these people find time to do it. Even somebody in the infantry
will have things on his or her Personal Development Record when
he or she leaves which hitherto they might not have had and which,
by and large, would transfer pretty well.
299. I was surprised last week, in response
to a Parliamentary question, to be told by the Under-Secretary
for Defence that 9,144 soldiers are currently medically down-graded,
having been medically down-graded for more than four weeks, 9,144,
which is almost getting on for 10% of the Army. That does not
include personnel who are ill for shorter periods than four weeks.
This seems to be a very large number. Is it large? Could this
number be reduced by the fast tracking of medical care for personnel
in the Armed Forces?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) The answer
is yes on both counts. It is a big figure, I would much rather
it was not that size. Secondly, we are looking at fast tracking,
putting as many people through the system as we possibly can.
It seriously affects getting people from recruiting into the trained
Army. We have a serious number of people waiting to go through
certain tests, because if in the initial medical screening a certain
symptom is seen—we have to check out heart murmurs, for
example—that takes a considerable amount of time to get
done under the present system and it is possible when that is
being done people lose interest and keeping people engaged in
this process is a big issue. We are looking at, and have tried
already, a certain amount of fast tracking and paying for it in
order to make it work. We may look at doing that further.
Chairman
300. Having instructed my colleagues not to
ask a question we decided upon, I am going to break my own rule.
We have taken an excessive interest in the defence medical services.
Taking this appallingly long list—I am sure it does not
include people with gunshot wounds, it must be fairly modest conditions
like hernias—can they get into hospitals, and if not, why
not? Would you drop us a note on it? We will be awaiting it eagerly,
so you had better get clearance before you send it to us. Essentially,
are we ever going to get the men and women into hospital swiftly?
Are they going around with hernias because they simply cannot
go into a hospital? If it was possible for them to jump the queue,
which in a military hospital, frankly, they ought to be able to
do, it is, frankly, appalling.
(Air Marshal Pledger) We will provide you with a note
in answer to the question.
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Secondary care,
which is really what you are talking about, is a Tri-Service issue.
A note from this side would be right.
Chairman: A long note please, if you
would.
Mr Brazier
301. We were assured two or three years ago
we would have full strength by 2004, we are now told we are going
to have 97% strength, that is almost halfway back to full strength,
by 2004. Given that we have lost 400 during the most recent month
of August, is that just wishful thinking?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Is it wishful
thinking? The figure we are working to is 108,500 in April 2005.
The size of the Army now is about 100,000 and, therefore, we have
a considerable way to go to get there. We are still committed
to achieving that target. I could not possibly suggest to you
it is anything other than very challenging, indeed, to make that
target. You then ask me what is the chance and what are we doing
about it. The answer is that we are seriously bearing down on
quality in order to reduce wastage. That may seem, in a sense,
rather contradictory. It is not so. We do well on our recruiting
targets, by and large. Last year about 95% or 96% of the recruiting
target was met. What matters is how many people go into the trained
Army, that is where we are currently falling down. That figure
per month should be about plus 110. This year, which has not been
so good in the first few months, it is minus 28. The trick is
to reduce the amount of wastage that is happening, from the time
we first recruit them to the time they go into the trained Army.
That wastage occurs, as I think I went through last time, in the
recruit selection process and we are bearing down hard on that.
It occurs in the phase one training, which is the most dramatic
for an individual, for pretty obvious reasons. I gave evidence
on that last time. We are looking seriously at whether we should
combine phase one and phase two in a more seamless way, where
we might achieve even less wastage. All of those are pretty challenging
things and we are looking at the extent to which we can accelerate
progress in getting more juniors in, because that is an area which
is pretty fertile. That is a pretty challenging target to meet.
302. You have just done an initiative with The
Sun, was it a success? Are you planning to repeat it? I have
obviously fazed you on that.
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) You have.
303. I am going to make one last reference to
Cadets. There was a study quoted in the House of Lords, that was
done in Scotland, which showed that the retention rates through
basic training amongst youngsters who serve in the Cadets are
much higher than the rest of the population. I believe the point
I made earlier about ethnic minorities is borne out anecdotally
overwhelmingly. To what extent are Cadets central to your recruiting
pattern? Have you thought about redeploying some of the large
sums that are now spent on recruiting into very small extra sums
for the Cadets, whose Tri-Service budget is a lot less than £30
million at the moment?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Yes. I will
just turn to the figures. 15.3% of the Army intake were ex-Cadets
as at March this year, which is a pretty respectable figure. It
is, of course, the case that we do not run the Cadet organisation
principally as a recruiting organisation. It declared purpose,
as you well know, in that it is part of the Department's wider
contribution to society. Nevertheless, it is a fertile ground.
I also mentioned, and this is new, by recruiting on a regional
brigade Commander basis, which we have not in the past, he will
look right across his area to see whether a pay-off in the Cadet
realm in his particular region is worth pursuing. I shall be looking
at their recruiting plans in this respect pretty carefully. Your
point is well made. It does seem sensible to push further in particular
regions in relation to Cadets; particularly, as you say, if their
ethnic minority component looks a particularly fertile one, then
that is just the sort of recommendation I shall be getting from
those regional brigade commanders. It is a Tri-Service point too.
(Air Marshal Pledger) I think you said that the Cadet
budget was £30 million—I think it is £60 million.
Mr Brazier: I thought the Tri-Service
was under 30, 27 something.
Mr Hancock
304. You do not seem to know about The Sun
recruiting campaign—we have been privileged to get copies—a
call to the Army from The Sun, a Career Service on case
studies. Do you know about it now?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) I am familiar
with it. We commissioned The Sun to do the work for us.
305. This picture of you with the page three
girl is unrelated! Do you know the success of that or is it too
early to tell?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) I do not know.
306. Can I draw your mind back to when you gave
evidence to us in the recent past, in July, when you said to us
there was a problem of wastage during the initial training period,
and you felt that it would be appropriate to soften that up in
some ways over the first 12 weeks. What has the benefit been to
you of that?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Of softening
up?
307. Your quote is, "There is a softer
start to the twelve weeks' CMS. We break them in slightly more
gently than we did previously".
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) That is very
true. I would prefer not to be held to figures on this yet, because
it is a little too early to tell. The wastage in phase one is
really at the harder end of the market, twelve weeks approximately.
It looks as though the wastage rates there are falling. I do not
want to be held to a figure at this stage of the proceedings.
There is definitely an improvement in wastage as a result of things
I went through last time. The days lost through training injuries
has also fallen. The figure from January-March 1999 was 228 per
1,000 trainees and in the corresponding period from January-March
2000 it was 155. That rather suggests—
Chairman
308. It rather suggests that the Welsh were
playing rugby and they all had doctor's papers—
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Chairman, we
get on to the performance in rugby very quickly. It looks as though
that is beginning to pay off. It there is a 5% improvement in
wastage that would be a figure I would consider significant.
Mr Hancock
309. If I could now play devil's advocate to
that, you have been lowering those standards.
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) We have not
lowered the standards.
310. The initial standards, so that you are
retaining more people through the initial period of training,
because that is obviously what that set out to do, was it not?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) We have categorically
not lowered the standards. In fact as to the entry in the recruit
selection centre phase, then into the training organisation, we
have categorically not lowered the standard in recruit selection.
In fact, we have raised it very slightly. That is actually also
paying a dividend in terms of lower wastage in the phase one training,
we have better quality people. We have always known that it is
those who were pretty marginal at the recruit selection phase
who stumbled more regularly when they got into phase one training.
From December last year we raised slightly the standard of people
we were accepting in the recruit selection stage, with better
candidates going into phase one, and we were handling them, for
all of the reasons I explained last time, rather better. That
in combination is, as I say, showing a trend of reducing the wastage
and seems to indicate training injuries are falling. None of that
represents a falling in standards, in the output at the far end,
going into the Army, is precisely the same standard as it has
been and as we always insisted upon. Interestingly, if you go
round the Army now and talk to commanding officers, even RSMs,
who are not known for saying what a cracking good person they
have just received, they are beginning to say far more positive
things than hitherto. It is only a trend.
311. That is helpful. It would be unfair for
you to get away and not comment on the ethnic situation—
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Good heavens,
no.
312. In the evidence that was given to a particular
question that Mr Viggers asked about this initial contact, irrespective
of where it came from, materialising in so few recruits, the specific
question was asked because they said in evidence there was a review
being done. The question Mr Viggers asked was, "Are you confidant
that that study is being carried out by the Ministry of Defence
into why so many people did not materialise after initially contacting?"
The answer from the Race Commission was "No".
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Shall I start?
You are quite right. May I just say one thing. First, the figure
of 200,000 to the door equals 300 odd into the Service was taken
from the Army bit of the CRE Report. It was very gallantly answered
by the Second Sea Lord, but I ought to take that on the chin.
Thirty-two events have been held throughout the regions since
April 1999. The total attendance at these events from the ethnic
minorities has been in excess of 191,000. That is where it came
from, it was the Army bit. Since you have raised it, if you would
allow me, I will just explain it very briefly, in the way the
Second Sea Lord indicated. We have estimated that about 90% of
them were not in the target recruiting area, they were, as the
Second Sea Lord said, guardians, gate keepers but also younger
members of families who might in due course enter the target area,
so it is not wasted effort. If you apply the sorts of rules of
thumb that we normally have, if 200,000 was the issue and 90%
of those were not in the target, that is down to 20,000. Our general
rule of thumb is if you take a population of that sort, about
25% might be interested, which brings you down to about 5,000,
and about 5%, as a rule of thumb, will then tend to act, which
brings you down to 250. Just to put that sort of figure quoted
by the CRE in context, that is not to say that that was not a
thoroughly worthwhile thing to do, to have that number of people
coming to the door, as they put it, because it illustrates we
are genuinely getting out into the community, extending our fingers
into it, and so on and so forth. As to the extent to which we
review figures, which I think is more precisely what you are after,
if you look at the ratio of enquiries to actual enlistments, and
compare the figure from non-ethnic minorities and whites, they
are not really very far apart. It is about three and a half enquiries
equals one enlistment in the case of the ethnic minority community
and about three enquiries equals one enlistment in the case of
the non-ethnic- as the Second Sea Lord said, a considerably better
state of affairs than was the case five years ago. On the face
of it nothing seems to be sinister about those sorts of figures.
I have been in post about five months and within a month I met
the new Chairman of the CRE and he was concerned that in the recruiting
office arena there were still barriers. I think they have often
held that view. I set up an enquiry to look at that. It will report
by Christmas. CRE know this, because we had a conversation with
them on Monday. I shall look with considerable interest to see
whether there is something about that very early recruiting process
that is daunting. I really do not think there is any evidence
of any genuine discrimination, There may be something about it
that is daunting and we may need to make some adjustments if that
is so. I am hugely conscious of it. We are looking at it very
carefully. I expect to see some definite indications, one way
and another, by Christmas.
Mr Cohen
313. One of the success stories for women and
ethnic minority personnel in the Army is in the Signals Regiment.
Both were referred to in the Committee last week by the Equal
Opportunities Commission and the Commission for Racial Equality.
What is your view of the reasons for that success? What are the
main characteristics of it? Could it be then taken into other
regiments?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Since that
was raised in the evidence, I have looked at the figures, I have
to confess I would not otherwise have looked at them with quite
such precision. On the face of it, the figures do not seem to
support that there is a particular enthusiasm for the Royal Signals
amongst either the ethnic minority entrants or amongst women.
It is quite true that there are people there. The Royal Signals,
of course, comes from a fairly long tradition of employing women,
because before we employed women in the Army, as we do now, where
they can just join regiments, they belonged to the Women's Royal
Army Corps and quite a significant proportion of the WRAC were
able to work in signals, it was very popular. I did look up the
figures and in the order of female recruiting performance by Arms
and Services, out of the 11 in the scale the Signals comes ninth.
Fairly high on the female recruiting are the Medical Services,
obviously, the Adjutant General's Corps, Intelligence Corps, the
Royal Logistics Corps, then the Royal Signals, then the other
Arms, like the Gunners. That is it from a female point of view.
From the ethnic minority point of view they are not high on the
league either, in one to 16 the Royal Signals come fourteenth.
I was very interested in that remark because it does not quite
square with our perception of people wishing to push back the
door. On the other hand, if that is what both the CRE and the
Equal Opportunities Commission have picked up on their rounds,
I am very interested in the figure. Bearing in mind the Royal
Signals is not one of the better recruited organisations, to some
extent, I shall be asking the Director of the Royal Signals whether
he realises there is this perception amongst the CRE that there
are people falling over themselves wanting to get in the Signals.
314. If there is a perception, utilise it. Mr
Purkiss of the Commission for Racial Equality put forward some
characteristics. He was saying because their ability is being
used, a clear point; a significant number of sergeants and officers,
that is clearly the promotion point; and that you will be protected,
they would not dare to discriminate against you. Again, those
were the three factors. Could those be really picked up and taken
elsewhere as well?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) I saw him on
Monday, following the evidence he gave. That is genuinely why
we have a partnership with the CRE and we are regularly in contact
with them. That is exactly the sort of vibe and useful thing we
get from them from time to time. Sure enough, if it is the place
to be we shall capitalise on it. I would not suggest that other
parts of the Army are not places to be either.
Mr Hood
315. The Army retention study pointed to leadership
and management as key areas in need of attention if retention
in the Army was to improve. What steps has the Army taken since
you learned of these findings, to ensure the necessary additional
training for officers?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Yes. If I can
just refine slightly what Hay said (I think you have read it in
some detail), what it actually said was operational leadership
is extremely good, and it was very complimentary to the British
Army as being amongst the best in the world—that was their
view—and much regarded as an institution. Where they drew
attention to our failing was in the field of management of our
people. Whilst the young commander was extremely good at charging
up hills and performing the tactics, he was considerably less
good at looking after the 36 people in his platoon in terms of
their career management. It was that aspect that they were focusing
on. We cannot ignore that. That is a very strict censure. Sandhurst
is extremely strong on the operational leadership part. We are
introducing into the Sandhurst course considerably more understanding
of the career management of soldiers, understanding in what are
their terms and conditions of service, when they need to advance,
when they need to be tee'd up for courses to get promoted, make
sure, in answering an earlier point, that their personal development
is attended to, and that they go off and get an NVQ, et cetera,
et cetera. That has much stronger emphasis, and will continue
to do so, than in the past. Individual regiments, when they are
taking their young officers after Sandhurst, are putting together
really rather practical packs to enable them to understand how
it applies in their own regiment. I have to say the Royal Engineers
have done that very well and that best practice is followed by
many others. In the case of NCOs, where it also applies to some
degree, less on the whole, I think there was an observation in
Hay that the NCOs seemed to be rather better trained in this than
the officers. That, to some extent, is true because they formally,
in order to become a sergeant or a warrant officer, have to go
on a course. We are looking to make sure that the contents of
those courses, Education for Promotion they are called, have a
suitable management element and we are making sure that they understand
it. By and large the NCOs do. That, as I say, was a very striking
censure and we have not taken it lightly.
316. In what way do you think poor personnel
management might have had an adverse effect on soldiers?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Since Hay was
a retention study and they said it was a black mark, I think I
deduce from that that they observed that it was retention negative,
to use a phrase. Precisely to what extent, neither they, nor we,
could say, but it is important for us to put it right pretty quickly.
317. Do you think that some of the problems
which the study highlights are evidence of the cultural distance
which has grown between the Army and the outside world in terms
of what young people are prepared to tolerate in their working
lives and the way they are dealt with by their superiors?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) Yes. I have
not particularly thought about it in those terms. What you are
saying is the civilian work place is now a pretty free and easy
place, and the military work place is far from that and that causes
resentment, is that the heart of what you are saying?
318. Yes.
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) I think there
must be an element of that. My guess is that the basic idea that
you manage your people well will work whether you are in a fairly
free environment of a particular civilian organisation or a pretty
strict environment of a disciplined one. I do not think there
is fundamental difficulty, that I have detected, anyway, talking
to soldiers, about the fact that they live in a military society
which is disciplined and operates within the rules and in which
there are values and standards. I think they are buying into that
without much difficulty. If they do not, they have joined the
wrong organisation. What they will not, I think, tolerate, nor
should they, is the fact that they are managed in a career sense
any less well than their civilian counterparts. They buy the stricter
regime, the stricter environment, but they would expect to be
treated in a way that is decent in management terms in exactly
the same way civilians would.
319. What can the Army do to bridge this gap
without losing the essential elements of its own culture which
ensures operational effectiveness? (Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman)
That is part of our day-to-day business. We have to get them in
in the first place. As I was saying in response to earlier questions,
we have to be pretty up front. We run our attraction, our recruiting
campaign, on the basis of getting a response from it. One is not
living in the real world if one does not try to run that on the
basis of, "What is in it for me?", ie, the person we
are going for. That is why the new theme of the advertising, which
is interesting to see, says there are umpteen trades and there
is something in it for you, not least because you can get qualified.
Given that we have then got them in on the basis of "What
is in it for me?", a very early task is then, to some extent,
to shape them into the new environment in which they are going,
where there is a nice balance to made between "What is in
it for me?" and the notion of service. No question of it.
We are pretty strong on that. We made a big step on that earlier
this year, about the issue of the values and standards, which
I think you have seen, and we now base very much the shaping on
saying that this is the contract, this is the covenant within
which you are going to operate. We require these standards and
we shall judge your conduct, in behavioural terms, against what
we say is the Service Test and all that. I detect that that notion,
values and standards in the Service test, has actually gone down
rather satisfactorily and has been accepted by the soldiers as
the sort of environment that they expected to be in and now recognise.
Thereafter, I think—and this will be the trick, and it is
touched on by some of the others—we must let them live their
lives in a way that is, not by their own rules, of course not,
we could not do that, but we should allow them to live their lives
to the maximum possible degree consistent with what we require,
and that is why terms and conditions of service are so prominent
on the agenda.
Chairman: Thank you.
Mr Gapes
320. Is there any evidence that your operational
welfare improvements and increased allowances have actually done
anything to reduce dissatisfaction? Do you have any plans for
new measures to offer to your personnel and their families to
give them greater stability and continuity and improvement in
the future?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) There is quite
a lot in that. Let us take operational welfare first. The operational
welfare package, which is a Tri-Service package is, I think, successful.
It did not necessarily start that way, but it certainly is now.
I was in the Balkans two weekends ago, both in Kosovo and Bosnia,
and I did not hear a single soldier moan about their terms and
conditions and their welfare package in the four or five places
that I went to. I think that is pretty representative of what
you will get. They are not cut off from home. They can have 20
minutes free phone calls. A remarkable number of them now communicate
over the Internet. I do not think they are just placed in front
of it, they are genuine about doing it. At the other end of the
chain their wives, if they are not themselves on the Internet—but
many are—can go to the local HIVE and receive the messages.
Separation pay and all of those sorts of things makes it a good
package. I think it is perceived to be. I could not quantify precisely
the effect that it has had, other than to remark that outflow
from the Army, ie, the retention issue, is holding. It is about
6.4% for soldiers. So the Army is not haemorrhaging seriously
in those terms. Incidentally, we achieved a half per cent improvement
in outflow last year, which is about 500 odd people, which is
good news. It is not, in my view, impossible to associate that
with the fact that the operational welfare package is now a good
one. That gives you a slight feel for the operational welfare.
I think even on the Tri-Service basis, that is probably the same.
(Air Marshal Pledger) I think I would add that the
indicators so far are the informal ones. Clearly we will get more
of the formal feedback in the future continuous attitude surveys
that will then give you that direct reassurance. All the informal
feedbacks are that the process that we went through, which was
a very careful one of consultation in order to make this approach
consistent and doctrinally based, has been successful. It also
starts to answer one of your earlier questions of how we communicate
what we intend to do and make sure then, through a consultation
process, that it meets the requirements of the new environmental
applications of these forces.
321. One of the problems is the frequent changes
of postings and the difficulties and disruption that causes. Have
you any thoughts of how you might address that?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) First of all,
it is quite difficult to judge whether people fundamentally resent
the idea that they have to move about, although in continuous
attitude surveys, disruption to family life does come pretty high
on the things that affect them. Nevertheless, a significant number
of people still opt to live in Service accommodation. About 67%
of the married population in the United Kingdom live in Service
families accommodation—a higher figure overseas, in the
80s—suggesting that the idea of living close to the regiment
and moving with the regiment is not fundamentally something people
do not want to do. Therefore, it is probably more in the manner
in which those moves take place. I think we are concentrating
pretty hard on making sure that the sheer hassle, if you like,
associated with that is minimised. For example, moving house is
a stressful period., so we now have a cleaning contract scheme
which they can make use of, which makes a good deal less hassle
of that. We are working hard on making sure that the state of
the Service families accommodation is better, and that is being
done on a Tri-Service basis. So the discontent of the fact that
when you get there it is a lousy house will evaporate. We are
making sure that, in an Army sense, the welfare set-up which goes
round all that, which is a very big feature in minimising the
hassle for people, is of a much more consistent nature than it
is now. It is a bit patchy, to be frank. It is good at unit level,
but what happens at, for example, garrison level, if you go from
Catterick to some garrison in Germany, you might not find precisely
the same deal. One might be better than the other and your expectations
might be dashed. We have recently taken on board a welfare strategy
in order, over the next few years, to achieve considerably more
consistency in terms of what is provided when people do move.
(Air Marshal Pledger) That is why there is such a
current investment in the SFA, because it is a high priority in
our mitigating the effect that you have described. We need to
spread that high standard provision across the whole of the United
Kingdom, and we are endeavouring to do so.
Mr Viggers
322. Some accommodation is good and some is
less good. I was recently talking to a young officer and he told
me that he and his unit were moving to Aldershot. He told me he
was actually ashamed of the accommodation into which his soldiers
were moving. I promised to pass it on, and I think I am passing
it on to the right person. Is accommodation an issue in terms
of retention?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) If that officer
was going to Aldershot it would have struck him in the eye very
firmly, indeed. There is no doubt whatever—if it is single
living accommodation that he is talking about—there is no
denying at all that a significant amount of it, about 34%, is
in an unacceptable condition. That translates into about 18,000
soldiers living in very poor accommodation, a significant amount
of which is in Aldershot. There is no denying it at all. Does
it have an effect? It is impossible that it does not. If you look
at the Continuous Attitude Surveys, job satisfaction seems to
come at the top, then disruption to family life as a general statement
tends to come next. Accommodation comes down a bit, but it is
certainly on the list of things that affects them. I suppose odd
individuals might put it very high indeed if they are living in
the sort of accommodation your officer was observing. It is not
a good story.
323. Air Marshal Pledger mentioned there is
a programme in hand to improve the situation. Do you have a time
frame within which you feel that situation will be satisfactory?
(Lieutenant General Granville-Chapman) In single living
accommodation, which is what I am talking about, there is a significant
amount of money required. There is no denying that the single
living estate has been under-funded in the past. They will require
a considerable amount of money to put that right. One is not looking
to put the whole situation right, in the Army's case, in anything
less than ten years. SFA is a slightly different picture.
(Air Marshal Pledger) The SFA is a definitive programme
with over £600 million pounds.
Chairman: Thank you very much. Thank
you.
|
