Examination of witnesses (Questions 536
- 559)
WEDNESDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2000
COMMODORE PAUL
BRANSCOMBE and MRS
RAE SWINDLEY
Chairman: Commodore Branscombe, sorry
we are a little late, as you appreciate there are so many questions
to ask.
Mr Gapes
536. I would like to ask, first of all, about
personnel policies generally. You gave us a memorandum in which
you referred to the fact that the efficiency of channels of communication
upwards is not always as might be perceived by the higher levels
of command; it is not just the most junior personnel who are inhibited.
Could you expand on that? Do you mean that personnel are reluctant
or not always able to raise matters of concern to those responsible
for these areas?
(Commodore Branscombe) Clearly channels of communication
are never as good as any of us would wish. It is important to
understand, of course, that communication is both up and down.
I think it is particularly difficult in a time of great stress
and busy-ness, as we have heard, from all of the Armed Services,
for the messages to get through from the frontline, or indeed
down from the top. I hope you will indulge me slightly if I tell
a joke here. I know it is probably not the right place for it.
It involves two soldiers in a slip-trench at the front with the
muck and bullets flying around. They are really worried and they
send a message back to high command which says, "Send the
reinforcements, we are going to advance". By the time it
gets to high command it comes out as,"Send three and four
pence we are going to a dance". That is not meant to be frivolous
but rather to demonstrate that sometimes when people are very
busy and the other end is not necessarily listening to the message
then sometimes the message can be attenuated from the bottom to
the top. It is also the case that many of the policies and, indeed,
statements which are put out at high level, MoD and whatever else,
do not necessarily filter down to the people on the ground, both
the serving people and families. This is, perhaps, just a function
of over-stretched busy-ness but also it is very difficult to communicate
with very widely broadcast busy people. In answer to your question
as to whether or not people are inhibited, I think it is unreasonable
to suppose that in any organisation, be it an industrial organisation
or something as large and hierarchial as the Army, Navy and the
Air Force there will always be a tendency for people to be reluctant
to speak their mind. This is in part in the Services, I think,
because soldiers, sailors and airmen are pretty gritty people,
used to being mucked around, so therefore maybe inhibition is
part of that because they expect to put up with certain things.
I think, however, the nature of the system through which they
can represent their views or concerns is not always as efficient
as it may be. It is quite hard if you are right at the bottom
of the pile to get that message right the way through to the top.
Perhaps better systems are needed to bypass that in certain circumstances.
537. I have a second related question on page
two of the memorandum you sent us, you say, particularly in relation
to procurement and we as a Committee are well aware of this—"the
MoD does not have a particularly impressive record of financial
and general management". You are arguing, I think, that greater
use should be made of civilian specialists and managerial expertise
from outside. Where and in what specific areas do you feel that
this would be most useful? Is it all three Services or is it the
MoD itself or is it right the way through the system?
(Commodore Branscombe) Perhaps I should preface that
by just saying a little word about my own experience. I was in
the Navy for 33 years, most of that time commanding operational
units. Then I was in the MoD at policy level and managing quite
large hybrid organisations, including those with a large number
of civilians, including civilians who were non-civil servants.
The last four years I have spent being responsible for managing
SSAFA's support of the Service community, which is both professional
and volunteer. I think I have a pretty good understanding of the
way in which the military and the MoD does things and the way
in which civilian life and professional management does things,
if I might just give you my pedigree. I think it is right that
civilian expertise, in that I mean expertise of an organisation
like SSAFA Forces Help—which, of course, started originally
over 100 years ago to provide nursing support for the Army overseas
and, of course, in the interim has also provided professional
social work for the last 30 years—has also galvanised and
organised volunteers in order to support it. It is very much a
professional, civilian organisation, albeit working almost exclusively
together with and on behalf of the MoD. Our culture and management
knowledge is quite good. Of course I would be speaking from my
perspective as well. I believe that our advice in a general sense
is made extremely good use of by the MoD at top level, and by
that I mean the MoD Centre, we are involved very much in policy
formulation and advice and, indeed, with the chiefs of personnel
in each of the Armed Services. But we are also doing organisation
and, as we heard from the representatives of the Families Federations,
the three Services each have a very different way of delivering
their welfare support. Welfare is a big word, is it not, but by
that I mean personal support to servicemen as individuals and
their families. It is probably right that they do it in different
ways—Army, Navy and Air Force—because of the different
modus operandi and different lifestyles. As we heard this
morning, the Navy runs its own service, and within limits it works
pretty satisfactorily. The Air Force runs a service which we actually
run for it—and I would, of course, say this, wouldn't I
—that we believe that to be a model of best practice, but
I have to emphasise that is an independently professionally-run
service which is very responsive to the needs not only of the
individuals and families, but responsive to the RAF chain of command,
and both sides seem very happy with it. I suppose I must reserve
my comments and criticisms, which we made earlier as to the way
in which the Army perhaps does its business differently. Again,
I just preface this by saying that the Army is different. It is
different for a number of reasons, not least of course it is the
most numerous (it has the most number of people) and arguably
it has some of the most difficult problems in terms of stretch,
stress and separation. However, one of the structural difficulties
I believe that is present where the Army is peculiar from the
other two, and which is a managerial issue, is that the delivery
of welfare support, unlike the other two, is separated from the
policy. That is to say the Adjutant General as Chief of Army personnel
does not deliver the services on the ground, it is done, in my
view illogically, by another part of the Army, indeed Land Command.
I should also preface these remarks by saying as an ex-sailor
I have the greatest admiration and respect for the British Army.
It is very stretched at the moment, as we know. It is brilliant
at command and control, and I mean control in every sense of the
word, in fact it is the best in the world in an operational setting.
It is also very reactive. It is brilliant at reacting to short
notice attributes, but both of those things are in some ways the
wrong things for actually providing a personal support service
which we believe actually needs the management rather than necessarily
command and control and just reaction in a crisis. We work together
with the Army Welfare Service with our qualified social workers
but their concept that you would provide a service which is predominantly
run along the lines of a neat wiring diagram, but is staffed,
apart from our social workers and other professionals, by passed-over
retired officers, long service senior NCOs and, in the case of
units, we have heard commissioned RSMs - nothing wrong with those
- but it is not necessarily conducive to sensitive management,
nor indeed to best value for money. There is a certain creative
tension, as you would imagine, between us in this particular relationship.
It is sometimes the case, of course, that a civilian professional
within a military organisation is not necessarily a popular one.
Sometimes the messenger gets shot, or at least sniped at. We do
believe that the Land Command model is not necessarily the best,
and certainly not necessarily the best in terms of responding
to the needs of the people who deserve to be supported, ie the
servicemen as individuals and, indeed, their families.
538. You talk about the civilian perspective,
in the case of changing the system where would this civilian expertise
come from? At what level are you talking about people coming in?
Is it specific people who have certain social welfare training
or are you talking about management training as well?
(Commodore Branscombe) It is both. It is MoD policy,
and has been for many years since the Spencer report which was
referred to this morning, 25 years ago, that welfare support for
families and individuals will be led by professionally qualified
full-time social workers. In most of the Services that input is
provided by SSAFA in terms of both qualified social workers and,
in other areas, community health nurses, midwives, health visitors,
psychiatric nurses and so on. That is important because the linkage
between professional welfare provision and community health is
vital, crucial, but also in terms of management because we believe
that the management of professional welfare support, particularly
in today's increasingly complex environment, is something that
needs to be done in a holistic fashion by appropriately qualified
people. So, in answer to your question, we believe that SSAFA
would continue what we are doing at the moment with the Army and,
indeed, improve it, including, I have to say, the introduction
of quality assurance systems and so on.
Chairman: Thank you. Mr Hood, please.
Mr Hood
539. Are you aware of an increase in social
problems in Service families in the last few years? If so, has
the increase in operational tempo and separated service contributed
to the family breakdown?
(Commodore Branscombe) I think there has always been
a high level of social problems intrinsic to any kind of organisation
where there is a high degree of practical stress and separation;
disadvantage of the kind we have heard about today. In terms of
the increase then the increase in tempo has certainly not diminished
that. It is very difficult to statistically measure that, except
of course that the personal problems with which we deal, together
with others, are far more complicated than I think perhaps they
were some years ago.
540. Should the Services do more to assist spouses
and children when marriages break down?
(Commodore Branscombe) Well, one of the unfortunate
manifestations of stress and stretch of course is family break
down. However the Army, Navy and Air Force are not alone in that,
I think we all know that divorce regrettably is on the increase
nationally in this country. It is quite difficult really to be
able to say that the Army, Navy and Air Force are more affected
than others, and I think most of the statistics would show that
it is about the same. However, what is true is that because the
Service community is predominantly a particular demographic slice,
ie they are all young people, there is a higher degree of immature
marriage but particularly in a certain Service, and this probably
is the Army and again this is not separating the Army for any
other reason than it tends to have a lot more young men and young
women I have to say than necessarily the other two, ie that they
equip men as opposed to man equipment, if I can put it that way,
it tends to be a larger number of younger marriages in the Army
than within the Navy and the Air Force as a generality.
541. Are you saying that the marriage break
down in the armed forces is the same as in the normal population?
(Commodore Branscombe) I think in broad terms it is,
it is just that the effects of it are perhaps more difficult to
deal with. It is a more difficult problem to deal with, not least,
and in answer to your question as to whether or not the Services
should be doing more about it, I have to say that they do do quite
a lot about it in terms of trying to provide support in collaboration
with ourselves and other kinds of organisations, including Relate
and so on. However, the problem is that when a marriage breaks
down—and it was described earlier—having lived in
an enclosed military environment and people living in married
quarters, particularly if those married quarters are abroad, it
is the problem of the transition from being at one moment in service
to the next moment a civilian outside with all the problems of
not only housing but job and education for the children and finding
doctors and so on, which is quite a difficult one to do. That
is an example of a practical problem which has to be dealt with
in partnership between the MoD, on the one hand, and organisations
like our own on the other, Service charities and liaison with
the Department of Health, DSS and DfEE.
542. I wonder if you do anything on the prevention
cycle of the break up of marriages, ie in addressing the real
issues of welfare, which bring pressures on families and causes
a lot of doom? Do you work on that side of it?
(Commodore Branscombe) That is one of the reasons
why I am so strongly concerned that the kind of welfare support,
in that I mean the personal support side of it, should be proactive
and preventative. Whereas I am afraid that sometimes the perception
of the Army is great "can do" stuff and the other two
Services to an extent is they deal with problems when they occur,
ie the manifestation when marriages break down. A lot of the work
which is unseen, particularly by social workers and other welfare
people, is preventative. The parallel which I would draw is, perhaps,
on the medical side. Whereas most of us are pretty attracted by
TV programmes like Emergency Ward 10, Casualty, or Holby City,
because we think that is the way medicine works, we do not necessarily
see the less obvious work of say health visitors, the immunisation
programmes and public health, and all of the prophylactic stuff
which is going on. If you do not understand the delivery of professional
social work, it is quite difficult to understand that it is all
of the unheralded, unsung and unpraised work which is going on
behind the scenes which is there to prevent these problems happening.
We are never going to prevent it completely, of course, but I
believe we need a greater strengthening of that.
543. You gave your age away when you mentioned
Emergency Ward 10.
(Commodore Branscombe) I still have the videos!
Chairman
544. You heard the exchange we had about whether
the MoD discriminates against partners as opposed to wives, is
there anything you would like to add to that?
(Commodore Branscombe) No. As a married man with three
chilldren, my marriage managed to survive through most of my 33
years' service in the Navy. I would believe that marriage is a
good thing, however statistics and society does not bear that
out. I do not believe that it is sustainable, whether it is within
the Armed Services or without, that the realities of life cannot
be addressed, that means not just acquiesced to but actually practically
addressed. Unmarried relationships are a fact of life. I believe
as employers and another people we really ought to be able to
comprehend that. I do not have any difficulty with that. You have
heard that certain families federations are inclusive. My organisation
is inclusive, secular and non-judgmental in terms of how it defines
our constituency, which is single, and married soldiers, men and
women, airmen, sailors, so on, and wives and children but also
the extended family, whatever it may be. People are people as
far as we are concerned, they just happen to be in uniform at
this time.
Laura Moffatt
545. Commodore, I am interested in what you
were saying about difficulties within families. We can have a
debate about whether partners are legitimised in any way or whether
it is only people who are married, but children are always the
children of their parents. I do not know if you are aware but
there was an Adjournment Debate on Thursday last week on the floor
of the House to highlight the difficulties that some ex-wives,
ex-partners are experiencing with the MoD, more or less protecting
the serving officer or member by adjusting the Child Support Agency
contributions, with them having a second line. If the Child Support
Agency decides that is how much has to be paid by that particular
father who is serving to his ex-wife, the Armed Forces may say,
"We need to protect more of his salary, so we will not allow
that much money to go". Do you have any experience of that?
Do you support the partners and children who are subsequently
parted from their serving husbands or partners?
(Commodore Branscombe) In answer to the first, I do
not have any direct experience myself, although I am aware that
we for a very long time as an organisation have worked hard to
bridge the gap between the Child Support Agency, as it was, and
the MoD and, indeed, families. We believe we had quite considerable
success in that, even accepting that the CSA was not, as it is,
perhaps, today. We do know that the MoD has a much better liaison
with the Child Support Agency now. That does not, perhaps, answer
your question fully because the decisions which are made at unit
level are very difficult for us to influence. One can persuade
but one is aware that that is not something which I can do anything
about. Could you repeat the second part of the question?
546. Do you help those partners or ex-wives
of serving people?
(Commodore Branscombe) Yes.
547. Would you fight the corner of a woman having
difficulties getting the correct payments for her children?
(Commodore Branscombe) Yes, of course.
548. Do you believe that there should be different
rules for serving people as far as the CSA are concerned as there
are for people in civilian life?
(Commodore Branscombe) I am not sure I can answer
that because I am not sure whether there is an actual de facto
difference or a legal difference. There certainly are differences,
perhaps this is one thing which we need to understand quite well,
what is the difference between servicemen and their families and
civilians? Most of my perception is that they are the same, except
for one very, very important thing, notwithstanding the fact they
are the Army, Navy or the Air Force, and that is the high degree
of mobility which they have to endure. By that I do not mean they
are not similar in some ways to truck drivers or North Sea oil
rig workers. They have this mobility enforced upon them but they
have no choice. It is that very dynamic of people moving, not
only within United Kingdom, Northern Ireland but to abroad and
back, which severely disadvantages them in then picking up their
relative entitlements to particular things under legislation.
Your example may be but one of those because the CSA is very much
involved with pursuing absent fathers, which by definition absent
father servicemen always are, not always, I have to say, by their
own choice. The administrative difficulty of dealing with that
should not be underestimated. I am not making apologies for it,
but your example is but one of many, many areas where there are
very large practical disconnects which need to be dealt with.
549. I do not think we would assume for a moment
because a father is mobile they would then have less responsibility
financially to their children.
(Commodore Branscombe) I agree with that entirely.
It is the problem of bringing him to book, if I may say so, in
order that he can be communicated with or face up to whatever
investigation or whatever is needed.
550. The number of compliant men in the Armed
Forces, they are mostly men with the CSA, is extremely high, because
the fact is we know where they are and we know how they are paid.
There are a tiny minority of cases who are being treated differently.
(Commodore Branscombe) I am afraid I cannot comment
on that. I am not surprised that there might be, but I am also
encouraged to say that liaison we strove very hard to set up has
achieved the objective, which it seems to have done in the majority
of cases.
Chairman: Julian Brazier will lead us
on housing. You heard our debate and you know how angry we were
over the last few years. In your own memorandum you note the de-motivating
effect of the poor state of married quarters and single living
accommodation, which remains disgraceful and regrettably will
remain so for sometime to come. If there is anything you can provide
for us to help us try and speed improvements up, we would be most
grateful to receive that.
Mr Brazier
551. Moving us on to single living accommodation—we
have obviously talked a lot as a Committee about the married quarters—the
story we got from the Adjutant General on the Army side in particular
was really that it is in a much worse position than the married
quarters stock, with 34% of it in an unacceptable condition and
that it would take 10 years, at least 10 years, to get it into
an acceptable state. Do you get concrete evidence as an organisation
that this is having a demotivating effect on personnel?
(Commodore Branscombe) Not directly, although I can
echo everything you have said. I also think it is important that
whereas married quarters have enjoyed a very high profile, and
there is no point in me adding to what has been said very competently
here this morning, that is a fact of life, the single people in
the Services I think get a raw deal and it has had much less visibility.
Where is the motivation, particularly where young men may have
been away in ships, submarines or, more importantly, living in
appalling conditions in say Kosovo, when they come home and find
they are in disgraceful accommodation? There is a practical aspect
to this, and I must say this, in that the married quarters stock
did not get to be run down overnight. The difficulty was of course
that for many years the defence budget was being run down, and
indeed it probably seemed more important to spend money on operational
capability than it was to mend the roofs of married quarters,
and the same applies, I have to say, to single accommodation.
It is rather like saying yours or my house or flat, you can stop
spending on it for quite a time but then it all falls to bits
catastrophically. The opposite of that is also true, it then takes
years and years and years to find the money in order to rebuild
and I guess there is not going to be much in the way of new money.
I am fairly pessimistic about that. In the case of the married
quarters stock, at least it is under the aegis of the DHE, whether
you think that is good or bad, and enjoys the visibility of ministers
and a different kind of centralised management, which in the end
of DHE I happen to think is probably quite reasonable, but the
rebuild and refurbishment and replacement of single living accommodation
will fall within the budgets of single Services, and they are
pretty strapped, so I am not sure that we will see the kind of
upswing which I believe that the single men and women deserve.
552. That brings me straight on to the next
question, which is, do you think there are some significant single
Service differences here? What is the difference in volume in
terms of definition and other things between the three Services?
(Commodore Branscombe) I think there is no doubt,
and of course to generalise is dangerous, but there is no doubt
that the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force are smaller and more
static in some ways and have actually probably improved their
single living accommodation at a faster rate than the Army has,
but again—and here I am speaking not to justify the Army—the
Army has a major problem with mobility because there is an incentive
to maintain your housing stock or accommodation if you know you
are going to be there for a reasonable amount of time, but if
you always moving on, it is rather like, "Don't spend money
on repairing a rented flat", so this is a substantive point
here really. Because of the Army's greater mobility than the other
two, and I mean lock, stock and barrel, that also brings management
problems of their accommodation stock compared to the other two
Services. That maybe explains it, apart from being more numerous
as well.
553. Just to dip back for a second and taking
that point up, from remarks made to the Chairman earlier about
your perspective of the issue of unmarried couples—and I
understand where you are coming from in terms of the welfare issue—you
obviously have a naval background but the consequences for the
Army, taking your last two answers, with its vast quota of unmarried
personnel and a lot of the quarters in a very, very unsatisfactory
state, are you suggesting that the soldier aquires a girlfriend
to move out into married quarters?
(Commodore Branscombe) I agree, and that would be
a severe problem, but on the other hand one might argue a similar
sort of thing happened to the Navy in my experience and to the
Air Force maybe 20 years ago when—I am not saying they were
more laissez faire, but all that happened of course was
that the single young men and women, fewer of them then, moved
out into rented accommodation or bought their own houses or flats
if they were able to do so. I think that if you make life difficult
for single people who want to live in relationships, they will
find another way round it, so I do not think that trying to push
water up the hill is sensible. I understand the technical and
logistic problems which the Army would have but at the end of
the day this is going to happen and it is best they start planning
for it now.
Mr Hood
554. I disagree with my colleague because I
think it is a reason for doing nothing. There are always reasons
for not doing anything and not having a proactive policy for doing
something. We have heard this before about young girls becoming
pregnant to get council houses, and it is a lot of nonsense and
I suspect there is a lot of nonsense getting spoken about this
issue.
(Commodore Branscombe) I am afraid I agree.
Mr Brazier
555. The cost consequences are obviously not
a matter for you, it is something we can pursue with ministers.
There is one single Service point which must be got on the record.
You do acknowledge there is a very, very big difference in terms
of mobility between the Navy at one end of the spectrum, the Air
Force somewhere in the middle, and the Army at the other, and
of course the authoritative Army housing study showed that soldiers
moving their families out into the community are more likely to
leave the Service prematurely, which is something which is not
a factor at all in your evidence?
(Commodore Branscombe) I cannot comment on the veracity
of that. I do acknowledge of course, as I have to experience all
the time, the problems which are brought about by the Army's greater
mobility than the Navy and the Air Force. I have to say, if I
may, that mobility as a result of operational imperatives I understand
as well as anybody, we have too few soldiers, too many operational
commitments and they have to move to wherever they need to go
for operational reasons. Superimposed on that, however, is the
possibility that Army units move because Army units move, and
I believe this degree of management of the arms plot might be
looked at there.
556. A last point on this, and then I have one
unrelated last point on that. There is a fundamental problem though
that if you have a lot of people still placed abroad there will
also be significant numbers in places where there is no specific
community, no jobs for wives and so on. If you settle people,
the settlement is going to be pretty uneven?
(Commodore Branscombe) Indeed. I understand the problem
with the rotation of units due to the arms plot but, again, I
think it would be something to study.
557. Let me move you on to the Service Families
Task Force. Our previous witnesses made the point that although
the Task Force had made progress at ministerial and departmental
level, the benefits are not necessarily being felt on the ground.
Do you share this view and what do you think are the main areas
of outstanding concern from SSAFA's angle?
(Commodore Branscombe) I have got really very little
to add to what we have heard from the Families Federations this
morning. I happen to think that the Task Force is a good thing.
It was boldly set up, it was set up at the right level and it
is in a position to actually influence things. I do not like to
use the expression "joined-up government" but the real
problems we have are, on the one hand the dynamic, which I described,
of the mobility of Service families, and, on the other, it is
that the provision for those families is actually outwith largely
the responsibility of the MoD, and I will come back to that if
I may, ie it is a question of linking in with the Department of
Health, the Department for Education, the Department of Social
Services and whatever, those are the principal players. The only
way in which you are going to get those departments to provide
what they need to do for a not invisible population but a population
which would otherwise be disadvantaged by virtue of that dynamism,
is by doing it at grown-up ie ministerial, level. In answer to
your question, is it beginning to come through at the bottom,
I agree with Mrs Iron of the Army Families Federation, the answer
is, yes, it has in some places—and examples of university
grants is but one—but it is again relatively early days.
I am not saying that one should be complacent but for these things
to go down departmental pipes, particularly the Department of
Health—and to come back to another of the problems, the
problems are still getting children into school, they are access
to health services, they are access to other kinds of services,
and they are particularly exacerbated when you have people with
unusual problems like children with special needs, people who
need access to adoption. So the answer is, there are still many
things to be hit. They are hittable but the important thing about
the Task Force is that they now have visibility at the top level,
it is not just people trying to negotiate these things locally.
We all understand the problems with the difference between England,
Scotland and Wales, from Wiltshire to Hampshire, from Germany
to Cyprus to Northern Ireland, it is trying to put that continuity
together which our organisation has attempted at a lower level,
but to have the top cover I have to say is good. I am very optimistic
about it. I think it is due, if I may give credit to one particular
person, he is not here today so I will not embarrass him, there
was one Army officer who was really the practical driving force
behind it, a chap called Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Sloane who
we owe quite a lot to. He was a very good chap in the department
in which he worked.
Mr Brazier: Just for the record, as a
Conservative member I congratulated the Minister for Armed Forces
on how much progress he had made last week, you will be glad to
hear.
Chairman: Now somebody who is not normally
in the business of congratulating Ministers of State for their
performance. Dr Lewis.
Dr Lewis: I have been known to stand
up for the Government on occasion.
Mr Hood: When?
Dr Lewis
558. The Kosovo campaign. My questions are about
helplines. We know that SSAFA runs confidential helplines for
Army personnel and their families, but the MoD have told us there
are such helplines in place for all three Services, so, first,
can you clarify whether SSAFA runs the confidential helplines
just for the Army or for all three Services?
(Commodore Branscombe) That is correct, Dr Lewis.
It was set up three years ago, almost to the day, on the inspiration
of the previous Adjutant General of the Army, Lieutenant General
Sir Alex Harley. I think it was a bold and imaginative move. I
would say that, would I not, because he asked us to do it and
we did it in very quick time. I can describe some of it, if you
like, later on, the answer is, yes, we do it for the Army. The
Air Force and the Navy followed on pretty quickly to run their
own. We were instrumental in providing advice to them as to how
they should do it technically.
559. Do you have statistics about the types
of problem that are being raised by callers? What percentage of
calls relate to racial or sexual harassment?
(Commodore Branscombe) I should preface this by saying
that one of the major principles of this line is that it is confidential.
Not only do we maintain absolute confidentiality, indeed the privacy
of those people who contact it, we also have not been interfered
with in anyway by the Adjutant General's Department in the way
in which we have run it. They have been very correct in doing
that. It is also important from the perspective of SSAFA's independence
as well that that is part of our reputation. Having said that,
I am sure that the Adjutant General will not mind me saying that
we provide you with broad categories of the type of caller, and
I think that is a reasonable thing to do. It was set up originally
on the ticket of equal opportunities as a broad spectrum, where
that would, of course, include all kinds of harassment, including
sexual and racial or whatever else. Of course that occurs but
one of the surprising things, although not that surprising to
us, is that the helpline turned out to be very helpful in all
sorts of other ways as well. I have to say that the equal opportunities
part of it is relatively small, it is about 25 per cent of all
of the calls which we get. With that 25 per cent only a relatively
small amount are to do with bullying, which is harassment, which
is to do with racial or sexual matters. It is quite difficult
in some cases to draw distinctions between categories, because
sometimes we deal with cases where there is a combination of many
of these particular elements.
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