Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
WEDNESDAY 11 DECEMBER 2002
MAJOR GENERAL
A D LEAKEY, CBE AND
MR MARTYN
PIPER
Chairman
60. Yes. Perhaps you can update it.
(Major General Leakey) I do not recognise those figures.
Chairman: I will show you the figures we were
sent and you can tell us what the Services have achieved and particularly
how successful or otherwise the Army has been in recruiting ethnic
minorities.
Patrick Mercer
61. When you come back with the breakdown could
it include those that are domestically recruited and those that
are recruited in the Commonwealth?
(Major General Leakey) At the moment the total ethnic
minority recruit figure that we have as at 6 December for this
year is 13.2%.[11]
Chairman
62. Coming in to training?
(Major General Leakey) Yes. I would like to put the
qualification on that figure that this is as at 6 December and
moreover, we are doing a lot of targeted selection of foreign
and Commonwealth recruits particularly in the Carribean and in
Fiji and that has grossly distorted that percentage figure of
ethnic minority recruits.
Mr Howarth
63. And if you strip those out?
(Major General Leakey) The figure this year for ethnic
minority recruits who are recruited in this country is running
at the moment in excess of 6%.
Chairman
64. That is quite spectacular compared to previous
records.
(Major General Leakey) You quoted a percentage of
one point something per cent. We were set a figure, which is agreed
with the Commission for Racial Equality, which has increased by
a percentage point each year, I think 3, 4 and 5% over the last
3 years and we have met that target and we met that target last
year and I think that was in our report.
65. Thank you. The Clerk points out to me the
figure I gave was officer recruitment. I expect that to be much
lower. Certainly do drop us a note on this because our Committee
interest goes back many years on this, but the figures you have
given are really very encouraging.
(Major General Leakey) But last year our ethnic minority
recruiting was just over 5% and this year it is running in excess
of that.
Chairman: And can you tell us why we are not
recruiting more from Nepal? Do not tell us now.
Mr Howarth: I think we would like to
know now, Chairman.
Chairman
66. The Deputy Chairman wants to know why, when
the Ghurkhas can provide a limitless supply of superb soldiers,
with 200 years of providing troops for the Army, we are not reactivating
the search for more Ghurkha soldiers?
(Major General Leakey) Chairman, the answer to that
question—
Rachel Squire
67. I have written to the Minister of State
with that very question and basically his response was we do not
see the necessity. It is perhaps something we should follow up.
(Major General Leakey) Chairman, I would not want
to say the Minister's response, of course. The requirement for
recruiting into the Army is a matter of the capability we require,
the manning of the structure we require and I do not know why
it is that we are not recruiting more Ghurkhas. There are, of
course, some limitations on the employment of Ghurkhas and if
we can satisfy the needs from our own country then that seems
to me—
Chairman
68. Obviously we cannot recruit sufficient from
our own country and that is why we are going to Fiji and the Carribean.
They are wonderful soldiers, no doubt, but however good they are,
Ghurkhas are at least as good, putting it as politely as I can.
I have never had an explanation why the Army of this Government
and the last Government, when recruiting was becoming more and
more difficult, were getting rid of amongst the best soldiers
anywhere in the world. I have never yet had a satisfactory answer.
If you can calibrate your answer to that with the Secretary of
State and then provide a general answer between you both we would
be most grateful.
(Major General Leakey) It is a matter of policy on
which I do not have any locus I am afraid.
69. But you will be a recipient of other people's
policy making.
(Major General Leakey) Yes.[12]
Rachel Squire
70. There are so many issues here. I am also
interested in where you have managed to increase your recruitment
from ethnic minorities and inner-city areas. You mentioned London.
Could you provide some information on whether that seems to be
related to the presence of cadet forces because that is certainly
something that has been raised with me? You were mentioning about
trying to capture the interests of young people at an age prior
to the age of actual recruitment. Can I say, General, I did not
appreciate until reading the material and listening to your evidence
today just how complex the whole structure for Army recruitment
is and I took particular note of your comments about the Blackwatch
because it is my local regiment, but basically if I want to investigate
further on what can be done to assist their recruitment I really
need to go to the Regional Board, Land Command or whatever. Before
I pick up on some of the measures that you have used to try and
improve recruitment can I just come back on the point you have
made consistently which is that it seems to be the way to increase
recruitment is to have more recruiting offices. Can I just ask
you to comment on one of the things I have heard from Service
personnel and which seems to be backed up by your statistics and
that is to do with you recruiting 14,000 but only around 10,000
actually get through to Phase 2. Some of the comments I have heard
is real concern that the average level of fitness of a 16-year
old today is not what it was ten or 20 years ago and that there
is also often a lack of social skills, of general discipline,
communication and so on. That is one of the things that I am hearing
is causing difficulties for recruitment in the Armed Forces and
I would be interested to hear your view on whether you think that
is a considerable factor or whether this is just people looking
back nostalgically to their days of coming into the Armed Forces.
(Major General Leakey) Can I just ask you which one
of those 6 areas you want me to address particularly, the last
one or all 6?
71. I was really just commenting about the complexity.
I am interested in your view of whether one of the problems with
recruitment is the overall level of both physical and social fitness
of the age group you are targeting.
(Major General Leakey) I think it is a fair comment.
I would agree with your observation, it is true that there are
more people who are less fit than they were maybe 10 or 15 years
ago. I make this really trivial example. We had the issue of boots
mentioned earlier by one of the members. There are increasing
numbers of people who have never worn shoes with laces. There
are people who have never worn hard shoes, in other words firm
fitting, they have only ever worn trainers with velcro and their
feet are not used to it. That is just a fact and it is a requirement
of Army life that you can wear boots because in some of the places
we go you have to wear boots. If you like, that is a symptom perhaps
and it is just changing society and we should not complain about
it, that is how it is. You are right in your observation, I think
that some people have commented like you that because there is
less sport going on in schools than there was ten or 15 years
ago that also would account for a decline in fitness standards.
Other people say that children migrate much more into the living
room and spend all evening on the computer after school as well
as in front of the television and therefore spend less time kicking
a football around outside or whatever and therefore that means
that they are perhaps less physically robust and I think there
are a whole spectrum of factors which contribute to this, but
I would agree with your proposition that people are less fit and
less robust. That deals with the physical side and of course that
does put a pressure on the regimes that we run to try and get
people up to the required physical standard. We set a physical
high jump bar and if somebody is manifestly not going to cope
at the start point with the physical requirements then we advise
them to go away and get themselves fit because otherwise they
would be putting themselves in danger and we would be breaching
our duty of care and we take some risk as it is. In answer to
your question on the physical side, that is a factor and it does
cause some wastage within our organisations and we spend a lot
of money on expensive physio and rehab facilities, on remedial
physical instructors in our gymnasium to try and rehabilitate
them. We get a lot of the boys and girls coming in and they do
physically break down, sometimes with knee and muscle injuries,
a lot of lower limb injuries, shin splints and so on which are
things that you cannot necessarily detect in a medical, they only
manifest themselves when people start putting themselves under
some quite light physical loads. I could probably quantify how
much money we are spending compared to what we used to in terms
of the time churning these people round inside our organisation.
You mentioned social fitness. I do not think I would want to generalise
on this. We take some really high grade people into the Army.
Let me give you an example. I went to the Royal Military School
of Music the other day and I walked into a practise room and chatted
to this chap who was there playing the clarinet. I asked him what
his background was and he told me he had got a 2:1 in history
at Cambridge and he was joining the Army as a musician because
he wanted to play music. We are taking some very highly qualified
people in as soldiers, people who have played sport for England
at junior level, people who have got tremendous outdoor achievements
under their belt from the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme and other such
schemes. We are taking in some very very high grade people as
well. We recruit from the spectrum of society. There are people
we are taking in who have come from communities which are dysfunctional,
families which are dysfunctional or not even from families at
all, from schools and education systems that have failed them
for one reason or another or which they have failed through their
own efforts and we do not exclude these people, we try and keep
the net as wide as we can. One of the problems in taking such
a wide spectrum is that they all have to go through training as
a cohort and particularly Phase 1 training. They have to get through
the standards of induction into the Army, physical, discipline,
team work, initiative, self-motivation, all of those things they
have to demonstrate in Phase 1 training in order to become a soldier
because we could not send them out into the Army, either into
Phase 2 training or beyond into the Army if they were going to
become a liability or too great a risk.
72. Thank you. We have focused on some of your
successes. My own understanding is that certainly officer recruitment
is more or less up to standard and you are looking positively
at some of the many abilities and potential that exists out there.
I wanted to ask you whether some of the measures that you have
already referred to and which I understand have been used for
officer recruitment are also being extended for general recruitment.
For instance, you mentioned about going into schools. I understand
there has also been work experience and seminars, so you are looking
to move away from just the traditional recruitment methods of
waiting for people to walk through the door of the Army recruitment
centre and instead going out into all the different places in
both the general community and also the workplaces and so on to
try and raise the issue with people and young people particularly
who have not considered it. As you mentioned, increasingly we
are dealing with a generation who has no one in their family who
has had military experience and who will just generally talk about
it.
(Major General Leakey) I think one needs to draw a
distinction between the size and scale of the potential officer
recruitment pool and those for soldiers. The scale is very very
different. We are taking in the order of 600 officers a year and
14,000 soldiers, so the scale of effort that you can put into
a very discrete area compared to that which you put into a much
bigger pool has to be different. With the officers we are running
graduate seminars in the universities and let us remember, I think
over 80% of our officers on entry to Sandhurst are already graduates,
so it is a very very rich fishing pool for us and therefore we
put effort into, for example, graduate seminars. We could not
really match that on the same scale and with the same focus and
effort across the general population looking at 16-24 year olds
out of the British education and further education system at lower
levels, the scale of it would be well beyond us. We are doing
a lot of things which are quite similar to our officer recruitment
techniques. You mentioned going into schools. We have offered
to over 6,000 schools the citizenship package. The citizenship
package is now part of the curriculum and we are offering to deliver
that in a variety of ways to schools and we have put this option
out to them and in the package is a lesson plan and the supporting
material which teachers can pick up and use. We can supplement
that by sending military people in to help deliver that package
if schools want to do it and we can build on that. We have offered
that to 6,000 schools. We have had very positive feedback from
that. I think some 1,200 schools have already responded positively
asking for the package or further information. So that is one
way in which we are doing it. We offer bursaries and cadetships
to officers going through university and so on. We are now doing
the same for some soldier entries, particularly those coming into
some of what I would describe as the rare breed trades where we
have difficulty in recruiting and nurses is an area where we are
offering bursaries from April next year. So we are extending it.
There is a lot of work experience and the Regimental Recruiting
Teams are offering this and again it is part of the recruiting
effort but it is also just exposing the Army to society at large.
The recruiting teams go out and as part of the citizenship activity
that we undertake we bring people into regiments for visits and
they stay for two or three days in the same way that we take potential
officers for visits to regiments. We have Army youth teams which
are spread round the country and they go and help schools and
youth clubs and outdoor activity clubs and help in the Duke of
Edinburgh in schools and we are offering that and that is not
targeted at potential officers, that is targeted more at soldier
recruiting. So we are taking the Army out in those ways. We offer
Army exhibitions in schools which we run round all the regions
in the country annually and they are very very popular indeed
both with the boys and girls who come and also the teachers. We
are not recruiting teachers, but what we do is we take the teachers
away from the pupils, we put people in charge of the pupils and
they take them round the exhibition, they go round and they talk
to soldiers and they are taken round the various stands. We then
take the teachers away and we talk to them separately because
they are the gatekeepers and the guardians of the kids and we
want to tell them something about the Army.
73. What about the parents?
(Major General Leakey) It is difficult to do it to
all the parents. Let me just give you a very broad-brush figure.
I think this year we are going to have in excess of 100,000 contacts,
that is people who ring up or contact recruiting officers or ring
up our call centre with an enquiry about joining the Army. If
you translate that down to the 40,000-odd who actually fill in
an application form, the scale of trying to get all their parents
in, that could be 80,000 people—
74. Do you have family open days or events?
(Major General Leakey) We do. Again, going back, the
Field Army run open days in our barracks and I think every regiment
and barracks and garrison has an open day of some sort round the
country all the time.
75. Thank you. Can I now move on to initial
checking. What is the reason for bringing Phase 1 and Phase 2
training for infantry together at Catterick?
(Major General Leakey) Is that two questions or one,
at Catterick or bringing it together?
76. I do not know whether you want to deal with
it as two questions or one.
(Major General Leakey) We brought it together to start
with for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons was the physical
demands on the recruits at Phase 2 training is amongst the highest
for the infantry. What we found was that they were getting through
the recruit training and they were then having to climb a very
steep hill to get to the physical standard required at the end
of the infantry Phase 2 training. By combining it we were able
to graduate much more carefully and scientifically and with less
damage, less injury, less rehabilitation and that was a very major
factor in it. We ran a pilot course on it and the indications
were that this was going to be a very much more cost-efficient
way and human efficient way of training, people were much happier
with it. There was another big reason. In the recruit Phase 1
training there was a fear factor. The recruit training is run
on basic infantry soldier skills which every soldier has to have
in the Army and having done that recruit training and reached
a climax and a passing off parade and the families come down and
it is a great achievement, you are then under a slight fear factor
going to Catterick where you have to go and do real professional
infantry training and there was a fear factor which caused a lot
of wastage and we have got over that by saying we can do it all
in a one-er at Catterick and that has made a big difference to
the nurturing of people through the training and their development.
So those are two of the big reasons. Why are we doing it at Catterick?
Because if we were going to do it we needed to find somewhere
that was big enough, had the facilities, training areas, ranges
around it and Catterick was the answer.
77. It sounds as though early indications are
that it was successful. Where recruitment is exceeding your initial
expectations, is Catterick large enough to deal with that excess?
(Major General Leakey) Last year the target set on
me to turn out trained soldiers for the infantry was 3,000, I
think. Last year, before we had Catterick, we did not make 3,000,
quite; this year, with Catterick, we are going to exceed 3,000.
78. Good. Thank you.
(Major General Leakey) That is whilst we have been
in the transition period. When there has been a bottleneck because
we have been moving people around and reduced the capacity not
just at Catterick but in the regiments from where we have had
to move instructors and equipment around to set up Catterick,
there has been a transition period where we have reduced the whole
of the actual capacity and despite that we are still going to
exceed last year's target.
Mr Roy
79. I am very interested in the type of NCOs
which first came to meet the raw recruits. I know from parliamentary
answers that you lose 10% of the recruits in the first six weeks,
you lose 23/24% in the first six months. You have told us today
that if you recruit 14,000 you end up with ten. I do have a very
special worry about the instructors who obviously I think, apart
from being professional, need also to be aware of the success
levels of the raw recruits as opposed to someone who has been
in the services already. What do you do to make sure that those
NCOs do have the sensitivities to deal with raw recruits? Secondly,
you said that you were able to have an increased recruitment after
a television type of campaign and, therefore, similarly do you
notice, also, a massive drop the morning after a fly-on-the-wall
documentary which shows an instructor face to face with a young
recruit shouting because I find that quite appalling when I see
those fly-on-the-wall documentaries? Are you equally worried when
you see them?
(Major General Leakey) A number of points. The first
point is the wastage rates that you quote there and is that down
to the quality of the NCOs and their ability to handle the recruits?
We need to analyse and one needs to understand very carefully
and clearly why the wastage takes place. A lot of the wastage
has got nothing to do with the quality of the NCO instructors
there. The reasons why people leave are not just because they
think they are being harried or bullied or the training is too
hard, which I think is what you may have been implying. I have
not got the figures here, and of course it varies hugely from
regiment to regiment and seasonally. A lot of people leave because
we find they have defects on enlistment, they have undeclared
medical problems which manifest themselves. There are a lot of
reasons other than just the quality of the NCOs or the training
of the NCOs that we give them before they take the recruits. I
think we should be clear about that. You cannot put the whole
of that wastage down to just the insensitive handling by NCOs
and we should be absolutely clear about that. The second thing
is that I do not think it would make any difference whether we
have the most brilliantly trained NCOs in the whole world who
have done years of on the job training under supervision and have
gone to some specialist college where they got this training because
some of the people who go into the Army realise they have made
a mistake. They did not want to make that commitment, they did
not want to be away from home. Sure, if we have really highly
trained people who are complete specialists in this field of nurturing
and so on, we might do a little bit better but I have to say—and
we go and talk to these people—a lot of the people who leave
the Army of their own will are temperamentally unsuited to the
rigours of service life, irrespective of the training regime they
might be under. Again I do not think we should blame our NCOs—
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