Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
WEDNESDAY 11 DECEMBER 2002
MAJOR GENERAL
A D LEAKEY, CBE AND
MR MARTYN
PIPER
80. Surely those NCOs must be sensitive to young
17 year olds who are away from home, many come from Scotland down
to England or go from England up to Scotland, different country,
different geographic region, surely those NCOs, apart from your
very, very good soldiers also need the added professionalism and
sensitivity to deal with those young 17 year olds, either boys
or girls, man or woman? Surely you must say "This must be
a priority?" Just because an NCO happens to be a good soldier,
surely that does not mean he can deal with a 17 year old?
(Major General Leakey) No, you are absolutely right.
All the NCOs and officers, indeed all the instructors who go to
the Phase 1 Training Regiment, go on a formal training course
in the early stages at least of their posting to the Initial Training
Group. They all do go and get formal training. We operate an absolutely
zero tolerance regime of insensitive or inappropriate behaviour
to recruits. Now I would not say that they are all perfect and
with the best will of society nobody is going to have a perfect
organisation and there will be NCOs who find themselves under
great pressure. Some of these people, as was pointed out before,
are very high quality, very highly motivated, very enthusiastic,
very experienced, mature people and they are easy to deal with.
They get through the training and they bring on the others in
the team with them. Sometimes you get groups of people who come,
as we have said, from very disorganised, ill-disciplined or dysfunctional
backgrounds and they are very difficult. Some of them have had
no experience of living with other people and living any sort
of disciplined life, indeed, living in any sort of hygiene I have
to say in some cases. We are dealing with sometimes some very
difficult kids here. The NCOs I think do a very good job. They
are trained at the ITGIS course and that course has been running
now for some three years. We have got statistical evidence from
surveys that we are running inside the ATRA to demonstrate the
value of that. The wastage rate which you alluded to before is
declining, quite markedly, and on the attitude surveys of the
recruits who are going out of the training establishments we are
noticing a major difference in their perceptions of how they are
treated. I will not hold my hand up and say "We are perfect",
of course we are not but I think we should not necessarily take
at face value all of—if I can quote something from today's
press—the frenzied and inaccurate representation in the
media.
81. When you are speaking about the media, can
you answer the point I raised with regard to the television. The
glossy adverts certainly help in recruitment but those fly-on-the-wall
documentaries with all the shouting and all the behaviour you
see, is there a rush the next morning to join the Army after one
of those documentaries?
(Major General Leakey) It is quite expensive to ask
people to do research. We do the research after we have had our
own adverts to take a picture of whether the number of applicants
and contacts is going up or down. I do not think we do research
to see after a documentary whether it has taken a particular effect.
82. If you take it in the positive then surely
it is a good idea. Let us look at the target market.
(Major General Leakey) Can I just finish answering
the question. What we do, it is manifest in the actual results
of the numbers of people coming through. As I said earlier, the
numbers of people who are ringing us up and contacting us is on
the increase, it has not been put off by the adverse media coverage
of, for example, Deepcut, and the coverage of bullying and the
fly-on-the- wall documentaries. The numbers have not been adversely
affected. The recruiters and the recruiting officers are telling
me—and I go around and visit them and say "What effect
is this having"—the people are coming in and they are
attracted by the Army for all the same reasons, for the adverts
we have put on. They have seen the flip side of it, if you like,
the media representation of some of the fly-on-the-wall documentaries
and they ask about that and they have said it is good because
then we have a good healthy discussion about it. They come and
they want reassurance. At the moment the recruiting officers are
telling me that they are able to give a satisfactory reassurance.
83. I understand that. I understand some people
say it could be good. I would just love to know how many people
do not come into your office because they have seen that.
(Major General Leakey) Proving the negative is a difficult
thing to do.
Chairman: Perhaps you could bear Frank's comments
in mind when maybe you are doing the survey. I think it raises
a valid point.
Syd Rapson
84. In your Vision Statement you mention the
word "nurturing". You used the term "nurturing"
earlier when you referred to Catterick training. You have mentioned,
also, this camouflage club which would appear to be nurturing
young recruits. Is the nurturing also including the networking
with the private sector potential trainers for the future? Can
you expand on what you mean by nurturing?
(Major General Leakey) I did not quite get the last
part of your question: nurturing the potential trainers of the
future.
85. You talk about conducting nurturing in the
widest sense at all stages in the programme.
(Major General Leakey) Yes, okay.
86. I understand nurturing young recruits and
you mentioned nurturing through infantry training in Catterick.
I wonder if you could explain nurturing of networking with private
sector potential trainers. How wide does your nurturing go?
(Major General Leakey) In my vision the nurturing
that I am referring to there is this business of being a bit more
caring about the way we look after our people to make them feel
a bit more valued at every stage. This is particularly important
at the recruiting stage when people are having to wait. One of
the biggest delays in the recruiting stage, believe it or not,
is their GPs not answering the letters because it is all "medical
in confidence". We have to get their medical records or declarations
verified by a doctor and that can take weeks. In the mean time
we put pursuing letters into the GPs and we need to nurture these
people to keep them interested, to keep them feeling that we value
their application, that we value them as a person, that is what
I mean by nurturing at the recruiting stage. That translates through
into the process in Phase 1 and Phase 2 training. I think we are
getting much better at it in Phase 1 training, keeping the people,
nurturing them and as part of the nurturing, nurturing their families
as well. In the Phase 1 establishments I find that the officers,
the sergeant-majors, the senior NCOs spend a lot of time on the
telephone to their families, reassuring their families. Somebody
has mentioned kids being away from home from the age of 16 or
17 for the first time, their families need reassurance that things
are going well. We employ people not just within the chain of
command, the officers and the NCOs but civilian welfare workers
within the organisations to help as part of that nurturing, that
is what I mean by in Phase 1 training. We are not as good at doing
it in Phase 2 training as we ought to be and we know that and
to a certain extent it is not just a matter of culture but it
is a matter of resources, also; we are addressing that at the
moment. I think that is what I mean by nurturing at all stages.
Going on to the last part of your question, I am afraid I just
do not get it. I do not know what you mean?
87. Fair enough, it is a laudable answer and
the caring attitude comes through. I must confess it is a personal
thing probably to you because you have put it in an individual
statement. How can you measure the benefit of the nurturing that
you have seen? Can you measure that? Can you quantify it and,
if you can, should it not be one of your key targets?
(Major General Leakey) To measure it you have got
to have a performance indicator and the sort of performance indicators
that we do use are the wastage rates and the reason for why people
are leaving, that is one of the indicators. I think our nurturing
is getting better because our wastage rates are coming down and
it is reflected, if you like, in me meeting my efficiency targets
because that is the key indicator. The efficiency targets now
put on me are producing the trained output for either the same
or less money, and if I can keep people in the training system
rather than have them wasting out because they are unhappy, then
that is an efficiency and I will get more people out for the same
capacity and the cost of that capacity. So that is one key indicator.
The second is in the anonymous surveys that we are running, which
we get every trainee to fill in when he leaves Phase 1 and Phase
2 training, and we will look at that and they will be assessed.
We can assess not just from the numerical ticks in the boxes,
as it were, which gives us a sort of combat indicator of trends
of contentment with the nurturing and of being valued, but also
in the written comments and there is plenty of space on these
surveys and questionnaires for people to put their written comments.
I must stress that we have not been running the survey for very
long and we probably have not got a sufficient quantity of data
for it to be statistically significant or dependable at this stage,
but the early indications are since we started running the induction
course for instructors three or four years ago, the attitude survey
and the other indicators are really very positive indeed. That
is not to say that we do not have not some bad apples in our organisation,
but the indicators are good, and we can and do measure it by that.
88. I hope you are encouraged to carry on and
do that because I think you need to combat some of the negative
reports that are coming in—
(Major General Leakey) Yes, I agree. Thank you.
Mr Jones
89. Can I come back to the welfare issues that
new recruits get. It would appear that there are a number of complaints
of mistreatment and one problem is they have increased significantly
, and obviously I do not want to touch on the allegation of Deepcut
as the Chairman said earlier on, but some of them have been about
serious assaults and in some cases incidents of rape. How many
allegations of rape, both homosexual and heterosexual, are you
investigating at the moment and do you keep statistics, for example,
on suicide rates of new recruits? Could you perhaps tell the Committee
what you are doing to combat obviously the bullying that leads
to some of these potentially serious allegations?
(Major General Leakey) Your first question was how
many investigations am I conducting on rape, I am not conducting
any, the police do all that but within—
90. Wait a minute, do not be clever.
(Major General Leakey) No, but within the Act—
91. Do not be clever. I am not asking you about
investigating, what I am asking for is a figure. What are the
numbers that are being investigated, as you say, by the police?
Answer the question rather than look clever.
(Major General Leakey) The reason I drew the distinction
is because we run boards of inquiries which can be under me after
the police have finished the investigation. I thought that may
have been what you were getting at to avoid the Deepcut. I know
of two investigations that are going on regarding the number of
rapes in the ATRA, one is a homosexual rape and one is a heterosexual
rape and those are, as it were, within the organisation, ie I
think in both cases it is trainee on trainee. I understand that
there are four other cases of soldiers within the ATRA who are
involved in an investigation concerning rape but not necessarily
within the ATRA. In other words they may have come in before they
joined the Army or there may be investigations, ie not within
the ATRA, they are civil investigations outside in the civil community,
and I understand there may be four, but I do not have a handle
on the detail of those investigations. Of course, unless there
is a reason why somebody should be suspended from training or
indeed held in custody—and that is a matter for the police
to make a recommendation on—then they, of course, must continue
in training until the allegation is proved. So two that I know
of within the ATRA.
92. I accept that, but do you keep statistics
on either allegations, whether it happened or, in fact, they were
killed in ATRA?
(Major General Leakey) I do not keep statistics actually
within the ATRA, the Army does it as a whole.
93. Why do you not keep it in ATRA?
(Major General Leakey) For rape?
94. For serious assaults, for example, that
take place in an organisation which is training recruitment?
(Major General Leakey) I can get the statistics if
I want because they are kept by an organisation within the headquarters
of the Adjutant General and, indeed, all discipline cases are
kept on a central data base in HQAG and I do see the disaggregation
of that in fact by unit, not just by training people in the ATRA
as a whole. So the answer to that is yes, there are Army statistics
and they include the disaggregated ones in the ATRA.
95. You are in charge of ATRA and the training?
(Major General Leakey) Yes.
96. Would you not think it would be useful to
you if you wanted to counter, for example, the allegations there
were serious reports of physical violence and heterosexual assault
in ATRA, that you would have those statistics to hand so you could
see where there is a problem? What you are trying to tell us—I
think what you are telling me and tell me if I am wrong—is
they are just kept with the overall figure in the rest of the
Armed Forces. Would you not have thought it should have been you,
as the commanding officer in charge, who ought to have had that
information kept and been able to monitor what is happening in
your own organisation?
(Major General Leakey) Yes, sorry. The director of
the organisation which keeps those statistics has called on me
twice this year to show me the statistics inside the ATRA and—
97. Surely it should not be his job to show
you, should you not be asking him?
(Major General Leakey) No, he rings up and routinely
calls on me, as do all my other advisers and people who come and
call on me, and I see those statistics. Indeed, I have written
out to all my operative commanders, particularly the ones where
I think the statistics are uneven or unbalanced and asked for
explanations of it.
98. Unless he came to you and said: "These
are the statistics"?
(Major General Leakey) The last time I called him.
99. I do not want to get into Deepcut, but clearly
there is a perception in the media, whether it is right or wrong,
that in the Armed Forces' training organisation, there is a serious
problem with bullying and in terms of sexual assaults and also
physical assaults. Surely, if you are in charge, should you not
be monitoring that very closely rather than wait for somebody
to come to you and give you the statistics?
(Major General Leakey) I can assure you the statistics
of discipline or ill-discipline if you want to call it are falling.
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