Examination of Witness (Questions 313
- 319)
WEDNESDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2002
MR JOHN
BRIDGEMAN, CBE TD DL
Chairman: Mr Bridgeman, thank you so
much for coming. You gather we are very interested in the whole
concept of reserves and reinforcements and I can recall keeping
General Walker waiting whilst we finished evidence with the TAVRAs
about three or four years ago.
Syd Rapson
313. I have been looking at your pictures in
colour and in black and white and they do you proud. Could you
explain something about the work of the National Employers' Advisory
Board for the Reserves of the Armed Forces?
(Mr Bridgeman) Certainly. The board has been in existence
for some 15 years. Until quite recently, it was called the National
Employers' Liaison Committee for the Reserves of the Armed Forces.
Our job is to advise the Ministry of Defence, either through the
Secretary of State or through the service chiefs, on what can
be done to maximise the amount of support which employers give
to our reserves, the reason being that, in doing that, we will
aid recruitment, help with retention and ensure that the reserves
are as mobilisable as possible. We are essentially advisory. We
have a board of people who represent a cross-section of employment
interests. We are supported by a very large number of people in
the country in the 14 regions where we have our reserve forces.
We are triservice. Obviously since 11 September our life has very
much changed. We have built up though a list of some 6,200 employers
who have registered their support. That is quite a small number
compared with the three million employers that we have in Britain,
but there is a huge tail of small employers in there. That is
public and private sector, large organisations and small. If I
may as part of a scene setter quote some interesting numbers,
the 6,200 employers that we have we can only call generally supportive
because, until very recently, we did not know who were the employers
of our reservists. It was only when the Ministry of Defence decided
to ask individual reservists who their employers were that we
obtained some fascinating information, some headlines like this:
78% of reservists are employees. 8% are unemployed. 7% are in
full time education and 6% are self-employed. 37% of employed
reservists work in the public sector. Only 63% of employed reservists
work in the private sector. That is particularly interesting because
the public sector employs much less than 20% of the workforce.
The public sector provides disproportionately a much higher amount
of our total reserve capability, in all three services. Some 90%
of reservists in employment have made their employers aware of
their reserve forces commitment. Some 75 to 80% of reservists
perceive their employers to be supportive. Underlying this information,
that was a snapshot in time. We did not always have the information.
20% of our reserve forces turn over every year. Companies come
and go. Companies get taken over. We will never know who the employers
of all our reservists are but we have given a commitment that
we believe that a proper objective is that, by January 2006, three
years away, we want to have four out of five of our reservists
to have an employer that they know is supportive.
Syd Rapson: Is the MoD, as an employer of large,
civilian, public sector workers, a good employer in relation to
what you are after, or are they more difficult than the private
sector? I used to represent civilians in the public sector and
they would allow a few off who would normally go but when it got
extended they were a bit touchy.
Chairman
314. If you were a full time MoD employer, this
would be a career defining question.
(Mr Bridgeman) Thank heavens I am not. I would say
to all employers, "Trying hard but can do a lot better."
The reason I say that is that it is amazing the number of employers—and
I would include the Ministry of Defence as well as companies in
the private sector—who are very good at introducing policies
to do certain things and to be supportive. They are rather less
good at ensuring those policies are implemented down the chain
of command. This is as true of high street banks as it is of departments
of state. We have quite a difficulty here because the only people
who are going to tell us that a department of government or a
private sector employer is not being supportive or might be even
giving the reservist a hard time is the reservist him or herself.
You have to be awfully careful about acting against that,for fear
that there could be some unfortunate consequences; but we are
aware of it and our message is to the Ministry of Defence and
all government departments, yes, please have a policy but can
you please be sure that it is implemented right down the organisation.
Syd Rapson
315. Can you tell us how SaBRE Campaign is going
and what you expect to achieve from it?
(Mr Bridgeman) It is a very new campaign and it is
very much a change of emphasis. When we had the volunteer reserve
forces campaign, which the Ministry of Defence implemented at
the recommendation of NELC, as it was called at the time, it was
a Ministry of Defence campaign to generally increase support for
our reserves and we ended up with 6,200 supportive employers who
accounted for some 75% of the employed workforce. The SaBRE Campaign
is quite different. The SaBRE Campaign is primarily aimed at securing
specific support for our reservists, not just raising general
support. You cannot leave alone general support because no one
knows where tomorrow's reservists are going to come from, so you
have to work on the general as well. SaBRE is a much more targeted
campaign and, as a result, we think it will be a lot more cost
effective. We have already heard that each of the RFCA areas is
going to have an employer support executive. We recommended that
that should happen by ceding away the national advertising budget
that we had. It is much better to have delivery of employer support
taking place on the ground than we spend the money that we were
spending on a national advertising campaign.
Jim Knight
316. Moving on to the changes we have seen in
the last year, post-September 11 and the publication of the New
Chapter paragraph by paragraph, we have heard from the RFCA their
concerns about employers' attitudes. How have those changed in
the light of events in the last year or so?
(Mr Bridgeman) It is very interesting if you talk
to employers that, as soon as an employer knows he has a reservist,
he takes much more interest in what is going on than when he does
not. If an employer does not think he has a reservist, it is part
of what I would call the general clutter which passes a businessman's
desk. There are two very different populations here. However,
if you take, for example, some of our major employers in Britain
who have 40 or 50, and in one case over 400 reservists, that is
BT. BT stands out as being a private sector employer with almost
ten times as many reserves as anyone else—these people who
have reservists are very aware. In our top 20 employers there
are bus companies who are very short of drivers. They worry: "What
is that going to mean about my bus drivers?" Those people
who know they have reservists are very much aware of the New Chapter
and the possible implications for them. It has also had another
consequent effect which is that a number of employers are saying,
"If all this is going to be happening in terms of increased
use of reserves, I hope I know how many I have got and who they
are, because I don't want to be surprised and I think I might
also be irritated that I was not told."
317. Specifically in relation to taking on new
roles, it sounds as if there is nervousness.
(Mr Bridgeman) I would not say there is. One of the
jobs that we try to do is to give employers confidence that this
is a well managed system. The way we use our reserves is very
well thought out and is the envy of many other countries. If we
need to use reserves, it will be for good reason. If we want reserves
to volunteer for service, it will be for good reason. I think
there is a lot of confidence in the business community and in
the private sector that we are increasingly likely to be using
reserves but it is for good reason. We do not hear any complaints
about that.
318. I have confidence from our witnesses earlier
on that the individuals are more motivated by the prospect of
new, more clearly defined tasks than they have had of late. Do
you see a similar response as a consequence of events by employers
in terms of their willingness to support recruitment?
(Mr Bridgeman) The picture is very mixed. I will start
by talking about the public sector which accounts for 37% of our
reservists. The public sector feels under quite a lot of pressure
to perform with less money, to do more and more, and to be more
accountable. I am particularly conscious in the public sector
that when skills are taken away—and in the main reservists
are people with key skills— those skills might be in short
supply and not immediately available on a replacement basis; or,
if they are available on a replacement basis, they are only available
at a significant premium to normal costs. Supply teachers, locum
doctors, overtime in the fire service and the police service.
I have told ministers and a lot of other people that I think this
burden which the public sector is under, supportive as it is of
the reserves, to provide replacement skills at these premium costs
without any thought of money being made available for compensation,
seems to me to be rather naive. As far as the private sector is
concerned, there is another argument which is that costs which
are borne by the profitable private sector are tax deductible.
That is true as long as those skills are immediately available.
Of course there is a schedule of allowances which is bound up
in a pretty bureaucratic system by which you can claim when people
are taken off your payroll. Employers tend to put up with that
but I do not believe the numbers have been increased since 1996
or whenever it was. That seems to me to be pretty mean. There
is a danger that employers are going to feel they have been taken
advantage of. We have built up a lot of goodwill but it could
be lost.
319. In summary, the employers' greatest concern
is probably the sudden reduction in skills, compensation and the
bureaucracy that may be involved in claiming any compensation
or allowance?
(Mr Bridgeman) And being surprised that he has reservists
on his payroll that he did not know about.
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