WEDNESDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2002

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Members present:

Mr Bruce George, Chairman
Mr James Cran
Mr David Crausby
Mr Mike Hancock
Mr Gerald Howarth
Mr Kevan Jones
Jim Knight
Patrick Mercer
Syd Rapson
Mr Frank Roy
Rachel Squire

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Memorandum submitted by Reserve Forces' and Cadets' Associations

Examination of Witnesses

COLONEL MICHAEL J E TAYLOR CBE TD DL, Chairman, COLONEL SIR DAVID A TRIPPIER RD JP DL and COLONEL J RICHARD G PUTNAM CBE TD DL, Council, Reserve Forces' and Cadets' Associations, examined.

Chairman

Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming in. I am sorry we delayed you. As you know, this Committee has taken a long interest in issues of our reserves and Territorial Army and the other voluntary services who play an enormous role in the defence and security of the United Kingdom. Our views have not always been congruent with those of the Ministry of Defence, and we are pleased you have come in this morning because we have a number of questions to ask and, firstly, going back into history a little --

(Colonel Taylor) Would you mind, Chairman, if we just gave a quick introduction for everybody's benefit? It will be very brief.

Please do.

(Colonel Taylor) I am Colonel Michael Taylor, Chairman of the Council of Reserve Forces' and Cadets' Associations which we abbreviate to RFCAs, and I took over from General Sir Edward Jones, a former Black Rod, about two and a half years ago. I have a portfolio of other activities in the private, public and voluntary sectors, and one which might be of passing interest to some members is I am the north west regional commissioner for the NHS Appointments Commission, and I am supported here by Colonel Richard Putnam who is a businessman with a long history in the insurance history and who chairs our south east association, and Colonel Sir David Trippier, who was a member of your House and a minister, and is now a businessman and stockbroker, and is the Chairman of the north west association. If I can just make a couple of brief comments, I think there has been a misunderstanding somewhere about some aspect of our work. We ourselves are neither civil servants nor Crown servants, although our employees in the associations are - nor are we serving officers. We are volunteer civilians with long reserve service who operate as members of the community from which our reserves are drawn, so that is our involvement on a personal level. I think I need to make the point also that our associations are there primarily to support the ethos and the morale and the welfare of the reserve forces, and that is separate from but very much in partnership with the chain of command and our activities relate to recruit marketing, employer support, and to the management of the estate for the reserves. I need to put a couple of pointers in, if I may: in general terms our 13 associations are responding very positively to the current trends within the developments of the New Chapter and see these as being hugely helpful and beneficial for the future, particularly the 700 new posts and the 130,000 or so extra man training days for the reserves. However, we would not wish you to misunderstand that we still retain some reservations and concerns about some of the residual issues from SDR, not least with regard to the situation with the footprint of the Territorial Army in particular across the land as a whole which we believe has presented some serious challenges to the delivery of the New Chapter. There are issues there also about recruiting for the reserve forces which we would want to develop with you. That said, we are now at your disposal.

Thank you. You have answered the first five questions!

(Colonel Taylor) I doubt that!

As I said initially, we are looking a little bit into history, and the first question really is how far do you believe the changes to the reserves brought about by the original SDR have been or have not been implemented? Do not stray into footprints because that is the next question, as is the current establishment where it is fully recruited. Could you just refer to whether the SDR has been implemented?

(Colonel Taylor) I think that is a very straightforward issue which I can pick up - the straight answer to the implementation is yes. The implementation that was required of the original SDR of the reduction in the number of Territorial Army units and the refocusing of many of their roles has happened to a very considerable degree. There are some residual issues, not footprint issues, about the disposal of the reserve estate which are still being worked through and that has taken quite a long time. I have to make the point that we believe more could have been done by using us and our experience in that territory rather than, as it was, taken on by defence estates, but in general terms, yes, it has been implemented.

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) Could I add to that, Chairman? The truth is in the north west region we were asked to cut out some eight Territorial Army centres, and there are still two that have to be disposed of, so, as you know, that is four years down the line. The point that Colonel Taylor has just made obviously is valid. We believe that if we had been given the job - and we have had that job in the past of disposing of the estate - it would have happened, and I think it would have been handled more diplomatically because, as you well know, the Secretary of State said at the time that whatever happened with the original SDR it should not adversely affect cadets, and there is clear evidence that it has in certain instances adversely affected cadets where they were actually based in some of the Territorial Army centres which were to be closed.

Did they ask you your views on disposing of some of the assets? Some were incredibly valuable.

(Colonel Taylor) Yes, like our own headquarters, Duke of York's, which is still being disposed of. We, funnily enough, move out of that next week so, yes, that is the most valuable bit of estate being sold under SDR.

Do they have the expertise in-house to successfully sell off very valuable national assets?

(Colonel Taylor) I think when it comes to Duke of York's probably yes, but when it comes to some of the TA centres around the country at large no, because they do have not the local knowledge.

I always felt rather resentful that my old regiment, the Staffordshire regiment, which had a footprint in Walsall for over twenty years, had that footprint removed, so I speak with a particular experience that is providing insight to the next question. How coherent or otherwise is the current footprint of the reserves around the country as a result of the implementation of the SDR?

(Colonel Taylor) I think the first point to make is that we believe there is a supreme irony at the moment on footprint that the Territorial Army is now as small as it has ever been in its history - I am talking primarily here of the TA rather than the other reserves - and yet increasingly greater demands are going to be placed upon it. In terms of the coherence there are large swathes of the country where there is no presence. We see the Territorial Army now as largely an urban force. There is a Territorial Army presence in most major towns and cities but large swathes of the countryside are now completely without like East Anglia, the north west, Cumbria, Lancashire, the south west and so forth where there is simply no presence, so in terms of the coherence and delivering some of the requirements that are now becoming aware of the Territorial Army, there is going to be quite a serious problem, and it is primarily the infantry battalions where that has been most impacted upon.

(Colonel Putnam) Obviously to recruit we need as wide a footprint as we can possibly attain, and it is interesting with the reserve forces, or the total reserve forces, fixed at 41,000 our recruiting figures are some nearly 12 per cent below the establishment figures, and because most of our Territorial Army is concentrated in towns or the larger conurbations, as Mike Taylor has just said, by concentrating them in smaller areas we are stripping out towns and a huge swathes of the countryside where we simply cannot recruit, and I think it is fair to say that the lack of uniform in large swathes of the country has not only affected recruitment to the Territorial Army but to the full time services as well, and that is quite an important point to make, I think.

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) We have no presence, for example, and Mr Causby will understand, in north Lancashire or in the whole of Cumbria except for the cadets, so the cuts which took place which you have referred to in the past, Chairman, were not using a scalpel but very much an axe as far as the infantry is concerned, and obviously that is incredibly sad and it makes it very difficult when you are trying to build up the new SDR New Chapter to give them an increased role when only a few years ago you cut them or they were cut.

If someone lives in a rural area, he or she might have to travel how long - 50, 75 miles?

(Colonel Taylor) Easily. If somebody lives in, say, Carlisle or in Lockerbie they will have to go a very long way. I mention Lockerbie advisedly because, of course, when that air crash occurred there was a Territorial Army presence in the area and they were the first on the ground. That could not happen today.

Is there anything feasible that might be done to increase that footprint?

(Colonel Taylor) Without a significant review of the current establishment, probably not. Anything else which would be done would be patching and propping by way of recruiting in other areas then bussing people to their particular centres.

If the current establishment is not fully recruited, is it because recruitment is poor, or retention is poor, or both?

(Colonel Putnam) Retention is poor - there is no question about that - and certainly over the last twelve months there has been a slow downward trend and we are losing numbers, not significantly but they are still on the downward trend. Retention is terribly important. It is not a lot to do with us because it is a chain of command issue but in the twelve months ending May this year reserve forces in the previous twelve months had had an enormous impact on recruiting. The marketing was extremely good; it was very high profile; and most associations increased their enlistment of new recruits by 40 per cent, but when we turned round at the end of the year we were down by 2 per cent on the previous year - in other words, the bucket is full of holes. It is a chain of command issue but it affects us because we then have to fund the recruitment to take place off the turnover.

(Colonel Taylor) There is another specific point which needs to be made - I think you are aware of it but I think it needs to be made at this point because of the question you have just raised - one of the consequences of the SDR change in establishment is the vast increase in the medical establishment, the AMSTA, really a very significant increase in that establishment, and hence, when you are talking about a shortfall in numbers, that is a catching-up operation with that vastly increased establishment, and that affects the total numbers in the Territorial Army because the medical part of the Territorial Army is a very large slug of the Territorial Army.

Patrick Mercer

You are under-recruited but, of those figures, how many are paper strength and how many are real? How many are taking their bounty?

(Colonel Putnam) I cannot answer that directly but we can let you know.

Give me a rough feel in the East of England regiment, let's say. How many would be collecting their bounty?

(Colonel Taylor) The general assumption is we are talking of something around 60/70 per cent FFR, fit for role. That is the general assumption that is made for planning purposes, but can I remind you that, under SDR, there was only a requirement to be at the 55 per cent. That is the important figure. The TA is not required to be 100 per cent ready for activity. That was one of the direct consequences of SDR - 55 per cent was the figure.

That is clear. Secondly, we have had endless discussions with the Secretary of State for Defence about the efficacy of the recruiting effort for the regular army, that which is handled by the recruiting group, and that which is handled by commanding officers. It seems to be impossible in the regular force to break down those men and women that are recruited directly by black economy recruiters - in other words, the commanding officers' personal recruiters - and those which are recruited by the recruiting group. Can you shed some light on that?

(Colonel Putnam) The whole recruiting structure has been dramatically changed over the last four or five year period, and a new paper has come out in the last six months which is the Territorial Army recruiting policy. I think we have moved forward light years over the last four or five years. Basically there are five levels in the recruiting group in the army as a whole for recruiting both full and part time reservists. The RFCAs have people on the boards at all those five levels. Colonel Mike sits on the policy group; I sit on the next level down at the strategy group; a full time executive secretary sits on the marketing committee; I sit on TARG, which is the recruiting group committee which just deals with recruiting Territorial Army; and then level 5 is the recruiting groups at each of the brigade levels, and we are there in all of those working much more closely now with all that is going on. I think our impact is beginning to bear fruit and we are having some sway on the sort of advertising material and everything else that we need to make this thing work. The recruiting is very good; the retention is what is hitting us at the moment.

Mr Roy

On a very small point, on Saturday a constituent came to my surgery, 70 years of age, who had been in the Territorial Army for 25 years, asking if he was entitled to some sort of pension because he had heard through the grapevine he could get a pension. What I need to find out is was he entitled, and would it help in the recruitment and the retention if there was some sort of pension?

(Colonel Taylor) It is a very old topic that has been bandied around for many a year. There is no pension directly for service in the reserve forces. There are arrangements individuals can make for supplementary pensions but that is a private arrangement. It has been debated at length and it has never been resolved properly. Will it help, Richard?

(Colonel Putnam) I do not think it will, and coming from the insurance industry and being a compliance director, the whole concept of calculating a pension contribution for something like 28 days a year would be actuarily so complicated and the net worth for somebody at the end in 5 or 10 years' time really does not make economic sense.

Chairman

A bit like most pension holders!

(Colonel Putnam) Your words not mine!

Chairman: Thank you for helping Mr Roy with his surgery.

Mr Jones

Can I pick up on the point you made about retention? What are the particular problems with retention? You have no problem with recruitment but what are the problems with retention and what are you doing to try and address them?

(Colonel Taylor) I think the point we have always been aware of is what we have called the churn in the early days. We have far too high a wastage rate of youngsters who come in and do not last the pace of the first year. That is where the concentration, in my view, has always needed to be and that is about keeping their interest, making sure they get some value out of it and so on, but there are other issues as well.

(Colonel Putnam) It is a long story. Clearly post SDR when we were cutting back from a Territorial Army of 55,000 down to 41,000, and the mergers of the infantry battalions was very painful, initially a lot of guys held on and the battalions for the first two or three years post SDR were over-bearing, but it was then the impact on the re-organisation of the infantry in particular into non viable outfits which really was significant because they were still serving in something which did not have the same aims as the old battalions, and the new infantry battalions were becoming individual training organisations with very small battalion headquarters and no headquarters company and that had a bad impact, and the chances of promotion for the young officer disappeared over the horizon merely because they could not get the experience they needed to qualify for promotion. That is beginning to change with the outcome of SDR New Chapter; the enhancements of posts in there is very significant but there are other things that have to change as well, and all of those things together made up a retention issue which was quite hard to contain, I think.

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) There are two things I would like to say, if I may, Chairman: there is a great push at the moment on officer recruitment. That is an area, apart from the Army Medical Services which Mike mentioned earlier on, which has I think the greatest concentration of effort at the moment. We are talking about an entirely different scenario from perhaps the one we experienced 20/30 years ago where for a lot of young officers, men and women, the demands of their civilian occupations are far greater and the mobility of those individuals to move away from their area is far greater than 20/30 years ago - that is a statement of fact not hypothesis. So that is one problem. The other problem is, and I know we are going to get into other territory here, that employer support is very important for retention - that we enlist the support of employers, whether they are small, medium or large companies, and that is an area especially in the New Chapter which we are really going to have to concentrate on because quite a number of our people are leaving because they are not necessarily getting the support of those employers.

(Colonel Taylor) Finally, if I may, it may be of interest to know that there was an attitude survey done in the 80s which gave birth to the National Employer Liaison Campaign, which was about wastage and what was going on. We have not had one of those for a very long time and it is conceivably a good idea that we should be doing some real analysis of the wastage rates in a way that has not been properly done for some time.

What are the legal rights for demanding time off? Are there any legal rights?

(Colonel Taylor) There are certain protections within the Reserve Forces Act of 1996 which give people certain rights and privileges in this context but there are no absolute rights. You cannot simply line up with your employer and say, "I am in the reserve force; I need two weeks extra time off".

Would that need to be looked at?

(Colonel Taylor) There are a whole range of issues around that which are worth looking at, yes, and incentives to employers as well.

Mr Howarth

Are you saying it is the lack of formed units which is the real factor resulting in these low retention rates?

(Colonel Putnam) I do not think so. I think with the outcome of SDR New Chapter there is a much more positive role coming in for the infantry battalions, plus the enhancement they have had to their establishments. SDR New Chapter, with CCRFs, with another 130,000 man training days coming into the TA, is a significant enhancement and must help us enormously, but I think the officer plot is quite important because we are short of young officers coming in; there is also a huge swathe of officers in the middle who are over age for the appointments they hold, and we have been asking for a dedicated officer campaign for the last four or five years. One has just been launched this year directed at higher education, further education and OTCs, and the spring campaign for 2003 is dedicated to the officer corps, and that must help us. In the meantime, Scotland RFCAs where they are drastically short have just carried out a potential officer campaign using local media, adverts and so on, and have had over 300 inquiries. They have to be whittled down to those which will be suitable, will understand the training track and go through the procedures.

If you are saying that you have 60-70 per cent fully fit for role, that means that the number of Territorial Army people available is not 40,000 at all but something like 26/27,000?

(Colonel Putnam) That is right, but it has always been thus because, whatever the size of the Territorial Army, there is roughly in any one year 30 per cent turning over and within that most will be recruits in their first year.

But the public needs to understand we are not talking about 40,000 reservists being available, but a substantially smaller number than that?

(Colonel Taylor) It is important to make the point that SDR was positive on the basis of having people at 55 per cent readiness. All of the assumptions are that in terms of call-out and requirement to serve and so forth we will have a training period which will bring people up to that full stage of readiness. The people are there and they are trained; they will just need that extra edge of training to be delivered in that period when they are being called up.

Roughly how long is that?

(Colonel Taylor) It will vary according to the requirement. For some the requirement is very low. Medics are recruited because they are medics and they do not need that preliminary training --

They just go straight in?

(Colonel Taylor) Exactly, but there are some working on complicated equipment who need extra training. Others will need training in the nuclear biological territory. There are a whole range of answers to that question depending on the nature of the role.

Mr Hancock

Is not part of the problem that the vision of what reserve forces are going to be used for is not clear in SDR, and that if you are a young person who has skills to offer, you would be rather confused by the messages the government are sending out, and the real argument against recruiting these people that you want potentially as officer members is that there is not a clear role for them? I looked at some of the material being put out and I thought if I was a 25 year old with skills I could offer, what is it they are expecting me to do?

(Colonel Taylor) One of the benefits of the New Chapter approach is that some of that is now being clarified and we are expecting to see much clearer roles within the CRRF approach than previously. But your general point is a valid one about recruiting.

(Colonel Putnam) Absolutely. I think, too, the outcome of SDR talked about a more pertinent employable Territorial Army. If you look at the numbers of Territorial Army soldiers who have served full time in the last four or five year period that is significantly higher than ever before, but it is back-at-the-ranch style, so the opportunities given to these people are enormous. I sometimes wish I was only thirty again and would take up some of the opportunities that have been available, but it is back at the ranch and keeping them after they have done that exciting period of service which is also a big problem.

Chairman: I am sure Patrick Mercer is available to be a sergeant somewhere!

Patrick Mercer: I did offer, Chairman.

Chairman: We have now completed the first tranche of questions, and we have to speed up.

Jim Knight

I was at the consultation meeting you had in March with parliamentarians which was very helpful for us certainly, but I am interested in how the consultation from the MoD to you was for you.

(Colonel Taylor) I think we can say we were very pleased with the way we were involved at all stages and all levels. We were given every opportunity to understand the policy as it is developing and contributed to it, and to make our contribution, both at national level and local wherever that was appropriate. I have no other comment to make other than it was highly positive and we were grateful for the opportunity to make our comments on it in every possible way.

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) I think the best thing to say is that the points we made were listened to and they responded very positively.

And your views were actively canvassed by the MoD?

(Colonel Taylor) Absolutely, to the extent that, for example, I was invited to a rather special seminar in Birmingham held by the Secretary of State and CDS with a whole range of others there as well, and that was very useful where views were being sounded out. We were given every opportunity to feed in our comments and views and, as far as we can judge, we were being listened to.

And that has been followed up by subsequent feedback and dialogue?

(Colonel Taylor) Absolutely. We have had very good correspondence back from the Secretary of State himself which confirms the various points we were making and the way they were being picked up.

Chairman: If your meeting in Birmingham led to an enormous impact on the MoD, then I am going to find out whether we can have our next meeting in Birmingham, because clearly there is something about that second city that has an impact on the MoD!

Patrick Mercer

On the CCRFs, what are your visceral reactions to this whole idea?

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) We welcome it. Firstly, the response to the consultation period that we have just been talking about led us to believe that there was no other alternative except that the regional brigade commanders should be in charge. The point we wish to emphasise, which I think is a point that has been taken aboard, is that they do not necessarily have to organise within the CCRF just a khaki presence; we are a purple organisation and there is no doubt in my mind, and this is in the papers the Secretary of State published, that there will be the use of arms other than the Territorial Army. Obviously I am bound to welcome that - I am not khaki; I am Royal Marines - and the Navy also will be used as and when appropriate, as will the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. Thus far on the ground - and this is what matters, not the words, whatever the Secretary of State might say - the brigade commanders have responded very positively: they have their minds round the problem - they have already been talking to the infantry battalion commanding officers; they have also been talking to other arms and other services and they will be using those two to great effect. What we have to be wary of is what is going to be the impact as you form such a group of 500 people, men and women, within a region, within a brigade structure, and the impact on the other units - not only the infantry battalions - from whence they come. Now, that is something that I am quite confident the brigade commanders will be able to handle. I accept, and you know very well with your experience, it is a chain of command issue. We stand ready to help in any way we possibly can with the organisation of these bodies and we would be involved from the very beginning. I emphasise again that the employers' support, which I know you are going to be talking about in another session after ours, is delivered on the ground by the RFCAs and they need us very badly. In the horrible event of some incident occurring which would require a rapid reaction from this force we are talking about, the RFCAs would be involved in support from day one, and that would include a number of disciplines which we believe we have - not least of all our contact with the community and getting that kind of support marshalled behind the brigade commanders.

It is a misconception in the House, and I will not be more precise than that, that there are a number of people who ought to know better who still think that the CCRFs are a purely territorial army organisation. They are clearly wrong. This begs the question that if you have a military Tower of Babel parading when the balloon goes up, men in light blue, dark blue, green berets, khaki berets - whatever - turning up, hosted by a Territorial Army infantry battalion, how many of your precious five man training days will be not wasted but taken up by producing commonality of training? For instance, a Royal Marine reservist is likely to have a much better feel for the SA80 than a Royal Navy reservist. Clearly I would assume there will need to be a certain amount of time given to that before moving on to the more specialist forms of training which exists.

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) That is a good question. Actually, I would have thought it would vary from unit to unit and service to service. I would have thought that the specialist brought in, for example, from the Royal Naval Reserve would be more closely connected with incidents which would occur, for example, in dockyards. In the case of the Royal Marines reserve, it is fairly obvious that the same thing would apply in dockyards and other roles that the Royal Marines, both regular and reserve, perform on a weekly basis, so I think it would vary. I think you are right: the degree of input into the amount of training required given the additional man training days will vary. Whether the net increase in man training days is sufficient is too early to say. My guess is it is probably not enough.

(Colonel Taylor) I think we have to be careful. We are very much into chain of command territory here and we can only help and advise to a degree, but as I understand it the likelihood of all 500 being required at the same time is pretty slim because that will imply some pretty major catastrophe of the kind that one hopes is not going to happen.

The kind we are being warned about every day?

(Colonel Taylor) Yes, but bear with me: the whole point about CCRFs is that they will respond to whatever the need is and those that are required will be those that we have brought in. It will not be all 500 that are required at the same time - as a general rule.

Within the specialty of their skills?

(Colonel Taylor) Exactly, yes.

It strikes me that five man training days is wholly inadequate. I appreciate what you are saying - that you have to let the thing spin out before it actually comes - but would it not have made more sense to base the CCRFs upon formed units?

(Colonel Taylor) It is, in the sense that it is the regional brigadier who has the task of making it happen with his brigade reinforcement team. It is simply the Territorial Army infantry battalions that provide the core, and they are formed units.

Absolutely, but if you had a CCRF formed in Bristol, for instance, would it not have been easier to use the Royal Marine reserves to form that CCRF?

(Colonel Taylor) That is a possible argument but the decision has been taken to use the infantry battalions which makes perfectly good sense to us.

(Colonel Putnam) The CCRFs are still performing and developing but we are talking about 14 of them, each 500 strong, and there is no way that the Territorial Army or other territorial reserves in some areas will get to 500 because there are not 500 people fully trained on the ground to form the unit, so the brigade command will have to deploy full time service troops depending on circumstances. What we do not know and nobody will know until it actually happens is what they are going to be asked to do. It might just be a simple cordon around a small area; it might be picking up bits of stone and boulders - we simply do not know, but we do not want to kid ourselves, there will not be 14 times 500 or 7,000 troops on 6 or 12 hours standby at any one time of the day or night.

(Colonel Taylor) The other problem which is very clearly being established is that, first of all, these issues have police primacy rather than defence primacy and, secondly, regulars will be used first wherever they can be. So this is very much a reserve back-up approach rather than anything else.

A reservist of whatever colour, ilk or creed has only a certain amount of time to give to the reserve formation. If that reservist is, say, a Royal Auxiliary Airforce officer, how much time is going to be taken away from his or her unit training? What is the impact upon unit training?

(Colonel Taylor) Nobody is absolutely sure because we are still at the very early stages. That is why the extra five days have come in - to enable that to happen. There was a conference going on last weekend of very senior echelons of the Territorial Army looking at these very issues, and they are still being worked through because it is recognised that there are some challenges here which the chain of command has to get to grips with, and they are getting to grips with them at the moment.

Are we robbing Peter to pay Paul?

(Colonel Taylor) There is a risk but I think they are aware of those problems, and they are certainly hearing from us that we have to be careful on those points. We have always made the point in our submissions to SDR and New Chapter that we did not believe it was wise to make this a prime role for the Territorial Army. It should be subsidiary and secondary to what is the principal role of the people who join up.

Could you expand a little bit on who is going to do the training for the CCRF?

(Colonel Taylor) That is the responsibility of the regional brigadier and the staff.

And is he being empowered with extra training and resources?

(Colonel Taylor) Yes.

Mr Hancock

Is that going to be common across the country?

(Colonel Taylor) Yes.

Is that training programme being formulated?

(Colonel Taylor) No, not the programme, but the resources are now in place to do that. That is what the 700 extra posts are largely about; that is what the 130,000 extra man training days are about.

When do you expect to see the training programme which will be common across the country --

(Colonel Putnam) It is starting now, getting under way, so although the CCRF next year will get 500 extra man training days, this year they got two and a half extra man training days for the second half of the current year.

What they are training them for is now in some sort of manual, is it, so every regional brigadier will know what the capability is expected to be?

(Colonel Taylor) To say they are in manuals is premature. This is very much work in progress, and bear in mind this is not our responsibility; we can only observe what is going on in the chain of command.

Patrick Mercer

Yes. I do appreciate that we are asking questions of you unfairly because you are the executives not the designers of this --

(Colonel Taylor) We are not even the executives. That is the regional brigades.

Perhaps you are the informed observers?

(Colonel Taylor) That is better, yes.

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) We are informed supporters.

(Colonel Putnam) The theme of your question is right because, if you look at what it means, we are talking about something that happens very quickly and we have to react to it very quickly. Some of these people are being asked to be available for service within 6-12 hours of the event - God forbid - whatever it may be. These people are not like the regular soldier. They have to disengage themselves from civilian occupation and their families, who are not living in barrack blocks as are the regular services, and their third job is their Territorial Army career, or Royal Auxiliary Airforce, or RNR. That to me is a hugely complex decision for someone to make in a hurry, so what the CCRFs are having to do is say, "How are we going to get hold of these people?" The only equipment we have is in the form of a duty officer within the CCRF organisation with a mobile phone and a list of phone numbers to pre identify those who might be able to come in very quickly. Now, that is a very thin way of organising a call-up but that is what will, in fact, happen.

Mr Hancock: But surely that begs the question, is the --

Chairman: I am sorry, but we have to be disciplined. We have a lot of questions to get through.

Patrick Mercer

Gentlemen, you are unpaid non executive directors of this organisation, are you not?

(Colonel Taylor) That is exactly the right assessment.

"Unpaid" being the principal point?

(Colonel Taylor) Very much so!

I understand that the whole reserve organisation is now swept up in this and, at the risk of leaping on a hobby horse, as soon as September 11 occurred in America, the Air Guard, the National Guard - all of which are organisations which I recognise we do not have - were instantly on the problem. Fourteen months later, despite the stream of intelligence coming at us, we are still working on this. What is the delay?

(Colonel Taylor) I think we need to go back a fraction, if you will forgive me. To make the reference to what is the situation in the States with the National Guard is an important reference point but it is a totally different concept. In the States the National Guard is a rite of passage for most youngsters. Every town of any size has one of their drill halls - it is normal for people to serve there. It is part of the lifestyle of the States to have the National Guard available. Anybody who has been in the States recently knows it is the National Guard providing the security at the airports. They are part of the fabric of life and society in the States and it is resourced accordingly in a way that has never been the case in this country. You cannot compare our 40,000, or whatever, and the National Guard in the States.

I am not trying to --

(Colonel Taylor) No, but it is only their speed of response. They are there.

But we have a problem that we have not experienced in this country probably since Napoleonic times when the reaction of the reserves, the militia, the special reserves, the defensibles and all the rest, was splendid. Here we are, I say again, 14 months after this cataclysm; we are getting daily warnings; and yet our reserves are still trying to grind into action. Why?

(Colonel Taylor) With respect you have it the wrong way round. The reserves are ready. Who were the first people at Lockerbie? Who were there for foot and mouth? Who were there for the floods? It was the Territorial Army and reservists. They are willing and ready. It is the infrastructure that is only now being put in place and it is being put into place, but it really has to be looked at in that context.

It is taking a mighty long time.

(Colonel Taylor) I do not think I want to say anything about that.

Mr Hancock

Taking you back to the problems you were exposing us to, the individual who is going to be called out will have to come to terms within the timescale needed for that person to get their house in order to be able to go off for a period of time which is not really determinable. Is the 36 hours for the callout quick enough to respond properly to a civil emergency in your opinion?

(Colonel Putnam) It depends on what the circumstances are. You will always get a small pool who will come in very, very quickly because they are "military maniacs", which is why they are in the reserve forces in the first place, and they are very enthusiastic, which is what makes up the Territorial Army in particular. The best numbers that you need will take a longer period of time but going back to the previous question we have to come up with a structure which makes it easier for people to slip in and out of full time service. The bureaucracy surrounding a transfer from a territorial to full time for six months is very onerous and it is an education problem. People now need to understand that post 1989 and the Cold War the army will be made up more and more of a smaller, full time army and reserves, and it is this interchange of reserve into full time service which we have to make simpler to do. Whether we have enough is a big question that it is not for us to answer but post September 11 last year has already seen some significant enhancements, and what we have to do is oil the wheels to make it work better.

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) Mr Hancock, I think you are on to a very good point because the call-up time you are referring to is difficult enough for regulars, let alone reserves, firstly. Secondly, it has to be officially dealt with, and I made the point earlier that it would require the 120 per cent support of a tremendous number of employers to support that, and that is a very significant role for us to perform at a regional level because we are not equipped to do it, and I did say earlier that we did deliver that form of employer support at that level. I also made the point that it may well require another look at the Act RFA 1996, which we all welcomed and it was welcomed across parties in this House, but we may have to look at that again - the speed of reaction.

That is what I was going to come on to. I think we in this House have a responsibility to make it easier for the individuals concerned who want to do their part for the country to do that, and it would be interesting if you could help us by saying what you think Parliament needs to do to require employers to give that time in a more generous and more speedy way than at present. I know from my own experience seeing how difficult it was when people wanted to go to Bosnia, for example, and found employers putting real obstacles in the way - "The whole firm depends on you not going, so please don't put your name forward and don't try and be there" - and it was shameful, some employers' attitude to some of their staff who wanted to do their duty for the country.

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) Can I give you three ideas that perhaps the Committee might consider embracing? First of all, what you have is the complete support, as we understand it, from the Secretary of State for Defence. What is not understood across government as a whole is the kind of support that is required from these employers where the encouragement, if you like, is not coming in as much as it should be from the Department of Trade & Industry. In the case of the Department of Health, what we need badly, because of recruitment of medics and we have already talked a lot about that, is a joint statement from the Secretary of State for Health as well as we need a statement from the Secretary of State for Defence, and everybody should be in this together. It is not wholly and solely the problem of the Ministry of Defence. We can do more and I think you will probably hear later from Mr Bridgeman as to what is being done with SaBRE and so on, all of which is good stuff, but much more will have to be done with New Chapter - much more - and we will have to galvanise ourselves into delivering that on the ground. What you should and may not know is that there has been a timely appointment for all of us in the region of an employer support executive where we have been given the money to pay for someone full time within our organisations whose sole remit is to galvanise and capitalise on that form of employer support, and we welcome that.

That is helpful and I think is news from our point of view as well. Do you suggest that the timescale, the 36 hours, could or ought to be shortened in a heightened state of emergency? If we are to believe what we have been told over the last few days where there is a real serious threat here, part of the call-in of these reserves ought to be starting to kick in?

(Colonel Taylor) Briefly, this is one of the issues being very actively pursued within the chain of command at the moment, and I was aware of this at the weekend at the Shrivenham conference I was at. A lot of work is going to go into place to identify the willing volunteer, so they know exactly who to call at very short notice, and I think you will find it will work.

But do you see, if that is the plan, that it could be a deterrent for somebody getting involved that they will not have the time? We want to encourage people to come forward for the reserve forces, but what is expected of them and the timescale when they have to prepare their families and jobs and everything will be such a tight period of time that they will say, "This is not for me"?

(Colonel Taylor) There will be some for whom it is a problem - one cannot deny that.

Finally, one of you - I cannot remember which - made the point that you expected that the units of 500 will be topped up by full time servicemen because you could not obviously meet the 500 in total from reserve forces. Is that planned for?

(Colonel Putnam) No, but it is a chain of command issue and the brigade commander at the time, and many of the brigades are mixed - they are part full name and part territorial - and he will have to make a decision depending on circumstances as to who he deploys depending on who is available.

I thought the point of calling you up was to replace the full time soldiers or service personnel who were not available, so I am slightly confused. If the government are suggesting we can have these units of up to 500 fully staffed, and there is a suggestion they will be topped up by full time ministry personnel, I am a little confused about how they can achieve that in some areas?

(Colonel Putnam) Not really. Post SDR the recruitment processes have changed, because we came out with the Territorial Army and it was more deployable. So people on enlistment are being briefed as to what might well be expected of them later in their Territorial Army career, and that is changing. I think we also need, as we mentioned earlier on, when RFA 1996 comes up for review in 2006 we have to start work now on looking at the changes that we think ought to be made to it.

Mr Cran

Could we move on to the so-called war on terrorism? Mr Mercer asked one or two questions on that but I want to come at it from a slightly different angle. How do you feel, given the situation he outlined, the reserves can contribute towards the fight on the war on terrorism, and has the government got greater expectations of your ability to deal with it than you have?

(Colonel Taylor) Firstly on that the CCRFs are intending to be part of that war. It is meant to be a series of organisations around the country available to respond to almost any civil contingency, including acts of terrorism, so the reserves will play a major part in that war and are going to have to be trained up to deal with it in terms of nuclear, biological and all the other issues. Much of that training already occurs, of course, but it is going to be part of it, so the reserves' contribution to the war on terrorism will effectively be through the CCRFs.

Could you give me more detail on what the contribution you think you can give is going to be, given what the United States happens to be beginning to develop?

(Colonel Taylor) Just to go back to the United States point again, we always have to make the point I made already that making comparisons is always difficult because of the vastly different approach to that, but I have to make two points, one of which I have already made: the CCRFs will be the key vehicle for that but also it is important to understand that the reserves bring to the party a whole range of skills, knowledge and expertise which is much wider than the particular role they are fulfilling or expected to fulfil within the reserves. For example, when it came to foot and mouth - and I know it is not the war on terrorism but it is the nearest parallel I can offer you at the moment - it was the fact that there was a Royal Engineer Territorial Army Half Colonel who happened to be an urban planner very familiar with issues of disposal of waste who was brought in purely as a Territorial Army guy who manned up that headquarters for the regional brigadier.

But is that not rather a haphazard -- ?

(Colonel Taylor) It was purely haphazard but that is the point about the reserves. That haphazard bonus is there all of the time. You only have to talk to the people who have seen the reserves in Kosovo, Bosnia or wherever to understand that they bring a whole range of skills over and above the tasks they are recruited to do. It is a part of being in the reserves. We bring all of those skills into play.

So there is no difference between the expectation on the one hand of what it is the government expects from you and your ability to deliver?

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) I think the point to make is that the brigade commander is in a strong position to know what strengths he has under his command at the moment. He is well aware because he commands, certainly from the army's point of view, a number of disciplines which Mike Taylor has just referred to, and we saw that he easily mobilised, if you like, during foot and mouth - which again we do not necessarily compare to anything like a terrorist attack but it worked. Not only did it work but it worked speedily, and there were hardly any complaints from employers - which is interesting, and those that there were were dealt with in a diplomatic way and so on. So I think the range of skills which the reserve forces can bring to the party outweighs those that the regular forces can bring because it is a massive canvass.

Just so I understand this completely, would the level of expertise, ability to deliver and so on be fairly equal throughout the regions of the UK?

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) I would say so, yes.

Again, so I may understand, listening to questions that were put to you by others earlier on, I took down one answer just at random - it was a "bucket full of holes". I know what you meant so I do not want a justification of that in any way at all, but it just seems to me that maybe you do not have the skills base that means you can keep and maintain, given the answers you gave to all of my colleagues? What about your inability to retain?

(Colonel Taylor) If you will forgive me, I think you are using quite strong and colourful language --

I am not known for using strong, colourful language, as I think my colleagues will attest!

(Colonel Taylor) On the phrase "inability to retain", the point we would want to make is that retention is a big challenge and a problem but that is not to imply that the skills base of the reservists who are available does not remain very high indeed. The retention issue is more about retaining the youngsters and the more junior people but the skill base is strong and solid and very much available. The other way the reserves will help in the fight on terrorism is that, within the concept of the New Chapter, reservists will be available and are being used already to supplement the regular forces and to release sometimes those regulars who are required somewhere else, because they have particular knowledge and skills, and the reservists can come in and, to use a bit of jargon, "backfill" - we do not like the word but it is accurate - to release people who then have the relevant skills to go off and do something else. So it is another contribution that can be made.

I have one more question and I will try not to use colourful language as best as I can! I just want to be clear about this question: the whole time parallels are being drawn with the United States, and we had an example this morning where the suggestion was being made that there should be a minister in Cabinet responsible for home security. That is not the question I want to ask: the question I want to ask is, within your bailiwicks, is there anything you are looking at in the United States to try and learn from?

(Colonel Taylor) There is already a lot of work being done - not by us but by members of the Territorial Army at senior level - to look at what is done within the States using the National Guard to support their regular forces. Those ideas are being incorporated and developed and we are picking up on those and our advice is being sought on them so there will be radical thinking coming in about the wider use of the reserves, and the greater utility and greater integration. That is really developing out of that study which is going on.

Lastly, is there any timeframe to that?

(Colonel Taylor) It is happening at this moment. The developmental work around those policies and thoughts is going on and we are being made privy to some of those ideas, so that we can support where appropriate.

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) The integration, Chairman, that Mike has just referred to was one benefit that came out of the original SDR, and this point has to be made. The truth is that, in the past, the Territorial Army has had an experience of battalions, regiments if you like, going through a fortnight away as a complete unit, and this you are very well aware of. What came out of SDR was a closer integration between the Territorial Army and the regular army in terms of individual replacement people going to sit alongside those people who were in the regular forces replacing someone perhaps who was coming back off leave. That system had already been in existence with the Royal Naval Reserve and Royal Marines Reserve for many a year, and what that has led to is a raising of standards right across the piste which is very important in terms of Mr Cran's question, and that form of integration has helped certainly, and will help with regard to SDR New Chapter.

Chairman: This sounds like the second person to visit Frank in his surgery on Saturday -- !

Mr Roy

I have a very quick question. Who is responsible for the welfare support of deployed reservists and their families?

(Colonel Taylor) We would regard that as a very major activity where we can support the chain of command, and we have already got that established and that is one of the roles we will be helping with in the context of any mobilisation in the future.

Is that seen as an on-going problem by the families at the moment as regards changes outside?

(Colonel Taylor) I do not think any of us have any evidence to that effect at the moment because I do not think sufficient numbers have been got. Remember that most of the reservists who are involved in operational activities have volunteered for it and have cleared their lines before they have gone off. We have not yet had to deal with a major compulsory mobilisation which would generate those sorts of problems.

And in the case of deployed personnel who live abroad, is there a difference between the family support that the reservists would get and that of a full-timer?

(Colonel Taylor) There would be some differences because when you are talking about regular servicemen abroad they have their regimental infrastructure behind them with families' officers and so forth because the families are likely to be together in one place, whereas with the reserves you have families scattered all over, which is why our people are going to be very valuable because we have that regional presence that can help out on that. The families of our reservists, of course, will be scattered all over the areas --

But families of reservists do need that same level of support -- ?

(Colonel Taylor) I am sorry, forgive me. Yes. We will do our utmost so to do but we do not have that quite that same infrastructure in place that the regulars do, for obvious reasons.

Mr Howarth

Turning back to the CCRFs, do you think that the nature of the challenge of serving in these new units is going to attract people into the reserve forces?

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) Yes, I do. I think there is a great attraction to it. If you go back in time and look at what I used to call the "ever readies", and that is going back quite a long time, there was a caché attached to that so that these people would be seen, in my view, as being somewhat special. I think they would be very proud of their role, particularly in this new capacity. As Mr Mercer referred to earlier, there will be a higher commitment and certainly more training required, so I think that in itself will be a great plus point.

And are people who are already serving anxious to volunteer?

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) I do not think there will be any shortage of volunteers. I accept it is a chain of command.

What is the buzz at the moment?

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) It is very good.

So people are saying, "I would like to sign up"?

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) Absolutely.

(Colonel Putnam) I think it will help retention because we talked earlier on about the non viable units of Territorial Army infantry battalions immediately post SDR, and this gives them a much higher profile and a more focused role, and that must help in retention.

Part of that role does require specialist training, and we were talking earlier about whether five days was sufficient. You were not able to tell me then what the average amount of training would be required to make them fit for role, but if you take the nuclear/chemical/biological attack issue and a response thereto, how long do you reckon it is going to take to train up people to do that, because that is going to be a critical element?

(Colonel Putnam) There is a big issue there. In recent weeks, some of the enhancements offered to infantry battalions have been 29 posts watered down. They are short of transport to move as a composite body and would therefore be dependent on coaches and such like and some, a few, NBC seats. If NBC is considered to be a legitimate threat, the Territorial Army soldiers are very short of protection.

(Colonel Taylor) We are very deep in chain of command territory here rather than our own responsibilities. Nonetheless, the comments are valid. The other thing we need to remind you of is that, since the end of the Cold War and the change in the nature of the reserves' roles, NBC training, as it used to be called, has not been a very high profile activity within the reserves so it needs now to be raised very dramatically.

There is no question of people undertaking this training and saying, "We do not like this; this is not for us. We want to opt out"? You do not see that happening?

(Colonel Putnam) No.

Do you see the necessity for introducing any kind of incentive or bounty which will pay a premium to join up?

(Colonel Taylor) Do you mean for the individuals or the employers?

I mean for the individuals.

(Colonel Taylor) It has been debated and discussed. The general view is that it is not a good idea this time round. The individuals who are going to be part of CCRFs, other than the extra training days, will not get any additional money and the assumption is that we will not need it to attract people in.

Mr Crausby

I have some questions on the registration of skills or should I say the registration of haphazard bonuses. To what extent is the registration of those skills, other than military skills, kept within the reserves themselves?

(Colonel Taylor) Very highly so. The whole point about the new brigade reinforcement teams will be to make sure they have a proper handle on all that information. It is sitting there; the units have the information. It is just a case of making sure that when the CCRFs are being formed up that is happening.

It is done on a database?

(Colonel Taylor) Yes.

Who has access to that? Are you satisfied that the Commander in Chief Land Forces, for instance, will have the necessary information?

(Colonel Taylor) Through the regional brigades, yes.

Have they also developed relationships between other organisations, the Red Cross, for instance, that you feel are sufficient?

(Colonel Taylor) I would not say they are necessarily sufficient but I have tested the water on that with my NHS hat on talking to some people in the Ambulance Service as to what the discussions are. I am reasonably sure that at the regional brigade level some very effective liaison is already in place with all the other emergency services.

You are happy that that is well documented?

(Colonel Taylor) I believe it is in very good shape.

(Colonel Sir David Trippier) I think we have a significant role to play because within our various councils, if you come to an annual general meeting in an RFCA, you have a very wide cross-section of people representing the voluntary sector, the trade unions, the employers, the emergency services and so on, so there is a constant dialogue going on. The brigade commanders, in my experience, know what is actually there on the ground, but if they did not and they required any help on that matter we are in a very strong position, because of our strong links with the community, to help them on that.

Rachel Squire

As you know, the Committee has long taken an interest in the roles of reserves and in the threats from terrorism, more so than since September 11. I know that in the past the Defence Committee has also looked at what role the reserves should play in relation to nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological threats. Certainly it stressed under the Strategic Defence Review transferring the anti-nuclear, biological and chemical weapons capability from the Royal Yeomanry to a regular unit. It took those skills and focused them abroad and left us particularly vulnerable in the homeland. As has already been commented, there has been more and more speculation and obviously more and more serious consideration given to the threat of those sorts of materials being used, particularly by terrorists against the population of the United Kingdom. Following up particularly on Mr Howarth's initial questions and your initial reaction and your response, saying, "We are getting deep into the chain of command here", the reality is that the consultation documents on the roles of reserves and civilian defence do see civil contingency reaction forces as possibly operating in a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear contaminated environment. What capability can the reserves most usefully provide for civil emergencies in the future in that context? Can you also comment a bit more on the training and equipment and what the view of the reserves themselves is when asked to take on this role?

(Colonel Taylor) It is a role that we have always seen as being appropriate for the CCRFs and for the reserves, only provided there is all the necessary training and equipment brought in. There has been a gap since the ending of the Cold War in the territory. There are not now so many TA soldiers who have been trained in that field, as there should be. That needs to be addressed with some urgency if the CCRFs are to deliver the role of guard forces, cleaning up and all the rest of it. That is an absolutely major prerequisite to get on with very quickly.

On that basis, you are accepting that it is a role that the CCRFs should be asked to undertake. The key shortfall at the moment is both the training and the equipment being urgently addressed?

(Colonel Taylor) Absolutely.

Provided those requirements are met, do you think the reserves could be used to provide CBRN training for local service providers based on their future training? Do you think they could provide it based on the situation they are currently in?

(Colonel Taylor) Yes, once they have been properly resourced with training equipment. They are ideally suited to do that very local kind of activity in conjunction with their regular colleagues, of course.

As the situation stands today ----?

(Colonel Taylor) I think there would be a problem this very day because I do not think there is sufficient equipment out there or sufficient training of all those reserves who could be picked up.

Do you think they could provide point defence for key installations?

(Colonel Taylor) Yes.

Across nuclear sites in the United Kingdom?

(Colonel Taylor) Very much so, with one proviso. That goes back to the footprint work. If you look at some of those installations, there is not much reserve presence in the area. As a young man, I was deployed to provide a guard force around what was in those days called Windscale - now called Sellafield - and there is not a single reserve unit within something like 80 miles of that particular installation. There is instantly an issue about have we people in the right places for those roles. Of course they can be taken there but the locality of the reserve forces at the moment in some installations is quite an interesting challenge.

Given my interest as the MP for Dunfermline West, which has radiological material in it, I think it would be useful if you could possibly give a note to the Committee subsequently on where you think the gaps are in the TA presence.

(Colonel Taylor) We will have to see what we can do.

Chairman: We are not going to propose that Windscale moves closer to populated areas, but it is a problem.

Syd Rapson

Can I move on to specific communication equipment? I was dead impressed when I visited TA units in Portsmouth at the equipment they have. I would say, to be nice, it is beyond its sell-by date and they maintain and keep this equipment up to speed with great enthusiasm and try and make out it is the best. The MoD did produce a discussion document on the role of reserve forces and home defences security and said that the 2 Signal Brigade's role has been formalised in supporting the operational continuity and is to be equipped - do not hold your breath - with modern communications equipment comparable with that coming into service with the civil police and emergency services. We have been critical about the civil side. What is the state of the communications infrastructure to support the new regional command structure and how compatible is it with emergency services equipment?

(Colonel Taylor) It so happens that I was privileged on Saturday to hear the commander of Second Signals Brigade talk about the very issue. What was very impressive was to realise that they are working very fast and very hard to make sure that they can do all the things you have just been asking about, that they will have compatible systems and so forth with all the other blue light services and all that territory. They are being resourced to do just that. I was fairly confident after that presentation that all the issues you raise are being very actively addressed. I have to say again that this is not our mainstream business, but I was comforted that, from what I heard, it looks pretty good.

Do I take it they will not be treated as a Cinderella?

(Colonel Taylor) Quite the opposite. They are being very well resourced.

The strength of the argument from our point of view is that we want to know that the home security part is as good as the best when you are abroad, especially with digital services being able to go into an urban environment.

(Colonel Taylor) Digitisation was the word of the day in that presentation.

What about the time frame? We have had promises. How long do you think it is going to be before we get to the stage of you being happy?

(Colonel Taylor) The presentation on Saturday led me to believe that it was moving very rapidly within the resource constraints that they have. They are working very hard to get themselves to the very latest start of the art in that.

I know it is outside the remit of this Committee but I would like to know if there is a delay, in a year's time, somebody could get a message to us and say, "Our promises have not been kept" because most of my constituents who are concerned about homeland security rely upon homeland defence. If the system is not in place, we need to know as early as anyone.

(Colonel Taylor) You need to quiz the chain of command on those issues.

Chairman: Thank you. There are other questions to ask but they would take us way into time that we do not have. We will write to you, if you do not mind, and any reply you give can be inserted as supplementary evidence.

MR JOHN BRIDGEMAN, CBE TD DL, Chairman, National Employers' Advisory Board for the Reserves of the Armed Forces, examined.

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

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 and 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 per cent of reservists are employees. 8 per cent are unemployed. 7 per cent are in full time education and 6 per cent are self-employed. 37 per cent of employed reservists work in the public sector. Only 63 per cent of employed reservists work in the private sector. That is particularly interesting because the public sector employs much less than 20 per cent of the workforce. The public sector provides disproportionately a much higher amount of our total reserve capability in all three services. Some 90 per cent of reservists in employment have made their employers aware of their reserve forces commitment. Some 75 to 80 per cent 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 per cent 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

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 support 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 fear. 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

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 implements 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 per cent 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. It 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 the national advertising campaign.

Jim Knight

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 stand 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 am going to be surprised and I think I might also be irritated that I was not told."

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.

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 per cent of our reservists. The public sector feels under quite a lot of pressure to perform with less money, to do more and more, 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 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.

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.

Given all of those concerns, can I talk about consultation as part of the New Chapter? For your organisation, what is the extent of your involvement in the consultation?

(Mr Bridgeman) Since I was in New York on the 54^th floor of the Citibank Tower on September 11, one of the first things I did when I came back was to talk to my people about some of the things that I saw but in my contacts with ministers shortly afterwards it became clear that things were not going to be the same again. We had been party to the same seminar in Birmingham which Colonel Mike Taylor attended. We have been in heavy consultation mode with a wide range of employers in the private and public sector through the people on our board, through the employers that we meet. We have representatives of representative organisations also on the board. We have a representative from the CBI, the IOD; another member of the board used to be the director general of the Engineering and Employers' Federation. The fact that we have good links into the employer community has been used by the Ministry of Defence to very much be their eyes and ears and to test the temperature of the water. I have no complaints about the extent to which we have been involved.

Happily, there is very strong support for consultation earlier on. The involvement of employers in the consultation on the New Chapter would have been through your organisation?

(Mr Bridgeman) Not solely. We certainly are not there to be the representative of the employer movement. We are there to be the eyes and ears of the Secretary of State on the ground, but there are many other ways that employers can make their voices heard. They themselves can respond directly to the Ministry of Defence. They can use their Members of Parliament, which they have chosen to do. Employers would not look necessarily to us to represent their views.

In terms of the MoD actively recruiting comments from employers they would come to you but they will have not said that BT have a disproportionate number of reservists and we must actively go and talk to BT and find out what their thoughts are on the New Chapter?

(Mr Bridgeman) No, but I ensured that that took place. I ensured that BT were able to meet with appropriate people to share their specific concerns.

Given that employers were not actively canvassed, do you think they generally have enough understanding of the New Chapter process for them to know that it was even going on for them to forward their comments independently of your organisation?

(Mr Bridgeman) I think that is very difficult to say because we have not done an opinion survey to find out what the level of awareness was. We have tested it out quite a bit since then but I honestly do not think that if we had embarked on a much more expensive and detailed consultation we would have got a lot more useful information.

Rachel Squire

I was listening to what you were saying about the consultation process and employers' concerns about a greater use of reserves and so on. I fully appreciate their concerns. Can I ask you whether you gain the impression that there is any increased commitment, post-September 11, from employers? If it came to dealing with some major terrorist incident in this country, they would not on an occasion like that be willing to put the interests of the nation before their own immediate interests as an employer?

(Mr Bridgeman) Put like that, of course employers will always think of the nation but employers frequently have an obligation through their company also to be sure that they can provide the necessary level of response. That is why it is so important, I believe, that in this new era post-September 11 whatever we want to do with our reserves should be done in close consultation with their employers. In the public sector, we rely quite significantly on various police forces to provide the reserves. If you look at our top 25 public sector employers, five of them are police forces. There is the whole of the health sector. I have mentioned BT. Many of these people will say, "Yes, of course we have people who are reservists and they joined up for these sort of things, but if there is a national crisis, if there is an emergency, you will be asking us to do things as well in the company", and we have to be sure that we can resolve these conflict of interest matters.

Patrick Mercer

You have talked already about some of the surprises that might come an employer's way about reservists. The concept of the Civil Contingencies Reaction Forces: how is that going to go down with employers? Not only do they have reservists but they now have reservists with much shorter notices to move, who have a greater training commitment.

(Mr Bridgeman) I would revert to the way I answered the previous question. It will all depend on whether the employer thinks he has one. If he thinks he has one -- and we will be talking about quite a small number of employers -- he will take a keen interest but until employers know whether they are going to be affected this is just one bit of information or clutter on their desk. There is a very wide range of volunteer initiatives which we are asking employers to consider. There is jury service; there are school governors; there are hospital trusts; there are community policemen. What a lot of employers, particularly the bigger ones, see is that they are being imposed on and this is yet another demand. "Please do not give us the problem unless you are sure we are affected." Part of our job is to be sure that, when the CCRF is being further debated, at an early point, individuals' employers are consulted in some sort of way to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. That is going to be a small number of employers out of the three million in the whole country.

All reservists therefore will have two extra training days and CCRFs will have five extra training days. Their answer will be it depends on the employer, what the reaction will be.

(Mr Bridgeman) Yes, and in so many cases the training which an individual reservist undergoes is done in his own time, without any particular knowledge of the employer anyway. Employers know that training takes place but whether it is on weekends or in the evenings and whether it is extra days or not tends really not to concern them.

Do you think there will be any difficulty finding volunteers to respond to this new task?

(Mr Bridgeman) My job is to ensure that whatever volunteers we have are supportive employers. However many we get, we try and deliver as much employer support as we can.

Is your perception that there will be any difficulty?

(Mr Bridgeman) I do not think so.

Mr Cran

As you know, the Civil Contingency Reaction Forces run at 36 hours' notice to act in an emergency. Is that supported by employers?

(Mr Bridgeman) It depends on the nature of the job which the civilian is doing in his normal place of work. There are certain hospitals, for example, that could not possibly provide replacement skills at that sort of shortage of time. If I talk to people in power stations, people in the utilities, people in BT, the ability of an employer to support short mobilisation is almost totally a function of his ability to provide the replacement skill for a key task.

How do you think it is going to work out in practice? As Rachel Squire said, we might have an emergency similar to the one which occurred on September 11. Against that background, how is it going to work in practice? What does the employer say? Does the employer say to the individual in question, "No, you cannot go because we cannot replace you"?

(Mr Bridgeman) I have been very encouraged about what I call the smart mobilisation culture which we have embarked on since September 11. We are focusing our attention on mobilising the mobilisable such that we have addressed key employer issues of key skills at the outset. I am hoping the same attention will be given to the mobilisability of the CCRF at the time we enter into this vital debate with employers as to what these people's jobs are. If it is a question of two or three weeks' warning, employers are much more on side about having those reserves because they know that is why people are in the reserves, to be used. To be mobilisable at 24, 12, 36 or 48 hours' notice will have some very serious repercussions. In the case of small companies, it could be life and death. There is another sector which is employers who are involved in what I call vital defence contracts. The MoD and its suppliers are major supporters of reserves and suppliers of reserve manpower. We must be careful that we do not rob Peter to pay Paul.

I understand and support everything that you have said because I can see those situations occurring. Having been associated with the CBI at one point, if you asked companies their views on any one issue, you would get a whole range of reactions from the very enthusiastic to the very unenthusiastic and a whole blob in between. I am searching for you to tell me that employers in general are not going to, not not cooperate, but put the telescope to the blind eye when these situations occur. Are you quite confident about that?

(Mr Bridgeman) This is a good cause and sensible employers support good causes. There are of course going to be some employers who for their own particular reasons will not be as supportive as we would like. This is not a perfect world. Overwhelmingly, I believe that employers, treated properly and responsibly, will give all the support they possibly can to the reserves on their payroll.

That is the answer I wanted. Do you think employers would support a reduction, if it became necessary, in the 36 hours' notice to be on duty? What do you think employer reaction would be?

(Mr Bridgeman) I am sure if I asked any employer how much warning he would need for mobilisation he would tell me an answer which is much longer than we are ever going to be able to give. It is a question of contact with the employer, part of the important dialogue. Let us be sure to mobilise the mobilisable and let us not put unfair, improper burdens on employers to deliver something which would cause damage to the economy and to essential services.

Mr Roy

There have been calls for a register of skills for reservists to be established. Is there not such a database at the moment?

(Mr Bridgeman) We have a register of supportive employers.

Not a skills database?

(Mr Bridgeman) We are not really involved in the skills of the individual reservists. Our job is to ensure employer support for whatever skills mix we have in our reserves manpower.

Do you not think it would be a good idea, for example, looking at the big picture, that you at least knew what skills were available from the men and women that you have?

(Mr Bridgeman) I am sure those people using reservists would want to know that but that is really outside our responsibility.

Chairman

Hopefully somebody will have that information.

(Mr Bridgeman) I would hope so.

Mr Roy

Presumably those reservists would gain great military experience and skills as well. Is that military skill recognised by the employers and, if it is, is it used?

(Mr Bridgeman) Yes, it is. We have done quite a lot of work in this area. We did some work in the early part of the year about the things which employers valued the most. It is not the military skills they value the most. The things they value are ability to plan, to communicate, team skills, ability to think ahead, ability to think for others, perhaps an extra bit of fitness. It is more personal characteristics that people value in our reserve manpower than specific military skills. There is a second level: handling hazardous materials, the ability to instruct, perhaps skills in the handling of a specialist vehicle, things like that. The main skills which employers value are personal skills.

Presumably those personal skills would be enhanced by the military experience?

(Mr Bridgeman) Without doubt. It is very much a two way street. Employers benefit from military training. Our reservists benefit enormously from the skills which they acquire in their civilian workplace, so we have to be careful that we do not say it is all one way traffic.

What is your opinion? For example, is there an advantage to the military from the men and women's civilian skills? Do the military recognise those?

(Mr Bridgeman) I believe they do and I think employers find this rather encouraging. The reservist, job for job, tends to be rather older and more mature than his regular counterpart. A reservist tends to stay in his army occupation or naval occupation rather longer than his regular counterpart. These things feed back into the civilian workplace. Equally, things from the civilian workplace feed into the military situation. There are huge benefits for both.

That goes for anybody in the TA?

(Mr Bridgeman) Any of the services, yes.

Rachel Squire

Could you say what the employers' perspective is on the future of the reserves?

(Mr Bridgeman) There is a nervousness abroad that, in the course of the past few years, we are putting more and more demands on our reserves. Before September 11, we were asking more and more reserves to volunteer for service overseas. 6,000 reservists have already been to the Balkans in the course of the past eight years or so. Now, post-September 11, we have had three compulsory mobilisations. We are now talking about CCRF. There is a nervousness in the employer community as to how much more we are going to use our reserves. The onus is on us to be sure that they are used properly. I know the Ministry of Defence is very aware of that.

Do employers have any preference about shorter, more regular absences for reserves rather than the long period that you mention overseas?

(Mr Bridgeman) There are huge differences in the three services. The Territorial Army tends to be exposed to the longest deployments. The Royal Air Force, somewhat shorter; the Royal Navy, shorter again. I have been very encouraged and employers are very encouraged by the way that people in the Royal Naval Reserve bring ships home so that key personnel can be released to do other jobs. There is a regular input for Royal Naval reservists now on ships to do exercises of a very short duration. From a number of points of view, the Royal Auxiliary Air Force and the Royal Naval Reserve are more employer friendly in their deployments. In the medical area, where we are particularly dependent upon reservists, the Ministry of Defence has been hugely more flexible in terms of the length of service. There have been terms of service of consultants of a matter of days. That increased flexibility is to be welcomed.

Would employers support the creation of a more numerous civil defence force across Britain?

(Mr Bridgeman) I think employers are very aware that the whole matter of coping with what might happen in the homeland is a multiple responsibility of the emergency services, the uniformed services or whatever. What employers need to be assured is that the matter is being dealt with by the right people in the right time at the right place. The mix of policemen or special constables or military reservists they leave to others. The proof of the pudding will be when it has to be used.

Mr Crausby

80 per cent of reservists report their employers as supportive but are we right to assume that the 20 per cent that do not report their employers to be supportive tend to be private employers and probably small? We can understand that it must be quite dramatic for a small, private employer to consider a deployment of six months' duration. How employer friendly are we? Could we be a bit more employer friendly, particularly towards those employers who have very real difficulties?

(Mr Bridgeman) Amazingly, the small, private sector organisation that has a reservist is probably one of the most supportive groups that we could have because they know him so well. He is a key member of the team and if he wants to do it they support him. He would not be on the books otherwise.

Would shorter absences be more preferable to employers?

(Mr Bridgeman) The shorter the better and hopefully never but we live in the real world. To come to your 80 per cent, yes, between one in four and one in five reservists say they do not have a supportive employer. In many cases, it may be that the employer is just not supportive. In other cases, it is employers who have a supportive policy but they have not made it work on the ground. We nag employers and say, "If you are going to sign up to be supportive, can you please be sure that you really are implementing your policies." There are some key issues in the public sector which I will come back to. There are a number of chief constables who are not able to say they will be supportive. There are a number of fire brigade areas who are not able to feel they are supportive and yet the same chief constables know it is probably going on. I think we have a duty to these reservists in these areas that we do not prejudice the fact that they are very loyal reservists but they have a real problem at work. Yes, you could argue between one in four and one in five of our reservists might well have a real problem at work for whatever reason. It is up to us to find out what the problem is and address it to give him the support that he looks to us for. That is the essence of the job of my organisation.

Does that not put even more pressure on small, private employers? Are there any incentives that we could offer, tax breaks, for instance, particularly to encourage small, private employers?

(Mr Bridgeman) I think there probably are. Australia has now realised that they will not get the amount of support from the private sector that they believe they need unless they make some financial payments available and they have started that. We are watching that with very great interest. The extent to which we are able to secure so much benefit from having our reserves and all the skills that they acquire in civilian life is such that it would not be inappropriate to think about more financial compensation for employers. I used not to think that because I said, "When we can get so much for nothing, why should we have to pay for a little bit more?" I am afraid September 11 has changed that. We have never asked more of our employers of reservists than we are going to be asking in the future.

Mr Howarth

Of the least supportive employers, have you been able to identify any common factors? In particular, is there any evidence at all that foreign owned companies are less enthusiastic about their staff being members of the reserve forces? Do any of them to your knowledge specifically exclude from their employment people who do join the reserve forces?

(Mr Bridgeman) Most of Britain's major, international companies are on our list of supportive employers. You would not be surprised to learn that since September 11 the American owned companies of which we have a large number, car companies, energy companies, software companies, are very supportive. I am not aware of any concerns in that area. It is interesting that there used to be a concern. Japanese companies were to be a difficulty but it was because of a lack of understanding by a generation of Japanese managers what an important part reserves were in our society. With the help of the Japanese ambassador, Ambassador Fuji, we were able to get the Japanese embassy to make it clear by writing to Japanese employers in Japanese that it is an okay thing to do in the United Kingdom, notwithstanding the history of 60 years ago. That perhaps needs to be done again. Employer support is rather like painting the Forth Bridge in that employers are changing all the time. When you think you have a population of supportive employers, you turn your back and everyone has changed in two years' time. We have to keep going back to these people and reinforcing it.

Chairman

You gave us some really interesting statistics in the beginning. If it is possible to send us those, we would be most grateful.

(Mr Bridgeman) I would be happy to.

Secondly, you mentioned the 6,200 employers who were generally supportive. If it might be helpful to you, could you write to us, knowing the members of the Committee, because I am sure most of the members of the Committee would like to talk to a good employer, either in their constituency or in their area, and thank them for what they are doing. Thirdly, if you are going to communicate with them, as I am sure you will, no doubt you will convey to them that you appeared before the Committee and will you transmit to them on behalf of this Committee our deep appreciation to those employers who are cooperating? We hold our reserve forces, the TA and the Royal Naval Reserve in the highest esteem and we, as a Committee, would wish to thank all of those and their employers for the contribution they are making to the defence and security of this country.

(Mr Bridgeman) Thank you very much for putting that on the record. That is one of the most powerful weapons for enhancing employer support that we could have and I am indebted to you.

Fix it up with the head honcho in BT because I would like to go and tell him I am a great subscriber of BT and I thank him for holding the record.

(Mr Bridgeman) We have the information and I will make it available to you.

Chairman: Thank you very much and thanks too to those who gave evidence earlier.