Examination of Witnesses (Questions 538-539)
14 JULY 2004
MR DAVID
SHERLOCK, MS
LESLEY DAVIES
AND MS
BARBARA HUGHES
Q538 Chairman: Thank you for coming.
I shall just read a short opening statement and I understand you
have a short statement to make. This is the fifth evidence session
in our duty of care inquiry. The aim of this inquiry is to examine
how the armed forces look after the people at the very beginning
of their service, recruits in Phase 1 training establishments
and trainees in Phase 2 training establishments. At today's evidence
session we shall be hearing first from the Adult Learning Inspectorate.
We shall be asking them how they intend to conduct their programme
of inspections of care and welfare at armed forces initial training
establishments and what skills and resources they have to do this
effectively. Then we shall move on to hear from SSAFA Forces Help
about how they provide welfare support to the armed forces and
how such support may be improved. Thank you again very much for
coming and for the written submission. I understand you have an
opening statement. Before you make it, perhaps you would introduce
your colleagues.
Mr Sherlock: I am David Sherlock,
Chief Inspector of the Adult Learning Inspectorate. On my immediate
right is Lesley Davies, Assistant Director of Inspection at the
Adult Learning Inspectorate. Lesley has, for the last 18 months,
been in charge of the overall programme, setting criteria and
so forth for our work with the Ministry of Defence and the armed
services. On my extreme right is Barbara Hughes, who is the lead
inspector of the series of inspections on duty of care which we
shall be carrying out between now and next March. If I may say
just a few things, the first and perhaps most important is that
we are clear that our job is not to investigate further the tragic
deaths of young people at Deepcut or indeed those which have taken
place subsequently at Catterick, but to form an independent assessment
of whether or not the arrangements for training and welfare now
in place are such as to fulfil the duty of care which the armed
services have for their recruits. I am plainly sensitive to the
fact that the parents in the Deepcut and beyond group do not regard
the ALI's work as meeting their need to know what happened to
their children. I hope and believe, however, that what we will
do over time is to give them the comfort that lessons have been
learned from their tragedies. I should also stress at the outset
that we have yet to begin our inspections. We do not do so before
October. We shall be publishing next March. We shall continue
to inspect provision for learning in the armed services and the
Ministry of Defence thereafter, under the memorandum of understanding,
returning, I am sure, to these same issues of initial recruitment,
training, care and welfare again and again in the years to come.
What we have done so far is background reading, including the
proceedings of the House and this Committee, to determine what
we need to do to be able to make a reliable judgment on the revised
care and protection arrangements as they operate in the various
establishments and to determine the inspection team, the budget
and the access arrangements which we will require. There are details
on all those matters in the portfolio which we submitted to you.
My hope is that you will be confident, on the basis of our submission
and our discussions today, that the ALI's work will be sufficiently
carefully focused, sufficiently rigorous and sufficiently independent
to complement your own and that of the legal authorities in respect
of the particular events of Deepcut. Our distinctive contribution
will be detailed observation of training, transition and welfare
over a sufficient period to make secure judgments about them with
recommendations informed by our experience of recruitment, induction,
learning and learner support in the wider world outside the armed
services. If I may address, just to finish, the question you have
already put about the competency of the ALI for this work. There
have been questions about whether the ALI is the best organisation
to do this work. I am certainly confident that it is. My confidence
is based on over 800 inspections a year of adult learning in further
education colleges, of work-based learning, including apprenticeships,
of adult and community learning, of Jobcentre Plus programmes,
including the New Deals, of UFI Learndirect, of learning in prisons
and on probation, in the Police Service and on previous inspections
of the armed services. Independent reports show that more than
80% of training providers believe that we raise standards markedly
and we can demonstrate substantial improvements in performance
in, for example, work-based learning. Our approach is rigorous,
but we seek to work with providers rather than doing things to
them. In our belief, the key to continuous improvement is culture
change not coercion. We publish our findings in plain language.
We have won two awards for public accountability in recent months:
one for the best government information publication of 2003 for
my annual report; the second, the CIPFA PriceWaterhouseCoopers'
award for reporting and public accountability in 2004. We have
140 full-time inspectors and 650 associate inspectors with specialist
professional skills. In the case of our survey of care provision
in the armed services, we shall also be adding to our team inspectors
from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and the Commission
for Social Care Inspection. May I leave it there and answer your
questions?
Q539 Chairman: Indeed. You have answered
some of our questions, but we shall ask you them anyway to give
you a chance to elaborate. You have certainly taken away most
of my first question about your background, competence, credentials
for embarking on this type of inspection programme. It was a very
fair response. You have actually been to Harrogate on a preliminary
inquiry, have you not?
Ms Hughes: Yes, to the Army Foundation
College.
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