UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 620-vii
House of COMMONS
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE
DEFENCE COMMITTEE
DUTY OF CARE
Wednesday 10 November 2004
BRIGADIER
MUNGO MELVIN OBE, GROUP CAPTAIN STEPHEN HOWARD
and
REAR ADMIRAL SIMON GOODALL
Evidence heard in Public Questions 760 - 905
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Defence Committee
on Wednesday 10 November 2004
Members present
Mr Bruce George, in the Chair
Mr James Cran
Mike Gapes
Mr Mike Hancock
Mr Kevan Jones
Mr Frank Roy
Mr Peter Viggers
________________
Witnesses: Brigadier
Mungo Melvin OBE, Director of Operational Capability, Group Captain Stephen Howard, RAF, Assistant Director of
Operational Capability, and Rear Admiral
Simon Goodall, Director General Training and Education, examined.
Q760 Chairman: Gentlemen, you
are welcome to our seventh evidence session in our duty of care inquiry. The aim of this inquiry, as you know, is to
examine how the armed forces look after their people at the very beginning of
their service - recruits in phase one training establishments and trainees in
phase two training establishments. In
today's evidence we will be hearing from the Directorate of Operational
Capability. We will be asking them how
they conducted their appraisals of initial training establishments and the care
and welfare of armed forces' initial training establishments and what skills
and resources they have to do this effectively. We will then be asking them what plans they have to continue
monitoring the training establishments in the future. We are joined by Admiral Goodall, Director General Training and
Education, who is responsible for implementing DOC recommendations. We understand, Rear Admiral, that we will be
addressing the majority of our questions to your colleagues but if our
questions fall outside the DOC's areas of responsibility, do please add your
own comments. Thank you very much for
giving evidence to us and for your written submissions to our inquiry. Before we begin hearing our evidence would
the witnesses like to introduce themselves?
Rear Admiral Goodall: As you say, Chairman, I am Rear Admiral Simon Goodall and as
Director General Training and Education I am responsible for co‑ordinating
the implementation of the recommendations arising from the appraisals of
initial training carried out by the Director of Operational Capability.
Brigadier Melvin: I am Brigadier Mungo Melvin and I have been the Director of
Operational Capability since 7 October.
Group Captain Howard: I am Group Captain Stephen Howard and I am the team leader for this
reappraisal of initial training and the author of the report.
Q761 Chairman: Thank you very
much. The first question is an easy one
to start: can you explain the role of the Directorate of Operational Capability
and the scope of its responsibilities?
Brigadier Melvin: The Directorate of Operational Capability was set up in 1995 by the
then Secretary of State for Defence, Malcolm Rifkind, to provide an independent
source of evaluation within the armed forces.
My staff is tri‑Service, it is based in the MoD, but the majority
of our work is conducted on the road visiting units across all three Services,
here in Britain and in Germany and on operations. We are a small team with an Assistant Director, Group Captain
Howard, who has just introduced himself, and I have five staff officers of
commander/lieutenant colonel/wing commander rank, together with a very small
support team. I think it is important
to note that although we are not specialists, we are generalists, I hope we
have been chosen for our analytical skills, and although I have only been with
the team for a month my impression is that we are highly motivated, free‑thinking
individuals who will challenge the status quo and will probe into the
detail. If I could add one further
point, I think it is very important to note, and it is the most important thing
I have discovered on taking over the Directorate, that we are not constrained
by the chain of command. I report, unusually
for a one star officer, directly to the Secretary of State or to the Minister
for Armed Forces on his behalf, and we conduct two types of work. The first is audits or appraisals such as
the one done on initial training. The second one, equally important, is to
capture and process the operational lessons learnt. Perhaps a couple of words may help you on this particular
appraisal. The Minister for Armed
Forces tasked us on 23 June to carry out, in his own words, a "health check" of
initial training regimes and to examine possible issues of morale, motivation,
training practices and culture. This
work followed on previous work conducted by the Directorate of Operational
Capability which, as you will recall, first reported in December 2002 (we refer
to it as DOC1) and there was another reappraisal in July 2003. So the Directorate has been closely involved
with this work for the last couple of years.
We have used our normal methodology throughout this appraisal. The team visited a total of 12 units drawn
from the three Services - the Navy/Royal Marines, the Army and the Royal Air
Force - and, as you will have seen from our report, the team interviewed over
1,200 recruits and trainees and over 300 instructional staff. All those interviewed were encouraged to
speak openly and they did. The DOC team
that went and visited units was given unrestricted access and was able to speak
directly to recruits and trainees, bearing in mind that we jealously guard our
independence. So they were not overseen
by the unit chain of command. Clearly
the units were consulted over points of detail but we have aimed in the report
to deliver a really accurate impression of what the team found on the ground
and this is consistent with the techniques that the DOC audit and lessons
process has developed over the last ten years.
Q762 Chairman: Before you
produce your report, do you send a draft copy to the people that you have been
investigating for their comments, to give them a chance to correct any what
they may see as corrections?
Brigadier Melvin: What we did, again as a normal practice, is to get together the
major parties involved, in this case from the three Services' training
organisations, and we spent a day with them going through the report. What we did not do was to send all parties
the final text and ask them for comments.
However, the chain of command of the three Services was involved in
checking the detail.
Q763 Chairman: Thank you. The Directorate has conducted three
appraisals of initial training in the armed forces since October 2002. Who tasked the Directorate to carry out
these appraisals?
Brigadier Melvin: The Minister for Armed Forces.
Q764 Chairman: On all
three?
Brigadier Melvin: That is my understanding.
Q765 Chairman: Okay. You said how small your team was. Methodology is quite complicated, surveying
is very complicated; did you have sufficient skills in-house to undertake this
study or were you able to have seconded to you people outside your immediate
Directorate who might assist in the writing or the research for this report
that you produced?
Brigadier Melvin: Our normal methodology is to scope the appraisal and consult those
parties who might be interested in it but what we did not do was to bring
external people on to that. The audit
was conducted by our in‑house team consulting as we went along. And also we referred towards the end of the
report writing period to Admiral Goodall's organisation.
Q766 Chairman: So why did you
not seek outside support? I do not
suppose there are many people skilled at the methodology of polling or
investigation. Did you have to read
text books? I would have thought that a
small team might have seen it prudent to go outside for supplementary support.
Brigadier Melvin: We did not do so in this case.
Q767 Chairman: Okay. So what skills and relevant experience would
your team have to conduct this type of investigation?
Brigadier Melvin: The audit team, which consisted of four people led by Group Captain
Howard, had a lieutenant colonel equivalent commander, a wing commander and a
lieutenant colonel from each of the three Services, who have all got command
experience and a lot of operational experience and, as I said in my opening
remarks, they have all been selected for their analytical skills and are people
with a good deal of intellectual rigour, and they are prepared to go in and
look behind what they are presented with, so it is the overall balanced
professional skills which they bring to bear that provide them with the
capability, in my opinion, to do the job that you have outlined.
Q768 Chairman: In a number of
investigations sometimes an outside consultant is employed just to look at the
final product to cast his or her eyes on a document to make sure it is
methodologically acceptable. Please do
not think I am criticising, it is just seeking to appraise what appears to be a
very efficient report; but did you go to any outside experts?
Brigadier Melvin: Not in this case but I think it is important to note that we were
following the methodology, by and large, of two previous reports so we saw this
not as a completely new piece of work but as a continuation of work that had
been conducted on two previous occasions.
Group Captain Howard: Chairman, I have now been involved in this job for 14 months and
this is probably the fourth, if not fifth, appraisal/audit I have been involved
in. One of the things we have found is
that each time we do an appraisal and audit of capability we have a thing
called the purple book, of which I think there is a copy before the Committee,
and in there there is a generic questionnaire, and each time we tackle a new
subject we go through that questionnaire to see if it needs amending to fit the
subject. Invariably, we find it does
not, it just needs a tweak round the outside.
What that questionnaire does is it makes COs of units, and in this case
instructors and unit commanders, look at the wider picture of where they fit
within defence and the capability they are bringing to defence, in this case
training. By going through that process
of making them think through the wider issues we invariably find that we end up
with a fairly broad canvas with which to start, trimming down to focus in on
areas where we feel there are areas of concern. In this instance of course we had the first appraisal and the
reappraisal six months later to fall back on and the work of Admiral Goodall
and his team.
Q769 Chairman: Who does the
appraisal side, I missed that?
Group Captain Howard: We work as a team.
Q770 Chairman: So
self-appraisal?
Group Captain Howard: Very much so, yes.
Q771 Chairman: Last question:
we went to Sultan yesterday in Mr Viggers' constituency and I was a bit
confused because I know what phase two is but a lot of those did not appear to
me to be phase two because they had gone to sea, they were more mature than
normal phase two military personnel,
They divided phase two into A, B and C - and this may be a very unfair
question so perhaps you could check up on it for us before giving any
definitive answer - and would you consider their delineation of 2A, 2B and 2C
of falling within your category of phase two establishments? Is it sui
generis to have more mature students in phase two who have been to sea and
come back and who are two or three years older than normal phase two students?
Group Captain Howard: In the broader
sense of training we did. I think you
are referring to the artificer apprentices that the Royal Navy have where there
is up to an eight‑year period for them finally getting to the point where
they go to sea as a chief petty officer.
Yes we did, we spoke to a cross‑section within their divisional
system of duty of care at HMS Sultan - recruits who had come straight from
Raleigh within their first two or three weeks, those who had been there for up
to a year, and those who had been away to sea and had been in the Royal Navy
for approximately three years. You saw
yourself that the divisional system within the Royal Navy is right across a
sailor's career, it is not just through training. I am sure you met Mr Allan down there. Mr Allan is looking after those particular duty of care
issues. I personally feel that the
divisional system works exceptionally well for all age groups, be it at sea or
on shore
Chairman: Thank you very much. If
there anything else you would like to add just drop us a note if you would.
Q772 Mr Hancock: Is it possible
to ask one question. Group Captain, you
said you had been involved for 14 months.
How long do you anticipate spending in this team?
Group Captain Howard: It is notionally a two and a half year tour, if I last that
long!
Q773 Mr Hancock: If you last
that long. Brigadier, do you think that
is a serious enough commitment on behalf of the MoD that this is going to be a
long‑term team that is going to build up expertise and that there is an
argument to be made ‑ and I am not suggesting that you are volunteering to stretch your two and a half
years, I am sure you want to go on to other things ‑ that because of the
problems that have been experienced one of the things has been the turnover of
people who have had experience at this level and they have not stayed around
long enough to see things through Some
of them have left before reports that they were commissioned to write were
actually published. That seems to be
one of the failures in the system.
Brigadier Melvin: I think that is a very fair point but, as in any part of the life,
one has to balance the staying of an individual in a post so he gathers
experience in doing that job against bringing other people in who might have a
freshness of approach to reinvigorate the process. I think there is a careful balance to be achieved between the two
‑ to have enough collective experience, which will be undermined by
people staying for only short periods as you have alluded to, against not
having people who themselves get institutionalised. I think one could argue that there is a balance then between
those who, let's say, do DOC3, where they have read the previous material but
they are not the owners of the previous work.
I think they can bring an objectivity.
I think there is a balance there and we strive to do that and having a
steady turnover of Army, Navy and Air Force people within the Directorate.
Group Captain Howard: There is an important distinction there as well in that we do not
own the lesson to see them through to fruition. We then pass them on to a senior responsible officer either
within MoD headquarters here in London or out at one of the command
headquarters to then take forward those lessons we have identified into policy
and implementation, which in this case will forward into Simon Goodall and his
team
Q774 Mr Viggers: Three
appraisals in two years; is that a rather large number or is that normal? Are there other areas where you have had
similar numbers of appraisals?
Brigadier Melvin: No, but I think what it does show is the importance given to the
subject in the Department. I think
DOC1, as you will recall, raised some very serious issues and therefore there
was quite a quick follow‑up within six or seven months to make sure that
the immediate actions which were required by DOC1 were followed up and then
about a year later there has been this third report (second reappraisal) to
make sure that what had been instituted is on track. You will see from the end of the report that we believe that this
work is not finished and that there should be a further reappraisal in the
future to make sure that because of the turnover (not in this case of DOC's
personnel but the turnover in training units where perhaps today's generation
have been exposed to this DOC analysis and other measures) that good practice
is maintained. There are other measures
in hand to make sure that the people in the department and across the three
Services keep their eye on the ball.
Q775 Mr Viggers: The name of
your Directorate is the Directorate of Operational Capability. Is your role to ensure the efficient
delivery of operational capability or ensure proper treatment of recruits?
Brigadier Melvin: Overall, in terms of the three Armed Services it is operational
capability, but we derive our operational capability primarily from our people,
from our equipment and the doctrine and training they get, so we will not have
any operational capability unless we have the right standard of sailors,
soldiers and airmen across the three Services.
So it is not in our view a contradiction, it is part and parcel of
operational capability that we have the right training regimes and we provide
the right trained and qualified personnel going into each of the three Services
to provide the bedrock of professional expertise.
Q776 Mr Viggers: Looking at the
second appraisal and the headlined items here ‑ identification of risk,
access to confidential advice, access to communications, engagement with
parents, health and safety at work ‑ all of these are things which emphasise
the duty of care and the discharge of duty of care responsibilities to the
young trainees. Do you sense any
conflict between the duty of care emphasis and operational capability?
Brigadier Melvin: I do not think there is any contradiction there. Could you explain exactly to what you are
alluding? I think I know what you mean
but could you clarify that question, sir.
Q777 Mr Viggers: Speaking for
myself, I have been very impressed going round different establishments hearing
the care that is put into ensuring that the recruits have access to every kind
of advice, they are not left lonely and home sick, they have access to
communications and the padre is there, and so on. I speak only for myself ‑‑‑
Brigadier Melvin: Yes, I see your point exactly.
Q778 Mr Viggers: Do you think
that this comparatively recent emphasis on duty of care, which I recognise has
been carried through, is blunting the ability of the Minister of Defence to
turn young, quite often callow, youths into skilled operational soldiers, sailors
and airmen?
Brigadier Melvin: I will ask Group Captain Howard to comment in a moment from what he
actually observed, but from my own background and from my recent exposure to
this work over the last month, in my view there is not a contradiction between
providing hard, realistic training in order to prepare our sailors, soldiers
and airmen for their future operations and having a properly organised duty of
care regime in place. Training can be
hard but we have got to treat our people absolutely properly. That is really what the DOC reports are all
about. It is not a softening of
training; it is just to make sure that it is conducted in a proper manner.
Q779 Mr Viggers: You have
stressed your objectivity but do you think that as serving personnel officers
your investigation lacks some measure of independence and objectivity?
Brigadier Melvin: Our recommendations and work that is in hand is itself going to be
tested or validated and inspected by the Adult Learning Inspectorate, so we
shall let others judge how well we are getting on with this work. It is important to stress that. It is not just being left to DOC or to
Admiral Goodall's organisation to see through the implementation. The MoD has taken care to involve the Adult
Learning Inspectorate to bring that outside expertise and that
objectivity. I would stress again that
our own work is independent of the chain of command and we take an independent
view of all that we see.
Q780 Mr Jones: Can I just
follow up on that point. In terms of
the ramifications of Deepcut and everything else the media spotlight has been
on all three Services on how you perform duty of care. Clearly that has led to the frenzied
activity we have with these three reports.
I agree with Peter that some of the things we have seen on our visits
are, frankly, encouraging and things are actually in place. I have this nagging doubt, though, that we
will be sat here in ten years' time when the media spotlight is off this area. How are you convinced that the MoD and more
importantly the people in charge of new recruits et cetera will continue on
this rather than just think, "That was a thing we did ten years ago because we
had a problem with the media?"
Brigadier Melvin: Group Captain Howard may answer that question but the first thing I
said when I came into the Directorate was the word "verification"; how are we
going to make sure this is followed through?
You will note at the back end of the report we have put measures in
place to make sure that what we have done will be rigorously verified. This is a subject that we have struggled
with all the way through because lessons are very easily identified and very
easily forgotten. What we did not want
to do is produce another report ‑ and I heard the Chairman say this ‑
to be shelved on the bookshelves and never to be actioned. What we did establish, and we have asked
this question as we have gone round, is that the culture has changed
sufficiently post‑Deepcut, if you like, post the DOC reports, to now be a
way of life. From the most junior
corporal coming into that training organisation, through COs, right the way
through defence, it has been a sufficient wake‑up call all around to
reappraise the way we do business and what we want from defence. Coming back to the earlier question, does
that affect front‑line capability and operational capability? Is the recruit we get today the same as it
was when we went through? The answer to
that is obviously no. I think things
have changed for the better and it has been a cultural change. What we now need to do though is to put in
the Adult Learning Inspectorate and all of the other checks and balances that
form that feedback view to make sure that those lessons are not forgotten as
personnel change over down at the training units.
Q781 Mr Jones: One of the key
things that came out of the Surrey Police inquiry was that there was no
shortage of reports and studies done, but they went nowhere, they did gather
dust. All I am a bit concerned about is
whether this will go the same way as that in terms of over time people will
take their eye off the ball and think, "Oh well ..."
Rear Admiral Goodall: Could I just interject and say that I think there has been a step
change and that was the creation of the post that I currently occupy, the post
of Director General Training and Education, which sits at the centre of MoD and
is responsible for policy and strategy.
Hitherto the activities of the single Services were all relatively silo‑ed
in this respect and so having this focal point at the centre of the MoD you now
have an individual who can direct the implementation of recommendations. I have created, in essence, within my
organisation a smaller clone of the DOC in the Directorate of Individual
Training Capability, and I intend to use that aspect of my organisation to keep
the pressure on and the momentum on with revisits by DOC and, in conjunction
with the ALI, keeping our foot to the pedal, and I think that is a significant
change in the last two years.
Q782 Mr Jones: But this is more
about cultural change because the other thing that struck me from the various
visits we have done is clearly there are different things within the different
Services. The RAF is clearly different
from the Army. I have got to say ten
out of ten to the MoD in terms of the commanding officers and people we have
met, they are all singing the right hymn tune, they are all saying they will
not let go, but I also get this sneaking feeling that, frankly, they are doing
it but are they really signed up to this?
We got the attitude on one occasion where, how can I put it, referring
to what Peter has just been referring to, the fact that when they went got
through their training they got tucked up and that was the way they did it, why
are we now being less --- I just wondered if in some areas where it is being
done there is a feeling we have got to go through the hoops rather than being
fully committed in terms of this being a new way of doing it?
Group Captain Howard: We have identified areas exactly as you have said in the report
where we have found areas of best practice, where that training covenant for
instance has become a complete ethos and way of life for that particular
training unit. In other units we found
it was a piece of paper which a recruit signed on day one along with all the
other reports, and obviously there is a lot of work there, which is where the
Admiral's Best Practice Working Group and this new Directorate comes in, to
then export that best practice across the others units.
Q783 Mr Jones: Are there not
big differences between the RAF and the Army, for example? Certainly the RAF when we went to Halton ---
is David Murray the commanding officer there?
Group Captain Howard: Yes, David Murray.
Q784 Mr Jones: --- who clearly
had given a lot of thought to, for example, occupying recruits who were waiting
to go on to phase two, et cetera. It
was quite an imaginative way he had done it, to be honest. I did not get the impression that there was
the same emphasis in the Army.
Group Captain Howard: David hosted a best practice working group at the Admiral's place
the other week to do exactly that, to export best practice to other units but
of course there is the issue of scale.
If you take the numbers involved with Army unit training, particularly
with 16 different trades from the Logistics Corps of Deepcut alone, and trying
to work that matrix to keep those people employed all the time, it is a very
difficult nut to crack.
Brigadier Melvin: If I may, Mr Jones, I think there is another aspect to the
work. I think you did refer to the
anecdotal evidence where people say, "I was not treated like this when I was a
recruit," and all the rest of it, and we have all in our careers found that old
practice is by no means necessarily the best practice; in many cases that is
not the case. I think by the rigorous
imposition of good practice (becoming best practice) across the three Services,
with the young officers, senior NCOs, junior NCOs and indeed the recruits
themselves being exposed to what I could characterise as a hard but fair rigorous
training regime, with the emphasise on the duty of care we have highlighted,
then that will over time institutionalise itself provided the three mechanisms
we have talked about are in place: the external validation from the Adult
Learning Inspectorate; the internal training inspection role from the Admiral's
Directorate of Individual Training Capability; and, indeed, as we have
recommended in our report, every new DOC comes along and does another check to
make sure that that best practice is not just complacently left on the side, it
is progressively developed.
Group Captain Howard: I am sure you will identify from your visits as well that one size
does not fit all. What is good for a
graduate artificer apprentice down at Halton would not necessarily suit an
infantry recruit up at Catterick, so it is very difficult to say that we have
got best practice here and ‑‑‑
Q785 Mr Jones: In the Army I
think you have got a long way to go, certainly at a place like Catterick, to
get that ethos taken seriously. Clearly,
in the RAF I accept they are different types of individuals as well as smaller
numbers, but I get the impression in the Army that you have got a way to go to
get this installed in the attitudes of some of the commanding officers, I have
got to say, and ask whether they see this as just the latest battle we have got
to go through and then we will return to what we used to do once the spotlight
is off us.
Rear Admiral Goodall: One of the strategic initiatives we are pushing forward, which is
outside DOC but which is part of my strategic change agenda, is the creation of
defence training establishments which will essentially focus on phase two
training. This does not address phase
one training but those defence establishments would bring the three Services
together in a training environment where they are bound to rub off on each
other and gain best practice from each other by bringing them together. Really we are codifying our defence approach
and bringing people up to the best standard that we have got across defence,
whereas it be tucked today in a Royal Air Force silo, an Army silo or a Royal
Navy silo.
Chairman: Thank you. I think one of
the last decisions our Committee will make prior to the Election is to ask our
successor committee to keep this issue on the agenda. Each Committee determines its own agenda but I think it would be
very important to pass that on. Thank
you, Kevan, for raising that. Mike
Hancock please?
Q786 Mr Hancock: If I may, can
I ask you, Brigadier, and you, Admiral, do you report both to the same officer
up the chain?
Rear Admiral Goodall: No.
Q787 Mr Hancock: You do
not?
Rear Admiral Goodall: No.
Q788 Mr Hancock: Part of the
problem we have experienced is this disparate way in which a report is
produced, a recommendation is delivered and then little or no action is taken,
and we have yet to find out where that stops.
I am interested to hear that you are both doing this job, which is
dedicated to improving the mess that we had in certain aspects, and you are
both reporting through a different chain of
command. I want to know how your
report and your recommendations, Admiral, in the end come together somewhere
and who it is who will make the final decision about what happens to the
various recommendations that you both produce individually?
Rear Admiral Goodall: Right, I think the key point is that I report directly to DCDS
(Personnel), General Palmer, who is responsible for all personnel issues across
the Ministry. He in turn reports to the
Vice Chief of the Defence Staff. In terms
of implementing the recommendations, I drive forward the creation of policy and
strategy where the recommendations demand them or, indeed, bring the three
Services together to implement the best practice that has been identified. That of itself is conducted under my
authority as the lead for training and education across defence. If I had an issue with that and I found that
the services were proving, let's say, slightly recalcitrant, then it would be
elevated to the next level up in which DCDS (Personnel) would address the issue
with the principal personnel officers - the Second Sea Lord, AMP and Adjutant
General. So to that end it is a
relatively concise and closed loop because the key players are literally one
step above my position here. In terms of
where DOC's report goes to perhaps I will let Mungo explain that but,
essentially, if the Services need resources to support the implementation of
the recommendations then they bid for those resources through the normal
financial bidding processes and those are taken by the DMB.
Brigadier Melvin: I think you raise a very important issue and I would like to answer
on two aspects. First of all, I think
it is very important that my Directorate's work is not subordinate to anybody
else's, so we were not in the planning or in the execution of this audit in any
way influenced, with all due respect, by the Admiral's organisation. I think it would have been profoundly wrong
to do so. There is cross‑referencing
to make sure that the highlighted work is put in place and that is absolutely
the crux of the issue so you will see that one of the things that we did in
this report was to highlight, where appropriate, again with respect to the
Admiral, where actions were recorded as being complete or underway. Where we found that to be not exactly the
case we thought it was our duty to highlight that and we had to do that
independently from Admiral Goodall, but there is the check and balance between
that. We produce the recommendations
independently of Admiral Goodall and Admiral Goodall has not only to execute
the recommendations in order to address the issues, but we, on this occasion,
and in the future, will then be part of the verification system to make sure
those actions are completed.
Q789 Mr Hancock: So where do
your recommendations go directly from you?
Brigadier Melvin: The recommendations which you have seen in our report internally
will be looked at by the Chiefs of Staff and studied very carefully and by all
the personnel commands. In common with
our other audits and indeed our operational lessons, this focal point for the
action side lies with the Vice Chief of Defence Staff, and he will appoint,
normally through a three‑star officer or directly through a two‑star
officer a senior responsible officer who is charged with that action. In this case that two‑star officer is
Admiral Goodall.
Q790 Mr Hancock: For the record
then, because it is important because this is the issue we took much of our
time over trying to find where things ended up, your recommendations will go
directly to Chiefs of Staff?
Brigadier Melvin: They have gone already to the Minister for the Armed Forces but, in
parallel, to the Chiefs of Staff.
Q791 Mr Hancock: Through the
military chain. It goes direct to
Chiefs of Staff so all future DOC reports will go there. This brings us to the issue that Admiral
Goodall raised because your recommendations are all very well but some of your
recommendations will have to be resourced, so if you set milestones for implementation
of these things they are geared to what resources are available. One of the issues we discovered was that was
the issue that was never answered - the question of how you resource
change. Recommendations were made, for
one reason or another they were not implemented, and the excuse was given
several times "we simply did not have the resources to implement change". I want to know if you make a recommendation
now, do you have to, one, set some milestones and targets and, two, do you have
to recommend resources are put in to pay for it? What happens if you then discover that they are not?
Group Captain Howard: The best way of describing it is by presenting a report and the
evidence, with discussion and recommendations that you see in this report to
the chiefs of staff we allow the chiefs of staff then to make an informed
choice where resources are concerned.
So if they decide not to resource accommodation at Catterick, as an
example, and put money into aircraft in the Royal Air Force that is done in the
knowledge of the risk that we have identified within our report. No longer are things done in penny pockets
of arbitrary decision. It is taken across the three Services and the decision
is an informed decision based on our report.
Q792 Mr Hancock: This is
probably an unfair question to three military officers but because of the
importance of the duty of care to the
families of those who currently feel they have been let down and the potential
that other families in the future might go through same trauma, do you think
that your recommendations in your reports ought to be publicly available
through the Library of the House of Commons or in some way available ‑‑‑
Group Captain Howard: ‑‑‑ they
are.
Q793 Mr Hancock: They are? In future I mean.
Brigadier Melvin: There is no reason to suppose why this sort of report, which is
already in the Library, should not continue to be so. In terms of confidence by the public I think it is very important
that it should be there.
Group Captain Howard: As far as I am aware, all three reports have been placed in the
Library in the House of Commons. This
one was placed there yesterday at 2.30.
Q794 Mr Hancock: That is good
news. Who takes full responsibility
then for implementing your recommendations?
Will you be told or your successors be told? You submit your recommendations and they go up through the chain
of command and then there is feedback to you.
What is the process for you knowing what has happened about the
implementation of the recommendations you have put forward so that you can
judge whether or not the desired action has actually occurred?
Brigadier Melvin: From my perspective there are two ways ‑ informal and
formal. First of all, part of our job
is to monitor the actions on such a report.
Then if I felt personally that this was not being conducted I would have
a personal responsibility to go to the Vice Chief, or in this case I would go
direct to the Minister, Mr Adam Ingram who has told me personally to do
so. He said, "If you have got any
concern on this come to me", so I have a direct line to the Minister on
this. Secondly, as I articulated in the
report, we have a formal verification method where we will go back, as we did
on this occasion, through the previous DOC reports, to analyse very carefully
where action has been taken or, more importantly, where action has not been
taken.
Group Captain Howard: We also get a very broad view of defence by virtue of the nature of
the work we do. For instance, during
the last 12 months we have looked at defence language training, float support,
mounted operations, where we get to visit a huge number of units and talk to a
lot of people. A great deal of our work is self-generated, so we will identify
weaknesses when we are looking at one area.
For instance, in this report we suggest how risk is passed into the
front‑line and if that is just a perception or if there is a real risk
that training issues are pushing forward.
I think if anybody in defence gets a good idea of where holes are and
which areas should be examined we are probably as good as anybody.
Q795 Mr Hancock: How do you
feel about that, Admiral?
Rear Admiral Goodall: We produced a process arising out of the first DOC report in which
I created an action grid which then addressed the recommendations through a DOC
working group. That DOC working group
was chaired by one of my officers at captain/group captain level and involved
representatives from the single Services, and that action grid charted our
progress towards implementing the recommendations. I produced quarterly reports to Vice Chief on that action grid
and those reports went copied to minister and copied to senior personnel across
defence. That process is a very
effective process to drive the change.
What we have done as a result of achieving many of the objectives of
DOC1 is we have moved the emphasis slightly now and changed the DOC working
group into what we have called the best practice working group, and that best
practice working group will still retain a focus on DOC but also address other
training and education issues that lie outside DOC that we have identified
through other areas and that, too, will meet regularly and I am required to
give quarterly reports on the progress of that group and on the progress of the
implementation of issues arising from DOC3 and the previous DOCs we have not
buttoned down. DOC3 has highlighted
areas which we thought we had got buttoned down but needed further work, and I
am grateful to them for that. So we
have a process that is transparent and enduring and that best practice working
group will be a standard working group for the foreseeable future. It is what will drive change across defence,
and I think that is right.
Q796 Mr Hancock: I think that
is very helpful. You have partly
answered my final question in your earlier answer about the length of time
anyone stays, but I would be interested to know, as neither you nor your
assistant were in post at the initial stages, has the lack of continuity been a
problem or not and how many of your staff who are currently with you were there
when the first appraisal was made?
Brigadier Melvin: To my knowledge, none of the current staff was present during DOC1
in December 2002.
Q797 Mr Hancock: Do you think
that is a good thing, bearing in mind the importance of this issue and the
impression given that nobody took enough notice of what was being said and what
was going on, to actually give people confidence that this is being done
properly now?
Brigadier Melvin: I think we would have to distinguish carefully between the period
2002 to date where, as Mr Jones has highlighted, the spotlight has been on and
even though I was not involved personally in DOC1 or DOC2 and only came in
during the latter stages of DOC3, I think it is fair to say everyone to my
knowledge, and certainly to my rank in the Army, and my colleagues in the other
Services, were well aware of it. This
in some ways really reminded people why we had an institution such as DOC. What we did not address in this report ‑
it was not part of our remit ‑ was any historical or forensic examination
(in the manner that Surrey Police did) to look into the reasons why reports
highlighted in the past had not been actioned.
Q798 Mr Hancock: They cannot
get to the bottom of it.
Brigadier Melvin: I was just going to say that.
I cannot fathom that out myself but I think the one general deduction is
that this matter is so important that the spotlight must remain on and so we
cannot have a situation, as we had in the past, for whatever reason, that good
people were writing reports and for some reason they did not get the attention
of the decision‑makers right at the top.
In this case it is not because we put it to the top.
Mr Hancock: Thank you, Brigadier.
Chairman: You are too polite to ask how many of our staff who began this
inquiry are still with us at the present time!
Mr Hancock: But we are here, Chairman!
Chairman: We are to provide continuity but I am afraid it is difficult to
keep people on indefinitely, even though there are profound advantages. James Cran please.
Q799 Mr Cran: The opinions of
recruits are obviously very important and one of the more rewarding things that
the Committee has found as it has walked around the MoD training establishments
is actually to meet the recruits. I
think to your credit, Brigadier, in October 2002 your predecessor was tasked
with conducting an independent cross‑cutting examination. I do not know what a cross‑cutting
examination is so maybe you could explain that. That then involved two and a half thousand recruits answering
questionnaires. There were interviews
which were followed up again on 8 April.
I am just interested in the mechanics of all of this because I was
interested in a comment made by Mr Corfield to the Committee on 16 June 2004
when he said this: "I know myself from visits to establishments that they take
on the smell of paint when you visit them".
That therefore raises a question in my mind as to whether you got the
right answers to the questions you asked.
Talk me through this process.
Brigadier Melvin: I will add a comment but of course I cannot comment on the initial
task nor that language. I think what
was meant, just to answer your question, was to make sure ‑ this is the
case in DOC1 in the autumn of 2002 and certainly has been the case in the
subsequent audits ‑ that we covered the breadth of the armed Services, I
suppose cross‑cutting could be interpreted in that way as going into
depth into the units to make sure that we did not just speak to the commanding
officer but went down the chain of command to the lower ranking officers,
senior NCOs and junior NCOs right down to the recruits.
Group Captain Howard: We were acutely aware of the concept of fresh paint and whatever
audit we conducted or appraisal we conducted we were acutely aware that a visit
by a DOC can be a career‑defining moment, so we are often steered into
the way the CO wishes us to go and it is our job to break out of that
mould. What we did with recruits is we
went as Steve, John, Tim and Edward, and they did not know we were in the military,
we went in civilian clothes. We put
them together in a theatre at the beginning of the day before we met any of the
staff on the unit and we issued them a questionnaire. We explained basic military language, ie what we meant by front‑line
and so forth, and we gave them about 20 minutes to fill in the
questionnaire. We then left the
recruits to conduct the rest of our visit.
Then we broke them down into small groups of ten or 12 people in the
afternoon and spoke to them in small groups to go into a little bit more depth
and explore any issues we had discovered during the day. If we were told that accommodation was bad
we asked them what block we should then go and visit or if we had picked up the
food was bad which meal should we come and sit and eat with them, and they were
very open and very honest, surprisingly so actually. We were quite taken aback on occasions, probably because we did
not expect the response we got from military people.
Q800 Mr Cran: What do you mean
by the "response you got from military people"?
Group Captain Howard: Well, I do not think we had exposure to that age group and they
were very, very open, very honest, very frank, and they were very keen to
expose what I would call "emotional baggage", problems they had had in their
lives. They were very open and honest
about family issues, the way they felt homesick for instance, and really we did
not have to question too deeply. They
were very open and very free to speak to us.
Q801 Mr Cran: Who was it who
did the asking of questions? I discover
that asking questions is really quite an expert art.
Group Captain Howard: Indeed
Q802 Mr Cran: To make sure that
you are not encouraging the recipient to give you the answer you want.
Group Captain Howard: We try very hard not to lead our subject. The way we conducted the interviews is we split down into groups
and four of us would take a group of ten soldiers, sailors or airmen and we
would introduce a subject and let them speak about it and then steer the
subject into another area if we wished to dig into another area. There were very few direct questions. We would then convene together as a group
after we had met with the first group of recruits to see if there were any
themes or if we had picked up any issues that we needed to explore further,
then we would go and do that with a separate group of recruits. We are not saying it is a scientific process
and we made the point here that our questionnaires were very much for
indicative purposes only, but what it did do was give us a very good indication
of where else on the unit to go and look at.
Q803 Mr Cran: Just so I know
this, without in any way casting any aspersions on the people who conducted
these interviews would it be true to say they are not expert interviewers? They are just well‑informed people who
just happen to be ‑‑‑
Group Captain Howard: Most of us have done interview technique courses, we have all
posted command, most of us have done media courses, so we have had quite a bit
of training. I for instance have
instructed at the joint Service staff college where we taught media skills and
interview technique, so we are not laymen in the subject, but as far as a
police-type interview and imposing direct questions, that is not the way we
conducted business.
Rear Admiral Goodall: If I could just add that in 30‑odd years of service I do not
think I have been able to coach Jack in what he needs to say. I think one of the things that we value in
our young people is of course that they are opinionated. We are not trying to create clones. I think it is the strength of the British
armed forces that our soldiers, sailors and airmen have opinions, have views,
have values, and are encouraged to express those. It has been one of the delights that I have had in taking MPs
around the training estate and putting MPs in the position that the DOC was in
of discussion groups, and it has always been a very rewarding experience for
those MPs, I believe, because the opinions have been expressed freely, openly
and fairly.
Q804 Mr Cran: I have to say I
wholly agree with that proposition because, again, it has been incredibly
rewarding for us to go round the training establishments to see just how
magnificent these young people we have got are. I wholly agree.
Rear Admiral Goodall: The second point I would like to make is about the whole world
smelling of new paint. One of the key
features, of course, of the ALI visits (which are the external visits) is that
many of those will be unannounced and will be at times of the day and night
when "nobody expects them".
Q805 Mr Cran: You have taken my
next question out of my mouth, so you did conduct unannounced visits?
Rear Admiral Goodall: The ALI in its process will conduct unannounced visits.
Q806 Mr Cran: Okay, but in
terms of the two exercises I mentioned; were there unannounced visits there?
Group Captain Howard: Not unannounced on a unit but within a unit unannounced within
sections so we would actually break out of a programme and say we would like to
go and visit so and so, can you take us to a barrack block, we will have lunch
in the airmen's or soldiers' mess rather than the officers' mess, so we broke
the programme that we were going to see.
Brigadier Melvin: In summary, the units were warned but the sub‑units
effectively within the unit were not necessarily warned and they did not know
where the DOC light would shine.
Q807 Mr Cran: And you are happy
that news does not spread like wildfire?
Group Captain Howard: We were aware sometimes that COs had spoken, yes, and they were
prepared for our previous line of questioning and some units, I have to say,
were less forthcoming than others in where they wanted us to go but once we had
broken the ice most welcomed where we were going.
Q808 Mr Cran: The other group
that is really rather important is the group of recruits, as it were, who
simply say, "I have had enough and I am leaving and that is it." Of course that is a total waste and I know
that all of you are very conscious of that and all of the commanding officers
we have met are aiming to get all of those rates down. Did you talk to them? Did you survey them? Did you interview them and, if so, what did
they say?
Group Captain Howard: Not as a specific group but we interviewed those who were holding
awaiting discharge, those who were on medical re-courses, those who were
between courses and we really saw the complete cross‑section. One thing that we did find was that contact
with parents was very good in that instance in that most parents were able to
then persuade Johnny or Jane to stay within the Service. A lot of the reasons they were leaving were
very, very small. Within a training
regime it is very intense and it is probably the first time that some of these
people have been away from home. So it
is a hugely different process for them and tiny issues at home can be blown out
of all proportion. Once the parents
were involved that could be put back in perspective and recruits were then
brought back on to line and put in the next phase of training. It was a great relief and we were really
encouraged by the amount of effort and work that was going into achieving
getting people back into training without head‑on confrontation.
Q809 Mr Cran: So is it correct
to say that the results of the interviewing of that group have led to any
positive changes that you might undertake to reduce the number who leave?
Group Captain Howard: I think people leave for such a variety of reasons we would be
probably overstating DOC's role and case if we were to say that we were able to
influence them. There is a whole
spectrum of reasons why people leave.
Some are just in the wrong job, others get in and it is not what they
expected, others have problems at home, miss girlfriends, home sickness. It is a complete spectrum.
Q810 Mr Cran: We have indeed
heard them all ourselves.
Brigadier Melvin: We cannot be prescriptive as to the exact circumstances but what we
have tried to do is describe the best methods, as Group Captain Howard said, to
deal with this situation. The feedback,
the loop, if I may use that expression, from recruit or trainee to the officer
who is looking after him or back to his parents or to his commanding officer is
important. Where those feedback groups
and mechanisms to raise a problem early are not in place that is where we found
difficulty.
Group Captain Howard: I would say as well at each visit we also gave the CO of the unit a
hot debrief of any issues we had discovered there and then. So if it was quick fixes and things that he
ought to know about as a CO, then although the report is outside of the command
chain we did feed those back into the command chain where he can make the
difference himself there and then.
Frequently we found they were just not aware of the issue, for whatever
reason, but we were able to fix it then.
Rear Admiral Goodall: But the Services have of course put a great deal of effort into
managing the training pipeline to reduce this wastage. Indeed, there have been significant savings
in wastage in all three Services over the last year. I applaud the Services for having innovative ways of approaching
this. I know at least one Service where
if they believe that it will change the situation they will allow the young man
or woman to go home for a week, sort out the problem, and say, come back when
you are ready, and they do. So we are
using innovation and agility of mind to solve the problem.
Q811 Mr Cran: I can confirm I
have also heard that too in our visits.
Can I move on to the role of instructors. Instructors are obviously in a really rather pivotal position as
far as training is concerned, that is distinctly obvious, is it not, and I think
it was the DOC appraisal in the summer of 2002 found that the role of
instructors was often undervalued and that they themselves were not trained
adequately for a supervisory role, they were over-worked and all the rest of
it. Can you just talk us through that
and tell us what progress you feel has been made?
Rear Admiral Goodall: If I could draw attention to the creation of the Defence Centre for
Training Support. It is a tri‑Service
Centre and it is based at RAF Halton.
RAF Halton hosts and indeed I think Mr George attended a course there
---
Q812 Mr Cran: --- Did he
pass?
Rear Admiral Goodall: He did very well, a star student.
Q813 Mr Cran: I see!
Rear Admiral Goodall: But the key point about the
creation of that organisation is to bring a defence approach to the "train the
trainer" agenda, which is a vital agenda.
If I were to put my finger on the two issues for me that came out of
DOC1 they were the issue of supervision and the train the trainer agenda. The Defence Centre for Training Support has
the lead on my behalf, it works to me, to create across defence the appropriate
standards for training the trainer. To
that end they have introduced some new courses and they are reviewing our
instructor training strategy. They have
introduced courses for instructional methods, coaching and motivation, care of
trainees, and the supervision and coaching of instructors. This is leading to good practice within
Services whereby, for example, the Royal Navy has introduced a four‑week
induction package for instructors at that establishment. The RAF have similar approaches. The Army are picking up on the DCTS
direction and applying it in the three areas where they train their trainers. There is more work to be done. The DCTS has been in existence for a relatively
short time but, as Stephen said, we hosted a best practice forum at RAF Halton
about two months ago and indeed are taking the lessons learnt from that and
distributing them to the services. So work in progress, but a significant
beacon for improving the way we train the trainer.
Q814 Mr Cran: Can I just be
clear - and I obviously cannot call into question what you have said although
progress has certainly been made - how are you measuring the improvement? It is a strong statement to say the role of
instructors is often undervalued and over‑worked and all the rest of
it. Could you give me concrete evidence
that that would not be said now?
Rear Admiral Goodall: I think it possibly could still be said in certain areas because,
as I said, it is work in progress and I think there are areas where we need to
enhance the standing of the instructor in individuals' eyes, to believe that it
is a career progressive move to be in instruction. One way we are doing that, again as part of the DCTS work, is to
introduce accreditation so that people who go into the instructional field over
a period of their career can return into instructional roles to gain credits
leading to a certificate in education or a teaching qualification, which is a
very valuable qualification for when they leave the Service. But there is no doubt that there is still
some work to be done in some areas. I
believe that in some areas it is very clear that the instructional role is
highly valued because the system promotes people out of those jobs, and if I
look across my own Service and see how many people have been seen to do well in
an instructional environment, this encourages others to say that is an
environment in which quality is recognised.
This encourages others to say that that is an environment in which
quality is recognised. But it is
patchy. We are addressing it and I
think indeed even ATRA recognise the point and the new Director General of ATRA
has a meeting of his organisation in December scheduled and this whole area is
one that he has put high on the agenda, to see how the Army, in particular, can
raise the game in this area.
Q815 Mr Cran: We have heard, as we have gone around, in our
investigations an interesting discussion going on - whether it is formal or
informal I do not know - but it is a question of how instructors are
selected. I think it is the case - and
if I have got this wrong do tell me - that a minority of instructors actually
volunteer. So that would lead me to the
conclusion that if a minority are not volunteering it is not exactly a career
enhancement move in their eyes. So
there is a question, it seems to me, raised thereby about the status of
instructors, which has to be addressed.
Therefore, how would you foresee that instructors are selected in future
to make sure that we address this?
Rear Admiral Goodall: Again, it is an area that I
have given the DCTS some challenges on to identify what are the skills and
competences that we can identify in people, and we are looking to sponsor some
research into the measurement of instructor and student behaviours, to really
focus in on what it is that COs and reporting officers should be looking for in
their subordinates when they make recommendations for them to go into an
instruction job. So, again, that is on
the DCTS agenda, and indeed we are going to run a Tri-Service forum early in
'05 to address these issues. We are
also supporting instructors with data and information - and I have a couple of
copies with me here today, again from the DCTS - to help instructors themselves
understand their own profession. So we
anticipate a journal that is going to come out almost quarterly, basically to
improve the whole aspect of the idea of, "This is what we are here to do; we
are here to help you." But it is an
agenda that we are pursuing, it is an important agenda and the DCTS has some
work to do in this area to lead us forward.
Mr Cran: I am very pleased to hear
it. Thank you very much, Chairman.
Q816 Chairman: If I might add to that, I have been to Halton
and to Lichfield and in each of the establishments I have been to (and others)
talking to trainers they are pivotal in the whole process. In Halton there was only one instructor for
two days, an Army Chaplain, who was just scintillating. But you really have the impression that
James made, that some of them do not want to be there, they are only there
because it is going to a location where they would find it very convenient to
work there. In my first teaching
appointment, arrived at the college at 8.59, in front of my first class
9.02. "What syllabus am I
teaching?" Answer, "The students will
tell you." I do not want to see that
lack of professionalism of 40 years ago replicated, but I do have the
impression that there is not always the motivation to be an instructor. Secondly, even if you are motivated it
requires particular skills that not everybody possesses, not even everybody who
has done a Diploma in Education, and trying to combine in one person the skills
of how to teach people to clean an SA80 and how to be almost a surrogate social
worker with, bolted on to their functions, the important role of Duty of Care,
requires careful selection and not just somebody in Glasgow - with no
disrespect to Glasgow - somebody in Army recruiting who looks at a name and
says, "Send him there." I would like to
see eventually - and sooner rather than later - if not a uniformity a common
approach that will ensure the critically important tasks of instruction and
Duty of Care are bestowed upon those people who (a) want to do the job, (b) are
trained to do the job, and (c) are monitored throughout their career and the
people they teach are monitored throughout their career. I know it is being done, there are movements
in that direction, but I hope, Admiral and gentlemen, that as we are in an
early stage of evolution of this Duty of Care and instruction that you get the
very highest standards because unless you do all you are trying to do will just
be dissipated, and I would hate to see that.
Group Captain Howard: We would support that
entirely and we found that although most of the corporal, junior NCO
instructors were not volunteers, a tremendous number of the senior NCO
instructors had come back as volunteers, having been junior NCO instructors,
and it was not until they finished their job that they realised the life skills
and the quality of the job they had as an instructor. As you know yourself, at the Defence Centre for Training Support,
the more training you put into an instructor and the more skills he is given,
the bigger the toolkit he has to go and do that job, the better. And the most motivated instructors, those
that were doing the job the best and enjoying the job were those that had the
most training and biggest toolkit to go and do that job.
Brigadier Melvin: If I could add a footnote on
this, from one's personal experience, if you get - and you may come on to this
- the living conditions and other conditions for the instructors, you have to
motivate the instructor to get there.
It is like the pressed man. A
volunteer instructor is normally a better instructor, as I think your all
questions have alluded to, than a pressed man.
That means not only at the selection process but we have to make sure,
as we indicated in the report, that the instructors have to feel valued in
their career and given the right kind of rewards. It also depends fundamentally - and I can say this from my own
experience as Commanding Officer and as commanding an Engineer Regiment - that
the quality of the young soldiers you got in was dependent on the quality of
the instructors you gave from your unit back into the training regime; so what
you put in was what you got out, and you had often to exchange the short-term
disadvantage of using your best promising junior NCOs because it was absolutely
vital to get them into the training organisation. That, I think, is an example of what needs to be done.
Q817 Chairman: I was saying to the Clerk, I have done two
now - five days in Lichfield, and I did everything except the four and a half
mile run. I did not want to humiliate
them, Brigadier, by, Radcliffe style, passing them in the last half a
mile! I want to do a few more to see
the comparison between the different Services because I have seen some of the
best. Anecdotally, I said to one of the
young men in Lichfield, "I hope you stay in the Army for many, many years but
if you decide to leave then teaching, lecturing is your vocation; that is what
you are." But he will not stay there,
he will move on to something else, and somebody who is so able to motivate,
inspirational, almost Messianic in what he was doing will have those talents
lost when he goes further hopefully up the hierarchy.
Brigadier Melvin: Chairman, I think you have
already indicated, that what would be important, where such a talented individual
is spotted, is to make sure that in his career, as it progresses, that he will
be given the opportunity, as Group Captain Howard has suggested, that the best
junior NCOs need to come back as the senior NCOs; the best job officers need to
come back, and then the system gets better.
The other way around, of course, it will go downhill pretty rapidly.
Rear Admiral Goodall: That is where, as I say, the
DCTS work to have life-long learning, as it were, life-long qualification
towards a Cert Ed is really important.
So they are doing a lot of work on the selection of instructors,
refresher training and the follow through techniques. Those are the three key areas that DCTS is going to lead on, on
my behalf.
Chairman: That is very
impressive. Frank Roy.
Q818 Mr Roy: To come back on instructors, gentlemen, do
you think it would be right that if a prison officer or a high school teacher
or a health carer raped a prisoner, a pupil or a patient, that that officer
would be suspended pending an inquiry?
Yes or no?
Rear Admiral Goodall: Can I be clear on the
question?
Q819 Mr Roy: Yes.
If a prison officer, a teacher or a health carer raped either the
prisoner, the pupil or the patient, do you think it is right that that
particular officer would be suspended pending an inquiry of the allegation?
Group Captain Howard: Innocent until proven guilty
or do we know he is guilty?
Q820 Mr Roy: We would not know. As I just said, pending the inquiry into the allegation. The reason I say that is because I would be
really interested to hear, if you said, "Yes, that high school teacher should
be suspended because there is an allegation that he, in this instance, raped a
17-year old fifth-year pupil and it would be quite right that that person would
be suspended pending that allegation," because at page 30 of your report
yesterday you are saying that the best practice in your assessment would be
that where an allegation was made against an instructor that that instructor
would stay.
Group Captain Howard: They are my words actually. Rape is a criminal offence and I would
expect ---
Q821 Mr Roy: Let me finish the question. Where the allegation was made you are saying
- and maybe I am reading it wrongly - you are saying that that instructor would
stay in position until those allegations were proved to be false, and if they
were proved to be false the person making those allegations would themselves
then face some disciplinary action, or am I getting this wrong? Because that is what this says here.
Rear Admiral Goodall: I think in general the
principle would be that if an allegation was made and was examined and it was
felt that there was some substance in that allegation, on a very quick
appraisal, then that training team or that individual would be suspended from
the training immediately. He or she
would then normally be located somewhere else within the organisation pending
the formal investigation, but, yes, it would be my opinion - and I believe it
would be backed up throughout the training environment - that the individual
would be suspended.
Q822 Mr Roy: That is not what the assessment says.
Group Captain Howard: Can I put it into context
because they are my words? An
allegation of rape is a criminal offence and I would expect a police inquiry to
be conducted and that instructor would be removed from training under a
criminal investigation. What we are
referring to there is general allegations across the spectrum, but not a
criminal offence in terms of civil law, and if we draw the delineation there. What we are referring to is where we found
best practice and the best motivated instructors with confidence in their
command chain was where any allegation, no matter how small, would suddenly
have the instructor removed from training, it may take five or six weeks to be
investigated, and that instructor is then labelled guilty whether he is or not,
and that then transfers with him, whatever happens to him. He is tainted by the experience. Not referring to criminal offences. If there was anything of any seriousness,
such as bullying or physical harm or anything like that, then we would expect
that investigation to take place very soon and the decision by the command
chain to be taken either to remove him from training or the allegation was not
substantiated.
Q823 Mr Roy: With due respect, Group Captain, that is not
actually what you say in this, it just says under the heading "Procedures for
dealing with allegations"; you do not say in this black and white paper that
there is a difference between the allegations.
Group Captain Howard: Can you give me the page?
Q824 Mr Roy: It starts at the bottom of page 29,
"Procedures for dealing with allegations". Not serious allegations, or you do
not name the allegations. So what
happens if it is not a rape - and I am not convinced on the point you have put
across because it still does not tell me that in black and white - what happens
if it is a case of serious bullying or if the teacher had really physically
abused the pupil, and in this case the instructor had physically abused the
recruit? Because what you are saying is
that it is okay for that instructor to carry on pending an investigation. What happens if that instructor, who had
done it once, did it again?
Group Captain Howard: I am not saying that at
all. But can I give you an example?
Q825 Mr Roy: But they could do it if you do not suspend
them.
Group Captain Howard: Agreed, but what I am saying
is that the best practice we found is where that allegation would be
investigated almost - instantly is the wrong phrase, but during that day.
Q826 Mr Roy: Is that the best practice for the instructor
or the best practice for the recruit?
Group Captain Howard: I would like to think that
it works both ways, and I am fairly confident that there is no whitewash there,
that that investigation would be thorough.
I think we have actually named RAF Halton as an example, and Sultan as
well, where if we take the worst case where if a recruit does not want to do a
test and says, "Racial harassment", instantly that instructor is taken away, he
is removed from training, put into a holding flight - worst instance sent
home. He is brought on to the unit by
the RSM to collect his mail, whatever, pending inquiry. At the best units that would have been dealt
with there and then by the CO of whatever size of unit, be it the junior
officer in charge of that platoon, flight squadron, whatever, calling in the
relevant parties, trying to work out whether there was a real allegation there
or not. If there was just a sniff of a
real allegation the instructor should then be suspended and a criminal
investigation started.
Q827 Mr Roy: I do not understand this. Where do you get
this "sniff" that it is a true allegation?
Kevan brought up a good point, when he said in ten years' time would
this all be rolled back again? It seems
to me, I am sorry, not ten years' time but ten months down the line you are
already rolling it back, because what happens if I am a vulnerable recruit and
I have made an allegation against someone and I am feeling very
vulnerable? Am I going to make that
allegation if I know that that instructor is still going to be in place during
that time, the time of the investigation of the allegation?
Group Captain Howard: By way of another example,
we were given an example where a very similar scenario to that which you have
just put to me, where the instructor was not interviewed but the command chain
then spoke to the recruits and the recruits were very honest, and if they were
aware that ... And we have also given
examples where there is almost a bandwagon of, "I can get out of this if I
claim ..." I cannot give you an exact
example, but, "If I cry wolf the same as everybody else," then we get a clear
indication of a trend of - allegations is too strong a phrase. But, alternatively, if you had an allegation
made, if you spoke to the recruits in that barrack block, they were able to
say, "Actually, I do not think that is what happened, this is what happened,"
and they were able to put it in perspective, and it was dealt with there and
then and the decision was then made, within an hour or two, whether further
investigation was required, how serious the allegation was and what the
appropriate action was, and the appropriate action could well be
suspension. But not that blanket
suspension.
Q828 Mr Roy: But your paper just says an "allegation". At the end of the day there is going to be
somebody who is going to stand up and say, "No, I am sorry, it is in black and
white." I am sorry, it is not in black
and white; it just says an "allegation".
It does not give you an example of how serious that allegation would
be. Can I also ask you on a point with
regard to the recruit himself who makes the allegation? As you know, in Scots law you are either
guilty, innocent or not proven. What
you are saying is here that someone makes an allegation and it is proven that
it was wrong and therefore the recruit then would be disciplined. What happens if the allegation that that
recruit makes is not proven? In other
words, we do not know if the instructor was guilty or innocent. Because I will tell you, your paper is
saying that if it is not proven you are going to discipline the recruit. What does that do for - as you said,
Brigadier - the esteem of a recruit?
What does that do if they make an allegation and they know it is true
and it is not proven to be true, and then according to your paper it will be
used against that recruit - they are going to be disciplined?
Brigadier Melvin: You raise a very, very
serious point, Mr Roy, but that bit of the report which you have highlighted
was written against the perspective from the instructor. Looking at the rest of the report and
putting it all in context you are very right to make the point that that
individual has to have access, recourse if he has a complaint. Therefore, what we have tried elsewhere in
the report, to highlight the importance of having access to confidential advice
- and I think that is the balance, independent or to the Commanding Officer,
WRVS or whatever - and the best practice that the team saw was the internal
mechanism. So in cases of doubt - the
non proven in Scots law, as you refer to - those would have to be either
investigated further, or if there was doubt remaining then other action would
have to be taken.
Q829 Mr Roy: But your paper does not say that,
Brigadier. This paper, which will be
the rulebook at some point in time for my constituents in the Armed Forces,
does not say that. It is okay for you
to say it could be the seriousness of it, or whatever, or we could look at it
again because maybe the guilt is not proven, it does not say that in black and
white, and I tell you that I believe that that would then be used at some point
against a recruit making an allegation, and I think it is a serious mistake if
you believe that it would not.
Group Captain Howard: Perhaps we should put out an
after note by way of clarification.
Q830 Chairman: I think Frank made a reasonable point. I think it would be helpful to us if you
dropped us a note on what the existing practice is in the Army, Air Force and
Navy in response to allegations; secondly, what advice is given or instruction
is given in training establishments.
And if when you review that you feel that there is any substance in
Frank's comments then you can make amendments.
Group Captain Howard: Can I come back on one
point? You say about disciplining a
recruit if the allegation is not proven or proved false. Within context - and it probably is loose
language on my part - that comes back to the ethos, core values and standards,
and if you are trying to instil courage, honesty, mutual respect, self respect,
what we are talking about is even just a verbal chat by the Commanding Officer
of that small platoon, unit, whatever, just to explain where that recruit has
gone wrong in making that false allegation, if proven false; or even if not
proven just to explain what has happened about that procedure, and that is what
we are talking about.
Q831 Mr Roy: I do not accept that, Group Captain, because
if they make the allegation and the recruit knows that that is a true
allegation and it cannot be proved, then, I am sorry, you are saying that that
recruit is guilty; you are not saying he is innocent.
Group Captain Howard: I am not saying that at all.
Mr Roy: You have.
Chairman: Frank has made his point; we
have been 20 minutes on this. Let us
move on.
Q832 Mr Roy: Let us finish this point. It is good to ask the question, Chairman,
instead of making a statement, because I really want to get to the bottom of
this. You really need to make it clear
that that person who is making the allegation - I agree if it is a malicious
allegation then I do not have a problem with that - but when one of my
constituents who joins the Forces and makes a serious allegation and it is not
proven, in other words, "We know what you are saying, but I am sorry we cannot
prove it," your paper is saying that they will be disciplined.
Brigadier Melvin: Mr Roy, you have made a very
serious point and we promise the Chairman to forward you a note to clarify this
issue.
Chairman: Thank you. Peter Viggers, please.
Q833 Mr Viggers: I would like to revert to instructors, choice
of instructors, training instructors and career ATRA instructors. Just glancing at page 31 of your report,
where you say, "Instructors still perceive that an appointment at an Initial
Training establishment is a regressive move in career terms." One can imagine that many people, sensing
that excitement of career prospects are in the Front-Line would not necessarily
wish to turn towards instruction. What
actions have you taken or do you think you can take to promote the role of
instructors as an attractive career option in the Forces? Has any progress been made?
Rear Admiral Goodall: As I say, I draw attention
to the work of the DCTS, which is in early days. I think we need to emphasise that the role of the instructor has
an expediential effect on the quality of the organisation. Good instructors breed high quality trainees
and high quality trainees then up the standard. There is a parallel here with the teaching profession - people
remember a good teacher, they remember the people that gave them a start in
life. Many of our young recruits in our
care come from backgrounds where they need this sort of guidance and role
model. I think it is that area that we
really start to emphasise that you can put more back into the organisation that
has helped you on your way by being an instructor and bringing the next
generation on, and as part of that gain through life qualifications that enable
you to go into civilian life with a recognised teaching qualification. I highlight the fact that people do well in
this area of service: i.e. they do feature well in promotion stakes. But this is not just an overnight thing;
this is something that we have to work hard at. As I say, I am using the DCTS to lead the agenda; we are putting
in place early next year a Tri-Service seminar to really drive into these
issues and spread good practice amongst the Services, both in the selection and
the encouragement of instructors.
Q834 Mr Viggers: It is important, obviously, to train people
for the job of instructors and also give thought to them being reintegrated
back into the Front-Line.
Rear Admiral Goodall: Indeed, and another subtle
subset of that is that we need really good people to train the trainers, and so
there is a whole quality issue around instructing and training instructors that
I do believe we are making very strenuous efforts to get a hold of, and I do
anticipate that the work of the DCTS in particular in this area will bear
significant fruit. But it will not be
overnight, there will be areas of the Services where there is a culture change,
and that does take a little bit of time.
But there is no want of effort on our part in leading that change.
Q835 Mr Viggers: You have spread out as a joint Forces group,
looking at all of the Army, Navy and Air Force, what did you learn in terms of
best practice? And if you tell me that
all of the three services were equally excellent I will not believe you. What distinctive characteristics did you
pick up and what are you doing to spread best practice?
Group Captain Howard: In any particular area or
best practice as a whole?
Q836 Mr Viggers: I am still thinking about instructors and the
instructor/student relationship.
Group Captain Howard: I think the best practice
was where an instructor received pre-appointment training, so he was given the
suite of courses that the Chairman has alluded to earlier on, and as many of
those key social worker skills as military skills before he took up his post,
and then he is prepared to go and do that job to the best of his ability.
Q837 Mr Viggers: Were there distinctive characteristics
between the different Forces?
Group Captain Howard: Very much so.
Q838 Mr Viggers: Can you summarise?
Group Captain Howard: Again, scale comes into it
and individual service culture. Halton
are very lucky in that they have the school on the premises, but they have also
made the effort to get their instructors out to other units, such as the
leadership courses up at Fairbourne, and they have been down to the Padre
Centre to do more pastoral care courses.
Some instructors have completed more courses than others but they put
more effort into ensuring their instructors were given the best preparation
possible than perhaps some units. The
Royal Navy, with their divisional system, was very, very good, totally
inculcated into the way the Royal Navy works.
It was not just a system that was imposed on to a training system, it
was something that was going to go through that recruit's whole life within the
Royal Navy and everybody understood it.
Q839 Chairman: And the Army?
Group Captain Howard: The Army, I think Catterick
stood out very well with their links with the regiments and they had done a
tremendous amount of work up there since our earlier reports to establish
identity and to get that link where a recruit was identified on day one as a
member of that particular regiment, given the t-shirt, given the beret - very
simple things, but he actually felt as though he belonged and he was not just
any recruit. That was very obvious, and
that also helped the instructors because the regiments came back to visit their
respective recruit candidates - a lot of the regiments are obviously co-located
at Catterick - and the Commanders were also able to keep tabs on and watch the
instructors that they had sent to the Recruit Training Centre.
Brigadier Melvin: Also, if I could add, the
concern of balance was one that I certainly looked at during the final drafting
stages of the report - could you make a general view of best practice between
the Services? Tempting as it might be
you could not easily, because of the variety, particularly of the Army of the
types of training units - you have from the Infantry at Catterick Phase 1 and
Phase 2, as you see, together, whereas in other parts of the Army that separate
Phase 1 and Phase 2. In some cases the
schools, such as the Royal School of Artillery and the Royal School of Military
Engineering are looking to integrate more the schools with Phase 2, so there
are differences there. That is the
caveat that we looked at, that there was quite a wide variety.
Rear Admiral Goodall: That brings us right back in
a circle in a way to the DCTS. Again,
there is good practice spread across the Services and indeed within certain cap
badges in the Army it is recognised that the instructor role within certain cap
badges is more valued than others and there is work to try to learn the lessons
of how some cap badges seem to be better at encouraging people into
instructional roles than others. If I
could just come back to the best practice point, and again by emphasising the
point of the Defence Centre of Training Support, it does identify standard
processes that have been found to be good and disseminate them. I did draw attention to the sort of journals
and publications they are putting together, and the first one happens to be an
instructor-focused inaugural edition, again to highlight tips for trainers, for
want of a better word. There will be a
trainer journal, there will be an intranet in which instructors can swap ideas,
swap notes and so forth. We are
revamping the Defence Instructor Handbook that will be out in April '05 and we
are redrafting the Defence Code of Conduct for Instructors. So we have a number of single Service
booklets and we are bringing those together.
For example, in that we are identifying the need for discussion groups
of instructors led by the chain of command within that Code of Conduct, to say
how do we improve our own capabilities in this area? A quality process drives this agenda.
Q840 Chairman: Could you leave that report behind, if you do
not mind, Rear Admiral?
Rear Admiral Goodall: Yes. This is a mock-up but it is a useful
precursor to what we are doing.
Q841 Mike Gapes: Can I take you on to questions of
recruitment? The DOC appraisal of 2002
and the first reappraisal of 2003 noted concerns with the general educational
standards of recruits, and stated that the first reappraisal talked about in
some cases "Regimental Special Recruiters felt under career pressure to achieve
numerical cap badge targets." The
second reappraisal has taken place. Did
you find anything there relating to these issues, and, in particular, do you
believe that there is pressure to recruit people even if they are below
required educational standards? Does
that still exist?
Rear Admiral Goodall: I would say no. Indeed, the educational standards for entry
vary according to the trades. Some
highly skilled trades require GCSEs but across the board there is no
educational requirement for ratings, soldiers, sailors and airmen entry. They have to sit a psychometric test and
that is basically the method of entry.
However, the Government Basic Skills Agenda drew attention to the fact
that literacy and numeracy was a significant issue and we have played our part
in addressing the Basic Skills Agenda.
To that end we have put a lot of effort into both screening people on
entry for basic skills literacy and numeracy efficiencies and put in place
measures to bring people who are below standard up to standard. In essence the Army, which has the greatest
need in this area, if anybody is identified as having less than an entry level
2 standard of literacy and numeracy that individual is given a programme of
work, probably with a local FE college, and asked to come back when their standard
has been raised to at least entry standard level 3 or level 1. In essence I think we are paying great
attention to the literacy and numeracy capability of our people to bring them
up to standard and that we are not dumbing down in the way you might suggest.
Q842 Mike Gapes: The first reappraisal expressed concern that
the written and computer based tests were in some cases so low that it meant
that recruits who got through those tests then struggled when they were in
training. Is that still the case?
Rear Admiral Goodall: What we have found is, as I
say, that entry level 2 and the sort of statistics I have in front of me, these
statistics over the last few months, that we get something like 24 per cent of
entries at entry level 3. That is a
reading age of 11.
Q843 Mike Gapes: Exactly.
That is what I was getting at.
So entry level 3 is a reading age of 11?
Rear Admiral Goodall: Yes.
Q844 Mike Gapes: So entry level 2 is what?
Rear Admiral Goodall: It is about seven.
Q845 Mike Gapes: So a reading age of seven?
Rear Admiral Goodall: Yes. So we put in place measures to ensure that
people are brought up to at least entry level 3 and indeed we aim to get them
to at least level 1 early in their training to enable them to cope with their
training.
Q846 Mike Gapes: I know that the Army does very good work in
training and we have commented on it in previous hearings, but can I be
absolutely clear that you are saying that 24 per cent of recruits were below
the level of a reading age of 11, and a significant number, which you have not
specified - but which I would be interested to know if you have the figures -
are at age 7; is that correct?
Rear Admiral Goodall: Entry level 2, which is
about age 7, is a relatively small proportion of applicants. It was about one per cent so very small
numbers.
Q847 Mike Gapes: And very few of those will actually get in?
Rear Admiral Goodall: At that level we basically
take them and bring them up to at least entry level 3. So a recruit has to be at entry level 2 or
above. We will take them at that
standard but we do remedial work with them to bring them up to standard before
they go into their training.
Q848 Mike Gapes: But clearly somebody aged 17 who has a
reading age of 7, who is in a training establishment, could find that they were
subject to bullying, peer jokes about them and being treated in a way that
could make their life very, very miserable?
Have you thought about what in terms of what means to some people in
those institutions?
Rear Admiral Goodall: Yes. I honestly do not know what the relationship
would be between a reading age of seven and an individual's vulnerability to
bullying - that is probably a very complex area.
Q849 Mike Gapes: Yes.
I am not an educational psychologist and I do not know.
Rear Admiral Goodall: It is a very, very complex
area because of course people who often do have literacy and numeracy
deficiencies make very good efforts to cover that by other behaviours. So I do not necessarily think that there is
a correlation between the two. But I do
take your point that we are dealing here with people who have significant
deficiencies in communication skills, and to that end, as I say, even though we
may accept people at entry level 2 we do ensure, immediately on entry, that we
bring them up to a standard under which we believe that they can cope with the
training they are given. If we believe
that that individual has the potential to join the Army but actually their
literacy and numeracy standards are so low that we cannot bring them up to
speed in time, we do send them to Further Education Colleges.
Q850 Mike Gapes: Is that a day release system?
Rear Admiral Goodall: I have an example here, that
Darlington College, for example, provides a Basics Skills Coordinator which is
permanently allocated to the ITC at Catterick.
Q851 Chairman: And very good they are too; we were very
impressed by the work they were doing.
Rear Admiral Goodall: There are usually three
tutors allocated full time to the ITC and we have had 307 soldiers attending
those courses - the courses run two weeks throughout the year - and between
August 03 and 31st July 04 307 individuals went through that
process. That is just an example. The summary is that they find that on
average 60 to 70 per cent of each course that goes through have dyslexia
problems, so that is a significant problem on top of the reading age. But all soldiers going through their hands
do improve their skills and certainly 40 per cent gain a qualification at a
significantly higher level. But the
most important point about going through that process is that those individuals
do gain self-confidence, motivation and self-awareness. So our investment in the Basic Skills
Programme at the outset of an individual's career pays dividends in putting
them into the training machine and they are much more capable of coping with
the training.
Q852 Mike Gapes: I have no doubt that the Army in particular
does an excellent job in picking up and educating young men and women who the
education system has failed, but I still wonder whether you have a view on anecdotal
evidence which came to members of the Committee during some of the visits, that
it was said to them by a number of instructors and corporals - and I do not
know if this is what people always say of one age about the previous ages -
that trainees today were of a lower educational standard compared to the past,
and that behavioural standards were lower to those in the past and recruits
were more likely to question and express reluctance to follow orders today.
Rear Admiral Goodall: It is a very general point
but I am always concerned that the current generation always thinks that the
future generation is not as good as they were, and the debate that you have
just alluded to is a debate that goes on in education - that GCSEs are not what
GCEs were and A Levels were not what they were. So I think that is a very general point.
Brigadier Melvin: Again just to make the point
about over generalisation, I think for today's Armed Forces, to modernise the
Armed Forces we need soldiers, sailors and airmen frankly with the best
education qualifications we can actually recruit. We need to do that. But
also I think it would be wrong to suggest - and, to be fair, I do not think you
did suggest, but one could infer - that things are worse than they were in the
past because people question orders.
What we want for today's Armed Forces is young men and women who do not
have this what I call blind, narrow obedience to orders. Clearly orders in action, for the sake of
the group, the team, the section, have to be ordered, but we are looking for
people across all the Armed Services, whatever job they are doing, with
initiative and we are looking for them to grow, to build on their
competence. Do you get my point?
Q853 Mike Gapes: I entirely accept that, but I am just conveying
to you something I picked to see your reaction and I remember going to
Collingwood in a previous inquiry on recruitment and retention in 2000, and
this Committee being told something similar at that point and other people said
no, that was not the case.
Rear Admiral Goodall: I would suggest in a way
that these are comments that every generation has but the proof of the pudding
is probably in the eating, and it is how they perform in the professional
arena, and even if there are comments that they are not quite as fit as the
previous generation, actually their performance belies this. I do not think there has been a drop in
standards in the performance of the British Armed Forces.
Q854 Mike Gapes: So in your opinion - without putting words in
your mouth - you would not say that the average recruit is of lower calibre
today than in previous years?
Rear Admiral Goodall: Not at all. I go back to what I said before, when
escorting MPs. I remain absolutely in
awe of some of the confidence and competence of some of the youngsters that we
have in our care. We do have a range
and we do have some very vulnerable people, but in general we have sparky
people who are, as I phrase it, "agile between the ears" and that is exactly
what we want.
Q855 Mike Gapes: What about those that are judged to be below
the required educational standard; what impact does their presence have upon
the ability of your instructors to do their job effectively? Do they have to spend a disproportionate
amount of time; do they have to change the way in which they do the
instruction? Does it mean that mixed
ability work is not possible in certain areas; that you have to split them and
stream them? How does the instructor
react to a group which includes somebody who has problems, who is struggling?
Rear Admiral Goodall: I think that again goes back
to the agenda that we have spent some time on, which is training the trainer
and training our instructors and again some of the work we are going to be
conducting in the DCTS, and across the individual Services, is to develop what
we might call the "softer skills" in instructors' capabilities and
opportunities to practise coaching skills and mentoring skills and so forth,
and listening skills. All this will enhance
the capability of the instructors to cope with the wide variety of people who
are in front of them. In a sense this
has always been the case. I do not
believe that we have suddenly come to an age where a group that ten, 15 years
ago was very cohesive and clustered around the norm has suddenly spread into
something that has great extremes. In
the past we probably did not recognise that and so probably our instructional
techniques were rather black and white - "By the end of this lesson you will
understand X, Y, Z" and of course half the group probably went out not
understanding X, Y, Z. Today I think
we are more capable of identifying where people have difficulties. I think we need to improve, I think we need
to do more work with instructors on that, and that is a significant part of the
agenda. Just on coaching, the Defence
Leadership Centre has been doing some very good work on developing coaching
techniques and we are going in with the Defence Leadership Centre at the DCTS
to develop that and bring these skills to the instructors so that they can help
the people in their care and not just ignore the problem.
Chairman: Thank you. Unless anybody thinks that soldiers,
especially in the Infantry, are brain dead I would disabuse them of that. Firstly, my mathematics ability is sub seven
years of age; secondly, the Army and the Armed Forces do raise standards. Thirdly, the failures are more a reflection
of the educational system and the social system than the military system. And
fourthly, these guys, who may not be the Stephen Hawkings of the future, are
the guys who are out in Iraq showing themselves to be amongst the finest
infantry in the world. So if anybody
listens to this and thinks that a reading age of 7 to 11 to start off is
somehow an indication of some malfunctioning individuals, I would wish to
strenuously disabuse them of that misconception.
Q856 Mr Jones: Can I continue on this theme? Clearly there are differences in the
different Services. In the Infantry I
think General Palmer said the reading age of 11 or less was probably around
about 30 per cent. Clearly it is
different in the RAF. But to what
extent is this having an effect on the actual Phase 1 and Phase 2 training? If you turn to page 34 of your report,
"Testing of recruits and trainees", where you say that, "We received reports of
Recruits and Trainees who had failed mandated tests being passed on to the next
phase of training or even on to Front-Line units." You go on to say, "We saw evidence that risk is being taken with
fitness tests, particularly the Military Swimming Test." I should imagine if you were in the Navy
being able to swim is quite an important task, but to what extent are these
problems being passed on to the Front-Line and at what risks to those
individuals? Because clearly some of these recruits in the present climate
could find themselves on operational duties in Iraq, for example. To what extent are these problems related to
education, but also the fact that we are passing people on who, clearly, if
they cannot do a swimming test and are in the Navy, for example, have serious
problems when they are on an operation?
Group Captain Howard: The swimming test was a
specific instance and something that came down to access to a swimming pool, be
that a local community swimming pool or one on a military base and time to get
people out.
Q857 Mr Jones: You tried to do a swimming test without a
swimming pool?
Group Captain Howard: Exactly, and you cannot do
it.
Q858 Mr Jones: Where was this?
Group Captain Howard: There were several
instances.
Q859 Mr Jones: Did this include people in the Navy?
Group Captain Howard: No.
Rear Admiral Goodall: I would point, of course,
that probably in the Navy of course if you cannot swim it means you stay with
the ship!
Q860 Mr Jones: It is not very reassuring to yourself
perhaps. If you do not stay with the
ship you fall overboard.
Rear Admiral Goodall: I think the key point about
this is that we need to have a look at this because the training process does
identify an output standard that is required of the training machine when the
individual is passed from the training environment into the operational
environment. In meeting that standard
there are mandated tests. If somebody
is passed out without passing those mandated tests I think the only case where
you would pass somebody out without a mandated test is where there was a
training gap and they recognised that there was not the facility to train them
in that capability and therefore there was a need to train them in that
capability as soon as they got into the operational environment. Or indeed there had been what is called a
"declared training deficiency" because a particular phase of course was
missed. There was an example of that in
my own Service when a group of cohorts was on the foot and mouth epidemic and
they missed a chunk of training. But
they can only go out in that respect having had that identified and a process
put in place to make sure that that is corrected. So the key issue I am trying to say here is that what I am not
clear on, whether this is a real issue or whether it is something that has not
been understood by the ---
Q861 Mr Jones: Hang on.
You talk a lot but do not actually answer the question. It says in your report that you have a
situation where people are failing mandatory tests - these are not optional tests
in these things, these are mandatory tests and they are failing them - and then
being passed through on to the Front-Line.
You actually in the assessment, at 79, give credit to three
establishments that, "At these units, Commanders and instructors alike had
confidence that they were not passing on risk to the Front-Line." I would think there are two types of risk
here: there is obviously risk to the people that they are working with
operationally but also a risk to the individuals as well, and in the present
climate there are instances where people are coming out of training - and one
recruit we spoke to at Catterick - where a 19-year old who was killed in Iraq
was there a couple of months before. If
we have people who are actually going into those very hostile situations - and
I hear what you are saying about trying to re-test, but you are not going to
re-test people in those climates. So
how confident are we that your people going on operational duties do not think
they are optional but are mandatory, and the fact that you actually try to
teach people to swim without a swimming pool, I find bizarre.
Group Captain Howard: I do not think it was
advocated you could teach anybody to swim without a swimming pool, what we are
saying is, with the fitness test as an example, we found instances where people
were not able to pass the fitness test but were still graduating with a note on
their file that they had not made the fitness standard test but that they
needed to re-take that test in Phase 2 to pass it before moving on to
Front-Line. The swimming test was an
isolated example where people were going to the Front-Line without having
passed that test because they had not had access to a swimming pool.
Q862 Mr Jones: But what happens when you are operational and
you find yourself, for example in the Navy - and it is reassuring that you go
down with your ship - or it might not just be in the Navy but all over the
place, the Air Force crash in the water - and you cannot swim, then it is a
pretty serious situation.
Group Captain Howard: It was Army units we were
talking about.
Q863 Mr Jones: Army units as well move around by ships, and
if you cannot swim it is a basic problem.
Brigadier Melvin: Mr Jones, there is no way
that DOC or DGT&E is trying to condone any of this. What you have highlighted is extremely bad
and dangerous practice with, as you say, consequences not only for the unit but
their colleagues with whom they are serving.
Perhaps we did not make the report clear enough, but as you have
highlighted paragraph 79 - and I would not want to be a wordsmith here - we
said that the mandatory standards were not being adequately satisfied, and that
is black and white, and we highlighted some instances of best practice. But I think you put your finger on, as we did,
that there was risk being passed on the Front-Line and therefore it must be
attended to. It was not within the
scope of our report to highlight the actual detailed measures which this risk
could be mitigated; our job was to highlight the risk, and it is subsequent
work that needs to be done.
Q864 Mr Jones: That is an important point. You have raised it here in the report, quite
rightly, and, credit to you, you have also pointed to Lympstone, Honington and
Halton where good practice is going on, and I did read that out, so it has
clearly been got right in some places, but not others. What would give this Committee some
reassurance - and obviously people listening to this today - is that you have
highlighted it, but what is going to be done about it? Or is it the fact that this is going to go
on the shelf again, and is it that you have actually assessed where you have
found real problems, which you have in certain places? How confident are you that these are going
to be solved?
Brigadier Melvin: My test, taking your point,
would be to see whether this point is picked up in the action plan that deals
with all of these points and to ensure that there is a method by which there is
a systematic review to seeing these points being addressed. DGT&E, Mr Jones has said he has got an
action plan and is dealing with this and this point needs to be rigorously
followed up. Hence the overall tone,
the final point of the report, just picking up the theme of what you are
saying, is that there is absolutely no place and no case for any complacency on
any of these points. So I fully agree
with you, it is a very, very serious issue and we cannot afford to build risk
into the system, hence we highlighted that we have to take measures to take
risk out of the system on the basis of the livelihood of the individual and the
units.
Rear Admiral Goodall: It is really just to echo
that I believed I opened my remarks by saying that we need to address
this. What I am saying is that we have
a well defined process which identifies the training standards that people have
to achieve on passing out of training, and if that is failing in any way
because the mandated tests are not being passed, and there is not a highlighted
reason, as I explained before, that there was a reason during training why that
did not happen but unusually, we will take that forward, then we can ---
Q865 Mr Jones: Give me some confidence though. I would not mind a list provided of where
these are, and secondly what your action plan is going to be, because it is not
good - quite rightly being highlighted in this report - if in six months, 12
months, two years' time, they have not been addressed, and has that not been
the fundamental problem in this entire area, that things have been highlighted
in the past, Duty of Care and also training, and there has not been that
rigorous systematic follow-up to say that this has to be done by a certain
date?
Rear Admiral Goodall: I will address that for you,
yes; but the second point I would like to make is that one of the points that
we have been encouraging is the idea that DOC has a look at the next part of
the training continuum and that is the transition from the training machine
into the Front-Line and how the feedback loops in that area are energised to
ensure that the Front-Line does comment on the standard and quality of the
people coming out of the training machine, and I think that is an important
next step.
Q866 Mr Jones: That is fine, but, frankly, all you are going
to get, if you are not careful, is a growth industry of reports and
assessments. What I am always more
interested in is if problems are being highlighted, and they clearly have, that
they actually get addressed, and what I would like to see and be provided with
is where you see the weaknesses are and what is being proposed to address them.
Rear Admiral Goodall: I will provide that as part
of the action plan.
Q867 Chairman: Admiral and Brigadier, are either of you
responsible for or mandated to comment on, make recommendations on Territorial
Army training regimes?
Rear Admiral Goodall: Not specifically, only that
the policies that apply across defence in training terms, the policies I would
write would be applicable to the Territorial Army.
Chairman: Can you drop us a note on
that? As we are now so dependent upon
the Territorial Army I would be interested to know what your responsibilities
are. Frank Roy, please.
Q868 Mr Roy: Gentlemen, what steps did the DOC report
recommend should be taken to deter and prevent bullying and harassment at all
levels and has the recent reappraisal found any evidence that bullying and
harassment are on the wane?
Group Captain Howard: Bullying and harassment was
one of the questions we asked the recruits and both in the questionnaire and in
the general discussion they all acknowledged that there was a natural pecking
order amongst themselves, within the peer group; but in most units, when we
asked the question directly about their instructors, we were met with a
response of, "Absolutely not. We hold our
instructors up and we aspire to be like them, we respect them as role
models." We had to fish within that
area; it was not an area that was there as an item of any prevalence with any
of the units we met.
Brigadier Melvin: Mr Roy, if I could just draw
your attention to one part of the report, but noting the caveats that both we
and your colleagues have placed on the questionnaire, I think it is fairly
significant in answer to question 10 to the individuals, "Have you ever felt
victimised during your training here?" that during DOC 1 it is 25 per cent, DOC
2 nearly 16 per cent and DOC 3 11 per cent.
That is a trend, which is a good trend, but it means that there is still
a problem there, does it not? So we
have highlighted that it is still an issue that needs to be addressed.
Group Captain Howard: And bullying within peer
groups tended to be worst amongst girls than it did boys.
Q869 Mr Roy: Were you surprised that the figure that you
got was seven to eight per cent of trainees questioned said that they were
being or had been bullied during the course of their training? Were you surprised at that seven or eight
per cent? That is appraisal 2002.
Group Captain Howard: I think that is why we asked
the question and that is where they came back, and it was bullying within peer
groups rather than systematic bullying or bullying by their instructors.
Q870 Mr Roy: Can I just stay on the figures? How can you be confident that bullying is
experienced by seven to eight per cent of the trainees if your recording
mechanism is inadequate, as you say in paragraph 75 of DOC in 2002?
Group Captain Howard: We have said that the
figures are indicative figures only. I
do not think we have confidence in the fact that that is an actual accurate
reflection in the Armed Forces. I do
not think we profess that at all.
Q871 Mr Roy: But you have said that there are inadequacies
in the record mechanism. So how can you
be confident that the percentage you are giving is true?
Group Captain Howard: As I said, I do not think we
are confident. It is indicative. It is a question we asked and each group
answered that question. I do not really
see where you are coming from.
Q872 Mr Roy: If you have admitted that the mechanism is
not really adequate ---
Group Captain Howard: We agreed that.
Q873 Mr Roy: So what are you doing about it?
Group Captain Howard: In what sense?
Q874 Mr Roy: If you are looking for statistics and the
measure that you use, you realise that there were problems with that particular
mechanism, and once you realised it, Group Captain, what did you do and how do
you improve it? Or do you just move on
to the next?
Group Captain Howard: We were not looking for
statistics. We used those figures as an
indicative measure of areas we needed to look into, and I think bullying was
sufficiently high up the agenda anyway that the figure was immaterial really as
far as whether we were going to question and look at the area - it was on our
agenda regardless of what the figures said.
Brigadier Melvin: I think the figures, Mr Roy,
due to the caveat that we have given and that you have given, should be
regarded as an indication - our words - of a trend rather than of their
absolute value. So the members of the
audit team, in answer to the question, "Have you ever been bullied during your
training year?" where it says DOC 1 7.6 per cent, DOC 2 6.9 per cent, DOC 3 4.5
per cent, we say that all you can use those figures for is to observe the
trend. That is all we are saying.
Q875 Mr Roy: How do you work out that that is the trend,
if we say - and I quote from the DOC appraisal notes - "The quality of existing
captured historic data seem to suggest that bullying statistics may be
technically unreliable"? Your words,
not mine.
Group Captain Howard: We agree.
Brigadier Melvin: So we are saying that of the
questions we have asked there are questions and caveats that we put into
that. For instance, the question which
we are alluding to, is an individual necessarily going to say that he has been
victimised or bullied? I think that is
what you are coming to, is it not?
Q876 Mr Roy: No, no, do not put words into my mouth.
Brigadier Melvin: I apologise; I did not mean
to do that.
Q877 Mr Roy: If you accept that the statistics were
technically unreliable into the way it was done, then what recommendations have
you made for ensuring that the recording mechanisms for instances of bullying
are more robust than in the past?
Group Captain Howard: It comes into the overall
label of Duty of Care really; it is the whole system, the DOC process from the
first report through DGT&E's work, as put in place as an overall mechanism
to look for bullying, make it a more open system and have mechanisms there that
can pick it up.
Q878 Mr Roy: What are they, Group Captain?
Group Captain Howard: All of these you have seen
on your visits, with padres, WRVS, Salvation Army, Empowered Officers, access
to outside counselling organisations, the whole plethora of Duty of Care that
has been encompassed by the report. I
do not think anybody has gone out to be an anti-bullying officer or anything;
it is the whole issue that encourages openness.
Rear Admiral Goodall: It was an issue when we were
last before the Committee, that we highlighted the fact that we are collecting
data about bullying across the piece, and we put those statistics in front of
the Committee. I remember we had the
conversation that in fact - and I am looking at them now - the numbers of
complaints went up quite significantly, and we had the discussion then: is this
because we are more sophisticated at tracking them; is it because being an open
society now we are encouraging people to bring them to our attention?
Q879 Mr Roy: Maybe they are not afraid to come forward
now.
Rear Admiral Goodall: Correct and they are in a
climate where they do that. So we have
that debate, does the fact that the statistics we gave you of increased numbers
of complaints mean that there is more bullying or does it mean that we have a
better society? I think we have a
position here that we could not agree then and we cannot agree now, and it is
something that we are working on constantly, to improve our capability of
tracking these issues. This is
demonstrating, I believe - and as I think I said on the last occasion - that it
is a sign of a more open society that is dealing with the issue directly. But if you were to ask me is it
statistically valid, I could not say yes or no.
Q880 Chairman: Why did you not distinguish between bullied
by one of the staff or bullied by somebody in the next bed to you?
Group Captain Howard: Because it just was not an
issue. We almost had to explain what we
meant by bullying to the recruits; it just was not an issue. It was far more of an issue to us than it
was to them.
Q881 Chairman: It is an important issue actually.
Group Captain Howard: Very important.
Chairman: If the corporal is doing it
or somebody who does not like the fact that you are from South Wales, Walsall
or Glasgow.
Q882 Mr Roy: It is if it means you are going to blow your
head off or hang yourself.
Group Captain Howard: I agree entirely, but we had
to explain to the recruits we spoke to what we meant by bullying, really. We took that as a positive sign, that we
needed to fish for it.
Q883 Chairman: Perhaps in any future study you might give
some thought to distinguishing. A brief
question: when we went to Sultan yesterday the time they spent in moving personnel
awaiting training was fairly swift from one posting to another. But I can think of another place we went to
where it could be as high as six months.
What can you recommend or have you recommended or could you recommend to
try to bring a greater degree of rationality to this process, because people
hanging around for a course to go on is a monstrous waste of time and
resources? It looks as though maybe the
Army is a bit behind the Air Force and the Royal Navy.
Group Captain Howard: I think we would agree, Chairman,
that we found most of our issues with disillusioned recruits or trainees, poor
motivation, lack of commitment to the Service in exactly those areas where
people were kept on hold waiting for training, more than anywhere else
actually. As far as what we are doing
about it, best practice, we would definitely say, is where that pipeline of the
recruit pitching up at the Careers Information Office, arriving on a Front-Line
unit is most actively managed, and courses and intakes are tailored to meet
that requirement. But I would counter
that with degrees of scale. It is
actually quite easy to do in terms of, say, a Royal Marine, or in certain terms
with the Air Force within certain trades than it is with maybe 3,800 odd
recruits going through a major Army depot.
Brigadier Melvin: If I could add, not to
presume your next question, Chairman, but to add a footnote. As Group Captain Howard said, we saw that
where the two phases of training were co-located that there was significant
improvement there, and where organisations took a very close interest where
Phase 1 and Phase 2 were separate, the best practice were where those in the
Phase 2 looked into Phase 1 and drew them through. But there is still a problem, as we have highlighted in the
report, on holdovers and therefore the best way to reduce these instances of
soldiers awaiting training is to take a number of measures - an alignment of
the training organisations would help, but better course scheduling would help
as well, and I think that is probably what you were alluding to.
Q884 Chairman: Can you set SATT targets and then admonish
any unit that does not meet those targets?
Rear Admiral Goodall: I think the problem is
probably too complex to deal with like that because the problem is matching the
pipelines of different trades and in a perfect world clearly you would have a
course start every Monday for 52 weeks of the year, so that you were always
rolling on, and that is clearly not possible.
So there is probably an irreducible minimum of SATT and the Army, as you
say, has the biggest problem. But there
is a weekly Recruit Allocation Planning Committee at HQ ATRA to try to address
this issue, and indeed I am aware that the Army has prepared a paper on the
management of SATT, which is being prepared for the Director General this
month. So the Army is addressing this
issue. Whether it is as simple as just
saying that it is targets? But I looked
at that work with great interest.
Brigadier Melvin: Could I interrupt and add
one word of detail? Paragraph 45d in
the report highlights the current ATRA policy.
There is indeed, Chairman, a target of 14 days, but that is for those
who have completed their training. But
in some areas there are some targets already available. The question is to what extent are people
meeting those targets and we did not provide the detailed statistics for that.
Rear Admiral Goodall: But that target would be at
the end of training, and I was referring to the process of joining up courses,
which would be a bit more difficult. It
may not be impossible, and I would value looking at the work that the Army is
doing to prepare this paper. The second
thing I would draw attention to is that as we move to the strategic intent to
bring a lot of this training on to defence establishments, we are also looking
now at improving the pipeline management through both technology and the
co-location of our trainees in future years, which, again, will have impact on
this problem. But you are absolutely
right, young people hanging around in the training machinery with little to do
is a recipe for disaster.
Q885 Mr Viggers: A noticeable feature of the summer 2003
appraisal is that where you have a word of favour for an establishment it gets
mentioned, but where you criticise the establishment does not get
mentioned. Is there a policy for not
naming and shaming where there is a fault been found, or is this something you
have thought about?
Group Captain Howard: It is certainly not a
policy, no. If our predecessors did
that then I cannot say why they did, but we do not currently run a policy. We try to identify best practice rather than
point a finger at where things have gone wrong, to make sure that best practice
is adopted. But we certainly do not
have a policy of not naming them.
Q886 Mr Viggers: I am just anxious that best practice should
be picked up by those where best practice does not currently exist.
Brigadier Melvin: I think that is a very fair
question. I think editorially
throughout all the reports there has been a policy of identifying specifically
the best practice and hence, as you say correctly, those units have been
highlighted.
Q887 Mr Jones: Gentlemen, can I turn to the support systems
for recruits. The first reappraisal in
summer 2003, there was comment that WRVS and other support systems were seen in
some areas as "busy-bodies" or berated by trainees for those who actually went
to them. We met numerous of these
ladies and gentlemen up and down on our visits, and I have to say what very dedicated
individuals they are as well. What
evidence did you find in the recent reappraisal as to the role of welfare
officers? Are they widely accepted now
and what is the perception now amongst instructors and others of their role?
Group Captain Howard: It comes back to this
cultural shift that we talked about earlier on, in that they are far more
integrated into the overall welfare system of a unit, where, again, most units
we visited usually held a weekly meeting of the support group, for want of a
better phrase, where maybe the Empowered Officer, the WRVS, the padres,
doctors, would get together to talk about any trends, basically to see if they
picked up any group trends or any wider issues. But we were also very confident that if any individual issues
were raised they had a mechanism that could be dealt with there and then. We still came across one or two junior NCOs
that saw WRVS, the Salvation Army as interference, but it was very, very
isolated, and I think it is now part of a culture where they are accepted. Indeed, at some of the units the junior NCOs
were also leaning on that support mechanism to cope with the pressures within
their own life.
Q888 Mr Jones: Did you make any
recommendations for improvements in terms of the current system?
Group Captain Howard: Not in this report, no.
Q889 Mr Jones: Clearly, if that is what you say it is very
different from what it was in summer 2003.
Do you think that has been a cultural change that will stay, or is it
one of these things where, again, it has just been done because the spotlight
of publicity is on Duty of Care?
Group Captain Howard: It is personality
dependent. If you had a CO that came in
that was against that sort of thing then I do not think it could change. But at the moment, on the units we visited,
it was a system that is working very well.
Q890 Mr Jones: It is interesting what you said there because
there are some good examples where COs work very closely with these individuals
and they have a good relationship, and certainly WRVS personnel and the
Salvation Army have indicated that they feel that they can actually approach
the COs, which I think is important in terms of the support relationship. But how is that cultural shift, which you
say has happened, being instilled in Commanding Officers that this is not just
a passing fad, this is something that is going to be there for some time?
Group Captain Howard: All staff do not change over
at once, and I think as a CO you would have to be a fairly strong-willed
character now to stop that machine moving, in that the spotlight - a term we
have used so many times - is on and COs at training units are acutely aware of
the fragile line they are treading at the moment and how in the spotlight that
particular role is. I think that any CO
that did not use that support mechanism to support his role as a CO in his own
pastoral care would be picked up by that support mechanism as a failing in
himself.
Q891 Mr Jones: It is important though, is it not, that COs,
no matter what Service they are in, that it is instilled in them that this is
an important part of the Duty of Care process?
Group Captain Howard: Absolutely.
Q892 Mr Jones: Have any steps been taken to ensure that does
happen? I accept there will be certain
dogs you will not be able to teach new tricks to.
Group Captain Howard: It is taught as part of
staff training and it is taught throughout staff training, your role as a
Commanding Officer and the pastoral care and so forth. I think most COs take it as a very serious
responsibility. Indeed, as a CO people
can be one of the biggest issues you deal with but also one of the most
rewarding, and I think any CO that does not recognise that probably should not
be in the job.
Rear Admiral Goodall: It is an interesting point
that there may be room - and I do not know the answer to this - for emphasising
this as part of the CO's notes or some form of induction. But of course you grow up in the Service
with these people helping you. If I
take an example from my own background, when I commanded the barracks in
Plymouth I had a very strong support network through the Navy personnel and
Family Services. But I experienced that
as a young divisional officer, and therefore it was something that was natural
for me as a CO to turn to, because I had trust in that system, having
experienced it as a junior officer.
Q893 Mr Jones: I accept that, but it boils down to the
personality of the CO, does it not? To
what extent should it be, for example, an important part of staff training in
terms of not just about being aware about the individual, but also the
importance, in terms of man management, which you referred to, Group Captain,
of these people being an asset to you rather than an hindrance, and which have
clearly been seen as a hindrance in the past by certain people.
Group Captain Howard: There are CO designates
courses, so a course you go on once you are designated to be the CO of a ship -
or they actually go out and visit the training units as well. So they are seeing what support mechanisms
are being put in place in training units and I think that will spread best practice
into other units as well, because one of the areas that was raised as minor
concern from some of the junior NCOs we met - and this may be something you
picked up from your own visits - is that now we are putting all of this Duty of
Care into the recruit when he goes through training, will he expect those
mechanisms when he gets to a Front-Line unit, when perhaps there is just one
padre covering the whole of the garrison?
By getting COs before they take over their command to go and see what is
in place in other units, I think that is spreading out through the rest of the
Forces.
Brigadier Melvin: To give you an Army
perspective here, I was just referring to the ATRA Code of Practice for
Instructors which I have here, which makes the point about units using the
welfare service, and I think it is explicit in Army land management terms that
the welfare organisations are to be used.
The very question, Mr Jones, you point out is what is that doctrine, for
want of a word, being met on the ground and what resources, welfare services,
WRVS, padres and others, social workers, Salvation Army, are available? That would be an area which would need to be
validated - the difference between theory and practice.
Rear Admiral Goodall: I think the point is well made
that this is an area where you can have a lot of benefit with relatively little
effort, to really emphasise the point.
Q894 Mr Jones: One last question in relation to this area -
and if you do not have the information now I am sure you can provide us with it
- do you have any figures, from recent reappraisal, concerning the frequency in
which the help lines are being used, which we have seen when we have been going
around?
Group Captain Howard: I am sure we could get that
information. It was a question we did
as a snapshot, and it was pretty low but it was being used.
Q895 Mr Jones: Could you provide that?
Rear Admiral Goodall: Yes.
Chairman: Just a couple of more
questions - we finish at 5.30. Mike
Gapes, please.
Q896 Mike Gapes: Group Captain, you have mentioned Empowered
Officers. Your most recent report,
which has just come out or at least will be out, refers to them being in
evidence at all establishments. Can you
clarify, does that mean all units or all establishments?
Group Captain Howard: All of the training units we
visited. So each of the stations,
barracks or units we visited, right across the board. They varied from what an
Empowered Officer meant within units. Some units had a specific retired
officer, post-established, where that was his prime role. Other units, it was somebody else on the
station out with the training command chain that was available to be contacted
by recruits, but each unit had installed somebody under the concept of an
Empowered Officer, i.e. outside of their command chain.
Q897 Mike Gapes: The first appraisal report found that NCOs
displayed particularly strong loyalties to each other and that recruits and
trainees found it difficult to bypass the chain of command in cases of alleged
grievance or dispute, and then it recommended that this system be
established. But the first reappraisal
seemed to imply that there was a "discernible reluctance" amongst recruits and
trainees to approach an officer with a problem, on the grounds that immediate
change of command would be sure to find out and that, in any way, direct
contact with officers was considered "abnormal".
Group Captain Howard: I think that varies between
the Services.
Q898 Mike Gapes: It is in the report, from 2003.
Group Captain Howard: I mean now, from our current
series of visits. We found a great
difference between the Services and I think that is just a cultural issue in
that in the Royal Navy and in the Air Force airmen and sailors work alongside
officers and that is a relationship that is established from day one. The Army is very different. An officer in the Army is a different beast
to an Air Force officer, and I think that cultural issue is there right from
day one.
Chairman: Beast? Would you rephrase that and reconsider that
word!
Q899 Mike Gapes: What you are saying then is that in the Army
it would be regarded as abnormal to go to an officer, whereas in the Royal Navy
and the Royal Air Force that would not be regarded as abnormal?
Group Captain Howard: I think so, yes. But what we also found this time was that
recruits were very free and willing to go and talk to the Empowered Officer, to
a padre.
Q900 Mike Gapes: Even in the Army?
Group Captain Howard: Even in the Army, yes,
because I think it is explained to them very early on that this is the system;
that if they have an issue that they do not want to discuss with their
immediate chain of command, i.e. the corporal, the sergeant within their own
little world - because within a training environment that will collapse very
quickly to their circle of friends and the corporal - that there were all sorts
of issues that were usually resolved by a quick phone call home, or refer them
across to the WRVS lady for a cup of tea and a cuddle as much as anything
else. It was almost a mother
replacement, particularly with the very young recruits. But there was no fear to go and speak to
somebody outside that chain of command, which the earlier reports did identify.
Brigadier Melvin: I did not take part in these
visits but I think there has to be a bit of balance to this. I have served in the Army for 30 years and
have commanded every level from platoon equivalent up to corps level, and maybe
I have been very lucky in serving in the Royal Engineers and others, but the
idea in the Army that individuals cannot approach an officer - that impression
being given by my colleague here - is just not true. It may have been an impression gained during the visits, but I
spent a great deal of my time as a sub-unit commander and unit commander, as
every good Commanding Officer has done, across the three Services, dealing with
individuals. You always get individual
cases in any unit across the Services, who have to be dealt with by officers
and absolutely rightly so. It is chain
of command responsibility and officers have to deal with these issues.
Rear Admiral Goodall: I would agree with
that. I think it is not the colour of
the uniform, it is the people that matter, and of course all of us officers
essentially are the same under the skin and we are in the people business. So I would agree with Mungo's point that it
is not an institutional thing based on a Service.
Q901 Mike Gapes: What evidence is there that a recruit
perceives an Empowered Officer as being outside the chain of command?
Group Captain Howard: They are told it on day one
and they are given ---
Q902 Mike Gapes: I am talking about perception, not what they
are told.
Rear Admiral Goodall: That it is a very
interesting question because I suppose that is something that we have, to a
degree, taken for granted. But it is
probably the behaviour of the officer concerned, that that individual is seen
to have - and the behaviour of the CO - direct right of access to the CO, and
is part of the organisation and is seen to be outside the training team chain
of command. So I think it is actually
the behaviour on the ground. Again,
this goes back, in a way, to the point that Mr Jones made about using the
welfare services. It is all very well
to read about them but if the behaviour of the CO is to be seen to be talking
to these people and linked with these people consistently throughout the days
and weeks, then those people get associated in the individual's mind with
somebody who has right of access to the top, without going through the normal
channels.
Brigadier Melvin: The measure of the system is
the trust in which the individuals are held, not by the chain of command but by
the individuals to whom they should have recourse, and a simple measure is that
if these people are the conduit for these concerns and complaints then they are
being trusted. If nobody comes to the
Empowered Officers that is the simple measure that they are not being seen to
be trusted.
Q903 Mike Gapes: Have you any data?
Brigadier Melvin: I am afraid we do not have
any data on that issue.
Q904 Mike Gapes: It would be very interesting for us to know
because if you have these people and they are in institutions all over the
place and nobody is going to them, yet on the other hand somebody gets lots of
contact because of an approach, a style, a way of working, and then somebody else
is seen as remote, it would be very useful to make comparisons.
Rear Admiral Goodall: It would be a very useful
piece of work that also may help us to identify good practice. We will do that.
Mike Gapes: You will do that in your
2005 appraisal!
Q905 Chairman: And when they advertise who the Empowered
Officers are, could you give us some advice on the photographs to use,
Brigadier? We saw one who looked like a
Welsh front row forward, and no doubt a wonderful man but I think he is the
last person on earth I would seek advice or help from!
Rear Admiral Goodall: You would not want to scrum
down with him!
Chairman: Terrifying! Thank you very much. We have a few more questions but we will
write to you.
