Examination of Witnesses (Questions 620
- 639)
WEDNESDAY 14 JULY 2004
COMMODORE PAUL
BRANSCOMBE CBE AND
MRS KATE
BURGESS OBE
Q620 Mr Cran: Again just so that
I know what is happening, you have the confidential support line
for the Army, extended to the Royal Navy and Marines and so on.
May I know whether the incidence of the use of this support line
is going up, going down or is static? What is happening?
Mrs Burgess: It is increasing.
Last year we had 3,391 calls and already this year we have over
1,700 in the first six months. Specifically talking about bullying,
harassment, those calls are remaining much the same, although
there is a small increase every year.
Q621 Mr Cran: Just so I know what
happens, you get the call, it is a serious case of bullying. What
then happens? Do you just limit what you do to giving advice?
Mrs Burgess: We do, but in extreme
cases and with the consent of the caller, we are able to refer
on to support services if that is what they wish and that does
happen, but infrequently. Certainly after the annual report of
the first year of running we did in fact separately to PS4, because
there had been a series of calls from recruits in Phase 1 and
2 of training and from parents who were then alleging serious
bullying. It was reported that one alleged perpetrator of the
bullying in one of the establishments had been moved to another
establishment and his behaviour was allegedly continuing. We did
feel that was a very serious matter and we needed to represent
that separately. Action was taken in each of those cases in order
to try to ameliorate the situation. The last call was from a soldier
with an ethnic background who had been treated quite badly and
we did get some feedback from that.
Q622 Mr Cran: I am just not sure
who is involved. You have this very serious complaint or complaints,
there is a confidentiality between you and whoever is making the
call, obviously, and if you are released from that bond of confidentiality
that means you can really go where you wish with the permission
of the individual. Is that what happens?
Commodore Branscombe: That is
correct. In general I have to say that credibility depends on
he absolute confidentiality and anonymity, if that is what the
caller wishes, either by telephone or by e-mail. We have a very
sophisticated technical means of receiving e-mails without actually
knowing whom they come from and that is being used increasingly.
Our credibility depends upon us not revealing the source or breaking
confidentiality. That has to be absolute. If, however, there were
particular circumstances which were so serious, which might indeed
involve life and limb or serious crime, or where we believed that
it was really serious and needed to be taken further, we have
an agreement whereby we would report it, not to the establishment
where it is at, but to the Adjutant General's headquarters direct,
with permission to break confidentiality, and we would do that.
We have only done it on three occasions since 1996, but significantly
part of those did involve Phase 1 and 2 training establishments.
Mainly we are listening and we are supporting people to make the
complaint themselves or solve it themselves and actually through
the Chain of Command, because that is the only way it can be solved
by the employer. On the other hand many things can be solved without
even having to come to the attention of the Chain of Command.
Q623 Chairman: What if someone telephoned
you who was not within your contractual responsibility? I am sure
in a similar situation a lot of MPs, when people come to them
from other constituencies, say "Please do not tell Mr X but
this is what I would do". We could say "Sorry"
of course.
Commodore Branscombe: We never
turn anybody away; we do not.
Q624 Chairman: You still give advice.
Commodore Branscombe: We sometimes
have hoax calls, not that I would suggest they would come from
anybody else, but we are very experienced in being able to deal
with all of these particular things. Most importantly, we do take
calls from parents and grandparents, because we think that is
very important, and from the extended family, partners and whoever,
and veterans. In some cases we have taken calls from veterans
because people may be confused. We have people who will listen
and attempt to put them on the right path to solving their problems.
Q625 Chairman: An historical question,
because the Navy was not always known for its caring, sharing,
kid-gloved approach to the men in their charge. When did things
change and what changed it?
Commodore Branscombe: It changed
in about 1972, following on from a report by the Seebohm Committee,
appointed by this House. At the time there were concerns about
recruiting and it ended up with the appointment of a social-work-led
professional welfare service for the Royal Navy as opposed to
it being run by retired officers and so on. The only issue we
would take with that is that they have to an extent customised
it in that they do have serving naval personnel and it is run
by a serving officer, a very good chap. We also do believe that
it suffers from perceptions of belonging to the naval Chain of
Command. In answer to your earlier question, we do get telephone
calls from both Royal Marines and Royal Navy saying we would wish
to talk to you because we will not talk to the Naval Personal
Family Service, as it is called. However, we believe it to be
a good service. On the other hand it is quite small. Our general
principle also applies in that we do believe these kinds of sensitive
services are best provided externally to the military Chain of
Command by professionally qualified, experienced people in continuity.
Q626 Chairman: When people telephone
you, is it just a telephone conversation, or do you refer them
to one of your own qualified personnel nearest to where they might
be telephoning from?
Commodore Branscombe: We do both
or either. Normally the person who is on the line will continue
with the call for as long as they take and sometimes they are
very lengthy with distressed people, as you might appreciate.
We also refer them on and it may be that they are referred on
to other people within our organisation. Whether it is a volunteer
case worker or a social work adviser, or somebody in relationship
counselling or whatever, we will signpost them to the most appropriate
place they need to go. Finally, on the confidential support line,
you may have been given the wrong impression by Colonel Eccles'
evidence who said that the confidential support line was set up
in order to be a safeguard against suicide. That was not primarily
the case. It was set up long before that and it was set up specifically
to cope with the problems of Equal Opportunities. Obviously we
have had a contingency in there for dealing with people with suicidal
thoughts and, most importantly, we have a contingency for people
who are reconsidered suicides, which is most important.
Q627 Rachel Squire: I think the points
you are making on the confidential helpline are very good points
to make and record. I have certainly had families contacting me
and looking to me to try to get them some more information for
them to then discuss with me or you or others how best they feel
they can deal with a particular concern about their son or their
daughter. It is that initial contact and feeling that they are
not putting their son or daughter at any extra risk of any kind
which is very important to the family. How critical is it that
potential users of the confidential helpline are aware of its
existence and nature and that they have an ability to access it
discreetly? I should appreciate your comments on that. Just thinking
of the time I have spent on board ship I wonder where you would
go to make discreet phone calls. I am also particularly interested
in how your confidential support line Service is actually funded.
Commodore Branscombe: Awareness
is of course absolutely critical to its use and confidence that
it is completely independent of the Chain of Command. This was
in a risk assessment which we did for the Adjutant General. Unfortunately,
in order to save money, they decided that they would do the publicity
themselves. I have to say that this was not a success. Not only
was it not timely and universal, but the graphics and the means
which were used to do it were amateurish in the extreme in terms
of the kind of design which you would need in order to make it
attractive to people. They have improved somewhat since then,
but I have to say that we are putting quite a lot of effort now
into doing that public awareness process ourselves. Part of our
worry is that people are not as aware of it as they should be.
It is like painting the Forth Road Bridge: you have to keep on
repeating the message to every recruit who comes in. It is funded
wholly by the Ministry of Defence, it is paid for. We are paid
for under contract, a very modest contract, with the Ministry
of Defence to run it for them. It is paid for partly by the Adjutant
General for the Army and partly by the Second Sea Lord for the
Royal Navy and the Royal Marines. We employ the people, good folk,
wonderful people and we manage it in totality, including all of
the IT. It is a rather clever e-mail system which we designed
ourselves with consultants to make sure that it is completely
discreet. It is very unusual, but it works very well. We are getting
far more e-mails. The reason we did that was because soldiers
and sailors on deployment now overseas can get easier access to
e-mail than they can to telephones.
Q628 Mr Crausby: The figures we have
on the confidential line indicate that quite a small proportion
of recruits actually use it as opposed to people who have a bit
more experience. Could that be because recruits are not as aware,
or it is something they are not thinking of? Do you have any insight
into why such a small number of recruits do use the line?
Commodore Branscombe: I think
that is correct. It certainly is awareness. Their awareness of
all things to do with the Service they are joining is pretty low
when they arrive, and they have a huge amount of information to
take in. We are also aware that at some stages the information
was not being given out in those training establishments, for
whatever reason or construction you may put on that. I have to
say that is not now the case, because there has been a big push
in the last few months to do it. Significantly, I was written
to by a welfare officer in an Army training establishment—and
I can tell you that it was Deepcut—asking us directly for
information because he wanted to give it out to his recruits.
He said that the posters which had been provided by the MoD were
so bad that they did not give the right message and asked whether
we could do something about it. I have to be direct about that
and that reinforces our evidence for our concern. Last time I
gave evidence to this Committee I said that no matter what the
top of the Chain of Command thinks, the actual message which gets
to the other end of the chain, to the junior people, is not always
the one they think they are sending, and certainly is not the
one which is necessarily conducive to them accessing the kind
of things with confidence that they need to be able to do. I suspect
that is still the case because you need to be persistent, you
need to reinforce it with briefing by credible people and you
do not want too many messages as well. Part of our difficulty
with the e-mail service or relatively low take-up, is because
on the cards they give them, the printing is titchy, down in the
right-hand bottom corner and you can hardly read it. It is presentation.
This is mechanical stuff. This is not rocket science. It needs
to be improved. There are lots of practical things which could
be improved.
Q629 Mr Crausby: The impression I
get, certainly at the moment, is that plastic cards are going
out, probably for many of the reasons James Cran highlighted,
and it is at the top of the agenda; they are very keen to be able
to say that this is outside the Chain of Command, this is independent
and this proves it. They cannot wait to give these cards to us
as Members of Parliament to indicate that there is an absolutely
secure system which is outside of that. To some extent they use
that to prove they are doing the job. How sustainable is that
in the longer term? Will all these plastic cards just disappear
and get lost?
Mrs Burgess: May I make a comment
about that publicity? One of my concerns, chairing the management
board for the confidential support line, is that until the recent
round of publicity it was very clear that this line was provided
by SSAFA Forces Help. I am encouraged that most Service people
do know about SSAFA Forces Help because of the work we do. That
was very much celebrated by the Army, saying they really wanted
everyone to know that this was outside the Chain of Command. They
then took on the responsibility to produce their own publicity.
Our name features in this titchy little bit about the website.
Clearly on the card are the big logos of the Royal Navy and the
Army. It does not say "Provided by SSAFA Forces Help".
That to me totally detracts from what they were previously celebrating,
that this was independent and it was okay to go to. They are also
orange and even young people in dingy bars might not be able to
read it very well; I certainly cannot. That is a concern. It is
not clear that it is an independent organisation.
Commodore Branscombe: We try to
do checks ourselves to ensure that information is coming out,
including going and trying to phone it ourselves from remote places.
I get out of my car at a barracks telephone box and try to ring
it to see whether I get through, to make sure it is actually working,
so we are convinced. We were finding that we never seemed to see
literature in barracks or those sorts of places and we discovered
at one stage that several hundred thousand leaflets had been printed
but they were still sitting in a quarry in South Wales and had
never been distributed. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
This has to be managed properly and I have to say this is another
reason why it needs to be managed by people who have a vested
interest and indeed a commitment to making sure these things are
done properly.
Q630 Mr Crausby: Can you tell us
something about the issues which are raised by recruits on the
line? The 2001 report talks about recruits being disappointed,
unhappy and wanting to leave the Army. Does that dominate or are
there other issues?
Mrs Burgess: Bullying certainly
features throughout all the annual reports I have here. It does
appear that psychological bullying is increasing, though they
are relatively small numbers.
Q631 Mr Crausby: Is that bullying
by trainers or by other recruits?
Mrs Burgess: That I cannot tell
you; we do not have that information. It has been interesting
in preparing to come here today to look at the sort of statistics
we are collecting and the sort of information we might be developing
and collecting in the future. Although we have been running it
for some years, it is a developing process.
Commodore Branscombe: To be fair,
some of it is peer bullying, yes, there is no doubt. You should
not run away with the idea that it is purely bullying by instructors.
Some of the bullying is not necessarily by instructors, but by
other people who happen to be in the establishment and some of
the bullying is indeed pretty unpleasant stuff.
Q632 Mr Crausby: How much is it from
recruits who want to leave the Army? Is there any of that?
Mrs Burgess: We do not keep that
specific number as a statistic.
Commodore Branscombe: We do have
a breakdown for the first six months of this year, because we
do not publish the report until the end of the year. There were
47 in the last six months. It is very difficult to tell. The biggest
one of them all is terms and conditions, about half of that, which
is usually surrounding disenchantment with the Army.
Q633 Mr Crausby: Is that all calls,
not just specifically from recruits?
Commodore Branscombe: No, this
is from recruits. This is purely recruits. So we have broken it
down because of the current interest in recruits. Generally we
don't like to do that. We try to anonymise it though. I can tell
you that slightly more than half is about disenchantment with
the Army and them saying it was not what they expected and that
they wanted to leave. The other breakdown is that six were health,
partly injury and sometimes mental health; social welfare is mainly
family stuff, to do with their family, then there are general
enquiries. As it happens, we had no calls concerning suicidal
thoughts in the first six months of this year.
Q634 Chairman: Perhaps you would
let us have those statistics and any others you think might be
of interest.
Commodore Branscombe: Yes, indeed.
You will have received the annual report in the Library of the
House as it comes out; that is passed to you by the Army whom
we pass it to. This is just a summary of where we have got to
half way through the year.
Q635 Mike Gapes: Has the profile
of the calls you have received since 1997 changed? Are there any
trends, anything which is clearly different today to what it was?
Are there any trends which are alarming and could cause concern?
Commodore Branscombe: I am sorry
I cannot answer that directly without going very carefully through
the data as it relates to our specific subject here, to recruits.
Q636 Mike Gapes: Perhaps you could
drop us a note on it then.
Commodore Branscombe: My instinct
is, otherwise we would have noticed it, that there has been very
little change, but what is encouraging is that more people are
calling us. So the answer is that we are getting a greater volume
but the division of categories within that, although we are being
able to refine slightly more down to categories of interest, including
recruits, is about the same.[4]
Q637 Mike Gapes: Your helpline operates
from 10.30 in the morning to 10.30 at night.
Commodore Branscombe: Yes.
Q638 Mike Gapes: Is that sufficient?
Should it operate 24 hours a day?
Mrs Burgess: We have put a lot
of thought into this and we do have a system whereby we can record
those calls which are made out of hours. Certainly I learned from
a recent discussion with the manager that maybe in a month we
have a maximum of three in those hours when we are not open. So
we do believe that we are operating the service at the time it
is required. We did extend it specifically during Operation Telic,
but we have reverted to those hours and they do seem to be appropriate.
Commodore Branscombe: I have to
say that was mainly because of the different time zone. As people
were calling from the East, we needed to be open earlier. We review
this all the time as we do want to do it by the most economical
means and there is not a lot of point us having people sitting
there if we are not getting calls. We know when the clusters of
calls are. The answer to your question is that having it open
24 hours a day would not improve the service hugely.
Q639 Mike Gapes: You talked already
about the e-mail service you have. How much take-up has there
been for this secure e-mail service?
Commodore Branscombe: We only
started it mid-way through last year, so the take-up was relatively
slow, not least because the awareness of it was not so great.
It is taking off and we are now getting far more.
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