Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-40)
PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER
DANDEKER AND
PROFESSOR HEW
STRACHAN
25 MARCH 2008
Q20 Mr Hancock: Do you think that
is happening now?
Professor Dandeker: I think it
is. It goes on to my second point, which is that the Military
Covenant involves three actors—the Armed Services themselves,
the Government of the day and the wider population, each one of
which has a set of expectations and, of course, responsibilities.
What is interesting from the military side of the Military Covenant
is that it is often regarded as a statement, "Here are we
making the sacrifices. Where are you with support from the public
and where are you with equipment and resources?". Thinking
soldiers are very much aware that part of the deal is that military
has to deliver its side of the bargain, which is not only unlimited
liability, as you suggest, but also care for others, and others
are those in their care but also those in their care in the field
of operations, which is why, as Brigadier Aitken's report shows
so clearly and is a point to which I alluded before, one of the
things that can undermine the military side of the Covenant is
abuse.
Chairman: We will now move on to Harmony
Guidelines.
Q21 Mr Jenkin: We recently found
in our report on the annual report and accounts that the failure
of the Army and the RAF to achieve their Harmony Guidelines was
unacceptable, so what can the Armed Forces do to improve observance
of the Harmony Guidelines?
Professor Strachan: They can do
very little while they are under the operational pressures they
are under. One of the absurdities of the report is the expectation
that Harmony Guidelines can be sustained. It is back again to
the question of balanced capabilities. How do you meet Harmony
Guidelines when you are sustaining two operations concurrently
as well as other deployments? It seems to me an extraordinary
question to ask at that time. There are other things. Of course
there are palliatives that could be produced.
Q22 Mr Jenkin: Recruiting to target,
for example.
Professor Strachan: Recruiting
to target would certainly help but that is also integrated with
the issue of how you see the Armed Forces publicly, whether your
gatekeepers are encouraging their offspring to join or not join,
so recruiting to target would undoubtedly help but these are palliatives
rather than addressing the fundamental problem. There are still
going to be pressures, particularly for certain core skills. The
Royal Signals are frequently cited as an example where there is
enormous pressure generated through operational tours. One of
the points here is: what do we think we are doing? Do we think
we are in a state of war, in which case Harmony Guidelines would
seem to be less relevant, or do we think we are not in a state
of war but in a state of peace, which underpins much of the expectation
driven by Harmony Guidelines? In which case, of course, there
are real issues to address. The American Armed Forces, which used
to be contrasted with our Armed Forces because, they had far fewer
pressures in terms of operational deployments, have now gone dramatically
the other way, and extraordinarily are dealing with them in a
way that we would never have anticipated, partly because there
is a greater perception from their point of view and probably
domestically that they are at war. I quite take the point about
full recruiting but there might be other issues. For example,
are you able to ensure when people are at home that they are at
home in terms of localisation of battalions? Where do they stay?
Are they going to be, when they are not on an operational tour,
close to their families and so on? In some ways the regimental
reorganisation has not yet delivered in terms of what it should
have done or what it promised to do as far as bringing people
back home is concerned. We have pressures in relation to operational
tours actually to increase the length of tours in terms of getting
greater expertise in theatre, particularly at senior command levels,
which will only further undermine the Harmony Guidelines if you
are going to meet operational requirements.
Professor Dandeker: On Harmony
Guidelines, I think there is some important contextual information
that needs to be remembered, which is that something between 13
and 20% of personnel are in breach of Harmony Guidelines, but
you can turn it round the other way, that is to say, the overwhelming
majority of personnel are operating within the Harmony Guidelines.
That is point one. The second point is that the Harmony Guidelines,
so far as our own research is concerned, show that if you keep
personnel within them their mental health does not suffer. It
does suffer if you go over those guidelines, so I think the point
to recall is that the great majority are within the Harmony Guidelines.
I think that the Harmony Guidelines have been well constructed
because the evidence suggests that if you stay within them they
do not suffer; if you go beyond them there is a 20-50% likelihood
that they will suffer in terms of PTSD. That is an important piece
of context for this inquiry to remember. Lastly, although it is
not the only answer to the question, PTSD outcomes are much worse
for American forces. One reason, probably one of about five, is
the incredibly lengthy tours of service that they have to undergo
overseas, particularly in Iraq.
Q23 Mr Crausby: Professor Strachan,
you made the point earlier on that things have always been difficult
since 1945. There has always been a problem of recruitment and
retention, yet things have changed dramatically since 1945. We
have a bigger population these days and very much less in the
Armed Forces. We have the opportunity to recruit women and yet
we are falling behind, so has something fundamentally not changed
in society in the sense that in the 1950s, for instance, the option
was to go down the coalmine, get a job in the steel mill or the
foundry or join the Army? Was that not just a completely different
opportunity than what new people face today? In what way are the
Armed Forces addressing that?
Professor Strachan: I think that
question absolutely goes to the heart of the Armed Forces' problems.
When you had, let us say, 80% of the workforce in manual occupations,
and many of them vulnerable to short term cyclical unemployment,
then you could target the sorts of recruits which essentially
the Army is still targeting (the Army particularly but the Armed
Forces collectively) and still expecting to recruit. It is extraordinary
that the growth of higher education in this country is seen as
a threat to Armed Forces' recruiting rather than an opportunity.
That is something which I think has to be tackled much more head
on and requires much more fundamental treatment. One issue, of
course, is whether you have a common point of entry, which I know
the Armed Forces are deeply unhappy about because they look at
the police and they see that as a bad model, but somehow you have
to get into the position where in (loose terms) middle England,
which is where most people would now put themselves in terms of
the aspirations of the workforce, sees it as as reasonable an
option to join the Armed Forces as to go into any other walk of
life, and that is not the situation at the moment. If there were
that shift two things would follow. First of all, I think the
issue of ethnic recruiting would be less important, simply because
many ambitious ethnic minorities target the professions as appropriate
courses for their offspring to follow and do not see the Armed
Forces within that spectrum, and, secondly, there would be an
opportunity to maximise the extraordinary privilege which the
Armed Forces have at the moment compared with other potential
employers, which is a direct military presence on almost every
single campus throughout the United Kingdom in terms of the OTCs,
the naval units and the air squadrons. Those units are seen as
poor relations instead of being seen as, as I say, an enormous
privilege and opportunity.
Q24 Mr Crausby: But does that not
just deal with officers rather than other ranks?
Professor Strachan: That is my
point, that at the moment it is seen as dealing with officer recruitment,
but if we are talking about highly qualified senior warrant officers,
senior rates, with levels of skill and specialisation in particular
branches and particular technical skills, then we need to move
away from that expectation. That is exactly picking up the drift
of your question, that society has changed and we need to recognise
that your WO2 in the Royal Logistic Corps may have a degree and
not be an officer. We should be ready to embrace them.
Q25 Mr Crausby: But when you look
at the proposals that the MoD give us to improve these things,
there are things like "Improving the relationship between
the career office network and the RAF Museums at Hendon and Cosford",
"Undertaking marketing campaigns ... ", "Running
research programmes to understand factors affecting recruitment".
In the scheme of things with this massive change in society are
the MoD addressing this issue in any way realistically when only
8% of our Armed Forces are women?
Professor Strachan: I do not think
they are addressing the issue realistically because they are still
looking to recruit in the traditional pools rather than thinking
how they adapt the Armed Forces to fit into where the pool of
potential recruits now is. One of the reasons for doing that comes
back to where we began this discussion this morning, and that
is that if you were, let us say, 5% below your recruitment target,
you would think, "If we can just give a little more shove
in the existing framework then we will cover the gap". Five
per cent is a manageable number of men and women to get to join
up, but that does not deal with the underlying problem, which
has been there consistently, as I have argued.
Q26 Mr Jones: I totally agree with
your analysis there, but when you have a situation in the NAO
report where 90% of officers went to public school and three-quarters
of scholarships went to public schools rather than state schools,
has not the MoD and Army, if it is serious about doing what you
are saying (and I do not disagree with you) in your analysis about
attracting middle England, really got to get away from that public
school mentality?
Professor Strachan: I would be
amazed if the figure were 90% but if you say it is I will accept
it, but it is not my impression from looking at those who pass
out from Sandhurst and comparable military academies. I taught
there myself, and even when I taught there 30 years ago it was
not the case. There is a shift required but one of the shifts
may also be this—and this is why it is a chicken and egg
problem: that, if it were the case, is it also true that 90% actually
reflected the proportion of those applying for those places in
the first place? How much success is being achieved in getting
people to apply? This is not dissimilar to the argument about
Oxbridge entry. One of the key difficulties is to get people to
apply in the first place because you can only reflect success
from those who apply. I do not know how many from non-public school
backgrounds are applying.
Q27 Mr Jones: But if you are skewing
all the scholarships to public schools, which is three-quarters
of those, surely that is going to affect the type of applicant
coming forward for those.
Professor Strachan: It might do
but I am still back to the question: who applies for these scholarships?
Q28 Mr Jenkin: Do you think the Ministry
of Defence wants to recruit to target and could it do so if it
applied sufficient resources, because there are plenty of battalion
commanders, for example, who do recruit to target but others who
do not and it seems to be about where effort is applied?
Professor Dandeker: I agree with
Hew on that particular point. I think the more fundamental question
which Hew started off his comments with is the middle England
point. What I think is an opportunity that should not be missed
is to convert what is going on in the operational area, which
is an erosion of any remaining distinctions between officers and
senior warrant officers in terms of skill and contribution, and
it is about converting that through, if you like, advertising
and marketing into the opportunity to recruit from middle England.
In other words, that erosion of the distinction between these
ranks is already developing and needs to be converted into the
market place so far as recruitment is concerned.
Mr Jenkin: Can I have an answer to my
question?
Q29 Mr Hancock: Why is it then that
the Ministry of Defence have not recognised that point and they
are still trying to sell to that bottom end of the market the
idea of coming into the Armed Forces to get educated when you
have lost out in the education system? Why have they not recognised
it? I think all of us have, you have, and the previous report
that we did recognised that, so why have they not?
Professor Dandeker: Because I
do not think they are necessarily mutually exclusive in the sense
that it goes back to the controversy about schools. On the negative
side there are those who argue that the military should not be
"targeting" schools which include disadvantaged young
people who can have their heads turned, if you like, by the "glamour"
of a military career. Another way of looking at it is that here
are the Armed Forces which provide all sorts of opportunities
for those disadvantaged people to have a leg-up in the wider community
by their military service. That is a point that could be allied
to the middle England point rather than being seen as an alternative
to it. We do both messages.
Professor Strachan: Mr Jenkin
is waiting for a reply. Of course regiments vary, units vary,
because commanding officers vary and have different priorities;
you are absolutely right. The question here is how do you generalise
best practice? I think there is a great deal of inbuilt pressure
in the Armed Forces partly because of current pressures to think,
"What am I going to do next week?" (or today) rather
than, "How am I going to affect the situation a year or two
years hence when I will no longer be in command of this battalion;
somebody else will be doing it? I want returns in the period of
my command". Secondly, the successor in an appointment within
the two-year maximum rotation, which is really what we are talking
about in most Service jobs, will have a different order of priorities,
no doubt in part a reflection of the fact that the unit may be
doing something different at that particular moment. So I think
there is a failure to develop continuity and develop best practice,
but that in itself is part of an institutional framework which
says we are running very hard to stay where we are rather than
thinking where we might be.
Q30 Mr Jones: I will just correct
it—nine out of ten of the top Army officers were educated
at independent schools. I was correct in that three-quarters of
Army scholarships in 2006-07 went to independent schools rather
than state schools. Can I pick up an issue which you raised, Professor
Strachan, during the debate on the Covenant? It was really what
members of the Armed Forces expect and how they articulate what
they expect. There is evidence that has been put to us that the
way of articulating that would be better served if there were
some type of federation or organisation within the Armed Forces
along the lines of the Police Federation. I wonder what your thoughts
are on that.
Professor Strachan: It is what
I was referring to when I said that there is resistance in the
Armed Forces to having something that is outside the chain of
command. My own view is that it could benefit the chain of command
if you took some of these issues out of the chain of command and
enabled them to be dealt with directly as employment issues. I
do not see a problem with an Armed Forces federation.
Q31 Mr Jones: What issues are you
talking about particularly?
Professor Strachan: I am talking
about issues that are not to do with operational command. That
is where much of the argument about the need to be different and
so on tends to be enshrined. I think all of us would understand
completely that, when in a situation that is war or approximates
to war, something entirely different must operate, but when it
comes to issues of housing, when it comes to issues of family
support, when it comes to issues --- to be absurdly personal and
anecdotal, at the moment I have a daughter who is in the Army
and she was unable to get a mortgage because she was not deemed
to have a fixed abode. Those sorts of things just seem to me to
be issues that could be dealt with outside the chain of command
in another form of management structure. Of course there will
be issues on the borderline between command and personnel management;
I entirely see that, and there will be areas of difficulty. That
is not a reason for not doing it.
Professor Dandeker: I agree with
that. It is important that people are involved in decision-making
and thinking about the issues that affect the Armed Services.
Secondly, the generations of young people who are coming into
the military expect it and I think the demand for it is perfectly
reasonable. If I may go back to the question that was unanswered,
your question, Mr Jenkin, I think it is fair to say that regiments
differ in terms of how much resource they have to put into recruiting
efforts. Some regiments use their own resource and have enough
to do so. Others do not and I think that is an important consideration.
Chairman: I would like now to move to
the final question, the issue of ethnic minorities.
Q32 Richard Younger-Ross: Professor
Dandeker, nearly ten years ago you wrote a report Diversity
in the British Armed Forces: the debate over ethnic minority representation.
At that time you argued that internal cultural change was required
and without it targeting ethnic minorities could be counter-productive.
Has the internal cultural change occurred?
Professor Dandeker: I think it
has to a considerable degree. It goes back to the points that
we have been talking about before, that if the military is to
recruit enough people to serve then it needs to broaden its appeal.
That is why diversifying the uniform is one of the titles I have
used in the various things I have written on the subject. Whether
that will be enough to deliver the targets that are being talked
about in various publications, namely, a replication of the figure
of minority ethnic communities as a percentage of overall population
within the military, I think is most unlikely, and I think it
is most unlikely because it is based upon a questionable premise
that you should both expect and believe in the value of having,
if you like, an exact copy of the statistical percentage of a
group in wider society within the military. I think (and I have
always argued this) that that premise is questionable. I think
it is much more defensible to argue that the Armed Services should
not so much seek any particular percentage of a population but
stand for the values of the wider society, one of which is equal
opportunity, and then see what they can do with that particular
value so far as involving more and more of our diverse communities
into the Armed Services. I think that is the crucial point.
Q33 Richard Younger-Ross: In your
report you argue both the business case and the equality case.
You now seem to be reliant on the equality case, not the business
case.
Professor Dandeker: I think both
will apply. Both the business case and the equality case apply.
The question is finessing both of them to achieve the result you
wish. All I am saying is that I think it is not credible to expect
it, particularly when the new census data come out when I think
the percentage of minorities in the wider community will be much
higher than it is now according to the 2001 census. I think you
make a rod for your own back if you ask the military to replicate
that figure in its own democratic profile of the military. I think
it is most unlikely that will happen and, as your own Committee's
data shows us, 60% of ethnic minorities are not from the UK at
all; they are from the Commonwealth.
Q34 Richard Younger-Ross: In terms
of the figures, the shortfall is quite dramatic. In 1999 your
report said it was 1% of 6% of the total population. However,
in that report it also pointed out that that 1% should be taken
into the recruiting pool where 19% of the population of 16-24
are from an ethnic background. This is not just a matter of getting
close to the figure. We are well short of it, are we not?
Professor Dandeker: We are well
short of it, and I think the demography is not favouring the military's
efforts because the military is running to keep still. That is
to say that the democratic profile of the wider population is
moving, as it were, in a direction which is more and more difficult
for the Armed Services to catch up on if you exclude the ethnic
minorities from the Commonwealth from your figures.
Q35 Richard Younger-Ross: Is this
still the problem though of the military looking at their old
recruiting policies rather than trying to diversify where they
seek to recruit from?
Professor Dandeker: I think it
is a mixture of supply and demand. It is not only that the Armed
Services should be looking at their own culture and how they appear
to populations and making sure the door is seen to be open. They
also have to look at the attitudes and aspirations of those who
are looking for places for work. It goes back to Professor Strachan's
point: not every member of a minority ethnic community places
the military as high up as certain other populations would do.
Q36 Richard Younger-Ross: Just broadening
the question to both of you, the MoD has appointed religious advisers
and chaplains from all major faith groups. Are those appointments
working?
Professor Strachan: I do not have
the knowledge to give the answer to that question but I would
simply endorse what Christopher Dandeker has said. My impression
is that over ten years there has been a massive change and the
Armed Forces have attempted to deal with this in a much more positive
and active way than has been the case in the past. The issue may
be much more whether you really can expect Armed Forces of a limited
size, who are recruiting as professional Armed Forces rather than
through conscription, fully to reflect society. One of the consequences
of setting targets is that the Armed Forces may do better and
may increase their numbers from ethnic minorities in absolute
terms but they are still failing to meet targets, so target-setting
creates a sense of running very hard to remain in the same place.
Q37 Richard Younger-Ross: Finally,
of what they have done what works best?
Professor Strachan: In terms of
ethnic minority recruitment?
Q38 Richard Younger-Ross: Yes.
Professor Strachan: The most important
thing, of course, has been effecting changes of attitude within
those who are serving alongside those from ethnic minorities.
That has been the key issue. Essentially, once that was addressed
as a command issue, coming back to the distinction I was trying
to make before, once those responsible for those under their command
saw that that was an issue and addressed it, that changed much
of the culture quite quickly, it seems to me, just as the same
issues were voiced ten years ago when there was the issue of homosexuality
in the Armed Forces.
Q39 Chairman: Anything to add, Professor
Dandeker?
Professor Dandeker: Two quick
points. Whether it is about sexual preference or women in the
military, if you want to change culture it has to come from the
very top of the leadership of an organisation. The evidence of
that is extremely strong, and to overcome points of resistance,
and points of resistance come at middle management and other middle
management, not least amongst the NCOs. Secondly, I think the
biggest challenge for minority recruitment in the military lies
outside the military itself. That is to say, if you take my point
that the Armed Services should be recruiting not according to
demographic statistics, but according to some key values, like
equal opportunity, and you then think about the British Armed
Services, then the real question is: what does it mean to be in
the British Armed Services over the next 20 years, and that is
an answer that cannot be provided by the Armed Services themselves,
but the wider society and the politicians together.
Q40 Chairman: May we thank you both
for a fascinating evidence session. The key characteristic of
it, I think, was that we could have spent a day with you and still
left a huge amount uncovered and we are most grateful to you both
for coming to give evidence.
Professor Strachan: May I make
just two very quick observations in passing and I promise to be
brief, partly in self-interest. One is that in addressing the
issue of the Armed Forces and society more broadly and their relationship,
let us remember that this is not just an issue of Regular Forces,
but Reserve Forces too. One of the extraordinary things, it seems
to me, in terms of regional representation is the very low profile,
and increasingly low profile, that the Reserve Forces have, partly
as a direct consequence of overseas deployments and the way in
which they are currently used, and I think a committee such as
this needs to think about them as well as the Regular Forces.
The second thing that I would say, and we have not talked about
at all, is training. It is referred to in relation to Deepcut,
but I am talking about pre-deployment training, training at higher
levels, because it is training that is most directly affected
by the levels of operational tour at the moment and it is training
that seems potentially to have some effect on the retention issue.
I am raising the question because I do not know the answer to
this, but, because training is a casualty of current high levels
of deployment and because at the same time the real challenge
is to retain senior NCOs and middle-ranking officers, to retain
the sergeants and the captains essentially. Then it is training
at that level because it is these trained people you are seeking
to deploy. I have not thought through fully in my mind how these
things link up, but I am quite sure there is a relationship.
Chairman: This is very powerful, concentrated
stuff and we will have to reflect on it. Thank
you very much indeed.
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