Examination of Witnesses (Questions 83-99)
MR TIM
CORRY AND
MS SARAH
BAXTER
1 APRIL 2008
Q83 Chairman: Thank you very much for
coming to give evidence to our inquiry into recruitment and retention.
Would you please introduce yourselves and tell us what you do?
Ms Baxter: I am national relationship
manager for SaBRE. I liaise with large organisations in both the
public and private sectors as well as their key influences, namely
professional membership bodies and key bodies such as the Chartered
Institute of Professional Development and the Federation of Small
Businesses.
Mr Corry: I am Tim Corry, SaBRE
campaign director, and I have been in post since October 2002
and before the launch of that organisation.
Q84 Chairman: When you first heard
of this inquiry what did you hope would be the result of it?
Mr Corry: I think it is a very
good thing to examine the pressures on those individuals who have
to recruit individuals to the Armed Services. What we bring to
the party is the special relationship that reservists must have
with their employers which is the third leg of the stool that
does not apply to the Regular Services. I believe we have quite
a good insight into the difficulties that may arise in recruiting
reservists in particular, and therefore I hope to have the opportunity
from this inquiry perhaps to expose some of those difficulties
so there is greater understanding of them.
Q85 Chairman: Has the economic climate
had much of an effect on the recruitment and retention of volunteer
reservists?
Mr Corry: I have no particular
evidence of it. I suppose there may be an argument that where
there is full employment perhaps people do not look for that extra
bit, but the motivation of reservists is slightly different anyway.
Most of them work for an employer and have chosen voluntarily
to serve their country in one of the reserve forces. From my perspective—I
have no evidence either way—I do not believe that the economic
climate has made that much difference.
Q86 Chairman: Therefore, you have
not been aware of the consequence that people might have to spend
longer hours at work or anything like that and have been unable
to devote such limited time as they might have to serving in the
Armed Forces?
Ms Baxter: The negative influence
in this instance is lack of flexibility with civilian employers
in terms of being able to leave slightly early to undergo training.
Mr Corry: Over the past few years
there has been a development particularly in the case of shift
workers where traditionally reservists—I am talking of training
rather than mobilisation—have relied on having the weekends,
if you like, to go away to train. Clearly, that has become more
difficult for some employers because they have to change shift
patterns, etc. I believe therefore that where employment has moved
in that direction there are greater difficulties.
Q87 Mr Jenkin: Do you think that
the deployment of reservists overseas to Afghanistan and Iraq
over recent years has made it more difficult to recruit and retain
reservists?
Mr Corry: The Committee will be
more aware of this than I am, but anecdotally one finds a different
type of reservist now joining the reserves. If one goes back five
years or more, very few if any reservists expected to be mobilised.
Now they all join the reserves knowing there is a very great likelihood
that they will be mobilised, so in that sense perhaps one is getting
a different sort of person, though not comprehensively so. There
are perhaps still people who join the reserve forces in the traditional
way, but there is certainly a trend in that direction.
Ms Baxter: We are now getting
to the point where a reservist has been deployed for a second
or even a third time. We are keeping a very close eye, as I think
are all military stakeholders, on the effect of second and third
mobilisations, but as yet we do not have any strong evidence either
way.
Q88 Mr Jenkin: Has One Army Recruiting
assisted the recruitment of reservists, and would you like to
see that extended to the other Services?
Mr Corry: One Army Recruiting
came in only on 1 April of last year and the jury is out on that.
We work quite closely with the reserve forces cadet associations,
of which there are 13 spread round the country, who traditionally
had the role of specifically recruiting reservists. That was something
they were particularly good at. They are waiting to see whether
or not One Army Recruiting will produce results. Depending on
those to whom you speak, anecdotally they are not all convinced
yet.
Q89 Mr Jenkin: I go back to the earlier
question put by the Chairman and extend it to the reservist review
that the Government is undertaking. What do you think should be
the key conclusion of that review? Would it be that perhaps there
should be two types of reservists, one who wants to be deployed
on overseas operations and one who wants to be trained for more
traditional national security-type operations?
Mr Corry: I hate to predict the
conclusion of a review that has not even started, but it is important
that what comes out of the review is that the way reserves are
structured is either confirmed to support current or future operations
or, if not, there is some other structure that makes best use
of reserves which are needed for defence.
Ms Baxter: It is an incredibly
complicated area. You can promote the taking of reservists who
have civilian employers and the development of those two careers.
Clearly, that is starting from the defence prerogative and working
from there. I do not believe that I can comment.
Q90 Chairman: I go back to the answer
you gave about people being deployed for the second and third
time. Last week we heard evidence to suggest that once people
had been deployed once, twice or three times in really dangerous
areas they had almost got it out of their system. Do you find
any evidence among reservists of the same feeling arising so that
they leave the reserves earlier than they otherwise might have
done?
Ms Baxter: There is no statistical
evidence. The anecdotal evidence seems to reflect the same occurrence
as for regulars. They do not want to be deployed necessarily to
the same theatre; having been deployed in Iraq once they want
to go on operations to Afghanistan. There is no hard evidence.
Mr Corry: Anecdotally, one picks
up the idea that for some reservists they see joining the reserves,
one mobilisation and then leaving almost as a right of passage.
I alluded earlier to perhaps a different sort of person who now
joins the reserves. He now knows that he will be mobilised and
may think that it is exciting to start with. I suspect that after
the first tour it is a bit more excitement than they have signed
up for, but some people will join the reserves and do their bit
for Queen and country or their own personal aspirations—whatever
it happens to be—and then they will go. There is probably
an element of that in the case of a number of reservists.
Q91 Mr Crausby: There is no legislation
to protect employees who want either to join the reserves or stay
in the reserves against the wishes of their employers. Does this
fact deter people from joining the reserves or remaining in them,
and would legislation help?
Mr Corry: Discrimination has been
looked at. In the work we do we are very closely aligned to the
policymakers within the Directorate of Reserve Forces and Cadets.
There are two schools of thought here. I think there is discrimination
but it is all anecdotal. People say they have been discriminated
against but it is very difficult to prove. On the one hand you
could say that we have it in the area of gender, paternity etc,
etc, and there could be an argument for legislation in this area.
My personal view is that it would be counter-productive. There
are some people who, if you produced legislation against discrimination,
would find a reason to work round it, whereas if it does not exist
certainly based on our relationship with employers we talk to
broadly it is dealt with as a case-by-case study. One of the issues
behind it, however, is the perception among a number of individuals
who join the reserves that they will be discriminated against,
though there is no evidence of it, and as a result many, not most,
are reluctant to tell their employers that they are in the reserves.
That in itself creates extra problems because there is no openness
and dialogue with employers. Therefore, when the guy is picked
up for mobilisation it comes as a real surprise to some employers.
That is not good management.
Ms Baxter: Under employer notification
which has been in existence since 2004 employees give permission
for the unit to write to notify the employer that they are volunteer
reservists. These things take time to come into play and we have
evidence that that is happening. Certainly, SaBRE has concentrated
more of its activity on helping this dialogue with reservists
and talking directly to them because historically we have focused
more on employers than reservists. All of this will help because
we strongly believe that the key relationship in all this is between
the individual reservist and his employer, that is, the line manager
and further up.
Q92 Richard Younger-Ross: As far
as concerns discrimination, is there any geographical or sectoral
difference?
Mr Corry: There are certainly
regional differences as to the way people view the Armed Forces.
As a general comment, in the North historically people tend to
be more supportive, but I am not aware of regional differences
in terms of whether or not people are discriminated against. There
are perhaps certain sectors where one may find anecdotally more
people who are reluctant to have reservists on their workforce
but I do not regard that necessarily as discrimination as such.
Q93 Mr Crausby: What about more help
for employees? Sometimes when people return from operations they
have difficulty settling in again. What do we do to assist employers
in helping that process?
Mr Corry: Reintegration is a real
issue and a lot of work has been done on the welfare policy side
of it to enable reservists to get the same level of support as
regulars, but the reservist situation is very different inasmuch
as when a regular comes back from deployment or mobilisation generally
speaking he has his peer group around him and he can decompress,
or whatever the expression is, whereas the reservist goes back
to his civilian community. I am aware that a lot of work on medical
follow-up has been carried out to make sure these people are looked
after once they have been demobilised and are back in the broad
community to be brought back into the military system should problems
with stress, or whatever it happens to be, raise their head some
time after demobilisation.
Q94 Chairman: In a few minutes we
shall be coming to medical help for returning reservists, but
this question is directed at help for employers.
Ms Baxter: Employers will have
points of contact. We certainly explain to them the whole process
of mobilisation and brief them in terms of what happens once reservists
are demobilised and, I suppose, help them understand issues that
may arise once those reservists return. At a more anodyne level
we draw a parallel with longer-term maternity leave. We make the
point that if the office has moved it is quite good to point that
out on the first day before the reservist gets to his office.
The larger organisations will raise awareness of inhouse counselling
services, etc. Those are the sorts of conversations we have. Quite
often, if issues arise it is not unlikely that the line manager
will be the first person to detect them because these things bubble
under the skin for a while.
Q95 Mr Havard: This is easier for
large public sector organisations than perhaps large private organisations,
and it is much easier for them to do than small employers. There
are different types of employers as well as different types of
support. I was interested in what you said about One Army Recruitment,
for example. What is the relationship? I am trying to figure out
who are the actors who deal with any of this. If I am an employer
with three or four people and one of them suddenly pops up as
a reservist, goes off and then comes back I get over the problem
of their absence but I now have another problem of reintegration.
Is it only you that I deal with, or, assuming it is an army reservist,
is the relationship with the one army recruitment concept where
the individual goes back to the person who recruited him? Do they
help the individual and do you help the employer? How is all that
joined up?
Mr Corry: It tends to be quite
regionalised. As part of the SaBRE campaign there is a network
of representatives who tend to link up by definition with employers
in their region. Broadly speaking, they are aware of which employers
are affected by particular mobilisations. Part of what they do
from SaBRE's perspective is to keep in touch with them. From the
perspective of the Chain of Command the unit which mobilises that
individual also has resource within that unit, that is, the Regimental
Operations Support Officer (ROSO) who also has a welfare remit
to link in. We in SaBRE sitting in London do not speak directly
to those people, but certainly our regional representatives on
the ground have regular contact with those individuals.
Q96 Mr Havard: But the person coming
back and employer may have two very different perspectives. The
person who comes back has all of the support mechanism available
to him; the employer comes to you. At some point that has to be
reconciled.
Mr Corry: That tends to be reconciled
if there is an issue and the relationship is right, but I cannot
guarantee that is so in every instance. The employer who has that
mobilised reservist will have been contacted by the regional SaBRE
campaign director and he will be the point of contact to pick
up any particular issues. Depending on what the issue is, it is
for him to point that employer in the right direction or give
whatever help he can at the time.
Q97 Mr Borrow: The NAO report highlights
the issue of training and reservists and makes the point that
training levels and training priority are lower for reservists
compared with regulars. In particular, if you are a regular serviceman
or woman you do the training when you are there, whereas if you
are a reservist you can book your training on annual leave and
suddenly it is switched to a month later and you are stuck with
huge problems. Does that have an effect on retention rates within
the reservist forces?
Mr Corry: I think it does. Quite
clearly, the priority is the support of current operations. Therefore,
anecdotally for those who are not going on operations there is
not so much emphasis on what you have just described as routine
training. Having commanded a reserve unit myself, they look forward
to their training and if it is properly resourced, exciting and
everything else that encourages them to stay. If some of the resource
in that area is now being used—I do not know—to support,
understandably, current operations to get people mobilised that
could certainly give rise to an issue.
Q98 Mr Borrow: Do you say there is
also a gap in terms of the quality of training which would have
an effect in theatre? One matter that has been highlighted is
that some of the training given to reservists is more limited
in terms of the range of equipment used and level of experience
they have and in theatre there could be potential issues about
a single unit fitting in with regular forces. Does that have an
effect as well?
Mr Corry: I think it must have
an effect. By definition, the amount of training will determine
how much scope there is to learn things in the period available.
Clearly, if regulars are not on operations they will spend more
of their time training and reservists are back with their employers.
What is important is clearly to match the reservist's abilities
and training levels with the operations on which you put him.
Clearly, an issue for the Chain of Command is to make sure that
the reservist is given a job only for which he is trained. That
presupposes that the Chain of Command and particularly the commanding
officer is fully appreciative of what those levels are. Therefore,
I would argue that training together would be a good thing prior
to deployment, or at any other time, because then you would simply
know what the levels of competence were.
Q99 Mr Borrow: Is there an element
of catch-up in the sense that the traditional role of reservist
forces has been to be there in the event of a major conflict and
threat to the UK mainland and doing backfill in other operations,
whereas now they are in theatre in Afghanistan and Iraq in a way
which would not have been envisaged 10 years ago? Therefore, that
has an impact on the sort of training levels that need to be made
available to reservists in order for them to be fully effective
but also to feel confident in their continued membership of the
reserve forces?
Mr Corry: That is a fair comment.
My understanding of the previous role of reserves before we went
to Iraq and Afghanistan was predicated on something like a six-month
warning period when we got ourselves up to speed. Clearly, we
are not now in that situation. From my observations, I think that
the training for operations for deployment to Afghanistan, Iraq
or elsewhere is pretty good and focused. People have picked up
that previously there were issues. As to the people left behind,
that is a different matter.
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