Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240-259)
MR CHRIS
BAKER OBE, REAR
ADMIRAL CHARLES
MONTGOMERY CBE, MAJOR
GENERAL ANDREW
GREGORY, AIR
VICE MARSHAL
SIMON BRYANT
CBE, MAJOR GENERAL
SIMON LALOR
TD AND VICE
ADMIRAL PETER
WILKINSON CVO
22 APRIL 2008
Q240 Robert Key: I wish you well
because in an area like mine, Salisbury, HM Armed Forces are an
everyday fact of life and are part of the community, but in other
parts of England and the UK they are not.
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: That has
been recognised and is the reason for Major General Lalor's answer
that we have an aspiration. We realise that for many parts of
the country it is only via the reserve forces that the average
citizen has any contact with the Armed Forces at all. I think
there has been a slow realisation of the importance of that particular
role for the reserves.
Q241 Robert Key: How much does that
depend upon resources and your having a budget to achieve that
aspiration?
Major General Lalor: This morning
I shall probably refer on numerous occasions to the reserves review
announced in March which commenced on 1 April. One of our terms
of reference is very much to try to bring out some science, so
we might have some evidence of the cost and effect of this national
footprint. In the past we have just accepted it as a good thing
without really being able to analyse whether we are achieving
effect and thus whether we should devote to it the same, less
or more resources. That is a specific term of reference of the
reserves review.
Q242 Robert Key: What assessment
has been made—maybe it is a personal one—of how well
United Kingdom forces are doing in terms of relations with schools,
cadets and the place of reservists in national life compared with
other NATO countries with which we are on front line in theatre
and in peace-keeping?
Major General Lalor: Perhaps I
may deal with cadets rather than the outreach into schools. As
you suggest by your question, it is slightly subjective. I cannot
compare it with other countries but I believe that the cadet movement
is now respected more than it has been in my period of knowledge
covering the past 30-odd years. I believe that is because of a
greater understanding of the effect that the cadet movement has
on the development of youth in this country.
Q243 Robert Key: I thought I saw
a shaking head from the Royal Air Force.
Air Vice Marshal Bryant: I do
not have information about other countries.
Q244 Robert Key: I was asking specifically
about other countries. Does anyone present have any knowledge
about cadets and reservists in other NATO countries?
Major General Lalor: I have a
lot of knowledge about reserves in other countries but not about
cadets.
Q245 Robert Key: Therefore, we really
do not know how we compare with other countries?
Major General Gregory: But what
we can do is be very positive about the links between the Armed
Forces collectively—the regular, the territorials and the
cadets—with their local communities. The perception of the
Armed Forces remains very high. The contact that people have is
very strong and communities have had welcome home parades. Mr
Key had one recently in Salisbury for The Rifles. They have been
hugely well received on both sides of the community, so I believe
that we have a very positive story to tell here.
Q246 Mr Jones: What are you doing
to get cadets into units in state schools and away from private
schools which traditionally are well represented? I am aware that
last year when you extended this programme a government minister,
who will remain nameless, had to fight to talk to the Secretary
of State for Defence himself to get one for his inner city comprehensive
school in Newcastle. First, what are you doing about that? Second,
what do you say about co-ordination at local level among the three
Services? There is a cadet force in Chester-le-Street in my constituency
which is very well funded and has nice minibuses, but the Sea
Cadets find it very difficult to get access to those resources.
What are you doing to ensure that the money provided at local
level to cadet forces is done in a tri-Service way? I know that
the Sea Cadets are configured differently from the Army Cadets,
but what are you doing to make sure that the impact of resources
at local is the same?
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: You have
hit on the important point that the constitutions of the three
different service cadet forces are completely different which
leads to differences that can be seen at local level. Perhaps
Major General Lalor can lead us through some of the steps he is
now taking to try to iron out those differences.
Q247 Chairman: I want to come back
to tri-services issues later. Perhaps you would concentrate on
the point about state schools as opposed to private schools?
Major General Lalor: This a slight
misnomer. In the schools there is an imbalance. There is a total
of 260 units of which 60 are in state schools. This arises because
of historical reasons because the original purpose in setting
them up was to produce officers for the imperial forces. I would
certainly take issue with the suggestion that there was resistance
last year; quite the opposite. There was a clear intent to have
six new CCFs all of which would be in state schools. There as
never any question of them being anything else. The problem was
one of finding schools prepared and interested in having those
new cadet forces that the government instigated last year. Obviously,
we have to acknowledge that there is a historical imbalance there,
but I certainly do not think we should try arbitrarily to take
resources away. What we get from the independent schools is a
lot of other resources to assist the cadet movement. I was involved
in a meeting only yesterday with Lord Adonis and the Under-Secretary
of State for Defence when the very subject of your question was
being addressed. I think we have to improve everybody's knowledge
of where they fit in. The majority of our cadets are in community-based
rather than school-based cadet forces, but all the future growth
to support the government's youth policy will be in schools and
academies that are predominantly in disadvantaged areas because
of the very real benefits that can now be shown from involvement
in cadet activities.
Q248 Mr Jones: How will you do that?
Major General Lalor: The very
purpose of the meeting yesterday was to try to reach a policy
between two government departments. I think the aspiration is
widely agreed and so we are getting into the area of "how"
which is harder.
Q249 Mr Jones: Linda Gilroy just
stole my thunder. Why do you not ask MPs to talk to their local
schools? I am sure that a lot of MPs would be quite active in
trying to get those relationships going.
Major General Lalor: I did mention
the difficulty in finding volunteer schools for those six last
year, but I am not saying that there is a barrier to growth of
the cadet forces if we choose to go for growth. I believe there
is plenty of ambition there. One of the new schools in Treorchy
in South Wales has created an extraordinary interest. There are
many schools in that area now asking, having seen the benefits
of Treorchy, to have one too. If only it was that easy. You will
appreciate that there is a resource implication, but it is not
just pounds, shillings and pence; you must have sufficient adult
volunteers to start and allow a cadet force to prosper. You also
need the cadet training teams from the three single Services to
support them. The commanding officer of Treorchy is head of PE
and he put on uniform for the first in his life last September.
You must have the infrastructure to support enthusiastic adult
volunteers. We have to acknowledge factors that will influence
our ability to grow the cadet movement.
Q250 Chairman: Will that initiative
be covered in the reserves review?
Major General Lalor: The cadets
are not covered by the reserves review, but from the meeting yesterday
I can say that we have given ourselves a timeline of two months
to take forward this area with Lord Adonis and the DCSF.
Chairman: The Committee consider this
to be a fantastic method of educating young children and we hope
you will keep us informed about what emerges from the policy discussions.[6]
Q251 Mr Borrow: I want to probe one area
to do with cadets in schools or cadets in the community. It takes
us back to the point about cadets in some public schools which
are seen as the traditional training ground for officers and the
extent to which cadets forces are seen as a source of recruitment
and training for the Armed Forces in general. Are there distinctions
between different cadet groups, that is, between those that are
aimed and focused on recruiting the ordinary squaddy in the Army,
if you like, and those aimed at recruiting officers? One of the
key things we ought to be aiming at is to ensure that if there
is a cadet group working in the community or a school it focuses
across the board so that in a state comprehensive it operates
in a way that can offer careers as both officers and squaddies,
and in the same way if it is a community organisation it can play
it across the board. I am not sure to what extent the cadet groups
later on will be focusing on that breadth of potential recruitment.
Major General Gregory: First,
I must impress upon the Committee that cadets are not there for
recruiting; they are part of the government's youth agenda. We
do not see them as a means of gathering people either for the
officer corps or in my case to become soldiers in the Army. It
gives them a broader perspective and opportunity to develop as
part of that programme which is a fantastic one. In terms of whether
officers are prepared in combined cadet forces as opposed to Army
Cadet Forces or in independent as opposed to state schools, they
are definitely not. We may come to the statistics for independent
as opposed to state school officer candidates who are now going
through Sandhurst. At Sandhurst there are more state school than
independent school candidates joining the Army. There is no correlation
between the two.
Air Vice Marshal Bryant: To make
a quick point on Mr Jones's question, there is room for wider
help outside schools because a lot of the ambition to expand the
Cadet Forces is to be outside schools and the pinch point is to
get adult volunteers, so encouragement across a broader front
to facilitate that would be much appreciated.
Mr Jones: I raised the issue of the different
constitutions of the organisations. Are we using effectively the
resources that we put into cadets at local level as between the
three Services? Is there scope to get them to share buildings
and other things?
Chairman: Again, I want to come back
to the tri-Service issue later. We are still on the second question
and it is now 11.20.
Mr Jones: But this is about cadets and
is an issue at local level that needs to be answered.
Chairman: Yes, and we shall come back
to it.
Q252 John Smith: As to the role that
cadets play, is there a specific problem with retention? In my
constituency we are very successful with cadet groups and recruiting
youngsters is not the real problem. The problem is keeping them
because of competition within the community for other things to
do. Has that fed through? Is that an issue or is it a matter about
which you are relaxed?
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: It is
an acknowledged issue with youth groups, not just cadets, across
the community. You are right that certainly it is an issue that
all three Services are trying to tackle. Although we have to remember
Major General Gregory's point that there is no link between a
cadet group and recruiting we know that if somebody takes the
decision to join one of the Services and has been in the cadets
that individual stays for longer and gets to NCO quicker on average.
Therefore, the experience that they gain in the cadets stands
them in good stead if they should then decide to join the Services
as a career.
Q253 Mr Jenkins: I believe Major
General Gregory indicated that as many youngsters from state schools
as from public schools turned up, but is it not true that of the
student scholarships for officer courses for the Army 66% were
offered to youngsters from public schools and only 33% from the
state sector? Considering how much larger the state sector is,
90% of the money going for officer student scholarships went to
the public sector and only 10% to the state sector. Is that true,
and what are we doing about it?
Major General Gregory: As to the
figures for sixth-form scholarships you are right, but you have
to balance that by looking also at the opportunities offered at
the defence sixth-form college at Welbeck where the figures are
almost exactly the opposite: 85% to state school candidates and
15% to independent school candidates. Therefore, across the piece
there is a much better balance of opportunity than the figures
you present first indicate.
Q254 Mr Hancock: That is not the
answer, is it? The answer is that in public schools where there
is a higher percentage of involvement in the Cadet Forces it is
put to them that one of the advantages of being in the cadet corps
is that they stand a much better chance of getting the money to
help them through student training. That is the difference. Where
the incentive does not exist there is an imbalance. In state schools
the Cadet Forces do not persist and the information is not readily
available. I would be interested to know how many of the sixth
forms in the nine secondary schools in my area are aware that
this money is available. I would think very few schools would
ever tell their students that that money was available. That is
the answer.
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: Mr Hancock
makes an important point. There is no discrimination against possible
candidates from state schools in their applications for such scholarships,
but it is a wider issue of awareness and understanding that we
can perhaps do better to try to address.
Q255 Mr Hancock: That is a failing,
is it not? If I were you and somebody asked me for that statistic
I would be wondering why that was. I know what it is because I
have spoken to youngsters. I was at an induction course recently
in a school. A major from the Army to his credit mentioned that
point. It was the first time I had heard anyone—I have done
several of these in my schools—from the Armed Forces mention
it to the students.
Major General Gregory: In principle
I agree and I think you raise a very fair point. The key is to
make sure that where careers advisers invite people in they give
the broadest briefing on opportunities available, which they are
beholden to do.
Mr Hancock: I am sure that most cadet
corps commanders in public schools will tell young people of the
advantages that flow from it and that does not happen in state
schools, which is a great pity.
Q256 Chairman: Does the fact that
your 1,000[7]
visits are generated by invitations to schools mean it is more
likely that private sector schools will issue them than public
sectors schools?
Major General Gregory: No, it
is significantly the reverse. The vast majority of invitations
come from state school careers advisers.
Mr Borrow: Are we being told that the
proportion of state schools that invite visits is higher than
the proportion of public school invitations, or are we talking
about the numerical position? Are there more invitations from
state schools than private schools? Those are very different figures
which have different implications.
Q257 Chairman: Can you come back
to us on that?
Major General Gregory: I would
have to. I understand the question.[8]
Q258 Mr Hancock: I should like to address
my first question to Vice Admiral Wilkinson and Mr Baker because
it is about overall policy. Do you agree with the view that the
traditional pools for recruitment to the Armed Forces have slowly
but surely evaporated? If that is the case, what are you doing
as policy leaders to look for new pools for recruits to the Armed
Forces as a central theme? It must be apparent that the traditional
areas of recruitment have all but dried up.
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: We have
to look across the whole community to find recruits for three
Armed Services. I do not think it is right to say that the traditional
pools have dried up. Certainly, we have to be aware of different
aspirations and expectations of young people as they come through
the educational system and how they react to different media that
are used to approach them, but I think we are as proactive as
we can be in trying to make all sections of the community aware
of the opportunities that a career in the Armed Forces offers.
Mr Baker: I absolutely endorse
that. In our memorandum we have given you one or two examples
of the fresh ways in which we approach society. We market our
offer in line with contemporary commercial advice, identify different
societal sectors and address the aspirations of each separately.
We place the motivation of the individual increasingly at the
centre of our offer.
Q259 Mr Hancock: "Societal sectors"
is a new one on me. Perhaps you would provide a couple of indications
of societal sectors. At whom would you be looking in specific
sectors?
Mr Baker: The One Army Recruiting
initiative is based on an analysis of the aspirations of society
by sectors.
6 See Ev 183 Back
7
The figure of 1,000 was provided in error; the correct figure
is 4,000. Back
8
See Ev 168 Back
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