Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300-319)
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
Q300 Mr Jenkin: How do you assess
the effectiveness of the money that you spend on your more public
and expensive marketing and advertising campaigns?
Rear Admiral Montgomery: We do
assess every one of our marketing campaigns. About 12 months ago
we set up a performance cell in our recruiting organisation. Every
one of our campaigns now receives feedback not only from entrants
but, as of this month, we have established a survey of potential
recruits to identify which particular recruiting avenue caught
their attention to bring them into the Service. We measure the
effectiveness of the various recruiting campaigns. Equally, in
a global sense we then look at whether or not we are getting the
right return for the right investment in the round. You will have
seen that in the Royal Navy our recruiting effort has increased
gradually over time and that has been achieved by rationalisations
regionally and savings on manpower to enable greater levels of
expenditure on marketing. That efficiency has enabled us to maintain
with only gradual increases of expenditure overall the same level
of intake, that is, 96% of the target. We are looking at both
the efficiency of the global effort and the success rate of individual
advertising or marketing campaigns.
Q301 Chairman: Is there a different
story for the RAF and the Army, or can we move on?
Air Vice Marshal Bryant: It is
COI evaluated and there is a whole host of statistics showing
where we are being more efficient than we have been in the past
by being more effective in targeting our effort.
Major General Gregory: It is the
same story for the Army, recognising that it is a multi-approach
across many areas. We talked earlier about the electronic media:
the Army website and Army Jobs. There have been 1.9 million hits
since it has been launched across the piece, so I think that is
the answer.
Q302 Mr Jenkin: Compared with the
millions you spend on marketing and advertising, how does that
compare with direct word-of-mouth individual contact? If more
people in the chain of command in each of the three Services was
simply tasked with the job of getting more introductions at unit
level as well as across the three Services as a whole would that
not be better expenditure of resources?
Air Vice Marshal Bryant: All the
station commanders have a specific target in their area to go
out and reinforce it. In addition, the individuals are challenged
because we have a recruiting bounty, so you can find your friend
from back home and be rewarded for bringing him into the Service.
Therefore, it goes all the way through the chain of command.
Q303 Mr Jenkin: Does the same apply
to each of the other two Services?
Major General Gregory: Yes, in
principle.
Q304 Mr Jenkin: But is it structured?
One gets the sense that if it is not structured it is rather haphazard.
Rear Admiral Montgomery: We have
structured it as of 12 months ago onto a very much more rigorous
and quantifiable basis. It is based on both surveys of individual
applicants as opposed to just entrants and our quantification
of the success of individual marketing campaigns.
Major General Gregory: We are
trying to make sure we formalise it because previously it was
not done against formal establishment. Where this is appropriate
and helpful, let us establish properly the posts we need to enable
recruiting. We looked at a bounty for those who brought in people
and we did not find it a successful method and so stopped it,
but in answer to your question the principles that Air Vice Marshal
Bryant talked about are very similar.
Q305 Mr Jenkin: But you say that
different units in the Army have different capabilities according
to what else they have been taught to do?
Major General Gregory: That is
absolutely right.
Q306 Mr Jenkin: Even if somebody
in the rear party of a deployed unit had the job of producing
recruits that should be possible, should it not?
Major General Gregory: And that
is my point. What we are trying to do is properly to establish
these things where they are successful so we have an established
post to deal with recruiting for battalions, which is really what
you are referring to, and use our manpower to best effect. That
is what we are doing at the moment.
Chairman: We have discussed pinch point
trades and you set out a memorandum of mitigation actions that
you are taking in relation to them. I want to move now to the
issue of One Army Recruiting.
Mr Jones: Chairman, earlier I asked whether
there could be better co-ordination at local level between the
Army, RAF and Sea Cadets given the resources going in and taking
into account the different constitutions.
Q307 Mr Jenkin: Sea Cadets get no
public money?
Major General Lalor: Absolutely.
The three single services run their Cadet Forces in a different
way. The specific answer to the question is that greater co-ordination
would be beneficial. Beyond that, greater co-ordination would
be beneficial as between the reserves piece and regular piece.
That aspiration is understood by my directorate and we shall be
looking at that. What you are really asking is: if looking at
my reserves piece I have a TA centre in one major town with four-tonners
out the back and a small cadet attachment of any of the three
Services, is there not some benefit in linkage? The answer must
be yes. I accept that co-ordination could be greater.
Q308 Mr Jones: Are there any constitutional
problems in terms of the Sea Cadets accessing other facilities?
For example, in one town in my area they cannot use the extensive
fleet of minibuses of the Army Cadets because they are "separate".
Major General Lalor: The three
single Services are organised very differently, if you would like
to describe it in that way. What I can say—this is very
much on our agenda—is that there is an understanding in
principle with the key officers who run the Cadet Forces in all
the Services that some gain is to be had in greater central co-ordination.
We are at the point where that is acknowledged.
Q309 Mr Hancock: Have you ever spoken
to anyone who has tried to borrow a vehicle from another Service
and experienced these problems? I doubt that any of you as senior
officers would find it very easy to get a vehicle from a colleague
from another Service.
Major General Lalor: To portray
a simple picture of a TA centre and an Army Cadet Force, there
is absolutely no reason why it cannot be directly linked and the
resources utilised by our cadets. I acknowledge and do not underestimate
that if one were going between the Services that might be harder
to resolve.
Mr Hancock: Major General Lalor, you
will be the first TA field marshal before that becomes easy to
achieve!
Q310 Chairman: We will produce a
report as a result of this inquiry and this may well be something
that we shall want to concentrate upon. It would be helpful if
within the next month or so you could send us a paper on your
knowledge of the aspirations about how it will get better and
what you intend to do about it.
Major General Lalor: The paper
from which I am drawing is going to our cadet youth council in
June. It has been delayed because the minister has not been available,
but certainly in line with that paper being taken we shall make
it available to the Committee.[11]
Q311 Chairman: That will be in June?
Major General Lalor: That is my
understanding but it is very much predicated on getting our annual
youth cadet council convened which has been delayed.
Chairman: It would be helpful if that
could be expedited.
Q312 Mr Jenkin: To return to the
question of visits to schools, is there any reason why as part
of your awareness programme your presence there should not be
done on a tri-Service basis?
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: We go
back to the fact that they are there at the invitation of the
schools and it is an avenue that we can investigate with them.[12]
Mr Jones: That is not the answer because
the schools ask only for what is available. I think Mr Jenkin
is asking whether, if you are to engage not only in recruitment
but what I would call Armed Forces diplomacy in schools, there
are grounds for putting your case to students on this basis.
Q313 Mr Jenkin: When next time the
RAF is invited to a particular school you can say that you will
bring all three Services.
Air Vice Marshal Bryant: Indeed,
and that does happen to a degree. I would not say it is institutionalised.
For example, at school fetes we go en masse with all three Services,
but I suspect that to a degree coverage will come down to footprint
and resources. I come back to the RAF footprint that I know well.
Q314 Mr Jenkin: Do you accept that
the historical footprint and resources result in a rather haphazard
footprint on the schools?
Air Vice Marshal Bryant: I do
accept that but again we are bound by how far we can spread our
wings and where we get the best returns. To go back to your point
about value for money, we have done a significant amount of work
on this to see where we get the best effect. We have found that
by concentrating where there is already a significant footprint
and therefore air power is better understood by the people there
at least at a subliminal level. Because they see aircraft flying
on a daily basis and it is not alien to them that is where we
tend to get results.
Rear Admiral Montgomery: I should
like to correct one comment by Mr Jenkin. It was said that the
Sea Cadets received no public money. They do receive public money
in the form of a grant of £8.3 million per annum.
Q315 Mr Jones: But at a local level
they do not?
Rear Admiral Montgomery: But the
organisation does.
Q316 Mr Jones: But that does not
go down to local level because the Sea Cadets in my area have
to do a great deal of fund-raising themselves.
Rear Admiral Montgomery: Indeed
so, but I just make that point.
Q317 Mr Borrow: I turn to One Army
Recruiting which has been in operation for about a year. Can you
briefly bring us up to speed on what lessons have been learned?
Are there lessons for the RAF and Royal Navy?
Major General Gregory: It is seen
as a five-year change programme which has been running for a year
and it has the particular aim to integrate the hitherto discrete
Territorial Army and Regular activities, to re-focus, modernise
and improve effectiveness and efficiency and make greater investment
in the development of the recruiting staff, making sure that we
compete for the people we need to man the Army. Genuinely, one
year into it is too early to give you the detailed lessons learnt.
We are looking at it and as we start to get figures we shall be
better placed to share our experiences with the other two Services.
Q318 Mr Borrow: Does the same go
for recruiting volunteer reservists? At this point you are not
able to make any assessment as to whether or not that is beneficial?
Major General Gregory: Within
the construct of One Army Recruiting, yes, because you will know
that previously volunteer reservists were dealt with very much
on a regional basis. We are now trying to ensure that it is co-ordinated
much more effectively as a totality. That is the concept of One
Army Recruiting. I simply cannot give you detailed lessons at
this stage because it is not mature enough in terms of the duration
of the five-year programme.
Q319 Mr Borrow: One aspect of the
programme is online testing, that is, Pathfinder. The information
the Committee has received is that it seems to indicate that the
South and South East are recruiting hot spots by that method.
Is that leading to changes in the Army's approach because those
are not seen as the traditional hot spots as far as Army recruitment
is concerned? The hot spots have been very much in Mr Jones's
and my part of the world, that is, the north of England.
Major General Gregory: I agree
that has been the position in the North East, North West and Scotland.
You are absolutely right in saying that London and the South East
have featured much more strongly than previously. We can better
look at the means and methods we use in our panoply of measures
we talked about previously to facilitate recruitment in those
areas. If one area appears to react better to the electronic media
and another area reacts better to personal visits that is how
we will target our resources, but we are very much at the data-gathering
phase. As we get it we can better move to the next phase of the
project.
Chairman: Let us now turn to the issue
of ethnic minority recruiting.
11 See Ev 170 Back
12
See Ev 170 Back
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