Examination of Witnesses (Questions 333-339)
DEREK TWIGG
MP AND VICE
ADMIRAL PETER
WILKINSON CVO
20 MAY 2008
Q333 Chairman: Good morning. This is
the final session in our recruitment and retention inquiry and,
Minister and Admiral Wilkinson, you are both extremely welcome
to the inquiry. In one particular respect we would be grateful
if you could help us because we have, during the course of this
inquiry, as we have on the Education of Service Children Inquiry
and as we did on the Medical Services Inquiry, been running a
web forum and we have been getting some interesting, quite trenchant
views from existing and former members of the Armed Forces. It
is always helpful for a select committee such as ourselves to
get that sort of information which points us in various directions.
However, we have heard today that when people have been in contact
with the Ministry of Defence to ask whether they should submit
posts on to our web forum they have been discouraged from doing
so. I am absolutely sure that this would not come from you, Minister,
or from you, Admiral Wilkinson, that it would not come from the
top, but it is coming from the Ministry of Defence and it is most
dismaying to us that our parliamentary scrutiny of a very important
issue for the future of the Armed Forces is being subverted at
a middle level, probably, within the Ministry of Defence. I wonder
whether (a) you would like to comment and (b) whether you might
like to take that away with you and see what can be done, not
particularly for this inquiry, because we are getting some good
posts on our web forum, but for future web forums, future inquiries,
it is very disturbing that parliamentary scrutiny should be undermined.
Our scrutiny, we regard, as very helpful to the Ministry of Defence
and the defence of the country. I wonder, Minister, whether you
would like to respond?
Derek Twigg: Can I, first of all,
say to you, neither myself nor Admiral Wilkinson have issued any
such instructions, neither have ministers or senior military or
civil servants, to my knowledge, and I am, quite frankly, shocked
to hear that. I condemn any such instruction that was taken out,
and I give you absolute assurance that, after we finish this session,
I will ask for that to be investigated very promptly and I will
get back in touch with you as soon as possible thereafter. We
very much want to encourage our people to have this contact with
you. As you rightly say, it enables a good discussion and ideas
to be passed through, whether critical or not, from the department
and, as you know from the health investigation you did, that worked
pretty well. I am really dismayed to hear that and I can give
you absolute assurance that it has not come from me and I will
investigate it as soon as we finish this session.
Chairman: I would have expected no less.
Q334 Mr Jenkin: This is potentially
a breach of Parliamentary privilege. It is a very serious thing
to interfere with an investigation by a select committee, and
I think, Chairman, we should resolve to write to the Speaker if
we find any subsequent evidence that our inquiries are being interfered
with.
Derek Twigg: If you have evidence,
then we will look into it. It is for the House and the Speaker
to deal with that, but we would never give instructions to interfere
with a parliamentary process.
Q335 Mr Jenkin: I accept that.
Derek Twigg: I feel, if anything,
my style is one of openness and, as you know from the co-operation
you have received from us in terms of visits and accessibility
of people, I think you would be surprised if it was otherwise
the case.
Q336 Chairman: I want to move on.
Minister, this is an inquiry into recruitment and retention, a
perennial problem; in fact so perennial that the Defence Committee
went into the same sorts of thing in 2001. Obviously, the Ministry
of Defence has been putting a great deal of effort into trying
to resolve some of the many problems that have arisen since then.
How would you say the Ministry of Defence was doing?
Derek Twigg: I would say, first
of all, we have still got more to do and we still, obviously,
have challenges and problems particularly around retention. I
think you will see from the figures we have provided that we have
made significant strides in terms of recruitment. If you look
at it in this context (and I put it to you in this way), given
the current economic climate, in terms of the employment opportunities
out there, depending on your point of view, in terms of the war
with Iraq and Afghan and the amount of work that is obviously
entailing for our people, and given the constant criticisms of
the MoD and the Government in terms of what it is and is not doing
to support our Armed Forces, I think it is quite a good performance,
quite frankly, in that climate, not only the demands for recruitment
that we have actually been able to do but also in terms of retention:
because if you look at the figures again, and we have provided
these to you, it is broadly stable. There are obviously pinch
point grades where there are issues around retaining people, which,
again, we have provided you with information in terms of what
we are doing. To sum up, because I know you want to ask questions,
we have more to do, but I think it is a good performance given
the conditions I have just outlined to you.
Q337 Chairman: What would you say
were the main problems remaining?
Derek Twigg: Retention, I think,
is our key area—because of what we term "pinch point
grades" we are losing people at a higher rate than we want
to—and we need to do more work. I can talk about the financial
retention initiatives, I can talk about the pay and the Armed
Forces Review Board in terms of the best public sector pay rise,
I think, last year, another good pay rise this year, increasing
the x-factor, an increase for the most junior soldiers and service
personnel last year of over 9%, and I think more is happening,
and we have to work these things through. I think all things around,
for instance, welfare support, including housing conditions, general
support for families—all these thing we are working on.
I think that is where we have a number of issues at the moment
but, having said that, we also, as you know, have got to reduce
wastage in terms of recruitment as well because that is where
you get just under 40% for infantry at the moment. I think there
are at least two areas there, but there are others which I am
happy to explore further, if you want, which strike me straightaway
as being a priority for us.
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: May I
support what the Minister has said, but particularly the point
on operational pinch points. We have talked about it before, Sir,
but the small operationally important cadres of trained soldiers,
sailors and airmen who have a disproportionate effect on those
operations that we are undergoing at the moment but, because of
the tempo of operations, they are the ones that we probably need
to pay more attention to them than some other groups, and, I think,
as the Minister says, in a whole range activities, not necessarily
just for the servicemen themselves but for their families and
the support we give them, and then we can start making real inroads
into improving retention.
Q338 Chairman: The Vice Chairman
is just about to ask some questions about those areas, and obviously
it is very important. This inquiry is into recruitment and retention.
Are the difficulties and the issues involved in relation to recruitment
similar to, or linked with, the difficulties and the issues involved
in relation to retention and, if there are any links, are your
policies for dealing with those linked or are they wholly separate
issues?
Derek Twigg: I would not say there
is absolutely no link, but I think there are distinct issues in
terms particularly of retention, and the operational tempo is
literally the opportunity to get jobs outside, in industry, with
the skills that they develop, et cetera, the need to improve housing,
which has come through the Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey,
making sure that people are able to access services on a regular
basis. In terms of recruitment, I think that is different in the
sense that some people will join because of the operations that
they are currently undertaking, some people might not do. In terms
of the pay and conditions, we have not seen that as a major problem,
as far as I can see, in recruiting people at the moment because
we have made the improvements in the last couple of years. So,
while I would not say there is no connection, I think our approach
to that, particularly with the priority being for retention in
terms of the number of initiatives being taken, is something which
will bear fruit but more work needs to be done. Having said that,
once we get people in, of course, once we retain them---. It is
a life-long process is what I am probably trying to say.
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: For recruiting
specifically, we are aware that over a time period of decades
our footprint across the nation has been receding, and your committee
has heard before, Sir, about the various outreach awareness and
marketing activities that all three services undertake to counter
that, and it has to be said how grateful the services are to the
work done by Mr Davis and his report that was published yesterday
on the national recognition for our Armed Forces. We welcome that
and the enhanced visibility that it gives to the services.
Mr Jones: Can I ask you how the marketing
is actually done? You can throw a lot of money at marketing and
get very little return. Whose bright idea was it in the RAF, for
example, to give away condoms as a recruitment tool?
Q339 Chairman: Minister, you twitched
there. Was it yours?
Derek Twigg: It was not my idea.
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: Nor mine.
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