Examination of Witnesses (Questions 360-379)
DEREK TWIGG
MP AND VICE
ADMIRAL PETER
WILKINSON CVO
20 MAY 2008
Q360 Chairman: Are you concerned
that we are not now ready to meet the tasks that might arise?
Derek Twigg: It is always the
case. If we have tasks that we need to meet, of course I would
be concerned if we cannot meet them. In terms of what tasks they
will be, we could have a discussion about that, but what I am
very clear about is the tasks we are asking our people currently
to meet we are meeting, and, of course, we need to further improve
recruitment and meet our targets in order to be able to meet these
tasks, and that is exactly what we are about in terms of our strategy
for improving recruitment and retention, improving equipment and
improving the range of welfare and other support to maintain the
numbers of people within our Armed Forces to meet those additional
tasks whenever they may arise.
Chairman: I think we ought to move on.
Q361 Mr Jenkin: Have you got the
money to do all that?
Derek Twigg: With respect, Mr
Jenkin, I am not going to predict what the final outcome of PRO8
is at this stage. We will make a statement on that, but, as you
know, we have had significant amounts of money from the Treasury
to fund UORs and equipment and we have the money to recruit people
that we need in the Armed Forces at the moment.
Q362 Linda Gilroy: I want to ask
some questions on pay and conditions. The Armed Forces have harmonised
pay and conditions but they have not all been brought exactly
into line, and we have heard that these inconsistencies are causing
friction and discord. Can you set out for the committee what these
differences are, how they might be better aligned and what plans
you have for bringing that about?
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: Shall
I lead on that one? Certainly the introduction of JPA (Joint Personal
Administration System) has helped us enormously here, and we are
now, indeed, paying all our servicemen on the same computer system,
the same administration system, and, indeed, we are administering
them in terms of some of their personnel, their HR performance
on that system. There is much more to do though. We are not yet
really joint in the way we have achieved that. To bring the system
in on time we had to limit some of its functionality, and we are
now working hard to reintroduce that so the system gives us the
benefits that are waiting to be taken there; but as to specific
differences in pay, I think you will have to give me the examples.
Q363 Linda Gilroy: I think that the
introduction of the JPA, while it is solving some problems, is
perhaps, hopefully temporarily, creating other problems. The sort
of evidence we have had includes that from Dawn McCafferty when
she was serving in the RAF and had responsibility for working
on a project to harmonise and simplify, and, of course, she is
now involved in the Families Federation. She tells us that there
are issues which just "grate"—in her words—"I
am sure things could be done to try and soften the edges of that
to take away any irritant." Also, looking at the web forum,
we have got very specifically there, "The Pay 2000 has narrowed
the pay gap between trades to the extent that the technical grades
feel undervalued and, unsurprisingly, are leaving in droves".
That sounds like quite an important issue. There is disparity
between the services in similar jobs in respect of rank, pay and
promotion time and there is disparity between the services in
similar jobs in respect of rank, pay promotion and promotion time.
This person particularly asks why, for example, is a high pay
band RAF Flight Sergeant on the same pay scale as an Army or RN
WO2, yet the WO2 gets an OR8 pension and the Flight Sergeant gets
an OR7 pension? One can see that there have been positive moves.
It sounds as if there are some quite significant differences which
are bound to cause tensions between people doing similar levels,
perhaps sometimes more senior levels, more responsible levels
of job getting lesser pay and conditions?
Derek Twigg: Others will, obviously,
come and correct me if I am wrong, but, first of all, the obvious
fact is that is true. There are obviously a number of differences
in pay, particularly amongst the Services and also within the
Services. You made one point there about the RAF, the technical
people, and of course that is a problem. I think anyone who has
spoken to them will get that view, but I think the way the single
Services have grown up and developed their own systems and also
with the changes that have taken place over recent years, I think
they are there, but it is not that we are just sitting back and
saying we will never look at that. I think the Armed Forces Pay
Review Board will need to examine some of these things as well,
but, you are right, it is a fact. Some of them we will probably
be able to deal with, but at this stage I would not like to give
the committee an absolute assurance that we are going to solve
the whole problem overnight. There are, I accept, differences
and there is unhappiness amongst some people about this.
Q364 Linda Gilroy: Would you be willing
to go a stage further and say that you would ask the Armed Forces
Pay Review Board to look at that: because if it is true that people
are leaving in droves in trades which pinch point, surely that
is something that merits some very serious consideration?
Derek Twigg: Yes.
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: Perhaps
I could take over and say, certainly it came out of our discussions
with the Pay Review Body this year, and will certainly feature
as my colleagues and I begin to discuss next year's pay round,
how we can continue to tidy up and remove these irritants that
you have spotted, certainly that emerged from Pay 2000. Again,
we are making considerable progress there, and perhaps for my
own service the introduction of the Warrant Officer Two rank that
did not exist a few years ago is an example of how we have moved
to try to align the three Services. We are well aware as we fight
and live and work far more together than we ever did actually
that, if we wish people to concentrate on achieving operational
success, then we do not want them to be distracted by whether
the Sergeant, the Petty Officer or the Flight Sergeant sitting
next to them is getting more or less pay than they are.
Chairman: Before you move off that subject,
Richard Younger-Ross.
Q365 Richard Younger-Ross: How many
service personnel were paid late last year?
Derek Twigg: I am sorry; I cannot
give you that answer. We will have to write to the committee.
We did answer a PQ last year, I think, which would give that detail.
I just cannot off the top of my head think what it would be.
Q366 Richard Younger-Ross: I cannot
remember the exact figure, but it was ten times the year before,
which was higher than the year before?
Derek Twigg: We could get into
the JPA, but, clearly, in terms of the transfer across to JPA
we had major problems with the RAF when they first went on it,
maybe less with the Army where it works better, but, clearly,
in terms of education of using the system, and the people who
are providing information to the system as well, there have been
issues and we are looking at that and examining the training and
the time. As a result of that, there have been a number of instances
of late information being put into the system. One of the biggest
causes of that figure of over payments was, I think, a Navy error
which was around a £10 charitable,
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: Three
pounds.
Q367 Richard Younger-Ross: Three
pounds.
Derek Twigg: Three pounds, yes,
but in terms of late payments, we do not have those figures.
Q368 Richard Younger-Ross: The figure
has been increasing. My belief is that it is liable to increase
yet again this year. The question really is what are you able
to do for those people who are paid late, because if you are paid
late you may very well get bank charges and other charges. Are
you able to compensate someone who has been paid late for their
additional charges: because they are not going to be very happy,
they are going to be very unhappy if they end up with charges
and costs, and that is not going encourage them to remain in the
service.
Derek Twigg: Again, someone will
correct me about that if I am wrong, but we do have a system where
we do advances of salary, in terms of being able to pay people,
when they do not get paid by the system, manually, and in the
case of any cost they incur we do reimburse them.
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: I believe
that is correct. I think, Sir, it is one of the interesting paradoxes
of JPA that actually we have increased the visibility of understanding
to a large extent, of the payment process. I refer back to the
point the Minister made that he has commissioned a short review
on training both of HR administrators and of people before they
start using the JPA system to make sure they fully understand
it, but actually, although we do not wish pay to be an issue,
we have raised its visibility and some of the inaccuracies and
some of the difficulties that have always been in existence have
now come to the fore more so than they did under the old Legacy
pay system.
Q369 Richard Younger-Ross: Would
you write to us and give us the detail of that?
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: Yes.
Mr Holloway: While I have some sympathy,
and I do not for a minute doubt the good faith of the ministers
in the MoD at all on this, in the context of retention and recruitment
is it not ultimately a question of commitments as against resources
and at some point we have to accept that, if we are going to keep
the military as it is, we have probably got to increase the numbers?
Does the Minister feel that the Treasury understands defence,
in the words of General Guthrie, because I am not sure that it
does?
Q370 Chairman: By the way, you do
not have to talk in the third person.
Derek Twigg: I think this it is
all a myth that the Treasury does not understand. Certainly when
you were last in government, the Conservatives—
Q371 Mr Holloway: We were at war
in two different places.
Derek Twigg: I can go back over
various conflicts, if you want, and we could have a similar argument,
the fact is that the Treasury never understood the departments,
and no doubt Mr Arbuthnot had similar discussions when he was
sitting, albeit in a much higher and esteemed position than me,
in the Ministry of Defence. They had similar issues. You only
have to look in terms of what the Treasury is providing in terms
of the operational requirements contingency fund, the massive
improvements that have taken place in equipment, the pay awards
we have been able to give. I just do not recognise that point;
that the Treasury do not understand. There has always been this
tension, not just within the Ministry of Defence but in government
departments—
Q372 Mr Holloway: But do you recognise
the point that we probably do not have enough people to do what
we are trying to do at the moment?
Derek Twigg: With the people we
have got, we are able to meet our current obligations in terms
of Iraq and Afghanistan. In terms of what we are asking our people
to do, we can meet that. They are working tremendously hard doing
an amazing job to do that: adaptability and flexibility is second
to none. We do, of course, recognise we have got to recruit more
people. We do recognise, of course, that we have got to retain
more. The answer to your question is that we need more people,
and that is why we are taking the initiatives we are taking.
Q373 Linda Gilroy: We need to keep
the people that we have got--
Derek Twigg: Absolutely.
Q374 Linda Gilroy: ---and make the
best possible use of them, especially if they want to stay, and
the conditions can be arranged which continue to attract them.
Could you make better use of transfers between and within services?
We have heard that they can be quite complicated, even between
cap badges, never mind between the services themselves. If you
simplified the process, would you have another way of managing?
Are you maximising the way in which you are managing that in order
to keep manpower levels where we want them to be?
Derek Twigg: Actually, if you
do not mind me being candid, I was quite surprised that this point
came up because, like you, I visit many bases and barracks all
round the world and talk to hundreds of service personnel and
I think I recall once or twice with me, and in fact at one of
the pass-out parades in the RAF, they had had two people who had
transferred from the Army into the RAF at that particular time;
so I do not think we clocked it, to be quite honest, as being
a major problem. I am not saying it is not a problem with some
people. I did some figures on this. I think in 2007-08 there were
about 858 transfers. The next question will be: that is how many
out of how many applications? We do not have that information
directly to hand, unfortunately, to be able to give you. I am
trying to find that out. Are we in favour of that? Yes. Do we
want to allow that to happen? Yes, we are having to encourage
it, but it has got to be based on operational requirements, whether
the people have the sufficient skills and background ability to
transfer into different jobs, of course, depending on the particular
pressures at that time. We have no problem with it in principle,
we are happy to support it, but it has got be based on operational
needs and also their ability to do the job they are asking to
transfer to, and, of course, whether we have a particular issue
in their grade in that particular part of the service
Q375 Linda Gilroy: You are saying
that from being sat in the MoD main building, but when, again,
you read some of the contributions we have had—this is from
one: "It is theoretically very easy to switch between cap
badges, assuming one meets the criteria. You just complete the
transfer paperwork and then wait, for a very long time indeed
in some cases, and paper work gets lost." A transfer between
services is a great deal harder. It does not happen that often.
You have quoted some figures actually in the written submission
you have give to us that show that it does happen, but is this
happening in a way that keeps people in post? This person also
says, "I would be willing to stay quite happily to my 55-year
point if the RAF could offer me anything like an interesting and
valued job. There is just no way to find out if such jobs exist",
and another point that is raised is that, if you do transfer between
services, it is often accompanied by a change in pension rights
because you have to resign and apply again. You wonder whether
there is a difference between your attitude towards this in the
main building and whether, when people are faced with the actual
practicalities of it with their senior officers, with the chain
of command, that there is a different attitude there that does
not actually appreciate the overall benefit there may be to manpower
retention and whether you actually have to try and do more to
achieve a culture change which brings that about.
Derek Twigg: I think you make
a very important point, particularly around the area of retention.
Serving personnel write to me on all sorts of issues, but I have
had very little on this. Hand on heart, can I say it is working
as well as it can? No, I cannot. I have said to the committee
that I can go away and do some more work on that to see whether
we can actually bottom out and maximise that.
Q376 Chairman: That would be helpful.
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: May I
just add, Chairman, I am slightly surprised by the tone of the
submissions you are receiving, certainly about the Army. The Army,
to my way of thinking, are very committed to cap badge transfer.
Every division holds a transfer fair twice a year. The Army in
Germany holds a transfer fair twice a year. All three Services
understand it is far better to keep someone in the service and
to transfer them so that they will be content rather than leave,
if at all possible. So, I am slightly surprised.
Q377 Linda Gilroy: The quotation
I gave was actually from somebody serving in the RAF. In your
written Submission, I think it was, you do tell us about these
transfer fairs, but even there 550 successful transfers, 426 rejected
and 511 withdrawn. So there is almost double the amount not succeeding,
and you do wonder whether that is because people start the process
and it is not that it is not happening, it is not that there is
not a policy that you have at your level—
Derek Twigg: No.
Q378 Linda Gilroy: ---but maximising
it is clearly something that could have a role to play in the
retention issue, particularly, by the sound of it, in some of
the trade issues, perhaps even some of the pinch point trade issues.
Vice Admiral Wilkinson: There
is often, in my experience, a feeling that the grass is greener
on the other side and, therefore, a lot of people, both officers
and other ranks, do look during their time in the service at another
branch or another trade or career to see if that would be of interest.
I am not saying that that is where some of these numbers come
from, but certainly, as you know, the recruiting process will
do its best to match people's talents, skills and abilities to
the right trade or branch. It may well be they get that right
and actually some of these transfers are little more than wishful
thinking.
Linda Gilroy: I am sure, being realistic,
that must be an element. I think our point to you is are you doing
enough to maximise this as a method of retention, and I think
perhaps it is something that you have acknowledged.
Q379 Chairman: You have said you
would look at it again.
Derek Twigg: Yes. That does not
apply to ministers, of course.
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