Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-12)
MR BILL
JEFFREY CB AND
MR TREVOR
WOOLLEY CB
13 NOVEMBER 2007
Q1 Chairman: Good morning, Permanent
Under Secretary and Mr Woolley. You are welcome before the Committee.
I have to say that we have a preliminary issue, which is that
while we are taking evidence now on an annual basis on the Annual
Reports and Accounts of the Ministry of Defence, we are grateful
to you for sending answers to the inquiries that we asked about
your report, but those answers only came in yesterday and they
contain serious changes. For example, on the readiness target,
in July I think you said that there was some risk. Yesterday we
were told that you do not now expect to reach the target level
by April 2008, and that is a crucial target level, a target level
of generating forces which can be deployed, sustained and recovered
at the scales of effort required to meet the Government's strategic
objectives. We received this information yesterday. It then had
to be disseminated to the Committee. The Committee staff had to
consider it and to comment on it, and this was information which
we had asked you to send us by 31 October to give time for the
Committee staff to consider it and to advise the Committee on
it. This, I have to tell you, has made the Committee distinctly
angry. I wonder if you could, please, explain why it has taken
so long to produce these answers. When you have explained that,
the Committee will go into private session to consider whether
the explanation is good enough and to consider whether we should
postpone this evidence session to a time when we have had time
to assimilate what it is that you have told us.
Mr Jeffrey: Chairman, can I start
with an apology because I realised last week that we were pushing
the boundaries and that we were certainly going to exceed the
timescale that you had set for us on this. I had not realised
that it was as late as yesterday that this material reached you.
The explanation lies to some extent in the fact—and you
have picked a very cogent example which is the one about readiness—that
the picture is changing quite steadily. We wanted in particular
to give the Committee the most recent PSA performance report at
the same time as responding to the detailed list of questions,
but I do not think that is an excuse. I can only apologise to
the Committee. I am very sorry that it has disrupted your business
to the extent that it has.
Q2 Linda Gilroy: I can understand
that answer but would it not have been courteous and sensible
to have informed the clerks to the Committee that that was what
you were doing and to have given us the opportunity to consider
in advance of this meeting whether we would wish to delay it somewhat?
Mr Jeffrey: It would and I very
much regret the fact that we did not.
Q3 Mr Hancock: You say you did not
know that we did not get this material until late yesterday. When
were you given the material that we received?
Mr Jeffrey: I saw it in draft
at the end of last week.[1]
I know it had to be cleared with our Minister before it was sent
to you. So I then, speaking for myself, was not sure exactly at
what point it was going to be dispatched, but it clearly should
have come to you earlier and I do apologise.
Q4 Mr Hancock: There are at least four
of us here who did not get it until this morning, minutes literally
before we came into the meeting.
Mr Jeffrey: That is not satisfactory.
I acknowledge that completely.
Q5 Mr Jenkin: Our Committee had this
material I think yesterday afternoon, was it not? You talk about
the assessment of performance and you wanted to get us the most
up-to-date assessments. Do these changes themselves get signed
off by Ministers? Is that what has held it up?
Mr Jeffrey: They do indeed. Ministers
need to clear these before they come to you, but I am not presenting
that as the explanation. It was late anyway and it should have
been submitted earlier.
Q6 Chairman: When was it plain to
you that the readiness targets would have to change?
Mr Jeffrey: The first time I knew
that our collective assessment was that they were now, in the
language that is used here, unlikely to be met was when this material
was submitted to me towards the end of last week.[2]
I think it is fair to say though, and the Committee itself will
not be surprised at this, that it has been a process over time
of examining our analysis of the force elements at readiness and
the extent to which they reveal serious or particular weaknesses.
At what point, we have had to ask ourselves, does one conclude
that we are not going to get to these percentages by the end of
the relevant period? We are getting closer to April 2008 all the
time, obviously. Until I saw this most recent assessment, although
I guess, like the Committee, I had at the back of my mind a sense
that we were getting off course on this, I did not know that we
were formally assessing it to be unlikely to be met.
Q7 Chairman: In the summer you were saying
that there was some risk that the Department might not return
to manning balance before 1 April 2008. Was that not obviously
rubbish in the summer?
Mr Jeffrey: No, I do not think
so. The manning balance target is a different one from the one
we have been discussing. It is a complicated issue because it
reflects not only the actual state of manpower but the requirement
itself, and it varies as between the three Services. Our assessment
earlier was that we might still get into manning balance on this
timescale. It is becoming clear that for two of the Services,
for completely different reasons—the Navy because the requirement
is not falling as rapidly as had been assumed and the Army because
of a mixture of equipment and retention issues—it is unlikely
to be met. For the Air Force we think it will be but it is not
by any means certain yet, and that in effect reflects to a large
extent the fact that the RAF requirement is falling and the next
significant fall is at the beginning of the next financial year.
Q8 Robert Key: Could I ask the Permanent
Under Secretary on what date he received this latest information
which is now in our possession?
Mr Jeffrey: In order to be sure
that I give the Committee an accurate answer, I had better check
that. My recollection is that I saw this material, and unless
Mr Woolley has a clearer recollection than I have or one of my
colleagues can advise me immediately, I do not want to give the
Committee the wrong information on this. My personal recollection
is that it was towards the end of last week.[3]
Chairman: You are just about to have
an opportunity.
Q9 Robert Key: My second point is:
and on what date were the papers which the Permanent Under Secretary
received dated? In other words, when were those papers actually
prepared for the Permanent Under Secretary? What was the date
of those papers?
Mr Jeffrey: We had better establish
that clearly. I do not have that information in my head.
Robert Key: You see, Chairman, I am most
concerned here that we are in danger of drifting into the main
body of the session, whereas I am extremely concerned that this
Committee is being treated with enormous disrespect. It is the
sort of problem that we hear our constituents and servicemen complaining
about the whole time, about the sheer laziness of the Ministry
of Defence in performing its duty. If the Ministry of Defence
cannot inform the Defence Committee at the requested time of something
as serious as this, there is something seriously wrong. I think
we should not talk any more now but we should go into private
session and decide how we are going to handle this situation.
Chairman: There are still one or two
more questions.
Mr Jenkins: I totally agree with what
Mr Key said. He voiced what my feeling is exactly. I would want
to know when they disregarded the date they were given to supply
us with this report; who decided to disregard that date; who decided
not to take into account the time this would spend on the Minister's
desk, etc. Do they think they are unaccountable? Do they think
they do not have to bother with Parliament or with this Committee,
or is this just indicative of the MOD's
overall approach? I find it very, very frustrating, to say the
least.
Mr Borrow: I would be interested to know
whether someone in the department is given the job of progress
chasing the reports with the view that it had to be with the officials
of this Committee by 31 October and who would have the job of
informing the officers of this Committee if it was going to be
a couple of days late. What I cannot understand is how it can
be nearly a fortnight late and no intimation of that was given
to the Committee prior to that.
Chairman: As I understand it, we were
told it was going to be late. We were kept well informed that
it was going to be late.
Mr Borrow: On 31st?
Chairman: The Committee officers kept
pressing for this and were told that it was going to be late,
and so I think it comes down to the processes in the Ministry
of Defence having completely ignored the timetable that was set
by this Committee, which seems to us to have been a perfectly
reasonable timetable. I think it would be right now to go into
private session and to consider what we do about it. We will go
into private session. While we are in private session, do you
think you could find out the answers to the questions that Robert
Key and Brian Jenkins asked?
The witnesses and public were asked to withdraw
and after a short time were again called in.
Q10 Chairman: While we have been
in private session we have decided that this extra information
is so central to the things that we need to ask about and to the
work that the Ministry of Defence does and the changes are so
significant that we shall not continue with this session this
morning but we will try to find an extra day, if at all possible,
within the next few weeks to meet to resume this session. It is
unlikely to be on a Tuesday morning as our normal meeting time
is; it is likely to be at some other time, maybe in the evening,
I do not know. We are extremely unhappy about this delay. While
you were out, did you manage to find any answers to the questions
that we were asking, Mr Jeffrey?
Mr Jeffrey: I have some answers,
Chairman. I want to write to you to apologise for this anyway,
but it would be wise for me to write to you with answers to the
questions that were raised. What I might say and would want to
say in response to one of your questions is that I completely
inadvertently gave the wrong answer in the session just before
you broke, in particular when you were asking when I first received
this material myself. I had a recollection of receiving it at
the end of a week and clearing it over the weekend. In fact, it
was a week earlier. It came to me on 1st or 2nd November; we are
checking which. I looked at it over the weekend. The timescale
had been extended I believe by the Clerk to 5th. I had a number
of questions on it myself and I submitted it to the Secretary
of State on 5 November.[4]
I do think we ought to give you a full account of this, but I
did want immediately to correct one error that I slipped into
when you were asking questions earlier.
Chairman: I think you should give us
a full account of it. One thing that I must make plain is that
we have in the room the liaison officer who is the liaison link
between the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Committee. We
should make it absolutely plain that this was way above her pay
grade and there is nothing whatever to blame her for, but it seems
to me that if you submitted to the Secretary of State something
on the day of the extended deadline, which itself was the final
cut-off date, then that was unacceptable.
Q11 Mr Jenkin: You may prefer to
give an answer in your letter than now. I am holding the Performance
Report for Quarter 1 2007-08, which refers to the quarter ended
31 June presumably. Am I to understand that this performance report
was only signed off a few days ago?
Mr Jeffrey: It was only finally
signed off. There was a process between the end of June and when
the information was gathered and we had a first discussion of
it in September. I think it was becoming clear then that we were
off-course on one or two of these targets, but the final submission
and clearance of that PSA report took place very recently, around
the timescales I have given. However, I would welcome the Committee's
indulgence to send a letter to you. I want to be absolutely clear
about this so that we do not mislead you at all.
Chairman: We would like such a letter.
Mr Hancock: But preferably before we
meet next.
Q12 Mr Jenkin: Would you observe
that performance targets are really only relevant if they are
treated with urgency and the department does not seem to be treating
the performance targets and assessment of targets with sufficient
urgency.
Mr Jeffrey: The material that
contributes to them is complex and it takes time to analyse but
I take the general point that Mr Jenkin makes.
Chairman: In rearranging this meeting,
we shall expect considerable flexibility from your department
as to when its coming about can be. Thank you. I declare the meeting
closed.
1 Note by witness: Bill Jeffrey subsequently corrected
this answer. The Department first submitted draft answers to the
Committee's questions on 31 October; these were then revised in
the light of other comments received and resubmitted on 2 November. Back
2
Note by witness: Bill Jeffrey also corrected this answer; he
first saw a draft of the PSA Performance Report for Quarter 1
in mid-September which included the assessment that the readiness
target was unlikely to be met, although the judgements in it were
not settled until formally approved by the Secretary of State
on 12 November. Back
3
See footnote 1. Back
4
Note by witness: Bill Jeffrey cleared the draft answers on 5 November
and submitted them to the Defence Secretary's office on 6 November. Back
| 
