Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
MINISTRY OF
DEFENCE
18 FEBRUARY 2008
Q20 Keith Hill: It goes without saying
that people who have served the country deserve the same opportunities,
if not better opportunities, than the rest of the population.
Sir Bill Jeffrey: Absolutely.
Q21 Keith Hill: I wonder if it is
true that you are doing as much as possible to help them into
owner-occupation. If you look at paragraph 3.7 on page 24, yes
it refers to the scheme to facilitate home ownership but it does
say that the personnel are only eligible for the loan if they
are purchasing their only property, which is reasonable, and they
are planning to occupy it. Given the peripatetic nature of the
military life, which we have agreed on already, is that not a
slightly limiting condition? Would it not be worth having a look
at the possibility of helping people into owner-occupation even
if it were for the slightly notorious buy-to-let market, but certainly
to have the opportunity to acquire a property which they might
want to rent out in the interim and at least would be something
for them to go into at the end of the process? Is it worth having
a look at that?
Mr Baker: We have taken the view
to date that we would not encourage people to buy-to-let as such,
but the rules surrounding the Long Service Advance of Pay are
not really as restrictive as paragraph 3.7 might give the impression.
You qualify for the loan if you intend to occupy it but if the
exigencies of the Service take you to a different location there
are provisions for you to continue to receive the Long Service
Advance of Pay. The terms of the loan change slightly if you are
not occupying the property but you can certainly continue to receive
it.
Keith Hill: I am pleased to hear it.
I do not want to labour these points but it does seem to me that
there are some apparent inequities in terms of opportunities for
own-occupation. We want these people to have the best opportunities,
so all I can say is I would urge the Department and the Services
to perhaps work even harder to ease people into home ownership.
Q22 Dr Pugh: Would it be fair to
say that the resettling of people who have left the Army is a
relatively low priority for the Forces. The Forces is about defending
the nation, fighting wars and so on, and this is not part of the
fundamental mission statement of military forces, is it, resettling
people?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I can only speak
for myself. My sense since I arrived in the MoD has been that
this issue is one that the Armed Forces take seriously for the
very reason that the earlier question implied, which is that these
are people who we do owe a significant debt to as a society and
we owe it to them to ensure, particularly given that the occupation
is one which by its nature involves them leaving in what the rest
of us would regard as mid-career, that we do as good a job for
them as we can. I sense, and the Air Commodore and anyone else
can speak for themselves, that is the view my Service colleagues
take. It is obviously the case that the closer you get to the
frontline the more other preoccupations begin to intrude and that
is one of the things that in our follow-up to this Report we have
been addressing. I do not think there is any lack of appreciation
that this is an important issue.
Q23 Dr Pugh: Would it also be fair
to say that part of the recruitment platform of the Forces is
to emphasise the benefits of going through the Forces in terms
of what career opportunities open up in terms of the experience
that they will get? A lot of the propaganda to join the Army and
so on seems to testify to this, does it not?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: It is certainly
the case that one of the things the Armed Forces succeed in is
in making people more employable when they leave than when they
join.
Q24 Dr Pugh: And to some extent say
they will succeed in doing that, do they not, when they recruit
people?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: Indeed. Some
of our analysis, and my colleagues may have more detail, bears
that out. Our recruitment levels are holding up. One of the reasons
we believe we are still relatively successful is because we offer
that prospect.
Q25 Dr Pugh: It is really a question
of how many come out of the other end with that kind of experience
having been good for them and have established a career or are
looking towards establishing themselves a career. It seems that
few of the junior ranks when they leave attend the briefings.
It also seems that amongst the Early Service Leavers very few
get referred to central transition support or second line support.
It seems that the staff who deal with that very often are themselves
subject to a very high turnover and the people in the Army performing
this service for them often have no specialist training. Does
it look like resettlement in part is just going through the motions
in some aspects of Service life anyway?
Air Commodore Miles: If I may
pick that one up, Dr Pugh. The issues that you have identified
there are issues which have been recognised in the Army, which
is why there is a significant programme within the Army at the
moment to improve the management and delivery of resettlement
services at unit level. That is extending much wider than just
the promulgation of a quality management manual. There is a systemic
programme spread over the first six months of this year which
is a root and branch review, a better training package which will
be mandatory for the Army first line support, independent oversight,
independent of the chain of command, by educational professionals
of the delivery of resettlement performance at unit level, and
it has been enshrined in the Army audit of unit's process as well.
Q26 Dr Pugh: But the NAO found little
evidence of much monitoring of performance of resettlement support.
What you seem to be saying is that it is improving but in some
aspects it is still deficient.
Air Commodore Miles: We would
acknowledge that what the NAO found was a statement of the position
as they found it. We have sought to build on their recommendations
to develop this programme, certainly within the Army which needs
development of its processes and better oversight to ensure what
should be being delivered according to policy actually is being
delivered.
Q27 Dr Pugh: Following up the line
of questioning developed by Mr Hill, how many go through the Army,
say, and basically go back to living with mum, no permanent job,
no permanent home? How many people have not benefited in any employment
sense from going through the Army? Can you give us an idea of
what rough percentage it might be?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I think it is
very hard to do so. If the Committee would find it useful, we
could write to you about that issue.[2]
Q28 Dr Pugh: It would be helpful.
Sir Bill Jeffrey: It is a complicated
issue because it faces both those who stay longer and those who
leave earlier. The record in relation to those who stay longer—
Q29 Dr Pugh: When people leave do
you make an assessment of their employability, things like their
overall level of literacy?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: That is one
of the assessments that is made.
Q30 Dr Pugh: For everybody who leaves
you know what their reading age is, for example?
Air Commodore Miles: I cannot
answer that question. I would assume that that is part of the
assessment that is made when individuals—
Q31 Dr Pugh: Some people leave the
Army these days because they are found to have taken recreational
drugs. I understand cannabis hangs about in the system and is
often picked up. They are discharged because it is in their system.
Clearly there will be different sorts of people who get discharged
under those circumstances. There will be people who are occasional
recreational users of a drug like cannabis and there will be other
people who have a serious drug problem. Do you know how many people
you are releasing with a serious drug problem?
Mr Baker: The total numbers who
are exiting the forces each year as a result are 600 to 700. We
do have an intervention programme run by the Ministry of Defence.
Q32 Dr Pugh: Not all the people will
be added?
Mr Baker: Not all the people will
be added to that.
Q33 Dr Pugh: How many of them are
addicts? How many people have you discharged believing them to
be drug addicts?
Mr Baker: I could not answer that
question. What I am saying is that we do have a programme to rehabilitate
some drug users. Clearly, that is based on an assessment, not
simply of their drug habit but of their value and aptitude as
soldiers, sailors and airmen.
Q34 Dr Pugh: Can we switch now to
mental health? There was a Report out last week from the Commons
Defence Committee in which they said, "The Ministry of Defence
are trying to tackle the mental health care for serving members
of the forces but once they had given up their military career
there was no system of ensuring that their specific needs were
understood by civilian doctors." Is an independent medical
assessment made of people as they are discharged, both in terms
of the state of their physical health and also in terms of their
mental health?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I think we would
accept the Defence Select Committee's strictures on the point
about follow-up. There is a new model for community mental health
services for veterans which ministers announced back in November.
We are piloting a different approach and building up to six sites
under which there will be access to clinicians with expertise
in veterans' mental health who will provide assessment and help
with suitable feedback. There is certainly a lot going on. This
will be led by the NHS.
Q35 Dr Pugh: At the point at which
the person is discharged for whatever reason, do you have a clear
picture and an independent assessment of the state of their mental
and physical health? The reason why I say that is that I have
two pieces of case work that I am dealing with in my constituency.
In one case, a soldier in the 1950s who was poisoned at Porton
Down and has claimed that he has suffered physically ever since
and another man who was involved in the shoot to kill policy in
Aden which apparently the British forces had and for many, many
years has been in discussion, shall we say, with the Veterans'
Agency over what the Army should or should not have done with
him. In both cases, they would have been enormously assisted at
the point at which they left the services if they themselves had
been properly and adequately assessed. In terms of future cases,
have we got to the stage now, when people leave, where we have
an adequate picture of how they are mentally and physically situated?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I believe we
are getting there. Certainly in relation to cases in the past
one thing we have done is to extend the medical assessment programme
to veterans so that their GPs will have access to expert military
assessments to help them deal with these issues later in life.
Mr Baker: There is the extension
of the opportunity for any veteran who feels they might have mental
health difficulties arising from service since 1982 to attend
the Medical Assessment Programme at St Thomas's Hospital where
there is a consultant psychiatrist.
Q36 Dr Pugh: I do accept it is a
very complicated area.
Mr Baker: The problem which is
widely acknowledged is that with mental health issues particularly
it can take a very long time for issues to manifest themselves.
Q37 Dr Pugh: If you do not have the
assessment at the point at which they leave, you have less data
to go on, have you not really?
Mr Baker: You cannot always pick
up a mental health problem.
Q38 Dr Pugh: You agree with combat
stress. You told the Defence Committee that the average period
between leaving the service and developing mental health problems
could be about 15 years.
Mr Baker: It can be a long time,
certainly.
Q39 Geraldine Smith: Can I go back
to housing first of all because certainly that struck me as still
a problem for a lot of Service Leavers. When we were on the visit
speaking to some of the people who obviously had their act together
and knew what they were doing in terms of employment and everything,
I think housing was the one issue that they raised. I think it
is this difficulty of how you get people onto the property ladder.
I am not sure I would be encouraging them to go for buy to let
but I am not sure what we should be doing. I think we should be
doing more than we are when people come into the services to at
least give them the advice to think long term, particularly if
they are in for a number of years. That does not seem to occur.
For a number of people we have spoken to, it was not pointed out
to them over the period that they would be in the services how
much the prices would increase and maybe we should be doing something
about that. Should we not be giving people advice when they join
the forces to start with?
Air Commodore Miles: In terms
of offering people advice on the options, the Joint Services Housing
Advisory Office holds regular regional housing briefings throughout
the country. You do not have to be a Service Leaver to attend
these and we encourage service personnel and their spouses to
attend them. Those briefings outline all the options put to people
and hopefully, if people attend early on in their careers, it
will give them some pause for thought certainly in terms of looking
at some of the initiatives that the MoD has in hand to help with
house purchase. The key worker status initiatives which have now
been rolled out throughout England and I believe Wales as well
will give people access to low cost residential property that
they can aspire to own.
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