Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
MINISTRY OF
DEFENCE
18 FEBRUARY 2008
Q40 Geraldine Smith: Do you do any
work with, say, building societies and things to see if there
could be preferential mortgages?
Mr Baker: Yes, we do. There is
a variety of schemes already in place, bespoke schemes, for service
personnel involving shared equity arrangements with commercial
providers. There is also the discount that Annington Homes offer
to ex-service personnel buying their houses that are released
by the Ministry of Defence through the Annington contract. Phil
has mentioned the key worker living programme. We began that in
2006 with the first time buyers and the new build scheme but we
have made an important breakthrough there with the DCLG in that,
since November 2007, we now have access to the open market home
buy scheme which we think will be much more attractive to service
personnel. We have also managed to extend eligibility for that
from London and the South East across the whole of England. That
is heading in the right direction. We mentioned long service advance
of pay. Just to give you a feel for the number of people that
helps, there are 31,000 people currently in receipt of long service
advance of pay to help pay for their property and that scheme
still attracts 3,000 or so new participants every year so there
is quite a lot going on.
Q41 Geraldine Smith: There seems
to be quite often a problem when single people leave their services
and find accommodation. Indeed, I had a young woman who came to
see me who had a reasonably good job and everything that she had
obtained since leaving the forces but housing was the problem.
She did not know anything about this organisation, SPACES. Can
you tell me a bit about it because at the time when she came to
see me I did not know about it either unfortunately. How do you
make service personnel aware of that?
Mr Baker: We have consciously
picked up the fact that SPACES may not be as widely advertised
amongst Service Leavers as is appropriate and we have taken steps
to ensure that the knowledge of SPACES is more widely available.
SPACES is something that is run as an MoD contract which is run
through the English Churches Housing Group and it provides assistance
to single people who might need accommodation when leaving the
services. Some 3,500 have been helped since it was established.
Q42 Geraldine Smith: What sort of
liaison do you have with local authorities about Service Leavers
and assistance with housing? My own local authority operates a
points system and I think you should have some points for being
in the services. If you have done your duty to your country and
are prepared to sacrifice your life ultimately, then your country
should do something for you.
Sir Bill Jeffrey: This has been
a problem and the NAO Report picks it up as a problem because
historically entitlement to social housing has traditionally been
based on local connection and homelessness. The Housing Regeneration
Bill that is before Parliament now deals with the local connection
point by making it clear that effectively it does not apply to
members of the Armed Forces. If it receives Royal Assent before
the summer, it should come into effect at the beginning of next
year. The issue about homelessness is more complicated. The NAO
Report goes into the fact that some authorities are a bit inclined
to argue that Service Leavers do not qualify for social housing
until we have evicted them from our property and in some cases
even secured a court order. Here, the existing homelessness code
of guidance should be sufficient, we believe, to prevent this
happening but we are talking to the Department of Communities
and Local Government about ways of strengthening the guidance
so that it is less likely that authorities will take that attitude
in the future.
Q43 Geraldine Smith: It was very
interesting to go on the visit and I thank you for your time when
we were there. Speaking to some of the people again who were Service
Leavers, one of the things they seemed to indicate was that some
of the programmes and courses they could go on, when they went
back, they were faced with a lot of work because they had to take
time off to do these various courses. Some of them were very useful
to them but it was very difficult to fit them in. Do you think
it is a problem really that not enough resources are put behind
ensuring, particularly in the junior ranks, that they can go on
the resettlement programme? Should it not be a greater priority,
just accepting that whilst you may say they are able to go, if
they know they are going to have to go back and face such a huge
backlog of work, it may put them off?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: In the NAO survey,
as I said earlier, the numbers saying that volume of work was
an inhibitor were relatively small but I am quite sure you are
right. One knows from other experience that often in bureaucratic
terms you go back to the in-tray that you left. It is not like
that directly for members of the Armed Forces but there are equivalents
of it and we clearly need to encourage down the chain of command
an attitude that gives people the space to do these things and
not feel that they are just suffering in terms of the day job.
Air Commodore Miles: If individuals
are not able to take their resettlement entitlement due to pressure
of work, they can apply to have their resettlement deferred. Only
small numbers actually do. I do have the figures if you would
like them.
Q44 Geraldine Smith: Again, so few
of the junior ranks attend the financial briefings. Have you identified
why that is the case and are you doing more to encourage them
to do so?
Air Commodore Miles: The answer
is yes. The financial briefings are focused in two areas really.
One is to explain about service pensions. That of course is something
which is probably not going to be relevant to the very junior
people who have not reached pensionable age. The second element
is looking at more general, financial management investment. The
NAO Report identified that potentially they saw that there was
a gap in the market for courses for some individuals on budgetary
management, household management, that sort of thing. We have
identified and addressed that. It does not apply to many people
but we have identified an FSA package which is quite outstanding,
which we will make available to Service Leavers hopefully from
the end of this month on a self-learning package through the Defence
Learning Portal and signpost people to that should they wish to
have it. The Department also has a plan to have household budgeting
and management seminars for service personnel generally. Of course,
inculcating people into good financial habits is a lifelong process
and we try to do that with recruits when they first join the Armed
Forces. We do not always succeed.
Mr Baker: That final point is
another FSA product, the workplace based seminar which we hope
to launch.
Q45 Chairman: I want to take up one
point underlining Geraldine Smith's questioning. This is in paragraph
3.21 on page 26 which we have already alluded to. "There
are additional concerns that a small number of local authorities
are delaying acceptance of the main homelessness duty until the
courts grant an order for possession to Defence Estates ... Not
only would the Service Leaver have to pay court fees and increased
rent for the period of the regular occupancy, this period of a
regular occupancy could cause unnecessary anxiety and stress,
especially for the small number of Service Leavers leaving on
mental health grounds." I think this is disgraceful. People
who have been asked to fight to their country are in a situation
where one part of the public sector is evicting them from another
part of the public sector and if we achieve nothing else this
afternoon, Sir Bill, I would like you to give a commitment to
this Committee, particularly as we have a Housing Bill going through
Parliament at the moment, that we can put a stop to this.
Sir Bill Jeffrey: As I have said,
what we are discussing with the DCLG at the moment is ways of
tightening up guidance which ought in fact, in my view, to prevent
this happening anyway because it makes it clear that authorities
should not wait for us to evict people before engaging with them.
Q46 Chairman: You do agree that it
is a scandalous state of affairs?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: It is. I agree
entirely. At the moment, the discussion is about can we tighten
this up at the administrative level. Clearly, if that does not
work then there may be a legislative option.
Q47 Mr Dunne: Sir Bill, from the
introduction to the NAO Report, it is clear that you have a recruitment
need of the order of 20,000 a year into the services and in the
last year some 25% more than that left, 24,600. Is there a pattern
of gradual decline which is being deliberately engineered by the
Department or is that a coincidence?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: It is certainly
not being engineered by the Department. The current position on
manpower and retention is complicated. I would say, as I said
earlier, that our recruitment levels are healthy in the sense
that we are achieving for all three services a high proportion
of the targets that are set. In the Army, we are not succeeding
in converting that into trained strength to the degree that we
are targeting. Although the voluntary outflow rates, which are
in effect the percentage leaving every year before the end of
their planned engagements, are pretty stable across all three
services, there are some signs that they are edging up and there
are some areas of concern. If you take all that together, we are
still a few percentage points short of the strength of the Armed
Forces that we need and we do need to manage intake with departures
in the way that your question implies.
Q48 Mr Dunne: Is the current streamlining
exercise affecting service personnel or is that purely the support
staff?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: The head office
streamlining exercise does cover head office people who are dealing
with the high policy, if you like, of service personnel issues
but it does not touch those in the single services themselves,
although there have been, it is fair to admit, efficiency exercises
in the service headquarters as well.
Q49 Mr Dunne: Can you quantify in
order of magnitude how many service personnel would be covered
by the streamlining exercise?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: About 300 in
a head office that has about 1,200 or so. I have taken your question
to be about those service personnel who happen to work in the
head office in London.
Q50 Mr Dunne: Indeed.
Sir Bill Jeffrey: That is a little
more than 1,000 people of whom 200 or 300 I would say, as we work
our way through this, we will be able to redeploy back into their
services. The streamlining exercise has a bearing on these issues
at the very centre of the Department but it does not touch the
single service headquarters, for example, where much of the important
work is done.
Q51 Mr Dunne: You used the word "redeploy"
which I suspect is a euphemism because many of these officers
will be reaching the end of their natural careers and there may
not be a role for them to be redeployed into in a shrinking service.
Sir Bill Jeffrey: Some will but
the streamlining exercise will take place over two or three years
during which most people in that position would have come to the
end of their posting anyway, but many will not. What is quite
striking about the MoD head office is that it is a place through
which pass many of the rising stars of the Armed Forces, and so
many will complete their term in the head office and then move
on to greater things.
Q52 Mr Dunne: Are the Armed Services
exempt from age discrimination legislation?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I had better
leave that to my colleagues but I think they are, yes.
Mr Baker: Yes.
Q53 Mr Dunne: Which is why the current
retirement age, from looking at the table on page one, would be
54 or 55. Would that be right?
Mr Baker: The normal retirement
age is 55.
Q54 Mr Dunne: Have you considered
extending the retirement age as a means of bridging this gap in
recruitment that you have highlighted, because I understand many
other NATO forces have an older retirement age?
Mr Baker: We have certainly looked
at that. 55 is not hard and fast. That is the point at which full
pension entitlement is payable under the Armed Forces pension
schemes but some do serve on if there is a need for their services,
if they are in particular skilled areas, so 55 is not necessarily
the end of the road. We have looked at whether the case for amending
normal retirement age from 55 exists. Our feeling at the moment
is not but we do keep that under review and clearly the basic
need for the Armed Forces is to maintain throughput and ensure
that they have a fit, predominantly young workforce to deliver
the operational commitments.
Q55 Mr Dunne: Indeed, and clearly
one would not look to be sending people of above your current
retirement age into active service but there are plenty of roles
undertaken by service personnel where continued experience would
be very valuable. When you say it is not an absolute cut-off,
how widely known is this within their services? Do people who
are coming up for retirement have any opportunity to take advantage
of a later retirement?
Mr Baker: Indeed, yes. I think
we can send you a note, if that would help, telling you how many
people serve on beyond 55.[3]
Sir Bill Jeffrey: A factor obviously
is that people who accumulate their full pension entitlement,
especially at the sort of age where they might well be looking
for a second career anyway, may be less keen to stay on but there
is nothing to prevent it in principle.
Air Commodore Miles: I can confirm
that on a personal basis. My retirement date should be in April
but I have been extended until August.
Q56 Mr Dunne: Four months?
Air Commodore Miles: Yes.
Q57 Mr Dunne: At your own request?
Were you aware that it could happen or was that a request made
of you by the Department?
Air Commodore Miles: It was convenient
to the Department and it was convenient to me. I was offered the
opportunity to serve a little longer in this appointment and I
was happy to do it because of the programmes I am currently running.
Q58 Mr Dunne: As you have volunteered
your own case, if you were offered the opportunity to continue
working until you were, say, 60 within the Department, is that
something which would be attractive to you? The point I am making
is that this may technically be an opportunity but it is not actually
realistic for most serving officers.
Air Commodore Miles: If the job
was one that I would find interesting and I felt that I could
give something to the Department, yes, I would.
Q59 Mr Dunne: I think that is very
helpful and, Mr Baker, I would urge you to consider this as a
serious way of helping to bridge this recruitment gap. Can I pick
up some of Dr Pugh's questions about the impact of mental health
on the services? I think I took from what Mr Baker was saying
that you are now undertaking medical assessments of people on
departure. Is that correct? Is that a routine assessment?
Mr Baker: There is a routine,
physical check on departure, yes.
3 Note by witness: As at 1 January 2008 there
were 330 Regular Service personnel aged 55 and over. There were
also 295 Full Time Reserve Service personnel aged 55 and over,
and of our Mobilised Reservists, 30 were aged 55 or over. The
figures are provisional due to ongoing validation of data from
the new Joint Personnel Administration system. They have been
rounded to the nearest 5 in line with our standard rounding policy.
These figures exclude Sponsored Reserves, Adult Cadet Force Volunteers,
the Volunteer Reserve except those called out, Military Provost
Guard Service and Non-Regular Permanent Staff. Back
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