Uncorrected Evidence 424

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Defence Committee

on Tuesday 22 April 2008

Members present

Mr James Arbuthnot, in the Chair

Mr David S Borrow

Mr David Crausby

Linda Gilroy

Mr David Hamilton

Mr Mike Hancock

Mr Bernard Jenkin

Mr Brian Jenkins

Mr Kevan Jones

Robert Key

John Smith

________________

Memorandum submitted by the Ministry of Defence

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Mr Chris Baker OBE, Director General of Service Personnel Policy, Rear Admiral Charles Montgomery CBE, Naval Secretary, Major General Andrew Gregory, Director General Personnel (Army)], Air Vice Marshal Simon Bryant CBE, Air Secretary, Major General Simon Lalor TD, Assistant Chief of Defence Staff, Cadets and Reserve Forces, and Vice Admiral Peter Wilkinson CVO, Deputy Chief of Staff Personnel, Ministry of Defence, gave evidence.

Q212 Chairman: This is a further evidence session into recruitment and retention. I welcome you to the Committee. I am sorry that we kept you waiting at the beginning. We have a large number of witnesses and questions. Each witness should not feel required to answer every question because that would take us until breakfast tomorrow, but some of these issues are directed at the particular specialisations of the witnesses. I start by asking you to introduce yourselves and to set out very briefly your roles.

Major General Gregory: I am Andrew Gregory, director general personnel, and I am in charge of both setting personnel policies and ensuring on behalf of the commander-in-chief the delivery of those policies across the Army.

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: I am Vice Admiral Peter Wilkinson, deputy chief of defence staff for personnel in the Ministry of Defence. I am charged by CDS and ministers to produce sufficient capable and motivated personnel for the operations required according to the government's policies.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: I am Air Vice Marshal Simon Bryant, chief of staff personnel for the Royal Air Force and also the air secretary, so I am concerned with personnel policy and also human relationships management.

Mr Baker: I am Chris Baker and I work for Vice Admiral Wilkinson in the Ministry of Defence as director general of service personnel policy.

Rear Admiral Montgomery: I am Charles Montgomery, chief of staff personnel at fleet and also naval secretary and deputy principal personnel officer responsible for strategic personnel policy, that is, the operational as well as tactical deployment of people.

Major General Lalor: I am Major General Simon Lalor, senior reservist. I am assistant chief of defence staff reserves and cadets and am responsible for tri-service policy for the reserves and cadets in defence.

Q213 Chairman: Let us start with public perceptions of the Armed Forces which play such an important part in recruitment and retention. I suggest it is quite important for the public to have direct contact with the Armed Forces rather than simply through the media. If that is the case what sort of initiatives are most successful in providing that real contact between the public and the Armed Forces?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: I think this is a question for each of the Services to deal with. Perhaps Major General Gregory can start by talking about some of the marketing and outreach activities that the Army undertakes.

Q214 Chairman: I was hoping that somebody would explain to me exactly what an outreach activity was.

Major General Gregory: I will try. An outreach initiative is one where we take Army personnel out into the wider community to explain the roles and activities of the Service. We do it through a number of forums: first, within schools. Where invited we will visit schools on behalf of careers advisers not in terms of recruiting but curriculum development particularly to support their activities on a wider basis. We visit about 1,000 schools a year and have found that is much welcomed by the schools themselves. More widely, we have an Army presentation team that based on invitation goes to forums to talk to a range of people, particularly gate-keepers and influence-formers, to give them a better understanding of the Army and its activities.

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: Perhaps it would be helpful if the Air Force could either expand on that or make clear any differences.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: First, at a lower level like Major General Gregory there is such an ability with the reserve and cadet forces which I am sure Major General Lalor will speak to in greater detail, but engagement must be done at strategic level as well and engagement with opinion-formers and gate-keepers, ie parents and the people who have influence above them, are key to assuring success. Some work has been done to suggest that at the moment this is a negative influence. Clearly, this is critical if we are looking at the recruiting side to address that concern.

Chairman: No doubt in the course of the morning we shall explore engagement with the gate-keepers in more detail.

Q215 Mr Jones: In terms of opinion-formers and people in various communities, why do you not contact Members of Parliament who have extensive contacts with schools in their own constituencies? On the one occasion I did it with the Royal Marines it was quite successful, but as a Member of Parliament I have never had any other service contact. I go regularly to many of the schools in my area. I am sure that would be quite welcome in terms of any input I can have in getting you past the gate-keepers.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: We are always trying to do better at everything, but there is a reasonable level of engagement. First, there is the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme, with which you are obviously well familiar. Second, at strategic level the heads of service engage on a regular basis with MPs through information groups. The chief of the Air Force does this.

Q216 Mr Jones: It is a group of Tory MPs.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: But it is part of the engagement strategy. The other point I make is that at local level what tends to happens is that one uses one's platforms or stations as the source of influence. Therefore, their local engagement will be significant. In the case of the Royal Air Force that platform runs pretty much throughout the United Kingdom.

Q217 Mr Jones: I do not have only Army, RAF or Royal Navy stations in my constituency but there are large numbers of people who join the Armed Forces. Why do you not engage with their Members of Parliament who would help the process?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: I think that is a helpful point. Perhaps I may remind the Committee of the national recognition study led by Quentin Davies announced by the government last November, its objectives being to encourage greater understanding and appreciation of the Armed Forces by the nation. Obviously, I cannot anticipate in detail what Mr Davies's study will say, but from the work done so far I think the points Mr Jones makes are apposite to those that Mr Davies will pick up.

Mr Baker: We would be delighted to engage with you. If you have ideas on this matter the more the merrier.

Q218 Chairman: I am not aware of which schools in my constituency accept or invite these visits, but if I were aware would you like to do more of these visits? Are you funded to do more? Would it help recruitment if you did more of these visits?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: We operate within finite resources and our business is one of making sure that they are used to best effect. The context here is that we already do a great deal of engagement with schools, both state and private. Last year our regional teams visited 4,000 schools and colleges in the secondary sector and over 300 in the private sector, so we are already doing a very great deal in terms of engagement with schools, but this is always on the basis that schools are prepared to invite us to engage.

Q219 Mr Jones: If you made contact I and I am sure many Members of Parliament would be more than willing to see how you could get into schools with which you have difficulties. In the case of the Royal Marines which went to one of the schools in my area no thought had been given to having such a visit. I was quite happy to do that. In MPs you have a resource. Some would not do it but I think the majority would.

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: To go back to the original question about outreach, I think it is important that you hear from Major General Lalor about his work with cadets and reserves.

Q220 Chairman: I can assure you that we will cover cadets later. Generally speaking, is there a view about how you explain military life to the public in order to make its perception as beneficial as possible to your recruitment activities?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: Yes, there is and it must be conducted on as broad a front as possible. There is no single solution to fit all the relevant sectors of society that we are appealing to in terms of awareness in schools. This is very much designed to give people a greater understanding of the Armed Forces and is a separate activity from recruiting. We look at a different part of society for that. As you have already said, the need also to influence gate-keepers and people of standing in the community - headmasters and parents - is crucial. We have to advance on a broad front by a variety of means with the resources available to make as much impact as we can.

Q221 Chairman: Can you define the different part of society that you look at in relation to recruitment?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: I was thinking essentially of the age group.

Major General Gregory: This is a really important subject. You will have seen from the figures for the seven years we have submitted that the Army's budget - we use the word "advertising" but it is more than that - has increased from �5 million to �26 million. First, that reflects the importance we place upon the business of marketing the Army in its widest sense to make sure that opinion-formers particularly understand where we are going. We find that a significant proportion of that must be spent on removing ill-informed perception and opinion which is an important role for us. In terms of the totality of helping society to understand us - I pick up Mr Jones's question in particular - commander regional forces is undertaking a study at the moment to look at the Army in society, seeing how better across all the lines, including the point you make, we should pick up our involvement with society to make sure we cover all the strands and hit the right people so they understand us better.

Q222 Mr Hancock: I am interested to hear what you say about dispelling ill-founded perceptions and disinformation. You must have some feedback to suggest to you what those perceptions are. How on earth do you tackle that issue when you go to opinion-formers and start off by saying to them that obviously they have some mistrust or disillusionment with the Armed Forces? On what do you base that?

Major General Gregory: The Central Office of Information has made a range of surveys for us so we can better understand the opinions of the public and gate-keepers in particular. The sort of issues that come up are, first, public perceptions of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan which inevitably have an effect on people's willingness to join the Army, particularly parental opinions in that area. Inevitably, there are legacy concerns about things that have happened in the past - the Deepcut incident and things like that - where the perception is that this is still the Army of today which it is not. It is addressing things like that and also removing the opinions and concern of young people about being away from family, the general fear of going to war, being shot at and things like that.

Q223 Mr Hancock: When you have gained that knowledge you then have to have the right people equipped to take the proper message to people?

Major General Gregory: Absolutely.

Q224 Mr Hancock: One of the failures we found in the past, particularly in our inquiry into duty of care, was that the quality of some of the people doing this was not of the best. I am interested to know how you have overcome that so that the message you take out comes from people who are properly qualified to convey it in a positive way.

Major General Gregory: That is a key point. First, why do we use Army recruiting teams? They have all been CRB cleared so that when they go into schools they are properly qualified to do that sort of thing. Second, we look very carefully at those people we put into the Armed Forces careers offices to make sure they are balanced and convey a proper perception of the Services and in my case the Army in particular. Third, we look carefully - I am sure we will come on to this - at the people we put into the training of junior soldiers. All of them now go through the Army leadership school to make sure they are properly prepared for this. In addressing the issue it is absolutely fundamental that if we are to get the right number of people coming into the Army out of training, which is the key measure for me, we must have good people right from the start of the pipeline in the recruiting and training environment, and we are working very hard at it.

Q225 Robert Key: I want to return to cadets and school visits. I am delighted to hear that you visit 4,000 schools but I should like some clarification. In 2006 we were warned that the Ministry of Defence was reviewing the whole policy of visiting schools. In 2007 we were told that the process was coming to an end and would be replaced by videos, DVDs and online access to websites which we were assured was nothing to do with saving money and everything to do with the fact to gain access to young people and explain what the military was doing it was allegedly far more effective to do it through DVDs than through personal visits. Apparently, that is not part of your agenda. What has changed?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: Perhaps I may pick up that point since I mentioned the 4,000 school visits. Those school visits are not recruiting visits but are fundamental to increasing awareness of what the Armed Forces do in the round across a key section of the community. Going back to your very first question, you asked what kind of engagement was most effective in terms of improving awareness. One of the areas not covered in the responses so far has been the electronic media. The electronic media, be it DVDs, internet access or whatever, are fundamental in accessing 16 to 24 year-olds. It is not a question of school visits or DVDs; it is now a combination of these and other means of accessing key elements in the community.

Robert Key: I welcome that change of policy as undoubtedly it is. The Answers to Parliamentary Questions that I tabled made it quite clear that personal visits would cease, so that is very good news. I think we might press that further.

Q226 Chairman: I am confused about the numbers. Is it 1,000 schools and 4,000 visits? Are we talking of different Services or what?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: I am speaking on behalf of the Royal Navy. There are 4,000 school visits.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: And 450 for the Royal Air Force.

Q227 Robert Key: But how many for the Army?

Major General Gregory: A thousand.

Q228 Robert Key: It does not sound to me to be a very co-ordinated programme, if I may say so.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: What we are trying to do is to drive it to individual effect. Last year the problem faced by the Royal Air Force as it came towards the end of the service draw down was different. This year because we are now going back to traditional recruiting levels the number of visits has significantly ramped up. In terms of getting people to focus on doing core business which was the challenge over the past year, in that period we have brought together everything centrally and increasingly they will go out now to enhance the number of visits.

Q229 Robert Key: Is it reasonable to assume, or can you confirm, that the Ministry of Defence has increased your budget for school visits?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: That is a question for the individual Services rather than the MoD.

Q230 Robert Key: What is the answer from the individual Services?

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: We will be spending more money on school visits in the coming year. The budget per se is not divided up on the basis of having more money for school visits but in the way we allocate our resources a greater percentage will go there.

Q231 Robert Key: Can you please say what assessment the Ministry of Defence and each of the three Services have made of the resolution at the recent Easter conference of the National Union of Teachers not to allow the military into schools?

Major General Gregory: We have looked at that. We go only by invitation to support the curriculum. Therefore, where career advisers invite us we shall continue to go to support curriculum activities.

Q232 Robert Key: But what assessment have you made of the impact of this new NUT policy?

Major General Gregory: I think it is too early for me to tell.

Q233 Mr Hancock: It would appear that some are recruitment attempts and others are show boating the forces. There are two different roles here. One seeks to recruit and the other to generate greater understanding of what the Armed Forces are doing. Which is it, and who co-ordinates it from within the MoD?

Mr Baker: You are absolutely right. We have been looking at the way in which we interact with schools, recognising some of the points that Mr Jones made about the unevenness of coverage and the issues that arise because the distinction between our recruiting and outreach activities at schools may not be as clear as it might be. We plan to move forward with a new programme that will co‑ordinate effort and distinguish between those different categories. As far as concerns the NUT resolution, it is fair to say that so far we have not noticed any significant impact on our activities.

Q234 Mr Hancock: Within the MoD does funding for these visits as opposed to recruiting visits come out of the recruiting budget or another budget head?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: I can speak on behalf of one of the single Services. The answer is that it is a bit of both. Part of our outreach into schools has been through assets owned by Captain Naval Recruiting. Those visits have been made in part by assets owned by others, whether it be ship affiliations or school affiliations in which we are very active, and in part through very small dedicated teams, for example physical training instructors and others in academic fields, that have engaged specifically with schools and the curriculum. All the latter categories are not scored against the recruiting budget but the former categories are. Therefore, it is a bit of both.

Mr Jenkin: This is a very important line of questioning. There are two suggestions. First, is there a case for having a tri-Service school visit team to do the "awareness" point without disrupting the single Service, even single unit - particular battalions, squadrons or ships - relationships with particular schools? Has that been considered?

Chairman: I would like to come back to that in later questions.

Mr Hamilton: I want to go back to the first answer we received. The 1,000, 450 and 4,000 are extremely discouraging from our point of view because it sounds as if each organisation takes a different view. We are talking about a tripartite approach which will come out in other questions. I ask that those in power consider Mr Jones's earlier point and do this in a direct sense and they take up the cudgels with MPs. I have 46 schools in my area including six secondary schools which are different. Nobody knows my area better than the MP. I have barracks in my area but I have never been there by invitation. I have been there two or three times at my instance, not the barracks. This issue must be dealt with. I ask that you make a serious endeavour to make contact with all the MPs especially in those cases where there are no resources to help recruitment.

Mr Jones: I am trying to get my head round what Mr Hancock said in terms of co‑ordination between school recruitment visits and raising awareness and how that is determined. I do not have a clear view of how that is done. I have been on this Committee for seven years and I consider myself quite a strong supporter of the Armed Forces. I can tell you now that no one from any of the three services in the north east of England has ever contacted me either to ask my opinion or whether I can help with certain things. I reinforce Mr Hamilton's point: we are a resource that can be used.

Q235 Robert Key: What is the number of cadets in each of the three Services in our schools? Is it going up or down?

Major General Lalor: There is an aspiration to grow the cadet movement. All three single Services have their own intent in the way they manage their resources. To start the ball rolling, the RAF has a mature plan to increase the size of the air force cadets, but there is no defence policy as yet on where we might be in the size of that force in future. I emphasise "as yet" because this is very much a hot area. The government's admiration of the cadet movement as part of its youth policy is very welcome and I suggest that we shall see greater interest in and mature plans for cadet growth in future.

Q236 Robert Key: I ask the question in a completely different way. Is the number of cadets in each of the three Services going up or down?

Major General Gregory: I will have to come back to you on the specific question. I can tell you how many we have, but I do not have the historical data.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: For the RAF it is broadly level at about 40,000 and the stated aspiration is to go to 45,000 by 2015.

Q237 Robert Key: And the Royal Navy?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: Likewise, I will come back to you on the trends.

Q238 Robert Key: Do you have any knowledge - if not, please tell us later - of whether there is any difference in the number of cadets in English, Welsh and Scottish schools? Does a higher proportion of Scottish or English schools have cadet forces?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: We will have to get back to you with that information.

Q239 Robert Key: It is quite important that we make evidence-based suggestions. If we do not have the evidence it makes it a bit difficult. I move on to the reserves and their role in the link between the Armed Forces and wider society. Is this perceived to be a strong or weak link? Do you wish it to get stronger? Can you tell us about the nature of that link between the Armed Forces and wider society and the role of the reserves?

Major General Lalor: We consider it to have considerable value. When we talk of outreach we are fortunate that we have a greater national footprint than our regular counterparts and we are supported by a national network, ie the reserve forces and cadet associations. I would certainly be very disappointed if I heard that MPs with reserves and cadets in their areas were not contacted by the RFCAs because that is one of their main purposes. It is now acknowledged that this footprint, including the link with national and local employers, is of considerable importance to defence overall. I know you have taken evidence from SaBRE. For example, we now talk very much to SaBRE, not just about issues to do with reserves but about Armed Forces and society. Therefore, the answer to your specific question is that there is an aspiration that we can be more active using the totality of our national footprint, regular and reserve.

Q240 Robert Key: I wish you well because in an area like mine, Salisbury, HM Armed Forces are an everyday fact of life and are part of the community, but in other parts of England and the UK they are not.

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: That has been recognised and is the reason for Major General Lalor's answer that we have an aspiration. We realise that for many parts of the country it is only via the reserve forces that the average citizen has any contact with the Armed Forces at all. I think there has been a slow realisation of the importance of that particular role for the reserves.

Q241 Robert Key: How much does that depend upon resources and your having a budget to achieve that aspiration?

Major General Lalor: This morning I shall probably refer on numerous occasions to the reserves review announced in March which commenced on 1 April. One of our terms of reference is very much to try to bring out some science, so we might have some evidence of the cost and effect of this national footprint. In the past we have just accepted it as a good thing without really being able to analyse whether we are achieving effect and thus whether we should devote to it the same, less or more resources. That is a specific term of reference of the reserves review.

Q242 Robert Key: What assessment has been made - maybe it is a personal one - of how well United Kingdom forces are doing in terms of relations with schools, cadets and the place of reservists in national life compared with other NATO countries with which we are on front line in theatre and in peace-keeping?

Major General Lalor: Perhaps I may deal with cadets rather than the outreach into schools. As you suggest by your question, it is slightly subjective. I cannot compare it with other countries but I believe that the cadet movement is now respected more than it has been in my period of knowledge covering the past 30-odd years. I believe that is because of a greater understanding of the effect that the cadet movement has on the development of youth in this country.

Q243 Robert Key: I thought I saw a shaking head from the Royal Air Force.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: I do not have information about other countries.

Q244 Robert Key: I was asking specifically about other countries. Does anyone present have any knowledge about cadets and reservists in other NATO countries?

Major General Lalor: I have a lot of knowledge about reserves in other countries but not about cadets.

Q245 Robert Key: Therefore, we really do not know how we compare with other countries?

Major General Gregory: But what we can do is be very positive about the links between the Armed Forces collectively - the regular, the territorials and the cadets - with their local communities. The perception of the Armed Forces remains very high. The contact that people have is very strong and communities have had welcome home parades. Mr Key had one recently in Salisbury for The Rifles. They have been hugely well received on both sides of the community, so I believe that we have a very positive story to tell here.

Q246 Mr Jones: What are you doing to get cadets into units in state schools and away from private schools which traditionally are well represented? I am aware that last year when you extended this programme government minister, who will remain nameless, had to fight to talk to the Secretary of State for Defence himself to get one for his inner city comprehensive school in Newcastle. First, what are you doing about that? Second, what do you say about co‑ordination at local level among the three Services? There is a cadet force in Chester-le-Street in my constituency which is very well funded and has nice minibuses, but the Sea Cadets find it very difficult to get access to those resources. What are you doing to ensure that the money provided at local level to cadet forces is done in a tri-Service way? I know that the Sea Cadets are configured differently from the Army Cadets, but what are you doing to make sure that the impact of resources at local is the same?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: You have hit on the important point that the constitutions of the three different service cadet forces are completely different which leads to differences that can be seen at local level. Perhaps Major General Lalor can lead us through some of the steps he is now taking to try to iron out those differences.

Q247 Chairman: I want to come back to tri-services issues later. Perhaps you would concentrate on the point about state schools as opposed to private schools?

Major General Lalor: This a slight misnomer. In the schools there is an imbalance. There is a total of 260 units of which 60 are in state schools. This arises because of historical reasons because the original purpose in setting them up was to produce officers for the imperial forces. I would certainly take issue with the suggestion that there was resistance last year; quite the opposite. There was a clear intent to have six new CCFs all of which would be in state schools. There as never any question of them being anything else. The problem was one of finding schools prepared and interested in having those new cadet forces that the government instigated last year. Obviously, we have to acknowledge that there is a historical imbalance there, but I certainly do not think we should try arbitrarily to take resources away. What we get from the independent schools is a lot of other resources to assist the cadet movement. I was involved in a meeting only yesterday with Lord Adonis and the Under‑Secretary of State for Defence when the very subject of your question was being addressed. I think we have to improve everybody's knowledge of where they fit in. The majority of our cadets are in community-based rather than school-based cadet forces, but all the future growth to support the government's youth policy will be in schools and academies that are predominantly in disadvantaged areas because of the very real benefits that can now be shown from involvement in cadet activities.

Q248 Mr Jones: How will you do that?

Major General Lalor: The very purpose of the meeting yesterday was to try to reach a policy between two government departments. I think the aspiration is widely agreed and so we are getting into the area of "how" which is harder.

Q249 Mr Jones: Linda Gilroy just stole my thunder. Why do you not ask MPs to talk to their local schools? I am sure that a lot of MPs would be quite active in trying to get those relationships going.

Major General Lalor: I did mention the difficulty in finding volunteer schools for those six last year, but I am not saying that there is a barrier to growth of the cadet forces if we choose to go for growth. I believe there is plenty of ambition there. One of the new schools in Treorchy in South Wales has created an extraordinary interest. There are many schools in that area now asking, having seen the benefits of Treorchy, to have one too. If only it was that easy. You will appreciate that there is a resource implication, but it is not just pounds, shillings and pence; you must have sufficient adult volunteers to start and allow a cadet force to prosper. You also need the cadet training teams from the three single Services to support them. The commanding officer of Treorchy is head of PE and he put on uniform for the first in his life last September. You must have the infrastructure to support enthusiastic adult volunteers. We have to acknowledge factors that will influence our ability to grow the cadet movement.

Q250 Chairman: Will that initiative be covered in the reserves review?

Major General Lalor: The cadets are not covered by the reserves review, but from the meeting yesterday I can say that we have given ourselves a timeline of two months to take forward this area with Lord Adonis and the DCFS.

Chairman: The Committee consider this to be a fantastic method of educating young children and we hope you will keep us informed about what emerges from the policy discussions.

Q251 Mr Borrow: I want to probe one area to do with cadets in schools or cadets in the community. It takes us back to the point about cadets in some public schools which are seen as the traditional training ground for officers and the extent to which cadets forces are seen as a source of recruitment and training for the Armed Forces in general. Are there distinctions between different cadet groups, that is, between those that are aimed and focused on recruiting the ordinary squaddy in the Army, if you like, and those aimed at recruiting officers? One of the key things we ought to be aiming at is to ensure that if there is a cadet group working in the community or a school it focuses across the board so that in a state comprehensive it operates in a way that can offer careers as both officers and squaddies, and in the same way if it is a community organisation it can play it across the board. I am not sure to what extent the cadet groups later on will be focusing on that breadth of potential recruitment.

Major General Gregory: First, I must impress upon the Committee that cadets are not there for recruiting; they are part of the government's youth agenda. We do not see them as a means of gathering people either for the officer corps or in my case to become soldiers in the Army. It gives them a broader perspective and opportunity to develop as part of that programme which is a fantastic one. In terms of whether officers are prepared in combined cadet forces as opposed to Army Cadet Forces or in independent as opposed to state schools, they are definitely not. We may come to the statistics for independent as opposed to state school officer candidates who are now going through Sandhurst. At Sandhurst there are more state school than independent school candidates joining the Army. There is no correlation between the two.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: To make a quick point on Mr Jones's question, there is room for wider help outside schools because a lot of the ambition to expand the Cadet Forces is to be outside schools and the pinch point is to get adult volunteers, so encouragement across a broader front to facilitate that would be much appreciated.

Mr Jones: I raised the issue of the different constitutions of the organisations. Are we using effectively the resources that we put into cadets at local level as between the three Services? Is there scope to get them to share buildings and other things?

Chairman: Again, I want to come back to the tri-Service issue later. We are still on the second question and it is now 11.20.

Mr Jones: But this is about cadets and is an issue at local level that needs to be answered.

Chairman: Yes, and we shall come back to it.

Q252 John Smith: As to the role that cadets play, is there a specific problem with retention? In my constituency we are very successful with cadet groups and recruiting youngsters is not the real problem. The problem is keeping them because of competition within the community for other things to do. Has that fed through? Is that an issue or is it a matter about which you are relaxed?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: It is an acknowledged issue with youth groups, not just cadets, across the community. You are right that certainly it is an issue that all three Services are trying to tackle. Although we have to remember Major General Gregory's point that there is no link between a cadet group and recruiting we know that if somebody takes the decision to join one of the Services and has been in the cadets that individual stays for longer and gets to NCO quicker on average. Therefore, the experience that they gain in the cadets stands them in good stead if they should then decide to join the Services as a career.

Q253 Mr Jenkins: I believe Major General Gregory indicated that as many youngsters from state schools as from public schools turned up, but is it not true that of the student scholarships for officer courses for the Army 66 per cent were offered to youngsters from public schools and only 33 per cent from the state sector? Considering how much larger the state sector is, 90 per cent of the money going for officer student scholarships went to the public sector and only 10 per cent to the state sector. Is that true, and what are we doing about it?

Major General Gregory: As to the figures for sixth-form scholarships you are right, but you have to balance that by looking also at the opportunities offered at the defence sixth-form college at Welbeck where the figures are almost exactly the opposite: 85 per cent to state school candidates and 15 per cent to independent school candidates. Therefore, across the piece there is a much better balance of opportunity than the figures you present first indicate.

Q254 Mr Hancock: That is not the answer, is it? The answer is that in public schools where there is a higher percentage of involvement in the Cadet Forces it is put to them that one of the advantages of being in the cadet corps is that they stand a much better chance of getting the money to help them through student training. That is the difference. Where the incentive does not exist there is an imbalance. In state schools the Cadet Forces do not persist and the information is not readily available. I would be interested to know how many of the sixth forms in the nine secondary schools in my area are aware that this money is available. I would think very few schools would ever tell their students that that money was available. That is the answer.

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: Mr Hancock makes an important point. There is no discrimination against possible candidates from state schools in their applications for such scholarships, but it is a wider issue of awareness and understanding that we can perhaps do better to try to address.

Q255 Mr Hancock: That is a failing, is it not? If I were you and somebody asked me for that statistic I would be wondering why that was. I know what it is because I have spoken to youngsters. I was at an induction course recently in a school. A major from the Army to his credit mentioned that point. It was the first time I had heard anyone - I have done several of these in my schools - from the Armed Forces mention it to the students.

Major General Gregory: In principle I agree and I think you raise a very fair point. The key is to make sure that where careers advisers invite people in they give the broadest briefing on opportunities available, which they are beholden to do.

Mr Hancock: I am sure that most cadet corps commanders in public schools will tell young people of the advantages that flow from it and that does not happen in state schools, which is a great pity.

Q256 Chairman: Does the fact that your 1,000 visits are generated by invitations to schools mean it is more likely that private sector schools will issue them than public sectors schools?

Major General Gregory: No, it is significantly the reverse. The vast majority of invitations come from state school careers advisers.

Mr Borrow: Are we being told that the proportion of state schools that invite visits is higher than the proportion of public school invitations, or are we talking about the numerical position? Are there more invitations from state schools than private schools? Those are very different figures which have different implications.

Q257 Chairman: Can you come back to us on that?

Major General Gregory: I would have to. I understand the question.

Q258 Mr Hancock: I should like to address my first question to Vice Admiral Wilkinson and Mr Baker because it is about overall policy. Do you agree with the view that the traditional pools for recruitment to the Armed Forces have slowly but surely evaporated? If that is the case, what are you doing as policy leaders to look for new pools for recruits to the Armed Forces as a central theme? It must be apparent that the traditional areas of recruitment have all but dried up.

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: We have to look across the whole community to find recruits for three Armed Services. I do not think it is right to say that the traditional pools have dried up. Certainly, we have to be aware of different aspirations and expectations of young people as they come through the educational system and how they react to different media that are used to approach them, but I think we are as proactive as we can be in trying to make all sections of the community aware of the opportunities that a career in the Armed Forces offers.

Mr Baker: I absolutely endorse that. In our memorandum we have given you one or two examples of the fresh ways in which we approach society. We market our offer in line with contemporary commercial advice, identify different societal sectors and address the aspirations of each separately. We place the motivation of the individual increasingly at the centre of our offer.

Q259 Mr Hancock: "Societal sectors" is a new one on me. Perhaps you would provide a couple of indications of societal sectors. At whom would you be looking in specific sectors?

Mr Baker: The One Army Recruiting initiative is based on an analysis of the aspirations of society by sectors.

Q260 Mr Hancock: I am interested to know what sectors you specifically target, not for officers but rank and file service personnel coming into the Armed Forces at the bottom of the rack. From which sectors you are now engaging to recruit?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: I do not know whether the Committee has heard the phrase "One Army Recruiting".

Chairman: That is a matter to which we will come in some detail.

Mr Hancock: Referring to the educational aspirations of young people, more and more people seek to go into further education, whether it be FE colleges or otherwise.

Chairman: Before we get to that perhaps on the first question I might bring in Mr Bernard Jenkin.

Q261 Mr Jenkin: Is it not the case that in concentrating on recruitment at national level we rather under-value traditional recruiting pools? For example, if battalion commanders were given more responsibility to ensure their individual units were recruited as part of their overall task there might be more recruitment to the British Army. It is true, is it not, that some battalions are very well recruited and some are not and it depends very much on the emphasis that the commanding officers places on recruitment among his officers and men?

Major General Gregory: Partly. Inevitably, the emphasis that the commanding officer places on it will depend on other things he is doing and his other commitments. If he is committed to operations he may not be able at that time to commit resources specifically to recruiting. When they have time most of them see this as a priority, but what we are trying to do - the Chairman has mentioned One Army Recruiting - is to make sure we have a more coherent overall approach to recruiting for both the Regulars and Territorial Army and look at all the factors available. We have to make sure that as young people come to Army recruiting teams we can look at their personal circumstances and aspirations and see which part of the Armed Forces best suits their aspirations and abilities and then direct them towards that. That is the key thing. That is then supported by regimental initiatives at a lower level but co-ordinated within the regional chain of command and through the activities of recruiting groups. We try to make sure there is coherence between the high level piece, the Army piece and the regimental activities within the various regions.

Q262 Linda Gilroy: The Services are not alone in facing these recruiting challenges and increasingly learning and skills councils and employment and skills boards are taking a role in seeking people out proactively. What links do the Services have with the learning and skills councils?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: I sit with the permanent secretary on the Sector Skills Council for Central Government, so from the MoD's perspective we are covering both the military and Civil Service as we work our way through the skills agenda for government.

Q263 Linda Gilroy: And further down in the regions and cities?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: It filters down our policies to try to make sure that as many courses as possible are given civilian accreditation and that we are in tune with the up‑skilling agenda, because we know that if we give people qualifications that are recognised in civilian life they stay for longer. It is in our interests to do so. Initially, it seems perhaps counter-intuitive, but we know they stay longer because they have greater confidence that when they do decide to go outside they will be able to get a job. It is in our interests to make sure that as many courses as possible have a recognisable read-across to the civilian world, and we think we are doing reasonably well in ensuring we are up with the government's agenda on that.

Rear Admiral Montgomery: I think there is a very positive story which spans all three Services. LSC funding and engagement with us is quite profound. I can give you some headline figures. In 2006/07, for which we have the latest statistics, 25,000 recognised LSC awards were made in our Service which I think you will agree is a fairly significant degree of award over a relatively small Service.

Q264 Mr Hamilton: On traditional recruitment pools, if we take the regiments in Scotland as an example traditionally it would have been the Black Watch in Perth and the Royals would have been down in the borders and the Edinburgh/Lanarkshire area. Have there been basic changes since they changed the regiments in that area? That is a fundamental change in traditional recruitment pools. Before you answer that, the Highlanders are based in Midlothian. The tradition referred to earlier of officers trying to recruit in their area is quite difficult if you are based in the lowlands and you are a highland regiment.

Major General Gregory: I cannot pick up your specific example. What I would say is that in terms of regimental recruiting affiliations to areas are seen as a strength. It promotes identity where applicable, but once again it is done within One Army Recruiting where the only regimental recruiting team still out is the infantry where appropriate.

Mr Hamilton: I ask that you try to get some information about what measurable changes have taken place since the Royal Regiment joined up. I like to think that has not happened but I would like to see the figures because there are other organisations and parties who argue the opposite.

Q265 Chairman: Perhaps you would write to us in due course.

Major General Gregory: I will do my best.

Q266 Mr Hancock: I want to return to the educational issue. The government now expect that at some stage 50 per cent of young people will go to university or further education. What has that done for you? Has it meant you have had to lower your thresholds educationally, consequentially holding on to recruits who are then recruited and join up and in one way or another fall by the wayside because educationally they are just not up to it, or the challenge is too great to overcome to make them effective servicemen and women?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: I do not think we have seen an effect, but I shall ask my colleagues from the individual Services if they have. We are certainly aware of the challenges that the government's push for more people in higher education will cause the Services. On the other hand, we also see as an opportunity the government's intention on education and training for all those up to the age of 18. I say it is an opportunity because we understand that military training and education for the under-18s is considered to be part of that. Therefore, that is an opportunity for us to enable people to continue their education and lifelong learning at that stage.

Rear Admiral Montgomery: Perhaps I may pick up the answer to Mr Hancock's question. First, the most notable effect it has had on my Service has been an increase in the average age of entry which obviously has an impact later on career compression and so on. Those are issues that we manage on a day-to-day basis, but you ask for effects and that is one of them. The key point I register is that we have not lowered our educational qualifications or the bar one jot to compensate for this.

Q267 Mr Hancock: Over what period of time?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: I am going back over a significant period of time. The last time we altered the academic attributes of an individual group of entrants it was upwards and not downwards, so we have not altered the educational attainment required of people entering our Service in a downward direction. I made the point about having 25,000 accreditations in the Service over the 12-month period. I am really focusing here on the rating rather than officer structure. These span all the way from the Royal Yachting Association up to level 2 apprenticeships. These are heavyweight civilian qualifications. To an extent, therefore, we are responding to the understandable desire for higher education by accrediting more and more of our courses to satisfy that appetite.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: I endorse that. We have to embrace this because that is where society and government policy take us. There are two ways of doing it. First, I observe that we are an 80 per cent technical service, so an awful lot of people are not disadvantaged or advantaged by this because we are looking for that type of qualification in the first place. Second, where possible within service along with the learning and skills council - we have figures similar to those for the Royal Navy - we embrace it by incorporating within our courses the ability to get foundation and subsequent degrees as a counter to creeping ageism which does not work well for us. Therefore, that is something that we have to work with but it does not cause a particularly bad effect at the moment.

Major General Gregory: First, I remind you of the Armed Forces college at Harrogate where each year 1,350 young people go to get educational qualifications. Second, there is a current trial in London and the North West into further education bursaries with the aspiration eventually to have 3,000 people as part of it, getting their educational qualifications and being supported through that and then coming in as more mature but better educated individuals in the Services who are able to fill the roles that we seek of them.

Q268 Mr Hancock: I am always very impressed when I meet young sailors in the Royal Navy who tell me that the only time they only ever learnt anything was during their period of service in the Royal Navy. Education had either failed them or they had failed education, but they were very grateful for what the Royal Navy offered. I remember talking to five young sailors in one particular ship all of whom had had the same experience. But when you come to talk to people who are about to leave the Service and have been in the recruiting stage but do not make it, how many are unable to cope with the educational requirements once in and they leave because they are not up to it educationally rather than physically?

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: For the RAF it is a tiny number.

Major General Gregory: I have figures to show why people are leaving during training. Training wastage is a challenge as you will have identified. Of the 35 per cent we currently lose in training, 16 per cent discharge themselves as of right (DAOR). Exactly how many of those cite the fact that they feel either embarrassed by or unable to cope with the educational qualifications I cannot tell you, and I am not sure we would be able to get that information. We can say when they go but not why they choose to discharge themselves. We have surveys but I am less clear about whether they are prepared to put that down, because it is quite a revealing thing to say about oneself.

Q269 Mr Hancock: As far as concerns the Army, when we were looking at duty of care Colonel Haes's report stressed the fact that a lot of disciplinary problems were associated with educational level and the ones who were more susceptible to bullying were those who simply did not understand what was expected of them because intellectually they were not up to it. He registered that loud and clear, but nobody seemed to notice it at the time and his report was all but ignored.

Major General Gregory: My wife has worked in a pupil referring unit dealing with children who have been excluded from schools and so I absolutely understand what you are talking about and the challenges faced by people who perhaps have needs that have not been detected and therefore lose their self-esteem and they face all these problems.

Q270 Mr Jones: Are you not under-selling yourself a little? Certainly, in our duty of care inquiry we went to Catterick and saw the excellent work that you were doing at Darlington College about basic literacy. Having visited Harrogate, some of those people are really getting a second chance educationally which they would not have got if they had not joined the Armed Forces?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: Yes. Likewise, I visited the infantry training centre and was hugely impressed by the links with Darlington College. For whatever reason, you are quite right that infantry soldiers are being given a second chance. In view of the way they come on through dramatic contextualised learning and training, yes, we are under-selling ourselves on that particular score.

Q271 Mr Jones: I was also impressed that they spotted things like dyslexia which had not been identified earlier. In terms of the evaluation of that you need to ensure that it is sung from the rooftops because it gives some of those kids chances they would not otherwise have.

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: Thank you.

Chairman: We shall write to ask you various questions about careers advice and things like that, but now I should like to move on to manning balance.

Q272 Mr Crausby: I begin by asking you to describe what is meant by "manning balance" and then perhaps you can tell us what the latest position is regarding the position for each Service.

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: Perhaps I may start before handing over to the individual Services. The manning balance is achieved when our numbers are between minus two per cent to plus one per cent of that stated in the public sector agreement. I think you are aware that we are not in manning balance as at 1 April. I offer to send a note to the Committee round the end of May when the final quarter's figures are available. They are still being scrubbed through by the analysis agency. We are working on figures up to the third quarter. Before handing over to the Navy perhaps I may say that manpower planning is an inexact process. We are working with gains to the trained strength and retention on one side of the equation and a changing liability on the other. These three factors tend to move independently which makes the problem more difficult. Perhaps the individual Services can enlarge on that and tell us where they are with their particular manning numbers.

Rear Admiral Montgomery: From the Royal Navy's perspective - you will have seen the figures in the note sent previously - at the moment we are at about minus four per cent and so outside manning balance. We expect to close the manning balance in 2009/10 and possibly get into balance briefly before we dip back out of it again in about 2012.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: The Air Force figures for the turn of the year show that we are marginally outside manning balance because we have drawn down people as part of our medium-term work strengths down towards the 41,000 target but the posts have lagged behind; they have not been disestablished. It is artificial. In effect, I believe that the note to be provided will tell you that as of 1 April the RAF is in manning balance but it is a transitory position. I believe that we will dip beneath manning balance probably by the end of the year and it will then stabilise and go up by 2010/11. The extent of that dip obviously depends on the recruiting versus retention battleground that we are fighting at the moment.

Major General Gregory: For me, manning balance will not advance my career. What I am being told to deliver is full manning. There is a step between manning balance and full manning and that is full strength. Full manning is having the right person in the right job fully trained at the right time. That is very difficult to achieve, but what the Army has to reach is full strength. In terms of manning balance we are currently outside it. As you will have seen from the figures, we are about 3.5 per cent down and the balance is minus two per cent and plus one per cent. We have a range of measures in place to try to get us back up. The modelling suggests that provided things work as we predict - that is a balanced prediction - we should get there around April 2010.

Q273 Mr Crausby: Can you pinpoint some of the major reasons why the Army and Navy in particular do not achieve manning balance?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: There are three factors in achieving manpower balance. I totally agree with my Army colleague's comment that this is rather more sophisticated than headline manpower balance issues. One key factor is the requirement - the manpower liability - another is recruiting and the third is retention. As you will have seen from the notes already submitted, we are not achieving our recruiting targets and our voluntary outflow rates are higher than we wish. But another issue is liability reductions. We make balanced decisions on what we see as the future liability requirements of our Service and we make that against a continually changing backdrop of change programmes elsewhere in defence and make assumptions about those in our forward planning. Those assumptions sometimes do not come to fruition and the reductions that we anticipate and plan for do not materialise in the profile we anticipate. That is the reason why just at the moment we are not due to achieve manpower balance as quickly as we would wish.

Q274 Chairman: I am afraid I did not understand that. You have problems with recruitment, retention and requirements. What assumptions did not come up to scratch?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: Let us take the examples of the change programmes, the defence equipment and support organisation, the changes in the CINC Fleet headquarters reorganisation or the changes in the head office organisation in London. Those are three big change programmes all of which are forecast to reduce the total number of people that defence requires. As a single Service we provide manpower to those organisations and it is our responsibility at least to plan for the numbers and sorts of people required up to 10 or 15 years in advance. If those programmes do not achieve the forecast savings in the profile in which they are supposed to be achieved then the liability eventually will be higher than that which we were planning for at the time and there will be a mismatch.

Q275 Chairman: So, the issue is always that your assumptions tend to be more optimistic than reality turns out to be?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: That has turned out to be the case just recently. Again, one must make a judgment on the balance of risk. If there is one thing that is worse than being in manpower shortage it is being in manpower surplus because then we are spending money on people we do need. There is a very careful balance of risk judgment here in terms of the assumptions we make about manpower planning for the future.

Q276 Chairman: So, you are by design optimistic?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: We have been proved to be optimistic. This is a dynamic. We continually go back and also learn from these programmes in our future planning. We have been optimistic in the past and we now introduce a greater amount of realism into the assumptions we make about the change programmes, but I am sure the Committee understands that this is a difficult and very complex business management process.

Major General Gregory: There are three factors related to manning balance: liability, inflow and outflow. As to the Army's regular liability, the 101,800 is reasonably static. We have talked quite a lot about inflow in terms of recruiting. We are not meeting our recruiting figures by a little over 10 per cent. The real challenge at the moment is seeing people who come in at the start of phase 1 training and going out at the end of phase 2 training to join the field army where our numbers are down against the numbers we need. As to voluntary outflow, the numbers are broadly static: 4.3 per cent for officers and 5.9 per cent for other ranks, though over the past year we have had trouble ascertaining exactly what the figures are due to problems with some of the computer systems, particularly some of the fields that are not available. In terms of what we are doing to deal with it, we have recruiting, training and retention action plans that look at all the various elements that we consider apposite to target to try to improve these two critical things and get us towards manning balance. In terms of the retention action plan, we have some 70 measures that look at a range of things from the applicability of financial retention incentives - certainly, a measure of last resort but very effective - through to looking at the tempo of activity between operational tours, or what we colloquially term "the stuff in between", to make sure that where possible we reduce the load on soldiers and their families.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: We have the same three problems. The reason I anticipate we may go outside the manning balance is because we expect as a result of PR08 uplifting the requirement which was not forecast. With regard to the recruiting challenge as we ramp the Air Force back up we are having difficulty recruiting particularly in specialist pinch points, so I anticipate falling short in those areas. There are some gentle indications that the outflow will exceed those that are in the planning assumptions that had us sitting at that level. Obviously, I am trying to address the last two points and where we bottom out of our draw down to 41,000 will depend on how successful we are in that.

Q277 Mr Crausby: As to consequences, to what extent does it lead to a vicious cycle of overwork and pressure and dissuade people from joining up? How serious is that?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: Manning balance is not the issue which really keeps me awake at night. What keeps me awake at night is the issue referred to earlier: the key pinch points where we are short. This is not an issue of manpower balance per se; it is an issue of key pinch points.

Major General Gregory: I wholeheartedly agree with that. You have seen our list of operational pinch points and manning pinch points. We have specific activities designed to address those key area of shortfall in capability.

Q278 Mr Crausby: What about the financial implications? Given the stresses on the defence budget as things stand, can the MoD afford to be absolutely up to strength?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: We have the resources that are allocated and the manpower picture you have heard. In terms of money to retain and the offer we make to our servicemen and women, the pay rises that the AFPRB recommended to the government last year and this have assisted us in working on the retention side of the equation. A 3.9 per cent pay arise in 2007, a 2.6 per cent pay rise this year plus one per cent for the x factor and another .3 per cent for financial retention incentives all help us in trying to balance the numbers. All three Services and me and my colleagues in the MoD centre are working hard not just to try to achieve manning balance but full manning. Manning balance is a helpful step on the way but I think you are getting the flavour that we are not talking here about big numbers but in a high operational tempo about handfuls of people in some instances that are in key operational pinch points who have an impact on capability that is out of proportion to their numbers. They are the key areas that the navy secretary in particular is targeting, and the air secretary and DG personnel will certainly agree with him on that.

Q279 Mr Jenkin: With respect, I do not think that was quite the question asked. For example, the Army is 3,000 under-recruited. Three thousand extra soldiers would cost a lot of money, but I do not get the sense that that money is knocking around the defence budget unused because the Army is 3,000 under-recruited. Supposing all three Services were on target, where would the money come from to pay that extra wages bill? Is the money there?

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: The answer is that the money is there in that it is finite and it would have to be redistributed elsewhere. My answer to Mr Crausby's point is that personally I do not believe that particularly in the pinch point areas we can afford not to be fully manned because the effect he spoke about in terms of the downward spiral is a challenge at all points, and it is made worse by the extraordinary things being asked because of the overreach we have through operational stretch against defence planning assumptions. I think we have to target it. At the moment that will cause some shift of resource but from an air force perspective I aim to be at the top end of that manning balance.

Q280 Mr Jenkin: So, it would be a greater sin to be over rather than under-recruited?

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: I did not say that.

Q281 Mr Jenkin: You did not say that but your Royal Navy colleague did.

Rear Admiral Montgomery: I said "overmanned as opposed to undermanned". The simple reason for that is that if we are overmanned we are denuding resources from elsewhere in the defence programme. If you are overmanned that leads to notions of redundancy programmes which we very much avoid.

Chairman: If you are overmanned the Treasury's eyes glint.

Q282 Mr Jenkins: Vice Admiral Wilkinson, I sit here listening to the manning issue and totally agree that you have a problem. With a decreasing number of personnel and draw down of the Services and privatisation of function I know that it becomes harder and harder with a smaller number. Do we not now have a position when we shall soon be conducting a review on the merger of the three forces so we can have interoperability and you can meet pinch points by the transfer of operatives from other parts of the forces? Are they not their own worst enemies in keeping ever-diminishing forces independent in this way?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: The three Services work very closely together on a whole range of operational and administrative matters. We work, live and fight together. We are using the resources allocated to us as effectively as we can.

Major General Gregory: Mr Jenkins' question is very astute. We do have mechanisms where appropriate to look at loaning ability between Services to support pinch point trades, so we are not in one Service discharging people where we have a critical shortage in another. We do exactly that, which is your point. We now have the mechanisms to address that.

Q283 Chairman: I have one question to which I would like a one-word answer from each Service. It may be a bit unfair to insist on that and you may prefer not to answer in that way. What do you say is the weakest link in the whole of this chain of recruitment and retention in each of the Services? Is it at the level of money, entry into schools or the recruiting office stage?

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: I think I would go for balance, if you want a word, that is, trying to get the resources appropriately spread so you get the best overall effect, because this is a complex equation. If you want to go into recruiting that has an effect. If you charge at that, whether it is people to go and do the outreach or the resources to fund it, that takes away resources from elsewhere. At the same time, we have operational pressure points that are sitting there which will be further challenged. To go back to Mr Crausby's point, the question is whether the net effect is a downward spiral. Therefore, to try to find balance is the most difficult part of the equation for me.

Rear Admiral Montgomery: I agree with that. There is not a single point that I register. It is a matter of getting the right balance between the three Rs: retention, recruitment and requirement. I make one point that we have not yet touched on which is germane to my service. One of the key pinch points in achieving the right kind of trained people in the front line of the Navy is the training capacity at sea. That is one of the key factors to bear in mind when we come to the issue of over-recruiting. If we over-recruit and do not have the capacity to train at sea we will end up with unhappy sailors on jetties trying to get themselves to sea which is bad for retention.

Major General Gregory: The greatest challenge is retention in training and in the field army. My greatest concern is our ability to see things before they happen. It is an art and not a science with a whole host of factors that play into it. To make sure you can spot things and have the mechanisms rapidly to react is a challenge.

Q284 Chairman: Major General Lalor, does any of this come onto your desk?

Major General Lalor: Yes, it does. I have responsibility for facilitating and co‑ordinating the three Services' manning levels and their reserves. If we are at a point where it is considered a concern then it is certainly my job to make sure the necessary focus is put upon it. Manning balance in the reserves is less critical and you can take greater risk against the reserves component. Obviously, the key area in the reserves is: do you have the necessary capabilities that the operations require to deliver them? If you do not have manning balance it is not the end of the world in the short term as long as you can deliver those individuals and skill sets as a reserve that you are requested to deliver. The only other point is that you must ensure you retain a critical mass in the reserves. Whether it is at unit or formation level, if the manning balance gets so low that there is not critical mass to provide sufficient activity manning balance would be a very significant issue for us, but the management of manning in the reserves area is exactly the same as it is on the regular side. The three single services need to ensure that they apply the effort and resources to get an acceptable balance, but they can take greater risk against the reserves manning area.

Chairman: I have been shoving everybody off the issue of tri-Service matters but now we can go back to it.

Q285 Mr Jones: I would be interested to have your observations on my earlier question about cadets. What importance do you attach to the three individual Services recruiting separately? What would be the advantage or disadvantage in having a single point of entry into the Armed Forces in terms of recruitment?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: All our evidence shows that people wish to join a single service, not defence. That must be the starting point. Our careers offices on the high street are Armed Forces careers offices and again the advisers in there work very closely, intelligently and perceptively with the people who come through the doors to try to direct them to the best career and Service. We consider that we are using our resources as effectively as possible, but I defer to my single Service colleagues for their views.

Major General Gregory: I totally agree. I believe that this is linked to Mr Jenkin's question and whether we are managing liability and whether we are doing it from the start as sensibly as possible. The ethos of the Service remains very important and within the Army one then has the ethos of the various cap badges. We are making sure that, first, as people come into the Armed Forces careers office they are targeted as effectively as possible; and, second, we have much better mechanisms to allow transfers within the Army but between cap badges if people find they have made the wrong choice.

Q286 Mr Jones: This point arose in our duty of care inquiry. I know that in the Army a good deal of emphasis is placed on regimental recruiting, but there is not a lot of evidence that people say they want to join a specific regiment, is there? They want to join the Army, do they not?

Major General Gregory: Generally, unless they have family affiliations they probably want to join the Army. Part of the responsibility of careers offices is to make sure that the range of opportunities open to them and the skills they will get in the various areas are properly presented so they can make an informed choice.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: I have nothing substantial to add.

Rear Admiral Montgomery: I absolutely agree with the Army's perspective. We have exactly the same feedback as that to which Vice Admiral Wilkinson referred. There is a desire on the part of people to join a single service rather than join defence. This is really important at the entry point into the Services. We have done some work on identity in our Service. Right at the top of what people in our Service identify with, particularly the younger community which we were surveying at the time, is the Royal Navy. That is fundamental to their sense of belonging to our service. Later they will develop their identities with a ship or team mates, but when they join the Navy the identity is with the Royal Navy.

Q287 Mr Jones: Or the Royal Marines?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: Yes.

Q288 Mr Jones: The Royal Marines is almost a hybrid service?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: It is. People are recruited by the Royal Marines recruiting office but the identity there is with the Royal Marines, not defence.

Q289 Mr Jones: If someone came into a recruitment office and wanted to join the Navy but having talked to the adviser felt that perhaps that was not what he or she wanted would that individual be referred to the Army or Air Force?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: Yes, absolutely. I believe that Vice Admiral Wilkinson picked up the point that this is very much the modus operandi of the Armed Forces career offices.

Q290 Mr Jenkin: Do the recruitment strategies among the Services fundamentally differ and, if so, how?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: It is important to understand that we have different issues in terms of our image among the target audience. When we conducted a survey into the levels of awareness of the Royal Navy before our latest campaign 12 months ago it showed a very worrying lack of awareness. People were distinctly less aware of the Royal Navy then than they were of the other two Services. Therefore, our campaign plan which started 12 months ago began by raising awareness in the wider community. There is an example of where a particular Service issue was reflected in a particular Service's recruiting strategy. We tackled the fundamental issue of general awareness at the start and then channelled effort in parallel towards the submarine and marine streams, for example. That approach would be unique to this single Service.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: I think that our footprint and structures will ultimately result in a significant differential. There is the issue of national awareness to which the Air Vice Marshal referred but that is very much reinforced by local effect. Clearly, with different footprints and resources to support that, for example in regimental terms the way the station commander would liaise and support an Armed Forces presence in his area will be different.

Q291 Mr Jenkin: But that is an historical anomaly rather than a different objective?

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: Yes, it is, but that is conditioned by resource. You are absolutely right that we are where we are and we would like to do better, but that is the most cost‑effective way of achieving it.

Major General Gregory: I do not think our strategies are that different. I think they are very well co-ordinated between the directors in the three Services responsible for recruiting right down to the Armed Forces career office level. As a generalisation what must be recognised is the different roles within the Services particularly the Army which is a very people-heavy organisation where one equips the man, whereas the other Services are rather more technically-based in terms of manning equipment and things like that. There will be a difference, but in terms of recruiting strategies they are well co-ordinated and sensibly brought together where appropriate.

Q292 Linda Gilroy: Presumably, interoperability has driven much earlier joint or shared training. Given what we continually hear from our colleague John Smith about the virtues of training coming together on the St Athens side, is there not an inevitability about the Services coming even closer together - not just one Army but one Service?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: There is certainly an inevitability about coming even closer. I do not think it will result in our being one Service. We are very cognisant of the Canadians in this respect and their attempts at a defence force which effectively they have had to reverse over the past few years. Even a nation with very small armed forces - I think of New Zealand - has still found it effective in terms of ethos and people's association with their own service to keep individual services. Like Mr Smith, I am certainly a great fan of the exciting prospects of the defence training rationalisation programme and work at St Athens.

Q293 Mr Hamilton: I fully understand the argument and importance of the Services being able to retain their personnel, but when we come to recruitment I am reminded of the fact that as an ex-miner when I started in the collieries there were 400,000 people in the industry. By the time I left there were only 230,000 people. They had a personnel department that dealt wholly with recruitment. I have listened to and looked at all the evidence very carefully and I do not understand how Mr Baker and your department should not be involved directly in all the recruitment that takes place because once they get in you offer three different Services, which is understandable, but when you went into the pits you would become an electrician, engineer or collier. You applied for different services and when you went into the industry there was a department that dealt with that. Are you not under-selling yourselves by trying independently, although there is close co‑operation, to do recruitment when a single entry point would be the logical way forward?

Mr Baker: Viewed from the perspective of the Ministry of Defence where we are now makes good sense. We fully recognise the importance of the single Services marketing themselves on their own terms. Each has an individual offer to make and all the evidence shows that people want to continue to join single Services and it is important that they can make their own pitch in that context. What we do in the Ministry of Defence is facilitate the co‑ordination of that. I run a defence manning committee where colleagues from the three Services come together and discuss how to co-ordinate and resource campaigns and how to spread best practice where single Service practice appears more broadly applicable. I think that is the right level of integration as things stand. We do not want to homogenise the recruitment process.

Q294 Mr Hamilton: I understand that much of what you said will happen after they come into the various Services. What I am saying is that when an individual comes along and says he wants to go into the Navy, Royal Air Force or the Army that does not require the Services to carry out recruitment; they can be better utilised to do other work and that should be a civil service issue. Once they are recruited then it is up to each Service to deal with it. That makes sense to me. It just seems that you are duplicating the work.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: I can see there is much sense in where you are coming from, but the other observation is that at that juncture people probably have made up their mind where they want to go and they will need some education, possibly some persuasion, which again depends on someone with some authority who can relay what that individual is about to embark upon, not someone who does not wear a tri-Service hat.

Mr Hancock: But to do that requires quite a lot of skill, does it not? Are you equipped with those skills to give that help to somebody? It is easy to say someone should join the Army or Navy and see the world, or whatever. If my father having spent 30-odd years in the Navy was sitting here now he would say that it was the best thing you could ever do, but that would not necessarily be the case.

Q295 Chairman: Do you have those skills?

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: Personally, undoubtedly not, but we spend a lot of time ensuring that we select the right people for the front of the shop for the Royal Air Force. Again, within the personnel department I deal with my fellow on the training front and the key is to make sure that the right image is there in the first place and it has the right cross-section so that if somebody comes along a particular avenue we do not provide advice on just one particular strand of the Royal Air Force.

Q296 Mr Jenkin: I turn to reservists and put the same question. To recruit reservists basically do you use the same technique across the three Services or do you require different things?

Major General Lalor: Reserves are very regionally based. Whether it be an air base, a TA centre in the Hebrides or a naval base, you must have a very local campaign. The marketing to facilitate that local recruiting is very much co-ordinated as no doubt we will discuss, for example on Project OR[?]. But for the reserves it is fundamentally different because you recruit more on a local basis which is supported by national marketing.

Q297 Mr Jenkin: Are the three services basically trying to recruit the same kind of people?

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: No. Obviously, there is a lot of overlap. Again, the Royal Air Force is very technically oriented. It is not that the other Services are not, but the percentage of our people who are technically based is significantly larger, so to a degree that drives one to different conclusions.

Q298 Mr Jenkin: But even in the case of the Army is there not technological convergence?

Major General Gregory: But the fact is that 80 per cent of the people who come into the Armed Forces careers offices say they want to join the Army rather than a specific part and the guidance which we have discussed then points them in the right direction depending on their skills and aspirations. One must also remember, picking up Mr Hamilton's point, that to be an electrician in the depths of Afghanistan is very different from being an electrician on a fighter base. It suits some people to be in one environment and others to be in another, so it is all part of getting a collective balance and informing them sensibly. That is why the importance of having people with the right skills in the careers offices is fundamental.

Q299 Mr Hamilton: I am aware of that. A special type of skill is also required 3,000 ft underground. The person who gave career advice fully understood that because he came from that background. That was the point I tried to make. The people who would be giving the advice would be those like yourself who had left.

Major General Gregory: That is very fair.

Q300 Mr Jenkin: How do you assess the effectiveness of the money that you spend on your more public and expensive marketing and advertising campaigns?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: We do assess every one of our marketing campaigns. About 12 months ago we set up a performance cell in our recruiting organisation. Every one of our campaigns now receives feedback not only from entrants but, as of this month, we have established a survey of potential recruits to identify which particular recruiting avenue caught their attention to bring them into the Service. We measure the effectiveness of the various recruiting campaigns. Equally, in a global sense we then look at whether or not we are getting the right return for the right investment in the round. You will have seen that in the Royal Navy our recruiting effort has increased gradually over time and that has been achieved by rationalisations regionally and savings on manpower to enable greater levels of expenditure on marketing. That efficiency has enabled us to maintain with only gradual increases of expenditure overall the same level of intake, that is, 96 per cent of the Service. We are looking at both the efficiency of the global effort and the success rate of individual advertising or marketing campaigns.

Q301 Chairman: Is there a different story for the RAF and the Army, or can we move on?

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: It is COI evaluated and there is a whole host of statistics showing where we are being more efficient than we have been in the past by being more effective in targeting our effort.

Major General Gregory: It is the same story for the Army, recognising that it is a multi-approach across many areas. We talked earlier about the electronic media: the Army website and Army Jobs. There have been 1.9 million hits since it has been launched across the piece, so I think that is the answer.

Q302 Mr Jenkin: Compared with the millions you spend on marketing and advertising, how does that compare with direct word-of-mouth individual contact? If more people in the chain of command in each of the three Services was simply tasked with the job of getting more introductions at unit level as well as across the three Services as a whole would that not be better expenditure of resources?

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: All the station commanders have a specific target in their area to go out and reinforce it. In addition, the individuals are challenged because we have a recruiting bounty, so you can find your friend from back home and be rewarded for bringing him into the Service. Therefore, it goes all the way through the chain of command.

Q303 Mr Jenkin: Does the same apply to each of the other two Services?

Major General Gregory: Yes, in principle.

Q304 Mr Jenkin: But is it structured? One gets the sense that if it is not structured it is rather haphazard.

Rear Admiral Montgomery: We have structured it as of 12 months ago onto a very much more rigorous and quantifiable basis. It is based on both surveys of individual applicants as opposed to just entrants and our quantification of the success of individual marketing campaigns.

Major General Gregory: We are trying to make sure we formalise it because previously it was not done against formal establishment. Where this is appropriate and helpful, let us establish properly the posts we need to enable recruiting. We looked at a bounty for those who brought in people and we did not find it a successful method and so stopped it, but in answer to your question the principles that Air Vice Marshal Bryant talked about are very similar.

Q305 Mr Jenkin: But you say that different units in the Army have different capabilities according to what else they have been taught to do?

Major General Gregory: That is absolutely right.

Q306 Mr Jenkin: Even if somebody in the rear party of a deployed unit had the job of producing recruits that should be possible, should it not?

Major General Gregory: And that is my point. What we are trying to do is properly to establish these things where they are successful so we have an established post to deal with recruiting for battalions, which is really what you are referring to, and use our manpower to best effect. That is what we are doing at the moment.

Chairman: We have discussed pinch point trades and you set out a memorandum of mitigation actions that you are taking in relation to them. I want to move now to the issue of One Army Recruiting.

Mr Jones: Chairman, earlier I asked whether there could be better co-ordination at local level between the Army, RAF and Sea Cadets given the resources going in and taking into account the different constitutions.

Q307 Mr Jenkin: Sea Cadets get no public money?

Major General Lalor: Absolutely. The three single services run their Cadet Forces in a different way. The specific answer to the question is that greater co-ordination would be beneficial. Beyond that, greater co-ordination would be beneficial as between the reserves piece and regular piece. That aspiration is understood by my directorate and we shall be looking at that. What you are really asking is: if looking at my reserves piece I have a TA centre in one major town with four-tonners out the back and a small cadet attachment of any of the three Services, is there not some benefit in linkage? The answer must be yes. I accept that co‑ordination could be greater.

Q308 Mr Jones: Are there any constitutional problems in terms of the Sea Cadets accessing other facilities? For example, in one town in my area they cannot use the extensive fleet of minibuses of the Army Cadets because they are "separate".

Major General Lalor: The three single Services are organised very differently, if you would like to describe it in that way. What I can say - this is very much on our agenda - is that there is an understanding in principle with the key officers who run the Cadet Forces in all the Services that some gain is to be had in greater central co-ordination. We are at the point where that is acknowledged.

Q309 Mr Hancock: Have you ever spoken to anyone who has tried to borrow a vehicle from another Service and experienced these problems? I doubt that any of you as senior officers would find it very easy to get a vehicle from a colleague from another Service.

Major General Lalor: To portray a simple picture of a TA centre and an Army Cadet Force, there is absolutely no reason why it cannot be directly linked and the resources utilised by our cadets. I acknowledge and do not underestimate that if one were going between the Services that might be harder to resolve.

Mr Hancock: Major General Lalor, you will be the first TA field marshal before that becomes easy to achieve!

Q310 Chairman: We will produce a report as a result of this inquiry and this may well be something that we shall want to concentrate upon. It would be helpful if within the next month or so you could send us a paper on your knowledge of the aspirations about how it will get better and what you intend to do about it.

Major General Lalor: The paper from which I am drawing is going to our cadet youth council in June. It has been delayed because the minister has not been available, but certainly in line with that paper being taken we shall make it available to the Committee.

Q311 Chairman: That will be in June?

Major General Lalor: That is my understanding but it is very much predicated on getting our annual youth cadet council convened which has been delayed.

Chairman: It would be helpful if that could be expedited.

Q312 Mr Jenkin: To return to the question of visits to schools, is there any reason why as part of your awareness programme your presence there should not be done on a tri-Service basis?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: We go back to the fact that they are there at the invitation of the schools and it is an avenue that we can investigate with them.

Mr Jones: That is not the answer because the schools ask only for what is available. I think Mr Jenkin is asking whether, if you are to engage not only in recruitment but what I would call Armed Forces diplomacy in schools, there are grounds for putting your case to students on this basis.

Q313 Mr Jenkin: When next time the RAF is invited to a particular school you can say that you will bring all three Services.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: Indeed, and that does happen to a degree. I would not say it is institutionalised. For example, at school fetes we go en masse with all three Services, but I suspect that to a degree coverage will come down to footprint and resources. I come back to the RAF footprint that I know well.

Q314 Mr Jenkin: Do you accept that the historical footprint and resources result in a rather haphazard footprint on the schools?

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: I do accept that but again we are bound by how far we can spread our wings and where we get the best returns. To go back to your point about value for money, we have done a significant amount of work on this to see where we get the best effect. We have found that by concentrating where there is already a significant footprint and therefore air power is better understood by the people there at least at a subliminal level. Because they see aircraft flying on a daily basis and it is not alien to them that is where we tend to get results.

Rear Admiral Montgomery: I should like to correct one comment by Mr Jenkin. It was said that the Sea Cadets received no public money. They do receive public money in the form of a grant of �8.3 million per annum.

Q315 Mr Jones: But at a local level they do not?

Rear Admiral Montgomery: But the organisation does.

Q316 Mr Jones: But that does not go down to local level because the Sea Cadets in my area have to do a great deal of fund-raising themselves.

Rear Admiral Montgomery: Indeed so, but I just make that point.

Q317 Mr Borrow: I turn to One Army Recruiting which has been in operation for about a year. Can you briefly bring us up to speed on what lessons have been learned? Are there lessons for the RAF and Royal Navy?

Major General Gregory: It is seen as a five-year change programme which has been running for a year and it has the particular aim to integrate the hitherto discrete Territorial Army and Regular activities, to re-focus, modernise and improve effectiveness and efficiency and make greater investment in the development of the recruiting staff, making sure that we compete for the people we need to man the Army. Genuinely, one year into it is too early to give you the detailed lessons learnt. We are looking at it and as we start to get figures we shall be better placed to share our experiences with the other two Services.

Q318 Mr Borrow: Does the same go for recruiting volunteer reservists? At this point you are not able to make any assessment as to whether or not that is beneficial?

Major General Gregory: Within the construct of One Army Recruiting, yes, because you will know that previously volunteer reservists were dealt with very much on a regional basis. We are now trying to ensure that it is co‑ordinated much more effectively as a totality. That is the concept of One Army Recruiting. I simply cannot give you detailed lessons at this stage because it is not mature enough in terms of the duration of the five-year programme.

Q319 Mr Borrow: One aspect of the programme is online testing, that is, Pathfinder. The information the Committee has received is that it seems to indicate that the South and South East are recruiting hot spots by that method. Is that leading to changes in the Army's approach because those are not seen as the traditional hot spots as far as Army recruitment is concerned? The hot spots have been very much in Mr Jones's and my part of the world, that is, the north of England.

Major General Gregory: I agree that has been the position in the North East, North West and Scotland. You are absolutely right in saying that London and the South East have featured much more strongly than previously. We can better look at the means and methods we use in our panoply of measures we talked about previously to facilitate recruitment in those areas. If one area appears to react better to the electronic media and another area reacts better to personal visits that is how we will target our resources, but we are very much at the data-gathering phase. As we get it we can better move to the next phase of the project.

Chairman: Let us now turn to the issue of ethnic minority recruiting.

Q320 John Smith: Can you tell me what the overall recruitment figure for the Armed Forces is for recruits from the British community who come from ethnic minority backgrounds?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: As you are aware, our figures include foreign and Commonwealth recruits and currently they are nearly at six per cent.

Q321 John Smith: That is not the question. Can you tell me whether you know either across the Armed Forces or at single Service level what proportion of the British community recruited into the Armed Forces comes from ethnic minority backgrounds?

Mr Baker: I can tell you that at 31 December 2007 the achievement was two per cent of recruits for the Navy, 3.4 per cent for the Army and 1.7 per cent for the RAF.

Q322 Mr Hancock: What is the overall figure?

Mr Baker: I do not have that figure, but we can calculate that for you.

Q323 John Smith: The figure is two per cent. According to the National Audit Office, 60 per cent of all ethnic minority recruits into the Armed Forces come from foreign or Commonwealth countries. They are not British, which means that our British recruitment levels for ethnic minorities are two per cent. I cannot speak for my colleagues on the Committee, but I consider that to be an absolute scandal. I also believe that the way the figures have been fiddled over the past eight years has been completely and utterly unacceptable. I do not point a finger at the witnesses in relation to the way the MoD collects the figures, but I think you should be aware, if you are not already, that the Ministry claims an increase from one per cent ethnic minority recruitment in 1999 to the latest figure we have before us of 5.9 per cent, but that simply is not true. The one per cent in 1999 was quite rightly the British recruits who came from ethnic minorities and did not include foreign and Commonwealth recruits. The figures that you are using today are erroneous and give a completely misleading picture of the current situation within the Armed Forces. Does the panel agree with me that if recruitment in the UK was colour blind and we recruited, as does our principal ally the United States of America, the same proportion of British citizens in the community irrespective of colour into the Armed Forces, and therefore the Armed Forces reflected the wider community within this country, we would be able to draw on an additional 18,000 recruits and much of the discussion about recruitment, retention and shortages of manning would not apply? I appreciate that that is a slightly loaded question.

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: The Armed Forces have an aspiration to reflect the society they represent and all three Services have found it an incredibly difficult challenge to recruit from the ethnic minority community. That does not mean they are not working hard so to do. I will ask the individual Services to give you some indication of the efforts they are putting into this particular work. We know we have to do better in this field and we are desperately trying to do so. Perhaps we can turn first to the Navy to see what specifically they are doing to tackle the issue.

Rear Admiral Montgomery: I hope the Committee does not feel that I am offering excuses when I say this, but the first point I make is that we have been trying very hard to make inroads into ethnic minority recruiting. Second, our heartlands in the Royal Navy are on the south coast and in Faslane. That is distant from the main heartlands of the ethnic minorities in the country. It is just a simple fact that there is a geographical dislocation, so the Royal Navy is not as much to the forefront of minds of those from ethnic minorities as it might be the case if they or we were a bit closer together. The third point I make - I do not say it by way of excuse, nor do I seek to make a wider political point - is that, whereas in other instances the Iraq and Afghanistan factors have caused difficulties in terms of Armed Forces recruitment, we have had no feedback whatsoever from the people we recruit that those two factors are at play other than within the ethnic minority communities. Therefore, those are three factors that I just register as context before I go onto the wider points. For some time we have had diverse reaction and dedicated teams which we deploy away from the naval heartlands into the heartlands of the ethnic minority communities. You will have seen from the paper we put together some of the challenges they face in those communities in terms of approaching gate-keepers and getting success with them. They have achieved some success but not enough. We have restructured that now. One of the disadvantages of that process was that it was necessarily a short-term visit by a team deployed from within the recruiting organisation's overall resource. We have now structured our field force so that every one of our recruiting teams on the ground has the responsibility to engage with ethnic minorities and, therefore, personal contacts become stronger. On the specific objectives, we have established a programme of gate-keepers' courses which are run every three months and are attended by gate-keepers of the ethnic minority community, and down on the ground we have been particularly active in both Coventry and Leeds on a regional basis in drawing together on the back of football and other activities the ethnic minority recruiting. My sense from the recruiting field force is that it feels it is making progress but it is extraordinarily hard work.

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: It is much the same story. We have had some relative success this year in terms of a significant increase in the percentages but the numbers are still tiny and they are not where we want to be. A huge amount of effort goes into this which reflected on the budgetary side. It is not disproportionate because we believe that for this disproportionately small recruitment we need that catchment area. There is also a significantly high level of engagement. There are some award-winning projects out there with Race for Equality and the Linton model, all of which are deemed to be at the very top end of good practice. The four motivational outreach teams are being relocated at the moment. Again, that follows a principle we use elsewhere to reinforce success where we have had better results in areas that are rich in ethnic minorities. Driving forward on the question of how you recruit most cost-effectively, research has shown that digital media and going to niche areas, primarily local radio stations, are likely to reveal the best results, but it is too early to say that we shall be able massively to reinforce the success. Certainly, the targets we are chasing are seen as very challenging.

Q324 John Smith: You are not achieving the targets?

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: No, we are not.

Q325 John Smith: The Royal Air Force is doing particularly badly?

Air Vice Marshal Bryant: We have given significant thought to that. I am an apologist on its behalf, but within that analysis the issues come down to this: there appears to be an aspirational difference within the groups we are trying to recruit. At the top end the people who are looking for a profession do not deem the Armed Forces to be the profession to chase; they would rather head towards some solicitors, go into accountancy or do something else. That accounts for the people in the high technical trades - those educational aspirations - that we are chasing and it is difficult to bridge that gap.

John Smith: But why is there a problem of recruitment into the UK's Armed Forces but not in the United States of America, which is our closest ally, at varying professional levels? Not only do they recruit at the level represented within the community at large in the United States of America; they recruit half as many again. Therefore, 12 per cent of the population of the United States of America is African American or Asian but 18 per cent are recruited across the board in the Armed Forces. I believe this is an issue we must address for the sake of the Armed Forces. In this country just under 10 per cent of the community at large is of Afro-Caribbean and Asian origin and currently we recruit - because the figures are fiddled with Commonwealth recruits, whom we welcome - only two per cent. Chairman, I will finish my question. I have waited a long time for this issue to be raised this morning. The target for 2013 of eight per cent is an admirable one because it will broadly reflect the community.

Chairman: Can you ask a question?

Q326 John Smith: If the Armed Forces are not visible as representative of the community at large in this country the problem of recruiting and retaining will continue and get worse. I think this is a very serious issue for you to address.

Major General Gregory: It is a huge issue. We would greatly like to increase our UK ethnic minority representation in the Army. There is a challenge in that in the ethnic minority community in this country there is a significantly lower level of interest in a military career than there is in other parts of society. We have to work to overcome that in the first place. Why is that in existence? The perception is that more able members would rather go and do something else and do not see the Armed Forces as a career of choice. Therefore, a lot of effort is being made to address that. Further, previous perceptions of the Armed Forces in terms of racial harassment and bullying, which I think we have now moved beyond, are still present. The other challenge we face is that there are very few role models in the ethnic minority community at the higher level of the Armed Forces and that is a vicious circle we are trying to break. Your point is a very fair one. What are we doing about it? First, we set in place the Diversity Threads programme in 1998/99 sponsored by some consultants who came in to look at all the angles of our ethnic minority recruiting. We got rid of the consultants in 2006 because the perception then was that this was something being done for us rather than by us because we must own this problem. It is absolutely fundamental. There is a whole series of actions. The Army Board is looking at this again tomorrow because it is a fundamental issue. For example, we are increasing the level of ethnic minority representation within the Army recruiting teams. There is a further challenge in that a number of our UK ethnic minority soldiers do not want to be stuck on a pedestal or to be used as role models; they want to get on and run their own careers. Therefore, the last thing they want is to be used as public figures; they want to be treated just like everybody else and given the same opportunities. We are trying to overcome a whole host of challenges, but your point that we are not utilising a section of society that would bring unique skills which we would greatly value is right.

Q327 Mr Jones: Is not the difference between the UK and the US that in the latter case people join the Armed Forces for access to lifetime healthcare benefits and education rather than necessarily other reasons?

Major General Gregory: It is a very different package.

Q328 Mr Jones: In terms of the problem that you clearly know exists, to be quite controversial does not the problem lie with some communities themselves and not with you? For example, certain sections of the Muslim community would never consider allowing daughters to go into the Armed Forces and to try to get over that is not necessarily a problem for you but goes wider than the Armed Forces? It is a matter of changing the perceptions of those communities about what joining the Armed Forces means?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: You are quite right. Major General Gregory correctly mentioned that we see this as a command and leadership issue, but it is also about changing understanding and cultures both within those societies and our own. Perhaps it is worthwhile turning to Mr Baker to give a flavour of what we are doing in the centre to try to address the very issues you mention.

Mr Baker: We know that we have to do better. We had a very constructive relationship with the old Commission for Racial Equality which quite rightly held our feet to the fire on these issues and set us the targets that regrettably have not been met. We want to continue that relationship with the new Equality and Human Rights Commission and look forward to drawing on the wisdom and experience it will have to help us move forward. Indeed, we engage with other sources of advice and expertise which include community leaders. The Chief of Defence Staff had two meetings in the past year with Muslim community leaders to break down the perceptions and barriers that I am sure may exist in the minds of some elements of the ethnic communities. We need to reinforce our message through outreach and continue to be clear that the perception of harassment and bullying based on any pretext, but especially race in this context, is not an accurate perception we believe in the modern Armed Forces. We believe that we have the policies in place to ensure that that is the case and we can collect the relevant data as required under our statutory obligations to ensure we can monitor that robustly and identify any problems if perchance they did arise. Therefore, it is a broad approach.

Chairman: We shall end at one o'clock and so it looks as if we will finish on this question. You have caused far too much controversy and interest and as a result we shall be writing to ask a lot of questions to help with our inquiry.

Q329 Mr Hamilton: My question is very specific and is related more to the Army than the other two Services. The Army is based in the regions. The Scottish Regiment is based in Scotland and draws recruits mainly from Scotland. Do you have different target figures for each of the areas? I think that an eight per cent target for Scotland is unrealistic. For example, in my constituency the white population is 92.9 per cent. The only areas where there is a substantial ethnic grouping are places like Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee. Outwith that, I would suggest that in the whole of Scotland very rarely will you find ethnic minorities. Therefore, if you have an across-the-board figure it is unrealistic to get to certain areas within the UK. Does that mean that in the Midlands, for example, you would have a far higher figure than in Scotland? How does that affect the Armed Forces? It is very easy to sit here and say that you need to recruit eight per cent across the board, but there is a disproportionate effect across the board and there would be very few from ethnic minorities in the Scottish Regiment other than those who come from the Commonwealth. Am I right in thinking that?

Major General Gregory: You are right in thinking that and the answer is that we have different targets depending on the racial construct of society in any area.

Mr Hamilton: It is important to understand that.

Mr Hancock: I was disappointed that none of you said in answer to John Smith's questions, which I thought were slightly offensive, namely that there was a black and white issue and it was easier to get into the Armed Forces if you were white than if you were black. I think that ought to be refuted because it suggests there is a racial element in Armed Forces recruitment. To my knowledge, that is not the case and I was disappointed that none of you rebutted that immediately. What has been said about the American Armed Forces is not true. There are very few Muslims in the US Armed Forces; proportionately they have fewer. The US Armed Forces have African Americans but they have a lot fewer Muslims. In this country the predominance is people with Islamic faith. The question I pose to you is that you really do not know the community if you do not know why these boys and girls are not joining. You will not know the community by talking to Muslim leaders; they do not talk to young people in the community who do not listen to them. You cannot force people. The one thing I have always found strange is the argument that by some magic to get people to want to join the Armed Forces. If their parents do not want them to join the Armed Forces they will not join. I represent a sizeable proportion of Muslims in Portsmouth. When you talk to parents the last place they would like their children to go into is the military.

Chairman: Perhaps I may stop you there. Can we have one answer?

Q330 Mr Hancock: That is true, is it not?

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: The point Mr Hancock makes is very relevant. We do not try just to reach these potential recruits through community leaders or parents. We try all sorts of methods and approaches through schools and youth groups. Our city of Portsmouth is a good example where people work very closely and hard with societies, clubs and groups to make inroads and see what it is that makes these young people tick, change their perceptions and show them what an exciting, varied and worthwhile career the Armed Forces can offer. We are trying our hardest.

Q331 Mr Borrow: We have been discussing diversity. I just want to raise with you the fact that two or three years ago the Armed Forces discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation. Thankfully, that has now changed. If you can produce statistics they should show that the number of people being thrown out of the Armed Forces as a result of discrimination or sexual orientation has dropped.

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: It is zero; there is no discrimination.

Q332 Mr Borrow: I would be interested to see the figures before the rules changed. Obviously, in terms of recruitment and retention if you are not throwing people out because you are not discriminating against them you are not losing the personnel that you were losing 10 or 20 years ago on the basis of prejudice and discriminatory rules in place then. I would also be interested to see what the Armed Forces are doing both in terms of recruitment and within the Services to make it easier for gay men and lesbians to serve within the Armed Forces. It is now a few years since I had a lot of dealings with various groups that sought to change the law. Obviously, things seem to have gone quiet, but as we look at these issues I think it would be helpful to the Committee if you could put something in writing to update us on how things are going in the three Services.

Vice Admiral Wilkinson: For us that is an issue with which we are no longer concerned. We believe that it is very much one of yesterday's issues, but we shall certainly submit the note for which Mr Borrow asks. Since the beginning of the year we had in place an independent service complaints commissioner. We are well aware that complaints about wellbeing and conditions of service are very much a function of the chain of command, but here is an additional method whereby a serviceman or woman can complain about any matters related to his or her service to an independent commissioner. I think that is part of the note we can put together.

Chairman: That would be helpful. I am afraid that we will have lots of questions to ask you. Thank you for answering the many questions that we have already asked this morning. It has been very interesting and has kept us going on for far too long.