16.1 |
The welfare of Service Personnel
•
There were
signs that the numbers of Service Personnel choosing to leave
the
Armed
Forces early were beginning to increase for some key
groups.
•
A variety
of factors influenced Service Personnel in their decisions to
leave
the
Services, but workload, separation and the impact on family life
were
key factors.
•
Service
Personnel considered that the increased operational tempo had
led
to heavier
workloads and more separation from families.
163.
The NAO
reported that the MOD was successfully using a range of
short‑term
measures
(including financial incentives) to improve retention and
alleviate
under‑manning.
164.
The NAO also
reported that the MOD was facing current and future
challenges
to its
ability to recruit sufficient numbers of new entrants as a result
of demographic
changes,
changing attitudes to careers, and negative publicity affecting
public
perceptions
of the Armed Forces. The MOD was taking steps to respond to each
of
those
challenges.
165.
The NAO made a
number of recommendations, including:
“The
Department should review the overall manning requirements
within
individual
operational pinch point trade groups to determine whether they
are
set at
sufficient levels to support enduring operational
commitments.
“The
Department is constrained in its ability to reduce the operational
tempo,
which is
impacting on personnel, but should look to investigate measures
to
provide
greater stability and certainty of work patterns for personnel
between
operational
deployments. Whilst recognising the limitations in how
much
workload
can be reduced, the Department should look to improve its
ability
to let
serving personnel know their work patterns over a longer time
horizon.”
166.
Mr Bill
Jeffrey, MOD Permanent Under Secretary, responded to these
conclusions
later that
month in his evidence to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) during
its
consideration
of the NAO’s report.106
He argued
that frequency of deployment was only
one factor
in people’s decisions to stay or leave, and that polling and
opinion survey
evidence
suggested that it was not quite as significant a factor as it might
appear.
167.
Mr Jeffrey
told the PAC that he agreed with the view expressed by Ministers,
that
the Armed
Forces were “stretched quite significantly, by the combination of
deployments
in Iraq and
Afghanistan with other things”, but not overstretched. He
described
overstretch
as the inability of the Armed Forces to fulfil the tasks allocated
to them.
106
Public
Accounts Committee, Session 2005-2006, Ministry of
Defence: Recruitment and retention in the
armed
forces, 15 November
2006. Uncorrected transcript of Oral Evidence given by Mr Bill
Jeffrey CB,
Permanent
Secretary, Mr Chris Baker OBE and Brigadier Stephen Andrews CBE,
Ministry of Defence.
31