The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
175.
Lt Gen Mans
told the Inquiry:
“…
recruiting is quite a complex area, so although … on balance, I
think Iraq was
positive
[for recruitment], there were some other issues which made
recruiting more
difficult.
At this stage, the economy in the country was doing very well and,
therefore,
unemployment
was comparatively low. Therefore, we were competing for recruits
in
quite a
difficult market in that respect. There were other issues
associated with the
phrase that
has been used before, ‘gatekeepers’, parents and teachers. Were
they
actually
going to encourage either their children or their pupils to join
the military?
Well, on
balance, they probably weren’t, in terms of that sort of overall
perception.
So overall,
you had to take into consideration all these other rather complex
factors,
because the
army was under-recruited during the period in
question.”111
176.
The MOD told
the Inquiry that, since 2002, the Armed Forces had
been
consistently
operating at or above the level of concurrency defined in SDR
98.112
That had
“inevitably constrained” their ability to meet Harmony Guidelines
particularly for
Service
Personnel in “Pinch Point specialist trades”.
177.
The MOD
provided the Inquiry with figures for the percentage of Service
Personnel
in each
Service for whom the Harmony Guidelines on Individual Separated
Service
were
breached between 2002 and 2009; these figures are presented at the
end of this
Section.113
The Navy’s
Guidelines were breached in respect of less that 1 percent
of
Navy
Personnel in each of the years covered by the Inquiry. The Army’s
Guidelines were
breached in
respect of over 18 percent of Army Personnel in early 2004 (the
first period
for which
data is available), falling to 10 percent in early 2007. The RAF’s
Guidelines
were
breached in respect of between 2 and 10 percent of RAF Personnel
over the
period
covered by the Inquiry.
178.
Professor
Christopher Dandeker, Professor of Military Sociology at King’s
College
London and
Co-Director of the King’s Centre for Military Health Research, told
the
House of
Commons Defence Committee in March 2008:
“… so far
as our own research is concerned … I think that the Harmony
Guidelines
have been
well constructed because the evidence suggests that if you stay
within
them they
[Service Personnel] do not suffer; if you go beyond them there is
a
20 to 50
percent likelihood that they will suffer in terms of PTSD [Post
Traumatic
111 Public
hearing, 19 July 2010, pages 79-80.
112
Paper MOD,
25 November 2009, ‘Harmony Guidelines’.
113
Paper MOD,
22 October 2010, ‘Harmony – Statistics’.
114
Fourteenth
Report from the Defence Committee, Session 2007-2008,
Recruiting
and retaining Armed
Forces
personnel, Oral and Written Evidence (25 March
2008),
HC424.
34