A POLICY FOR PEOPLE
119. Britain's defence depends on the military who serve in the Armed Forces and the civil servants who work alongside them in the Ministry of Defence. We ask a lot of them, especially on operations and preparing for operations. Ultimately we ask people to risk their lives. The demands do not stop at the front line, they affect the military and civilians in the support chain and the Ministry itself. And they affect their families. We also expect a lot in skills - defence is a highly professional, increasingly high technology, vocation.
120. We must therefore recruit highly motivated people. We must invest in their training. We must retain them and maintain their motivation. To do this we must equip them properly for the tasks we give them. We must also ensure that our demands on them and their families do not become unreasonable.
The Services
121. Our plans for the Services address all stages of the individual's career, from recruitment, through training and education to resettlement. They are designed to enhance the attractiveness of a Service career both to the young and their parents and advisers. We have already made clear our determination that the Armed Forces will offer a worthwhile and rewarding career for all ethnic groups, both for men and women. We are increasing the emphasis the Services place on vocational training and education with new schemes linked to the Government's 'Learning Age' proposals. We shall be making improvements to a number of aspects of Service life, both for the forces themselves and for their families. And we wish to ensure that when Service personnel leave the forces, they return to the civilian employment market better trained and better qualified. We shall be developing a comprehensive strategy for our people for the 21st century, with major initiatives addressing key areas such as pay and pensions systems, and better career management.
122. We must also deal with the underlying problems of undermanning and overstretch that we have inherited. This is essential to maintain the professionalism for which our forces are so widely admired and, in particular, to provide the highly responsive forces we need for the new international environment. This was emphasised by the evidence from the Review's internal consultation. Our people are looking to the Review to set out a future for defence in which they can have confidence. A crucial test will be whether we can solve these problems.
Overstretch and Undermanning
123. Overstretch and undermanning are linked problems. Overstretch is trying to do too much with too little manpower. One result is that units and individuals - especially in key areas - are separated from their families too often and for too long. Another result is that preparation for other tasks and longer term training suffer.
124. Undermanning - that is when units are not up to planned strengths - is one of the causes of overstretch. Individuals within undermanned units have to do more and, particularly for operations, individual reinforcements have to be brought in from other units. Unsurprisingly, the additional pressures from persistent overstretch contribute to higher exit rates from the Armed Forces thus adding to manning difficulties.
125. We must break this vicious circle. To do so we must match the commitments we undertake to our planned resources, recognising that there will always be the risk of additional short-term pressures if we have to respond rapidly to an unforeseen crisis. We need to improve recruitment and retention so that our units are properly manned. And we need to use ourmanpower in the most effective manner, particularly seeking to avoid unnecessary separation or disruption to individuals and their families.
A Policy for Full Manning
126. The Review has designed a future force structure matched to the level of commitments we plan to be able to undertake. These structural changes, combined with measures to increase recruiting and retention, will ease overstretch. This is why, for example, we propose to increase the strength of our logistic support units, one of the areas where overstretch is at its worst. We are also seeking to ease overstretch by better use of manpower. The changes described in the previous Chapter in Army organisation, and the fuller manning of the RN and RAF front line made possible by the reduction in numbers of escorts, submarines and fast jets, will help significantly.
127. Recruiting has been a problem over the last few years, partly due to the impact of the sharp reductions in the size of the Forces after the Cold War. That era of decline is behind us. We need to restore intakes to a level which meets our long term needs. This is a challenging task but recent trends are encouraging. We need to recruit high quality adaptable people in a rapidly changing society. We will be putting additional emphasis on recruiting and adapting our approach to better reach all sections of the community. We are particularly anxious to recruit more from the ethnic minorities and more women, whose potential we have not fully tapped.
128. We lose too many recruits during initial training. All the Services have introduced special courses and other initiatives to reduce training wastage. We are looking at ways in which these initiatives can be extended without lowering the standards of our trained personnel. We are also studying possible ways of changing the career structure to encourage more people to serve for longer periods. Better retention will not only ease overstretch but give us a better return on our investment in training.
A more Attractive Career
129. Tackling the disincentive of overstretch will help with recruiting and retention. But, above all, we need to take positive action to make the Services more attractive as a career. For most people the Services cannot be their only career. It is therefore vital that we provide them with transferable qualifications for return to a civil society which does not at present sufficiently recognise the high skills and real responsibility acquired in the Services.
130. We will be introducing new training and education initiatives linked to the Government's wider proposals for the 'Learning Age'. All recruits to the Services will be given the opportunity to gain the six key skills identified by the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) as needed by all in the workplace; and all personnel will be given the chance to achieve qualifications recognised by civilian employers. Within the framework of the 'Learning Age' proposals, our 'Learning Forces' initiative will give our people the skills they need to make the best possible contribution to the Armed Forces, and equip them to return to civilian life. This major new initiative will expand education and vocational training opportunities for the Armed Forces. Service personnel will be able to claim 'Learning Credits' both whilst serving and for some time afterwards. All these proposals will make a Service career more attractive and improve its training benefits; and they will also benefit defence by developing the skills needed for modern warfare and acting as a boost for retention. Moreover, the nation will also benefit as better-qualified personnel return to the civilian employment market after their Service career.
131. We are also taking a range of other steps to improve the lot of Service personnel and their families. We will be improving operational welfare provision and introducing a common annual leave entitlement for all ranks which will benefit the most junior Army and RAF personnel, placing them on a par with their naval counterparts. We will also be giving higher priority to improving the standard of single living accommodation. For families, we are setting up a task force to address the special problems which arise from their mobile lifestyle, for example in obtaining access to healthcare and school places, and funding for Service children's schools abroad will be increased to mirror the Government's wider initiative to improve literacy and numeracy standards.
132. We are also setting up a cell to provide a focal point for veterans seeking guidance on where and how they can obtain advice to deal with whatever problems they may have. This will be staffed by Service or ex-Service personnel.
133. We shall be developing a common personnel strategy, led by the centre but implemented by the individual Services, to build on this approach for the long term. We shall also be undertaking a series of initiatives including the introduction of a new pay system and a common appraisal system for officers, reviews of career structures, and compensation and pension arrangements, and examination of the need for a single, tri-Service Discipline Act.
Civilian Personnel
134. Roughly a third of Ministry of Defence employees are civil servants. The contribution they make is often not fully appreciated. The majority are integrated into military Commands providing a wide range of day-to-day support functions. Some deploy on operations alongside military colleagues, sharing the risks and discomfort. Civilians and military staff also work as integrated teams in the Ministry of Defence itself which combines the functions of a Department of State and the highest level military headquarters, and in MOD's research and procurement activity. We will continue to need highly motivated and skilled civilian staff in all these capacities.
135. Although Service and civilian roles and therefore conditions of employment differ in many respects, the Government is similarly committed to providing a rewarding career in defence for its civilian staff, while recognising that career patterns may well be different from those in the past. Many key objectives apply in broadly similar ways to military and civilians - for example the Department's equal opportunities policies for women, ethnic minorities and civilians with disabilities, and the large scale Investors in People programme.
136. The principles for the management of our civilian staff have been set out in a Personnel Policy Statement and this is supported by a Civilian Personnel Management Strategy setting out clear priorities for action which will ensure that our arrangements match best practice elsewhere. We will continue to improve career information and guidance, encourage continuous professional development, provide better targeted and more thorough equal opportunities training, more flexible pay and grading systems, and improve internal communications, both upward and downward.
137. The development of professionalism and skills is, for example, a central feature in the work being done to introduce resource accounting and budgeting, where much greater emphasis has been placed on the achievement of professional finance and accountancy qualifications and appropriate training and career management. More generally, the development of staff will be linked, where appropriate, to the Government's wider plans for lifetime learning. We will continue to develop schemes to encourage and support National Vocational Qualifications, as our highly rated Modern Apprenticeship scheme does, and will look to broaden our contribution to other schemes - such as those run by the Prince's Trust - which help people develop their skills, broaden their experience and make a contribution to the community.
Putting our People First
138. Past defence reviews have concentrated on strategy and equipment, sometimes with insufficient consideration of people. This Review has given people their proper place at the centre of our plans. The initiatives described above are designed to tackle current problems - although they cannot remove them all overnight. As importantly, they form part of a coherent strategic approach intended to meet our long term need for high quality Service and civilian personnel and give them confidence of their future in defence.
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