Resettlement results revealed

Director of Resettlement Air Commodore Philip Miles is about to make a personal test of his own organisation. Approaching 55, he has already started his own resettlement with a Career Transition Workshop – ‘it was great; I was impressed’ – and is now planning his training and job search over the next six months or so.

MoD resettlement has received two very positive reports recently: its own ninth report shows a continuing build on strong foundations, including improvements in provision for Early Service Leavers (ESLs) and people who are medically discharged; and an independent government examination by the National Audit Office (NAO), which surveyed a number of people who had left the Forces up to two years earlier. The latter body is not known for its friendly approach to ministries, but its investigation into resettlement – Leaving the Services – broadly supports the Ministry’s own reports, confirming job-finding and training take-up successes, with only a few shortcomings.

Some specifics raised by the NAO are needs to review management information, to address single-Service information and access to resettlement entitlements, and to consider consolidating Individual Resettlement Training Costs (IRTC) and Enhanced Learning Credits (ELCs). The first two are already recognised as work-in-progress, and the Director believes that ‘there might be ways in which use of the IRTC and ELCs could be combined to fund the same course. However, the two grants have very different purposes, and the IRTC is wider because it does not require learning to be at Level 3 or above.’

2006/07 was a busy year. Despite smaller Armed Forces, the total number of Service leavers rose to 24,670, 15,490 of whom were entitled to Career Transition Partnership (CTP) support. This was due in part to the Royal Irish (Home Service) disbandment, but the exceptional measures put in place to manage this paid off. Soldiers using the system generally expressed high satisfaction, the CTP coped with massively increased throughput, and 90 per cent of the first tranche had offers of employment.

ESLs are people who leave the Forces before they have completed the minimum time required to be entitled to CTP provision or under circumstances that incur loss of entitlement. In 2006/07, 6,150 had not completed their initial training before discharge and some 2,212 left the trained strength. The picture is completed by the sad record of 204 deaths in service and 1,670 discharges on medical grounds.

Hitherto, there has been a gap in structured resettlement provision. CTP-entitled people, including all medical discharges, were generally well catered for, and ESLs received a formal interview and briefing on housing and accommodation, ex-Service charities and welfare organisations, pension rights and other entitlements, and access to Jobcentre Plus programmes. Vulnerable ESLs were spotted during this process and offered extra help. However, about 1,500 people a year fell between these two programmes, and had only an informal arrangement for contacting their single-Service resettlement adviser for support.

From 1February this year, all this changed. Anyone not entitled to CTP support is now classed as an ESL. ‘So all non-commissioned personnel should now have some element of mandatory structured resettlement support before they leave the Services,’ the Director observes.

An ongoing survey has established ESLs’ employment status up to six months after discharge. At this point, 61 per cent are paying income tax (and therefore in employment) and 14 per cent are claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance as unemployed, which is around the UK average for males aged under 25 (the vast majority of all ESLs fall in that age bracket). There is no record of the remaining 25 per cent, which includes people who return to education and training.

Following on from the Tri-Service Manual revision completed during the year, the Director intends to issue by Christmas updated Guidance Notes for ESL resettlement staffs. This will include information on major gatekeeper charities (which are included in every Service leaver information pack), and an introduction to the Royal British Legion’s Civvy Street electronic portal. The latter provides information and advice on subjects ranging from CV writing and job finding to housing and, shortly, basic domestic budget management. It is not a substitute for CTP, but it will provide some valuable additional support for Service leavers who do not receive the CTP resettlement package.

For people discharged on medical grounds, some backlogs in document processing have been cleared. Harmonisation of medical board output has been achieved, and arrangements for individuals to consent to disclosure of their medical information to third parties are now in place. The next objectives are earlier indications of compensation and pension payments, and a document that will provide information to CTP career consultants on any capability limitations. Medically discharged Service leavers may also be referred to specialist vocational assessment facilities run by the Legion and Remploy.

In 2006/07, 14,265 Service leavers took up their entitlement to resettlement support, up 697 on last year. So the overall take-up rate was over 92 per cent – the best year so far in this respect. According to the Director, this is probably getting close to the maximum conversion number as there will always be some people who surrender resettlement entitlement to leave early for a firm job offer. However, ‘there is still a need to improve communications to ensure all Service leavers receive timely information of their resettlement entitlements and are given access to provision. And, from a purely personal perspective, I must commend Quest on its contribution to increasing Service leavers’ awareness of all aspects of resettlement.’

One figure that sometimes goes unnoticed is re-engagement. Some 1,460 people registered for the CTP programme (11.5 per cent of the whole) and decided to sign on for a further term rather than leave the Services. Unfortunately there is no accurate figure for the total savings that result, although the NAO assesses the reduction in recruitment and initial training to be in the region of £40 million annually.

The percentage of Service leavers who use CTP services and who want to work post-discharge, and who are in employment within six months of discharge continues to hover around 95 per cent. Two-thirds of them are in employment within one month of discharge, and fewer than 10 per cent take more than four months to find a job. Salary levels seem to be rising, with nearly half getting between £20,000 and £30,000, and one in ten being paid in excess of £50,000.

The future pattern of resettlement training is not yet clear but it is taking shape. The Northern Ireland experience showed the effectiveness of local delivery of training focused at local job market skills needs and, in many cases, tied to civilian work attachments. However, no one can be sure how much of a special case this was: strong links between individuals who already had a foothold in the local economy, the involvement of regional government in encouraging and supporting small business, and large amounts of public money being injected to overcome the results of decades of conflict and encourage the inward flow of private companies all certainly contributed.

To enable an increase of the Individual Resettlement Training Costs from £534 to a more realistic figure, there has to be a reduction in the money spent on travel and subsistence for individuals undertaking courses. Consequently, in the future much training delivery will almost certainly be regional to enable commuting between a serving individual’s work or home location or use of available single living accommodation at hub locations. This should prevent the practice of subsistence payments being used to subsidise the true cost of training.

More classroom-based courses are already being delivered in regional resettlement centres that clearly meet the location criteria (for example, PRINCE2 project management in Germany, and Scottish police preparation in Rosyth), and this trend will undoubtedly continue where regional interest in particular training justifies it. In-house course delivery for other high-volume sectors like security and driving may also be brought to the student. That said, the number of Service leavers on CTP resettlement courses at the Aldershot Training Centre is up 31 per cent.

There will also be an expanded network of preferred suppliers who will deliver the training required for relatively high-volume sectors within the commuting footprint of military concentrations. Exotic courses abroad or well away from military accommodation to prepare individuals for specialist occupations will still be allowed provided that the same training outcome cannot be achieved in a more cost-effective way. Likewise, residential courses will also be permitted, provided that the programme content and delivery make it necessary for students to be accommodated.

Last year the CTP preferred supplier list expanded by 25 per cent and will be expanded further to ensure coverage in all these regions for popular careers, delivering training up to comparable levels of outcome. The management of preferred suppliers has been revised, to ensure course mix and content meet training needs and Service leaver preferences against a background of stringent quality control involving Regional Employment and Training Managers. All preferred suppliers are now required to publish their up-to-date course prices on the CTP website in the same way that CTP publishes its IRTC-funded courses. This will enable Service leavers to shop around more easily for the course that best suits their needs.

‘It remains a tough job market – and it’s getting tougher’, but the Director is determined to maintain current success rates, and sees scope ‘focusing on improvements in job quality and salary, exploiting past Service leavers who have done well in their post-Service civilian careers, and addressing the challenges posed by the way large companies now recruit’. He remains committed to ensuring that training is appropriate for the changing job market, and will be looking to develop a more blended mix of home study, classroom and practical elements to courses provided through CTP.