Resettlement partnership passes stiff examination

In its Fifth Annual Report, the Resettlement Directorate of the MoD looked at the Career Transition Partnership’s performance during the financial year 2002/03. Its statistical sources were many and varied, including government agencies, questionnaires, and official reports and returns

Questtakes a look at the latest assessment of the MoD’s resettlement service

Its structure was based on two primary measurements: successful employment within six months of leaving and take-up rates for CTP services. Also considered important were customer satisfaction and take-up rates for the training on offer – both transition (job-finding) workshops and skills courses.

None of these figures, of course, can tell the whole story. Some people want to rest, travel, retire or enter full-time education when they leave the Forces. No one can be made to attend any element of resettlement training; some people choose not to do so, and perhaps a few people may not be released by their units; and survey results are only as good as the sample they are drawn from.

A major leap forward has been the production of the Tri-Service Resettlement Manual, as recommended in the recent Review of Resettlement. For the first time all advisers and implementers are operating to common standards and can help people from another Service – critically important in an era of increasingly joint units.

Exaggerated media ‘revelations’ about ex-Service people found homeless, unemployed, and in a cycle of drink and drug addiction are nothing new. However a few leavers are vulnerable to such difficulties, and measures to tackle this are being examined.

While total numbers of people leaving the Services after five or more years’ service are continuing to fall, the proportion taking the full CTP service for which they are eligible has risen to around 75 per cent. However, numbers taking the job-finding service only have leapt from 60 per cent of around 2,500 people to 135 per cent in four years; the latter figure is obtained by including people eligible for the full service but opting for job-finding with the numbers eligible for job-finding only (leavers with between three and five years’ service).

While 87 per cent of all leavers eligible for its services use some elements of the Partnership, this figure contains one significant hole – the 730 people (or 30-plus per cent) eligible for job-finding only but who do not use this service. They may have jobs lined up or they may not be interested in resettlement. They may be unable to attend the courses they planned, and a very few units may not be interested. Some sign the paperwork at 2nd Line and are then lost to the system; these people are called pre-registrants because full registration only occurs when they arrive at a resettlement centre. Follow-up phone calls are having some effect on this group, but it is a simple fact that a number of people – particularly Officers and Junior NCOs – still think about resettlement too late in the day to take full advantage of what is on offer.

Employment success rates vary slightly between the CTP survey and Director Resettlement’s own questionnaire. ‘Success’ is judged as having a full-time job within six months of discharge if that is what the individual wants. There are inevitable caveats with people who cannot be found or who do not respond, but the best estimate is that between 90 and 95 per cent are successful. Starting salaries for Officers and Junior NCOs are generally similar to those in the Services. Senior NCOs, though, can anticipate a drop, although Quest knows of many who have quickly returned to uniformed salary rates and more.

Director Resettlement’s staff are clear that ‘the Resettlement Training Centre (RTC) offers excellent value for money for Service leavers wishing to enhance their skills because it benefits from low-cost accommodation in MoD-owned buildings and makes use of in-house resources tautly managed and efficiently run’. Each year a number of courses are agreed and purchased by the MoD at what it regards as a very competitive rate. It does not matter how many students attend these courses – they have been paid under the terms of the contract. Although the take-up rate on these courses is therefore irrelevant for funding, ‘it is testimony to the success of the RTC that all these courses are fully loaded’.

Service leavers pay for these courses at a nominal rate of one-twentieth of their IRTC per day, but the CTP does not receive this money because these courses have already been purchased by the MoD. Service leavers can attend other, non-contracted courses, laid on by the RTC in response to demand and agreed with Director Resettlement, for one-twentieth of their IRTC per day, and this money will go to the CTP.

Only the relatively small number of extra non-contracted courses offer any financial benefits to the CTP, and the MoD’s primary requirement is for the civilian partner to provide an effective service overall with high take-up and success rates. This has particular significance as the current contract expires in September 2005 and Director Resettlement’s team is already putting together the terms for the new one.