Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Earl Attlee

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 12th September 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Burt of Solihull]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 16 tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Jolly. Before doing so, however, I want to make a comment about Amendment 9 tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. It seeks to protect the full-time equivalent level of remuneration for regulars. As the noble Lord has pointed out, there are components to this such as universal payments, basic pay and the x-factor, which until recently I thought was something else entirely, but I shall not go into that. The idea is to protect against any reduction in pay being slipped in for individuals who will be affected by this Bill. But since we are not changing the classification of a regular, these components will not change, including the 14% which is the current x-factor payment. It will remain throughout the term of an individual’s employment. My view is that this should be a matter for concern and we would appreciate an assurance from the Minister that that indeed will be the case.

I turn to Amendment 16, which ensures that a person can be promoted regardless of whether they work part-time. We would welcome a reassurance from the Minister that the new arrangements will not affect someone’s career progression. The situation is complicated and not necessarily what people outside the Armed Forces might imagine. As I understand it, the current performance appraisal, postings and promotion system is not based primarily on competence. It relies heavily on direct comparisons being made with immediate peers in a unit. A tick-box system is used whereby someone has to have done certain jobs in order to get the next job. In that way, an individual can score enough to go before a promotion board. Under the current system, anyone working part-time will inevitably be penalised, particularly if they are on geographical restriction as one. They are unlikely to do all the posts they need to do to remain in the promotion thread, and they may not score as well in direct comparison with peers. If the Government accept the premise that promotion should not be affected by using the flexible employment scheme, does the Minister also accept that the appraisals-posting promotion structure really could do with a massive overhaul?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I share some of the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and I hope that the Minister can reiterate the assurances he has given us in private that there would never be any encouragement of a serviceperson to seek part-time work in order to meet budgetary restrictions. If you have a branch and a headquarters, it would be quite easy to meet a cost-saving requirement just by having everybody take up part-time working. That would be an easy reassurance for my noble friend to give and I hope that he will do so. Can my noble friend also give an absolute reassurance that part-time working would not be used as part of the disciplinary machinery? In other words, if someone has fouled up, they are told that they will do six months of part-time service.

An interesting question for the Minister is this: when the pay of a serviceperson who has taken up part-time working is reduced, is it reduced on the basis of a seven-day week—a 365-day year—or on the basis of a five day week? Most people in camp normally work a five-day week unless they are on exercises or deployed. This is quite an interesting question because reservists are paid only for the days they do. The answer to my question about that will be rather more complicated than it first appears.

Amendment 16 concerns promotion and would ensure that part-time service in itself will not affect promotion. I hope that the Minister can give us a reassurance on that. The drafting of the amendment is a little bit problematic because it says “irrelevant”. It will be relevant, but it might be positive. For instance, the soldiers’ or officers’ joint appraisal report—the pen picture that describes how well or badly the serviceperson has done—might say, “Despite the fact that this soldier or this officer is working only four days a week, they have achieved all the objectives required”, or maybe even more than was expected. So you could acquire quite a good SJAR or OJAR despite the fact that you are working part-time. It is a rather complicated picture, but I hope that the Minister can give us some reassurances.