Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage employers to recruit service leavers and veterans.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has a robust and effective resettlement system in place which includes the highly successful Career Transition Partnership (CTP). The CTP contract provides employers with unique access to the Service leaver talent pool. Employers can upload job opportunities to RightJob via the CTP website which receives over 50,000 unique hits per month, and promotes employment opportunities through regular e-bulletins sent to over 20,000 active clients. Through the resettlement contract, the CTP can link employers with the best Service leaver candidates for their vacancies. The CTP offers a high quality, no cost recruitment service for organisations looking to recruit highly motivated, skilled and experienced Service leavers.

The Government has set out plans for Prison Safety and Reform in a White Paper, committing to recruit an additional 2,500 prison officers across the estate. The MOD is working collaboratively with the National Offenders Management Service (NOMS) to recruit Service leavers as prison officers to support this recruitment drive, in recognition of the number of valuable transferable skills that Service leavers can bring to the Prison Service. The CTP works closely with NOMS to promote careers in the Prison Service. A NOMS official will be attending CTP employment fairs and a number of prison open days for Service leavers will run during the coming months. Additionally, NOMS are developing a recruitment campaign targeted specifically at Armed Forces which will be supported by the MOD.