Training | 2009.11.14
UK leaders fear anger of frustrated army families
As another group of British casualties returns from Afghanistan, Gordon Brown plans steps to calm relatives of frontline troops in a week when one organiser bans politicians from the latest Wootton Bassett tribute
Number 99 arrives tomorrow. The 100th repatriation procession to pass through Wootton Bassett may follow within the week. As the cortege containing the bodies of the latest British soldiers killed in Afghanistan travels through the Wiltshire market town, emotions among military families will once again run high.
Those who have observed the coffins of the 209 British casualties to have travelled through Wootton Bassett over the past 30 months have noted a growing antipathy towards Gordon Brown\'s government. the procession organiser drew a fresh line in hostilities, warning politicians including the prime minister they were not welcome at future repatriations. "The families do not want politicians hijacking something that is for them," said Anne Bevin, secretary of the Royal British Legion\'s Wootton Bassett branch who has organised the town\'s 99 repatriations to date.
Her warnings cap a fraught few days for Brown and his relationship with the Afghan conflict. Last week began with the prime minister being attacked by a mother for misspelling the name of her dead soldier son in a condolence letter. The next day, the eve of Armistice commemorations, the bodies of another six soldiers passed through Wootton Bassett and that was followed by the row over £47m in bonuses to MoD civil servants.
The pressure showed little sign of reducing as Peter Hain, the Welsh secretary, become the first cabinet minister to openly query the government\'s Afghan strategy.
But this week attention will switch from Helmand province and the anger of the bereaved to the disquiet of the service families left behind as their loved ones serve on Afghanistan\'s frontline.
Concern is building in Whitehall that the tens of thousands of wives, husbands and partners who live on the UK\'s military bases could be the next to publicly voice concerns over their treatment. Service charities have long warned the government that the idiosyncrasies of service life create a set of unique problems, particularly access to public services, such as childcare, education and healthcare, and employment.
Downing Street, aware that the growing public opprobrium over Afghanistan is approaching the critical stage, believes the 81,445 wives, husbands and partners of service personnel could become a new home front.
For several months defence officials have increasingly been told by families and charities that the stress of routine military deployments to Afghanistan on an already overstretched army is compounding the problems.
The package of welfare measures to be unveiled by the government this week is a calculated attempt to dampen the potential discord among those who dread the latest headlines from Helmand. Defence minister Kevan Jones said they had realised the importance of helping service families left at home, adding: "Supporting families is supporting the front line".
Mark Cann, chief executive of the British Forces Federation, believes the tension of those with loved ones deployed in Afghanistan combined with life on a British military base can exacerbate a sense of alienation. He said more work needs to be done to bring service families into the community. "The big issue is to get everyone to understand that these guys on the front line and their families are part of us, part of the community .
"We\'ve seen America and the way they are a bit \'yee-ha\' behind their troops, but we need to understand that service families are part of us, as much as the postman and the milkman, and that they are people who live within us."
On the internet message boards dedicated to helping service families cope with the pressures of having loved ones sent to war, parents yesterday exchanged candid insights into life on base.
Although some lauded a close "tight-knit community" others lamented problems ranging from housing to finding work. One said: "No amount of research can prepare you for army life." Another stated: "I really think army life for a wife differs from one place to another... a lot. It can be difficult."
A mother asked: "Can anyone explain to me why we can\'t have the room to house my two stepsons when they come to visit? I have a toddler and a new baby on the way and are told we are not entitled to a four-bed house."
Others struggle to make ends meet while their husbands serve in Afghanistan. The hunger charity Foodbank, based in the military town of Salisbury, Wiltshire, has organised food parcels for almost 250 military spouses and children over the past three years because they can barely afford to feed their families. The Royal British Legion is among the organisations acutely aware that the routine movement from base to base of service families effectively ensures the partner, husband or wife has to frequently surrender their job. With unemployment rising to 2.47 million, finding work for service families is especially difficult, although no data exist for the numbers out of work.
The Army Families Federation and its Navy and RAF sister organisations are fuming about Brown\'s decision to axe childcare vouchers, tax breaks worth up to £2,400 a year. Some 10,000 families are thought to benefit from the scheme launched two years ago and dissent is rising. The three federations wrote last week to Jones explaining how the scheme helped women get a job instead of having to sacrifice employment. In particular, low-paid jobs would become untenable if the vouchers, which help pay for child minders, nursery places and after-school clubs, are scrapped.
Alongside announcing that it has dropped plans to cancel the perk, ministers will introduce special armed forces advocates for local Jobcentres and a new taskforce, chaired by work and pensions secretary Yvette Cooper, to ascertain whether they have the same education and training opportunities as civilians.
Yet the central issue for those on bases throughout the UK and abroad is housing. Although the MoD has upgraded 13,000 family properties over the past decade, the Army Families Federation says accommodation is the "most emotive" issue for their members. Minimal investment and defence cuts on service homes have exaggerated the sense of alienation and disenfranchisement felt among families, says the federation.
"No matter what any government says about commitment to soldiers and their housing, the fact remains that DE [Defence Estates] is hamstrung by tightly controlled Whitehall budgets in its aim to resolve long-standing problems caused by decades of under-investment," a spokesman said.
Families cite the findings of last month\'s public accounts committee report on service accommodation, which revealed that almost a third of service families considered their home to be in poor condition and almost a quarter deemed their properties to be poorly maintained.
Defence ministers will seek to address such concerns by unveiling a £20m scheme under which up to 400 military families are able to transfer the equity in their properties when they are deployed to a new base. Service families have complained of the problems of acquiring a foothold on the property ladder because routine placements mean it is often unfeasible.
The move comes more than two years after the Royal British Legion identified that the military covenant that is supposed to safeguard the interests of service personnel and their families was at risk of being breached. Since then, its policy officials have worked closely with civil servants to develop a cross-government strategy and last year unveiled the Service Personnel Command Paper to help address failings in housing, education and family support.
This week the scrutiny committee of the command paper will deliver its first report directly to the prime minister, who will personally assess what needs to be done. The report is expected to be critical but will also broadly praise the progress of implementing cross-department liaison officers to examine potential improvements for service families. "There is progress certainly, but now we need to deliver actual help to the people who need it," said a senior services charity source.
One key issue is ensuring that veterans are aware that they qualify for priority treatment on the NHS and this week leaflets explaining their entitlements will be sent to GPs. Meanwhile, an assessment will continue into whether the children of military parents are at a disadvantage in terms of school admissions.
Brown, though, has more immediate issues among service families to contemplate. Four weeks have passed since he announced that he was ready to send an extra 500 troops to southern Afghanistan, providing the right equipment was available and that other countries made a contribution. Senior officers warned that the delays are exerting a "corrosive" effect on the minds of families as Christmas approaches amid the uncertainty over whether it will be spent at home or in Helmand. The former chief of the defence staff, General Sir Charles Guthrie, said families would find it deeply "frustrating".
Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said: "The army obviously gets people ready to do things as quickly as it can and when decisions are deferred they are hanging on. They find it frustrating, their families find it wearing in many ways and not knowing whether their son or husband in a month\'s time will be off. The delay is a bit corrosive."
When scores of military families arrive at Downing Street for their views to be heard this Thursday, Cann will simultaneously be staging a morale-boosting family day in Aldershot. But, like many who have contact with Britain\'s services, he is increasingly perturbed over the effect the negative media coverage of the prime minister and Afghanistan is having on families.
Cann said: "We disrespect the politicians at our peril, and to take these cheap shots we are periodically doing is as much a disservice to the troops and their families as it is for the country as a whole. Brown is getting a big kicking and I\'m not his biggest fan, but I don\'t think the Tories will be any better either. The underlying complaint that can\'t be solved is that we\'re at war and no one really wants us to be."
New defence-related dilemmas are certain to arise for Brown this week, although initially at least they appear likely to come from the Iraq conflict. Tomorrow an inquiry into the death of Iraqi hotel receptionist Baha Mousa, who died in British military custody, will hear its most explosive testimony yet.
Corporal Donald Payne, who was convicted at his court martial of inhumane treatment of Iraqi prisoners, will give testimony for the first time about the incident and is expected to say he was made a "scapegoat" to protect senior officers. Witnesses claimed they saw Payne, the first person convicted of war crimes in Britain, kick and punch a handcuffed prisoner minutes before he died at a British detention centre in Basra in 2003. Yesterday fresh allegations about Iraq surfaced. Among 33 accounts of alleged abuse is one that two soldiers raped a boy of 16. The claims prompted an MoD inquiry and the former Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, a member of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said they were a reminder of the "long, toxic legacy" of Iraq.
Few disagree that the Afghan campaign will not be resolved soon, or that more victims will pass through Wootton Bassett. Improving the lot of those with most to lose is, for many, the least that should be done.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov[...]-families-protest-brown-barred
