Disciplined service would instil order

HR Hartley, you’re the first person, other than myself, that I have seen to publicly propose the return of National Service (Personnel Today, 4 October). Until recently, the UK and Ireland were two of the very few countries in the world – and even in Europe – which did not require some community or military service of young men. I proposed this to a CBI Committee on Education that I sat on some years ago, and was looked at as some kind of dinosaur.

The reality is that we have significant social breakdowns in this country, largely due to the loss of family values, and the lack of any substitute for the cohesiveness that they brought. So we have to introduce ASBOs to counter the lack of discipline in our young people – a measure that treats the symptoms (maybe) but does nothing for the causes.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

Email(Required)

OptOut

From time to time, we will send you emails about selected products, events and services from Personnel Today and OHW+ - but you can choose to opt-out at any time. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please tick this box.

Name

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Δ

I don’t think the clock can be turned back on family values in the short term, nor that a military solution would be acceptable. But some form of disciplined public service would be a much better way to spend public money than many of the current channels.

Andrew Mayo
Director
Mayo Learning International