Conclusions and recommendations
1. Army
2020 is an ambitious programme of change and restructuring which
responds to the Government's need to reduce public spending, including
on defence. It seeks, for the first time, to integrate fully a
regular Army of 82,500 with a larger and more frequently used
Army Reserve of 30,000. This represents a significant change from
pre-2010 levels of some 102,000 trained regular soldiers and 19,000
trained reserve soldiers. The Department projects that this revised
force size will reduce the cost of the Army by £10.6 billion
between 2011-12 and 2021-22.
2. The Department did not test feasibility,
or adequately consult the Army, before deciding to reduce the
regular Army and increase the Army Reserve.
We recognise that the decision to reduce the size of the Army
was driven by the need to make financial savings in a time of
austerity. However, it is remarkable that the Chief of the General
Staff was not involved in all stages of the decision-making process
given the magnitude and importance of the change required, and
its impact on the service which he commands. We were also surprised
to learn that the Department did not test the feasibility of recruiting
and training the number of reserve soldiers it needs by 2019.
The Department is confident that it can still recruit and train
the required number of reserves by 2019, but we remain to be convinced
given that its confidence is based on unevidenced assumptions.
Recommendation: For
future significant reviews of the armed forces, the Department
should involve relevant stakeholders fully in the decision-making
process, and ensure adequate testing of the feasibility for proposed
actions.
3. Shortfalls in Army recruitment are increasing
the risk of capability gaps emerging in some parts of the Army's
structure. To achieve the ambition of
Army 2020, the Department needs to grow substantially the size
of the Army Reserve. It also needs to reduce the size of the regular
Army while at the same time recruiting enough regular soldiers
to sustain the future Army structure. However, the Army's
recruiting partner, Capita, missed its regular soldier recruitment
target by 30% in 2013-14 and it recruited only around 2,000 reserves
against a target of 6,000. A huge step up in performance is required
if the Army is to hit its ambitious target of recruiting 9,270
new reserves in 2016-17. The size of the regular Army is reducing
faster than originally planned but the size of the trained Army
Reserve has not increased in the last two years because more people
have left the reserve than joined. We are deeply concerned to
hear that a capability gap could be emerging in some parts of
the Army structure that could increase the risk of additional
pressure being placed on regular units.
Recommendation: The Army should establish
clear trigger points for enacting contingency measures if recruitment
and retention rates are not improved and gaps emerge in the Army's
structure.
4. The Army lacks a fully developed contingency
plan or clear criteria for using it if gaps emerge in the Army's
structure. Army 2020's
smaller Army will be even more vulnerable to the under-manning
that was common before the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan,
so it is wholly unacceptable that the Department's current 'Plan
B' is to get 'Plan A' to work. The Army has some mitigating actions
it can take if recruitment performance does not improve, such
as calling up ex-regular personal with a service liability or
extending tour lengths for regulars, but it has not worked these
into a fully developed contingency plan. The Army also acknowledges
that some of its proposed mitigating actions could work in the
short-term but may have long-term negative consequences, or be
difficult to put into action. For example, extended tours of operational
service for regulars would meet a short-term need to cover any
gaps that emerge in the Army structure, but could lead to lower
morale and more people leaving the regular Army, thereby exacerbating
the problem. Additionally, the Army is not able to say with certainty
that all those with a service liability are available to be used.
Some 40% of the records the Army holds on these individuals do
not contain details of medical fitness that would determine whether
they could be used on operations.
Recommendation: The
Department should evaluate the options available to it to address
any gaps in military capability, assess their potential short-term
and long-term impact on the Army, and develop a strategic contingency
plan to respond.
5. The Department's approach to recruitment
has put planned savings at risk and is not delivering value for
money. The Army signed its contract with
Capita before the Department took the decision to substantially
increase the size of the Army Reserve. As a result, the Army's
recruitment contract with Capita was not established on the basis
of a clear understanding of the scale of recruitment challenge.
The Army's poor management information also meant that it passed
Capita 12,000 potential candidates for recruitment at the start
of the contract rather than the 55,000 Capita had been led to
expect, and half of the 12,000 were contacts from more than a
year earlier and so were not all realistic prospects. The operation
of the contract and the application of its performance regime
were then undermined because Capita did not get the IT infrastructure
it needed to deliver its contract, primarily because the Department
and the Army failed to integrate their separate contracts with
two suppliers. The Department acknowledges that this was unacceptable,
and at least £70 million of the planned £267 million
savings from the contract have already been lost. The Department
has also had to pay Capita as though they met all of their recruitment
targets in 2013-14 despite, for example, falling 4,000 short of
its 6,000 target for reserve recruits.
Recommendation: The Department should ensure
that it is able to hold Capita to account for its performance
in delivering the Army recruitment contract, by finalising and
agreeing an interim performance regime.
6. The Department prevented full Parliamentary
scrutiny of its Army 2020 plans by withholding information from
the National Audit Office.
The Department claims it has evidence to support its confidence
that it can increase the trained strength of the Army Reserve
to 30,000 by 2019. We were shocked to read in the National Audit
Office's report that it was unable to test these assumptions because
the Department failed to make evidence available for audit. As
a result, we can have no assurance that the Department's planning
assumptions for reserve recruitment are reasonable and based on
evidence. The Department was also unable to explain why, despite
agreeing the facts in the National Audit Office report, defence
officials subsequently briefed national newspapers criticising
the evidence in the report.
Recommendation: The Department should fulfil
its obligations for accountability to Parliament by making all
evidence available for scrutiny in a timely manner and follow
established convention in commenting on National Audit Office
reports.
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