3 Risks to delivering Army 2020
17. We reported on Army 2020, the Department's programme
of change and restructuring to integrate fully a regular Army
of 82,500 with a larger and more frequently used Army Reserve
of 30,000, in September 2014. We made several recommendations
about the Department's decision-making during the development
of Army 2020 and its progress with implementing the programme
thereafter. The response to our report did not fully address all
our concerns around feasibility testing for proposed projects;
managing the risks around recruitment and retention of soldiers;
and the approach taken to contingency planning. It did set out
how the Department was holding Capita, its recruiting partner,
to account for its performance in delivering the Army recruitment
contract, with the Department implementing an interim performance
regime in June 2014. However, no information was provided on how
this had been applied or on Capita's progress with implementing
its new recruitment software, expected by summer 2015.[20]
18. In response to our questions on Army recruitment
the Department told us that it was "underwhelmed" by
Capita's performance, which it assessed had been "mixed".
It believed Capita was clearly committed to helping the Department
deliver the programme and had made progress streamlining some
recruitment processes. However the Department still had to use
an IT system that had been intended to be an interim solution
because the long-term proposal put forward by Capita was deemed
by the Department to be "unacceptable" and "too
expensive".[21]
19. The Department told us that the recruitment of
reserves was up 80% year on year, with more reserves being recruited
in the first quarter of 2015 than previous quarters. Recruitment
of reserves stood at 20,480 against a total of 19,900 for the
end of the current year, although some of this is due to reclassification
rather than improved performance. On regular soldier recruitment,
the Department achieved 66% of its target for 2013-14, the last
complete year for which it has figures, and expects to achieve
78% of its enlistment target in 2014-15. The regular strength
of the Army at 31 December 2014 was 82,830—above the Army
2020 requirement of 82,500.[22]
The Department believed that meeting targets beyond 2016 would
be challenging and required significant improvements to performance.
Despite our earlier recommendation, there was still no clear contingency
plan in the event the Department fails to recruit sufficient numbers.[23]
20 HM Treasury, Treasury Minutes, Government responses on the Eighth and the Tenth to the Fifteenth reports from the Committee of Public Accounts: Session 2014-15, Cm 9013, 11 November 2014, pages 9-11 Back
21
Qq 152, 153 Back
22
Written evidence from the Ministry of Defence 10.03.15 Back
23
Qq, 145, 146, 148, 149, 156, 157 Back
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