Yesterday, during Defence Questions in the House of Commons, Former Armed Forces Minister and Rayleigh & Wickford MP, Mark Francois, called on the “utterly ludicrous Capita” (the outsourcing company who have regularly failed to meet Army recruitment targets), to be finally sacked.

In his question to the Minister for the Armed Forces, Mark said:

“As I used to do my right hon. Friend’s job, may I join the tributes to the outgoing, outstanding Armed Forces Minister? The “Ready for War?” report just referenced identified problems with recruitment as one issue that impedes our ability to fight. The Defence Secretary himself has called our recruitment system “ludicrous”, and he told The Times earlier this month that: ‘the ‘Amazon’ generation, which is used to getting things instantly, were not prepared to wait a year to join the army.’ He is absolutely right, so when will the utterly ludicrous “Crapita” finally be sacked?”

In response, the Minister for the Armed Forces, James Heappey MP, said:

“I am unable to answer my right hon. Friend’s specific question, but he will be heartened to hear that as a consequence of all that is going on in the world, and the geopolitical uncertainty that requires us to use our armed forces so extensively, in recent months we have enjoyed record expressions of interest in joining His Majesty’s armed forces. Obviously, we need to make sure that the time between expressing an interest and starting training is as short as possible; all colleagues on the Front Bench perceive the need for that.”

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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76 COMMENTS

    • I am only guessing but I suspect big firms have got the business by offering paper thin margins and consequently struggle to hire top quality recruiters on the money they have to pay. HMG would be better paying the recruiters directly and perhaps paying a little more for better quality. It is easy to throw accusations around however simple incompetance is the more likely to be the correct answer.

      • I’d prefer AFCOs with serving personnel and cut out these profiteers. I assume it worked previously pre privatisation.

        • Some on arrse.com mentioned they had started their basic training within weeks of being recruited at the ACIO, back in the day.

        • I think these profiteers are in your imagination Daniele. The ones I’m aware of are self employed approaching retirement barely making minimum wage.

          • Capita? They must be making a profit out of this? Like any other company? Would it be cheaper in house?
            It would be interesting to see a cost comparison amongst the varied areas of defence that have been privatised vs in house.

          • The large corporates tend to get on the Government frameworks using the ‘pile it high sell it cheap principle’. A large part of the assessment criteria on these types of bids is cost. Cheapest wins the day. On the plus side the company will be able to easily get contracts across Government and even Local Government. Yes they are making a profit overall but an SME or in-house operation would not be able to compete. A recruitment company would normally charge 20-25%+ of the candidates first year salary for a placement.

            The major problem with the corporate approach is it’s great for hiring administrators but rubbish for anything niche and the military is a good example of niche. The MOD is full of Civil Servants who have wandered from department to department and are used to simply going to ther framework suppliers for their needs in all areas. It’s simple for them. Less work and in my view for all the reasons the guys have stated wrong for the military.

            No idea about Capita’s profitiability. However many of these companies can run into trouble if they start having issues especially with their major projects.

        • Mate AFCOs were the way forward, and still would be. You can actually speak to real, experienced people, all of whom in my day had big gringo tash’s and looked hard as nails (but I was only 15, everyone looked hard to me then). In all seriousness, people can go, speak and realise that the military also contains real people, like them, from all walks of life, but who are professional, experienced and straight talking. Obviously they will still have slots to fill, and will maybe “channel” some recruits to those slots, but overall, it was a winner in every way.

        • If I had to guess I suspect that the services, when it comes to military recruitment need to go and hunt down the type of recruits that they are looking for. It will be far more complex than recruiting an administrator for the home office and I suspect that the efffort that needs to go in might possibly be outside the skill set of those currently doing the recruitment (just guessing). The issue for the civil service is they will point to the process & the policy and suggest that changes will need to be made.

      • No, they will be charging total premiums then employing people in darkest Peru in peanuts. It’s exactly what happens for the NHS computer system, HMG (labour then) paying 1500 a day per engineer while the company was actually paying less than 700 a month per engineer in India and still failing to deliver

    • Its the go to blame the contractor but the real reason Capita don’t perform is the contract allows them to and this lies with defence procurement.

      Any decent contract would have financial penalties for under peerformance, not just insignificant amount as a gesture. There should be proper exit and termination criteria linked to performance.

      I’ve done enough contracts over the years and when someone hads me one to sign where they have limp penaties if I’m buying side its rejected, if its the sell side I’m certainly happier.

  2. Shouldn’t recruitment be done by older members of the armed forces who have seen it and done it previously. I am convinced it’s the stories that get folks hooked. They should be an intergrated team (all services Inc RFA) who also visit local job fairs, cadets groups of whatever flavour is local.

    • You mean how it used to be? When I joined I went to the army recruiting office in Ipswich sat down and was talked through the process by senior NCOs who had indeed been there and done that! I done everything in that office up to and including swearing the oath. Then off to junior leaders Regt RE and if I wasn’t good enough after 14 weeks you were told services are no longer required.

      • Couldn’t agree more. Recruiting offices manned by serving personnel who actually know what they’re talking about having lived the life. That must have much more credibility than a “recruitment consultant” whose previous task could have been recruiting for Tesco. It would also make the Services more special, not just another job. That’s how I was recruited. Oops! As Jeff said, too sensible.

    • Don’t see how people can afford to wait a year to see if they are going to be offered a job. Also white working class males have been discouraged by news of RAF discrimination giving the idea you are only welcome in the forces if female or “bame” !

      • When I joined up in the RN some branches were waiting up to 3 years to get in and they did and still joined up and that is when the RN was more than double now and we got better recruits too who stayed on. The Services are not just a job but a vocational career with many plus’s for us that served over those that could not.
        Lets get back to the Service offices and note many of those were also retired service personnel who wore the uniform but were actually civil servants in the service. It worked and they delivered what the services needed. Our Armed Forces are way too small for the World as it is.

  4. Mark Francois is good at jumping up and down attracting attention to an issue but even he, I’m sure, doesn’t think sacking them and leaving nothing in it’s place is the solution to anything. Using big corporations to do niche recruitment work does not sound like a particularly good idea to me. It would, I agree, be better done by experienced guys from the services but coordinated by a group who understand public sector recuitment well.

    • And chances are it’ll be the same people who gave Capita a weak contract with little or no penalties running the show once Capita are kicked out. But of course the politicians have learnt not mess with the civil service, you won’t last long otherwise. So best blame the contractor, and yes the contract has some blame but not soley.

      • Expat the contract will likely be a framework aggreement covering recruitment across all areas of Government, Local Government etc. negotiated centrally and nothing to do with the MOD. The MOD’s only input was likely to be a decision to use one of the framework suppliers. The best probable solution is for the MOD to create an arms length company of it’s own – get someone from a small recruitment company to run it and staff it with good ex-military people mixed with recruitment people. Don’t forget that the supplier might not be doing anything wrong contractually. The issue might well just be that the organisation running this recruitment need to be doing a bunch of specialist stuff not covered by the contract.

  5. Speaking out well done two the Geltman and specially on Defence spending part of the speech. Just what our PM doesn’t want to hear. Oh just seen on the news our Defence Secretary has just resign more good news for PM. 🤗

  6. Capita is useless; any other organisation that wasn’t this government would have sacked them for failing recruitment targets year on year. They can’t get anything right!

    The sad part, though, is even if the contract was cancelled this year, the government will probably just replace them with another PFI equally as crap.

    They need to go back to the old system: put serving soldiers in recruitment centres, who’ve been there, done that and can tell potential recruits all about life in the armed forces and what it’s really like.

    If not serving soldiers then at least make military recruitment part of the MoD and offer it to soldiers/officers who have recently left the forces.

    • PFI is bad for the economy , if you pay only wages money is largely spent and circulates . With outsourcing profits go to rich people and can end up in gold , assets or offshore reducing tax take as not spent in the economy increasing inequality. If you deduct lost tax revenue from outsourcing profits and reduced manpower how much of 5 – 10 % typical saving would you really have ?

    • And just who let Capita off with such weak contract that doesn’t hold them to account with significant penailties? Thats the civil service but no MP will mess with the civil service so best heap all the blame on the contractor.

  7. I am sure that the contract with Capita was renewed just a year or two ago, despite appalling performance.

    • Yes. Extended for two more years with a third optional. That should reach the new tri-service contract where Capita (or a similar company) will take up the recruitment for the other two services as well. That contract is to be awarded in 2025 for 10 more years. The mind boggles at the mentality behind this.

      • I wonder why it was decided that the army would be the ‘guinea pig’ for Capita. It would have been far more sensible to try the concept out first on the smallest service – RM? Then expand the scheme if it were successful.

          • I too am a great fan of the Royal Marines. In truth no service branch deserves Capita. I doubt they are cheaper than the old in-house system and they are clearly incompetent.

          • In all my time working in the defence industry I never came across a more organisationally bloated , time wasting , unqualified bunch of nitwits as Capita . Serco ran them a close second mind .

    • They are a significant Conservative donor. They would need to mess up a lot more before being removed.

      There really needs to be cap on party donorship to get politics clean.

      • Hard to imagine how much more Capita could mess up army recruiting.

        I think parties should be funded from the public purse, the amount based on how many MPs a party currently has in Parliament.

        • I was initially thinking that but it would be unfair to do it that way. It would be equivalent of the Premier league the top team (party in power) has all the money and so more likely to win the next election.

          There must be a fair way to do it that doesn’t involve billionaires investing in parties to ensure they get more back in government contracts and tax breaks.

          • Fair point. ‘My system’ would prevent new foundling parties from getting any campaigning money.

  9. Walked into the RN recruitment office Newcastle in Feb 1959, staffed by serving members, I was 14 & 10 months. I said I wanted to join the RN, was interviewed and a home visit to speak to my parents was arranged. Being accepted a train warrant arrived to travel to Ipswich to Join HMS Ganges on 5th May 1959 part of 22 recruitment. 15 year 6 weeks old then.
    Different times I know but the methods then seem to hit the sweet spot.
    12 enjoyable years followed.

  11. Bit O/T but Lt Gen Rob McGowan has been speaking to the parliamentary defence committee about ‘future force review’
    Here is an extract from Forces dot net article.

    Speaking to the Commons Defence Committee, Lt Gen Magowan said: “Lessons from Ukraine and other operations worldwide show that we want more resilience and greater capability.

    “There isn’t at the moment the headroom within the equipment programme within the Army to reach the level of requirement that we think we need against the threat.

    “We are now working as part of ABC (Annual Budget Cycle) 24, but more crucially as part of what we hope is an integrated review with a longer-term settlement to determine what within the Army programme or across defence we might take operational risk on”.

    He added:”We haven’t completed that process so I can’t say here today these are the capabilities within the Army or across defence that we’re going to delete or defer.

    “But we’re going to have to make those hard-edged decisions if we’re going to realise the operational requirements.”

    • So MoD will ‘delete or defer’ capabilities in order to create ‘more resilience and greater capability’.

      I am reminded of Newspeak in Orwell’s book ‘1984’. I had expected to hear such comments from a politician but I am somewhat despairing that these come from a serving senior officer.

      • So hard decisions means eliminate the forecast overspend in the capital equipment plan. Difficult to see what cuts the army could make; slow down Boxer program maybe and take another look at a cheap new turret for Warrior? Or buy more ‘pre-loved’ replacements for AS90. Looks very likely the LPDs will go. Sell them and convert another Contender Bezant? Polish Black Hawks for new medium helicopter would save money.

        • The army has been cut once or twice a decade since 1953. It needs recapitalising badly. No new AFVs delivered for over 20 years and very little achieved by way of AFV upgrades. Very hard to see what could be cut. Boxer build programme is glacial as it is – it will take over 10 years at current rates to equip the Mech Inf.

          MoD decided to bin Warrior (save the cost of the WCSP upgrade) and replace it with Boxer, so how is resurrecting just one element of WCSP going to save money, unless some (very expensive) Boxers are deleted and replaced by mildly upgraded Warriors. But would that mean you issue such revised Warriors to the five Inf Bns in the two armoured brigades? Then which formation gets Boxer?

          The cheapest option for an AS90 replacement may well be resurrecting the Braveheart programme but tweaking it to reflect delta since it was first mooted. Replacing old AS90s with old other SPGs would not make sense unless they were 52 cal units with many other improvements over original AS90.

          Scrapping LPDs is mad. Cuts the spectrum of RM operations drastically.

          Most European countries realise that defence spending has to increase and that 2% is a floor not a ceiling target, but not us. It makes no sense to cut required capabilities to fit the budget in time of European war. Budget must increase.

          • My Boxer suggestion is around deferring cost….can Warrior last longer with or without any changes. But understsnd your point re impact on orbat. Agree your Brave heart idea is worth exploring . I do think the LPDs will go, so we would lose a capability…amphibious assault on a defended beach. What those making the decision will be weighing up is the cost of a capability vs the likelyhood we will need it. We would retain / enhance helicopter assault and raiding capabilities (the new ORC has a very long range). And the LSDs assuming we control a port. Any budget increase will only be modest and gradual unless the government raises taxes or borrowing. No chance of that this side of the election.

          • Our oldest Warriors are now 35 years old, but plenty might be under 30 years. We are still running FV 430s, the early ones were fielded in 1962, over 60 years ago. Many US M113s still in service, also from the 1960s. Not that this is a good thing!

            The Warrior upgrade would not have been suggested, costed, planned and developed (nearly to completion) if it were not sensible to upgrade a 1980s vehicle. The Staff Requirement for the WCSP upgrade (ISD should have been 2018) stated that it would have enabled WR to serve on out to 2040.

            Seems puzzling to me to have a brigade of Royal Marines that won’t be able to assault a beach in strength, whether beach is defended or not – due to lack of LPDs.

            Fully agree that there will be no defence boost this side of the election – maybe that’s why Heappey resigned?

          • Heappey is looking out for his own career: I’m sure he feels he can do better for himself than 5 or 10 years as shadow defence minister.
            One thought is that the LPDs are being laid up temporarily in anticipation of the future 2.5% defence budget increase. The Enforcer choices that come out of the joint Netherlands project will give a clue. It looks like the Dutch will scrap their big LPDs and are planning smaller 9000 ton hybrid lpd cum opvs. If the vision is for the RM and Dutch marines to work more as a joint force then the UK supplying the big ships in a combined fleet might make sense. Have to wait and see.

  13. I don’t get this – I read over half people applying to join the forces. change their mind because of length on time waiting to see if they are accepted. Who is to blame for that?

    • We all blame Capita for this issue as it affects the army. I don’t thnk the RN and RAF have yet had the full Capita experience. Some people take a year to get through the process – it’s ridiculous.

      There really wasn’t this issue when army recruiting was done in-house.

      • I heard an interview this morning on Times Radio with an admittedly ex UK army colonel. The interview was in relation to today’s announcement that beards would now be allowed (with some limits) in the Army. When they got to the justification that one benefit would be helping with recruitment the ex officer claimed that there was “no shortage of young men wanting to sign up” but that the issue was that it could take up to 18 months to get through the process and that 70% of applicants gave up before they got to the end of that process. If that statistic is correct it is alarming and surely an extremely high priority issue to get fixed. (Even though an ex officer he may or may not still be well-connected to the appropriate information sources hence my slight caveat re the accuracy of that 70% figure.)

        • UK Army? British Army.

          I have not heard 18 months (I heard ‘up to a year’) and never heard the 70% figure before. Where did he get his numbers from? Not denying them.

          There are just no advantages in Capita doing army recruiting.

          • Oops. Thanks for the UK/British correction. I am a Brit who has lived in Britain for most of his life so an embarrassing mistake for which I have no excuse!

            I’ve no idea where that guy got his numbers from, it was just a typical 5 minute news program interview and in my experience they rarely have people quoting their sources. As I said, I have no idea of the validity of those figures so while you’re not denying them I’m similarly not claiming they are true, just relaying what was said on a news report I heard. Even if it is more like ‘up to a year’ and a 50% giving-up rate that’s still incredibly serious issue that needs to be fixed though so Capita really needs to be kicked out of this process.

            By the way, who was it that was responsible for recruiting security staff for the 2012 London Olympics who failed to deliver necessitating a last minute switch to Army personnel? I have a feeling it might have been Serco but it would be a rather ironic if it was Capita.

          • Hi Julian, I have now had that 70% figure confirmed. It was given in a reply to a Labour MP’s defence question – actual wording was ‘nearly three-quarters’).

            The useless company who was meant to recruit security staff for the 2012 Olympics was G4S (known to an earlier generation as Group 4 Security).

          • Given that DWP is responsible for Jobseekers down at the Job Centre it seems to me that MOD should be doing some joined up work with them to suggest Forces opportunities to everyone who meets the entry criteria.

            Quite simple to forward potential applicants to the local Forces recruitment centre…

            My local Job Centre has no Forces posters or information on display.

            Yes, I get the initiative test that you’re not suited if you can’t find a local Forces recruitment centre. Encouragement is justified by the short fall.

  14. He said a lot more than that at Select Cmtte. Watch on BBC iPlayer.

    Attacked Grant Scrapps in person and called out a number of failings.

    Interesting that the Minister said UK meeting NATO commitments which is news to me as I thought Estonia was now meant to be Brigade strength.

    Attacked Capita but started by asking Scrapps to stop with his sophistry on the budget.

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