At the Labour Party Conference 2024, Defence Secretary John Healey unveiled significant reforms to address the recruitment challenges faced by the British Armed Forces.

Healey spoke of Labour’s commitment to modernising recruitment and improving conditions for service personnel, while reaffirming the Government’s dedication to national security.

“Over the last 10 years, more than a million applied to join the Forces,” Healey said. “Yet 3 in 4 gave up on the process because it takes months and is tied up in red tape.” To combat this, Healey announced three major steps to tackle the recruitment crisis:

  1. Scrapping 100 outdated policies that currently block people from joining the military.
  2. Setting new targets for the Forces to reject or make a conditional offer to applicants within 10 days, and to give people a training start date within 30 days.
  3. Introducing a direct recruitment route for cyber specialists, particularly targeting top gamers and coders. “If you are a top gamer or coder, your country needs you,” Healey said.

In addition to tackling recruitment challenges, Healey also announced plans to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP—marking the highest level since 2010. He underscored Labour’s vision to support both the Armed Forces and veterans, improve military housing, and ensure all personnel are paid at least the national living wage.

“We’ve delivered the largest pay rise for the Armed Forces in over 20 years,” Healey stated. He also stressed the Government’s commitment to Ukraine, pledging continued military support and training for Ukrainian troops through 2025. “We’ve stepped up our support for Ukraine,” Healey said.

“A new defence industrial strategy, a treaty with new export guarantees, and a pledge to spend £3 billion in military support this year, next year, and every year it takes for Ukraine to win.”

Reflecting on Labour’s recent electoral successes in military communities, Healey noted that “Labour is the Party of Defence,” referencing the party’s record wins in areas like Wycombe, Portsmouth, and Aldershot.

In closing, Healey said, “We will always maintain the highest standards and create an Armed Forces that draws the very best of British talent. Better fit to fight. Better reflecting the country they defend.”

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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142 COMMENTS

  1. Great speech if they follow through, money and recruitment solves all the arm force’s problems.

    Can’t believe how bad those rejection rates are. Shoes you kids still want to serve.

        • I’m being very specific in what they are ‘talking about doing something right’. Most other areas they seem to be doing everything wrong. That 2.5% spend is so vague it doesn’t mean anything – cuts today but 2.5% ‘when the country can afford it”..

          • Labour hasn’t really done anything so far. They have ended most of the strikes that were hitting the gdp which is a positive but outside that haven’t really had time to pass any new laws. The winter fuel thing is a mess, for sure wealthy pensioners dont need it but it should have been better implemented for the poorer. The upcoming budget will be telling, followed by the defence review next year.

            I fear we will see cuts but let’s not judge until they are actually announced.

          • Actually Labour has done quite a bit so far.The winter fuel issue? There’s already compensation issues outstanding about the pension age for women going up without adequate warning. Some women ‘lost’ about £50,000 over that – Labour made a big deal over it but since getting into power they haven’t solved it. Instead, feet first WITHOUT assessing the consequences they gave 4 months notice that it would cut the winter fuels payments to a lot of vulnerable people. Have a separate income that takes you a pound or two over and you lose hundreds of pounds. Then you get rumours that the main pension may be means tested – suddenly a lot of people will say ‘why bother having an extra pension if I lose the Old Age pension as a result?’ It hasn’t been thought through and it’s a mess created by Labour. Why not say ‘We are looking at this next year and will assess how it can be done without killing thousands of pensioners over the winter’.

            OK, those strikes. They did that in a hurry – no negotiations or anything, just straight without thinking. Result? ‘Oh their Unions overlords told them to do and they had to obey. How many pensioners will die so the train drivers, already on well over the average income of people can get their money’ – and done without any negotiations, so a very unpopular result all round. Oh, and every other group will now be starting to think Labour are a soft touch and demand more… I gather the nurses have already taking up cudgels…

            Now, I’m not going to get into arguments about whether a policy or decision is right or wrong. My point is that Labour has managed to quickly set things up in a way that is… well, not very sensible.

    • Just woke up after yet another weekend of ……? This post is completely incoherent. Why don’t you call Frank and have a chat about it?

    • Money and recruitment definitely but on the money bit I’d also add more effective spending of that money. Less dithering for years while specifications keep changing and no more planning for X units of something then cut and cut so that per-unit cost goes up and up e.g. T45 12 becomes 8 becomes 6 let alone Nimrod. We don’t spend our money very efficiently and as well as more money we also need to improve the outputs we get from it.

    • Good comment Jim. I see a lack of imagination in how the military has gone about recruitment and the idea of ‘national service’ in general. Try new forms of ‘service’ and graduated levels of involvement leading into full commitment.

    • It does seem bad on the face of it but kinda need proper data behind the rejection rate to understand it, for starters a breakdown by reason, to really judge it.

  2. Changing it so fat couch potatoes with an xbox or wheezy kids who can’t run 50 yards without an inhaler can now join instead of actively sorting out recruitment and retention issues is the cheap and easy option
    its also the wrong one -Patheticly laughable tbh.

    • The point is that it was a rejection even if you were issued with an inhaler when you were 7, but never used it. Surely it’s about whether you can pass a fitness trial by the end of basic training.

      • Except it wasn’t, it just took longer getting (and paying for) your GP to confirm that you no longer had asthma. This is exactly what happened when I applied, albeit a few years ago now. Also true of old injuries.

        • Exactly the same.. failed first medical because of asthma history as a child. GP wrote a letter to recruitment office.. Had to start the process again

        • The truth is you were lucky, actually getting any medical professional to essentially reverse a previous diagnosis is very very difficult and many simply would not do it. Generally the most healthcare professionals will do is add a note to your record saying you disagree with a diagnosis.

          The reason most of them will not is that disease is dynamic, you many have needed inhalers when you were 12…at 18 your not using them..but suddenly you get an exacerbation at 25 and drop dead from asthma or arrest and were resuscitated and needed all care for the rest of your life, if a GP removed that diagnosis from your record then they are professionally buggered and liable for all care costs. So most of them will only way “ your not actively requiring treatment now, but have a diagnosis of asthma…

          • I can’t remember the wording of the letter but I’m assuming this is essentially what happened and it was good enough for the RM (subsequently failed my selection, ho hum!).

          • A good read Mate. BTW I’m tod there is steady flow of UK health professionals moving over to Aussie and a trickle coming here to NZ. The Aussies really appear to value their front line health professionals.

          • Yes indeed, Aus and NZ have good well put together health systems, with populations that actually understand they have to take responsibility for their own care and the actually staff their hospitals correctly ( staff nurses work generally around a 1to 4 patients ratio vs a 1 to something like 8 to 12 in UK hospital wards.

            they also pays far better and has good benefit’s.

            take a new staff staff nurse UK starts on £29,000 in auz its $78,000 ( or £40,000).

            an experienced staff nurse can earn £36,500 in UK and $100,000 (or £51,000 in Aus)

            it’s starts to equal out at the very senior nurse levels, so consult nurse or a very senior nurse leader, but for the jobing nurse moving to Aus is a no brainier.

            In fact 2 of my ex girlfriends moved to Aus along with one of my mates ( all nurses). All in all a lot of Uk health professionals, jack in the shite feast which is the NHS, the UKs unhealthy population and UKs conviction that healthcare should be cheap and UK healthcare professionals paid less than everywhere else because they are Shite public sector works and a drain on society.

          • 2 weeks ago, my brother had to wait 14 hours to see a consultant at A&E in Auckland for a life threatening situation (twisted bowel) due to no doctors or x-ray staff being available. In general NZ healthcare is terrible compared to the UK NHS.

          • Honestly I have seen and investigated many cases where people died waited many many days before seeing consultants in NHS hospitals (;four whole days was the worst for a person dying of multi organ failure …infact I have on many occasions written investigation reports where the root cause of serious harm or death was a lack of senior review…

            14 years ago the NHS always came above the NZ system.. ( infact in international comparisons is was generally rates the best or second best in the world) ..now the NZ system beats the NHS in outcomes..

            Even 4 years ago I was proud but a bit worried about the NHS..last year I walked in to my board of directors and refused to continue to do my job on moral and ethical grounds ( I oversaw the safety of care for around a million people) and refused to sign off their risk register and ended a a 27 year career in the NHS..I assure you it’s worse than you can possibly imagine.

          • We often discuss this Jonathan and it’s always a interesting but sadly grim discussion!

            My question would be, what can Wes do about it, he’s apparently a man with an NHS plan??

            I sadly suspect he will beat his head against a wall, get nowhere, give up and be moved to another cabinet position….

          • Hi Cameron. Mate, really sorry to hear you had such a bad experience. I have had several trips to North Shore Auckland hospital for several family emergencies (both my parents passed away there at different times) and my wife going in for minor trauma surgery + other issues

            IMO, the staff have been really good, but as you point out – long waits. My niece is a junior doctor and reckons they are under resourced on front line staff.

          • Hi Simon, yep 7.9% higher, but those salaries for nurses are up to 50% higher so your still a shed load better of as a nurse in AUS than the UK…it’s even better for GPs the average UK GP is on around £79,000 ( but the lowest partner drawings I know of was £45,000) GPs in AUS are on £120,000 a year…

            But as I said the average UK ward nurse will be looking after 8 patients at anyone time the nurse in Australia will be looking after 4 patients..essentially Australian nurses have half the workload for 50% more cash.

            just look at the numbers the 25 million population of Australia has 390,000 registered nurses, the 70 million population of the UK has 700,000ish nurses working.

          • Based on what I know from a woman I work with whose son lives in Sidney, I would say it was a bit more then 7.9%. The cost of seeing a dentist was some crazy amount ( however that could also be high in the UK if you cant get an NHS dentist, luckily I still have one)Good point about the work load thought. What is the tax take like out there ?

          • probably true Simon – but try Auckland. Overpriced property, higher cost of living (food, petrol and higher gst) and lower wages . It is higher than AUS for sure , although Sydney property is pricier.

          • probably true Tim– but try Auckland. Overpriced property, higher cost of living (food, petrol and higher gst) and lower wages . It is higher than AUS for sure , although Sydney property is pricier.

          • Hi Jonathan -interesting to review those pay rates. My niece is a junior doctor here in NZ, considering doing a few years in OZ. Much better pay, particularly in the outback and mining communities (they are short on staff apparently).Other benefits include travel, free accommodation. They also receive an additional 10% on top of their base salary for their compulsory superannuation fund contribution.

            I should add the NZ health services are really good (IMO). My experience with hospital front line staff has been first class. My niece is concerned though they are understaffed and overworked, especially the junior doctors.

          • to be honest every single service in the world has its benfits and pitfalls, no service is good at everything…I’m pretty pissed with the NHS, but it still scores as the third best system in the world, mainly because it’s so cost effective for delivery vs resources ( its classed first in 10 of the major western systems for administrative efficiency) as well as access ( second for access) but it’s now 8 for care delivery and outcomes ( which is where the lack of staff and funding kill it). This is the problem that the Uk population and political classes are incapable of facing…from an administrative and structural point of view the NHS is better put together than essentially any other system…we just refuse point blank to actually pay per person what Modern healthcare costs…so we just keep telling ourselves there are to. Many managers and it needs reform…even though it has fewer mangers than any other system or even a basic industry like a large supermarket…you would not walk into a grocery shop underpay for ever by 50% of cost and then complain when it closed down saying it was because it had to many managers…in reality the British public are getting far more than they pay for or deserve ( in general they refuse to pay and refuse to look after themselves or take responsibility).

            The NZ system actually has the best care processes of all the 10 assessed systems and has good/ very good outcomes as its third. What it does seem to have an issue with is equity and access 8 out of 10 for equity and 5 out of ten for access.This is mainly around the Māori population, which is acknowledged as being a massive inequality that the NZ system has not been able to manage. If it can work out how to deliver care to the Māori population it would probably end up graded as the best system overall.

      • Having been through the process, the inhaler issue and other medical issues are a pain. It took me a while to get the paperwork straight when I went through a few years ago now.

        But, the fitness needs to be there before you go, I went in with a high 9 minute 1.5 mile, there were people rolling in around 14 minutes. Those at the slow end had a much harder time getting through average PT sessions, those at the fitter end had a much easier time, making the whole training programme easier. Although the 1.5 miler isn’t a thing for entry now, over to the beep test now I believe for entry requirements?

      • or they could have jobs at the NCA or GCHQ if they are clever enough…which surely you would want them to be given the nature of that job?

    • Depends. It’s the couch potato/wheezy kids who can’t run 50 yards who are the best ones to be able to operate drones. You just have to make sure that you use them as drone operators and don’t force them to become infantry. Horses for courses – a thoroughbred is no good for pulling a plough or a cart, a shire horse no good at sprinting.

      • Great comment Rob. Rejecting people who might have special aptitude for spotting patterns (comms and satellite imagery interpretation for example) isn’t very smart. Because some lad or lassie can’t get over an assault course that would kill most of us, shouldn’t be a reason to send them home. ‘An army marches on its stomach’ and ‘For want of a nail the battle was lost’ come to mind.

    • Yes but, if you can attack a countries ability to fight via cyber attack ( and china will cyber attack the crap out of any nation it thinks it’s going to go to war with) then actually recruiting people who have those skills is not a bad idea.

      Also they have stated they are sorting out all the issues and blocks to recruitment and retention. So I would say it’s actually a positive message, results count but I’m not sure how you can bitch about them saying they will remove the blocks to recruitment by speeding up processes..

      • I want to see the issues around recruitment and retention addressed properly not by a carte blanche realligment of the process to include those previously not considered fit for recruitment.

        • I would imagine the issue is actually the question of who does offensive cyber. Now defensive cyber you can say that’s a security forces issue, not uniformed services. But offensive cyber changes that, you can undertake mass casualty attacks using offensive cyber, destroy significant parts of a nation’s infrastructure and war-fighting ability. Now I’m not really sure it’s appropriate to be asking a “civilian” to essentially wage war and kill people while saying you’re not good enough to be considered a member of the armed forces. It’s my personal view if you expect someone to take on the weight of killing another human being you can at least give them a uniform. Just my personal view, if your expectations are the actions of a person in the service of their nation during war involves either them putting themselves in harms way or being responsible for killing other people they deserve a uniform and respect.

          Maybe in reality the development of cyber warfare needs another arm of the armed forces with differing criteria, after all I would imagine the most deadly offensive cyber operators will not make great candidates for the infantry or make good RN officers. It can take a while for this new paradigm to settle ans come through..after all the first human took to the air in 1783 but it was not until 1918 that we had the first airforce….but fundamentally we would be foolish to not recruit the best cyber warfare people we can, just because they would have problems with the armies basic training.

          • Regards the moral issues of civilians attacking other nations. Interestingly, I believe GCHQ have an organisation doing the offensive side.
            So civilians. Although the military have a JCU at Cheltenham so maybe there is military involvement.

            The National Cyber Force has been established, I understand, to do offensive Cyber. Details are shrouded in secrecy beyond that it’s centre will be in Salmesbury, and that the MoD, DSTL, SIS and GCHQ all contribute.

            Defensive Cyber is well established and currently a mish mash of stand alone units from the 3 services, such as the RNs Fleet C4ISR, the RAFs 591 which i think dabbles, and parts of 90 SU.
            There is also a small, little known army formation involved with infosec, and a regiment of the Royal Signals,13 RS.
            Also reservist army units.
            Tri service, there are JCUs at Corsham and Cheltenham, the CSOC also at Corsham, and a reserve JCU at another place.
            GCHQ has another CSOC at Cheltenham, then there is the NCSC in London.

            On top, overall, there is the Joint Forces Cyber Group, a tri service Joint CEMAG, and the Army’s CEMAEG as well.
            A confusing mess even I with my ORBAT nerd head on struggle to piece together.

          • Im good at FP Shoot em ups!
            I can code in Java, HTTPs, C++ and can do some interesting things to break into supposedly secure WiFi networks (Its not that difficult which is scary!) …I should apply as a Direct Entry Cyber Tech!

          • All Swahili to me I’m afraid. 😆
            If you were in the UK maybe Joint Cyber Unit ( Reserve ) would be interested in you, with your background!

          • I think I will stick where i am …Tax free and sun is so much better than taxed till the pips squeak and the poor weather!

          • I’ve never really wanted to live anywhere else tbh -until this year. Now redundant (well feels sort of like forced early retirement tbh) & now having all day to do what I want…I’m sick to bloody death of the rain.
            Seriously considering buggering off somewhere nice.. not too hot …but at least a few contiguous weeks of sun during summer would be nice!

          • Defensive cyber can be either. At a local level, it includes protecting the battlefield against attack. Physical equivalent would be a tank – and saying it’s gun is offensive and so military, but it’s armour is defensive and therefore nothing to do with the uniformed services. I agree that strategic defensive cyber against civilian targets is security rather than military, but defensive cyber against both tactical and strategic targets should should have an appropriate level of uniformed services involvement.

          • TBH… I don’t think that’s a bad idea.
            If you can get someone who is unfit and overweight into shape to attend training and get a career out of them? Why not do it?

          • And you in the end save a person from early death and costing the society a fortune..personally I’m up for sending everyone to an exercise class as part of their access to healthcare..

            I be honest you only need to look back at why public health was invented, it was war..all the key drivers for public health and health care happened after majors wars..

            boer war…after the British army wheezed its way across South Africa, it was realised that 40-60% of young men were not fit for medical service and that those that got through were hardly prime. There was an uproar and consternation that there was no way such an unhealthy and malnourished population could ever run and rule and empire…So we got:

            1) free and compulsory child health checks in schools
            2) free school meals for poor kids
            3) advice on child health for poor mothers ( the first health visiting service).
            4) national insurance act covering some workers
            5) merchant shipping act ( health inspections for seamen)

            World War One
            Of 2.5 million men assessed for fitness to fight around 25% of them were considered unfit front line duties ( graded B2 or C3 on the scale). Promoting Lloyd George to say, “you cannot maintain an A1 empire on a C3 population”

            after that war and wheezy population of soldiers, they set up the ministry of health to

            1) train doctors
            2) inspect, organise and fund hospitals
            3) inspect and ensure sanitation

            Then we had WW2 and the first understanding that a new type of war had developed, one in which the whole population would be a target..this prompted the creation of the Emergency Hospital service then the emergency medical service..so government could control the nations health systems in times of war..this allowed the government to manage the casualties from Dunkirk and the blitz, creating the understanding that modern nations needed organised healthcare systems to be able to go to war.

          • Exactly. Few every serve in the special forces where physical and above all mental toughness are essential. Most are needed to maintain the kit and service equipment.

      • The main issue was the huge % of recruits leaving before any kind of selection got going just because it took so long.

        Solve that problem and you have plenty of fit enthusiastic people to put through the system. Quality will improve.

        I’ll bet what was going on was resource choke points around ‘cost of various bottlenecks’ hitting budgets. Amazing the way the NHS mentality permeates. Thing is the ‘costs’ are not real as the establishment and trainers are all there full time as are the base staff. The cost of a bit of food, uniform and basic training is close to nothing.

        • Unfortunately, managing your establishment as a cost control has become endemic, slowing and blocking recruitment is unfortunately endemic in the public sector and with private sector organisations that have government contracts. As a way to manage overspend and over performance against funded capacity it works in the short term, but is profoundly destabilising in the long term. I cannot tell you the number of times where providers have told me “ they cannot recruit to positions and have done their best, when I know for a fact they have not even bothered putting out adverts for months.

      • Surprising that it was the army that was selected for contractorised recruitmentt all those years ago. Should have been the smallest service as a trial run.

        Interesting that the RAF and RN never had to suffer the likes of Capita.

        • Graham, I suspect someone may have been looking for a “top job” as their career was coming to an end.
          You certainly occasionally see “defence” companies suddenly getting additional “military” press and lo and behold, a former “Red tab”, is suddenly working for said company.

  5. I failed the eye sight test as an officer, was then let in as a rating, and two years later passed OSB and was commissioned!  A general waste of time and money for both sides.

    The above inflation pay rise is good, but the government and Treasury have emphasised that the MOD will be given no extra money to pay for it! So effectively the MOD is now being forced to make immediate cuts to non-pay spending due to a decision by a third party that it had almost no control over. Hence the reports that exercises are being cancelled and aircraft training hours reduced “temporarily”.

  6. Pay rise, from within existing money, not new money. What pays for it?
    What about the RFA Mr Healey?
    2.5% Repeat of usual “one day” if Starmer ever gets round to it, or any new certainties?
    Otherwise, on the reforms, crack on.
    How about reintroducing ACOs and AFCOs with real military people in them?

    • The pay rise to be absorbed in-year with no new money has always been the case. its not just this year, not just this Government. MoD will ask for an uplift for the next year to catch up, but always run a year in arrears until they get the new money or at least ask for it.

      • To be honest, I’ve no idea! How many were there, and how many Pids per office?
        We can find personnel for an Experimentation Battalion, and for Demo/Opfor Coys, so maybe a “Careers Company” of vets or FTRS no longer deploying?
        Just a thought?

        • In many case’s. The old careers offices were often manned with people who were medically down graded for whatever reason. Or if you had submitted your 12 month notice period, you could request to be drafted to your local office for resettlement resons. It wasn’t guaranteed though. And you had to be able speak positively about the services for obvious reasons.

          • Thanks mate.
            So no actual permanent AFCO umbrella organisation one would be posted to?
            Wish Farouk was still around, it was a role I recall him saying he did for a time.

          • Recruitment Group run from Upavon deals with them hand in glove with Capita and the Outreach Teams you’d normally in an ideal world have 2-3 Army, 2 Navy, 2 RAF and 3-4 Civvies in each AFCO. In reality some only have 1 SNCO and 1 civvie and rolling member of the nearest Outreach Team brought in. The Outreach Teams are meant to be self sufficient sections or essentially a mini troop but numbers again vary in reality in each region.

          • Recruitment Group run from Upavon deals with them hand in glove with Capita and the Outreach Teams you’d normally in an ideal world have 2-3 Army, 2 Navy, 2 RAF and 3-4 Civvies in each AFCO. In reality some only have 1 SNCO and 1 civvie and rolling member of the nearest Outreach Team brought in. The Outreach Teams are meant to be self sufficient sections or essentially a mini troop but numbers again vary in reality in each region. You can go to recruitment group for 2 years as a mainstream posting. It’s not a case were they just chuck biffs and about to time outs on it anymore.

      • To be fair Dern, my mates who did stints in recruitment offices (two mates) were at the end of their terms.

        The old ‘rapid promotion’ to boost the pension and a couple of years flying a desk in a recruitment office to finish off the 21 years.

        I’ve always asumed that was the case in general, back in the day before the nincompoops in charge privatised it and royally fu#ked it up!

        • But back in the day the Army had a much higher headcount cap, so having people serving out the end of term in a recruitment office, instead of say as a Company Sergeant Major, was an option.

          • I would think there are still enough folks finishing their time who could be really usefully employed manning a recruitment office.

            Bringing serious experience to the job, they need to bring recruitment back in house.

          • Depends on how many Careers centres there are, 100 centres with 2 members of staff from the forces (which is not that much) is already an artillery battery worth of headcount taken.

            And from a purely mercenary point of view: end of career blokes are really expensive. You’re going to man these pids with guys who are taking in a WO’s wage?

          • Surely it depends on what benefits they would bring ?…It sounds like Capita have made a completely fuck up of it so it may be worth doing that to address those issues.
            Long term the additional recruitment would more than off set the numbers taken out to achieve it.

    • I was greeted by my son who serves that the good news about a decent pay rise with ‘yes but they have put the cost of accommodation up along with one or two other costs so we are no better off’. I have recently been informed that exercises and training have been cancelled for this financial year.
      I assume we have told Putin and other nasty people they will have to wait before they cause any more trouble until the new financial year.
      Meanwhile the invasion continues across the Channel and our PM has got a new suit.

      • He’s really being a bit silly, accommodation is at most (ie for the highest priced) 120£ per month after the increase. That’s about 20£ more, or 240 per anum. The pay increase was an extra grand plus 6%. He’s certainly better off than he was.

        “The invasion across the channel” good grief bigotry is dramatic sometimes.

        • Sorry, I’ll keep treating people with empathy and respect, and calling out people like you who seem keen on drowning people who are just looking for a better life.

        • Bearing in mind the below inflation pay rises of the last few years and the big rise in his household bills he is actually worse off now than he was 4 years ago.
          As for your other comment, when in less than two years the number of people who arrive in small boats out number those in a British Army division I call it what it is.
          If the best you can do is throw a cheap insult to someone you don’t even know that is just a bit childish. Unfortunately the facts are our soft liberal policies are encouraging mainly economic migrants to risk their lives crossing that dangerous bit of water.
          Given overall net migration was in excess of 750k last year I do find it worrying that the Government then talks of solving the housing crisis by building just 300,000 houses a year. We will be lucky to build consistently 250k homes a year, however, we could bring in more construction workers from abroad to build more.
          When is someone going to wake up and realise the total insanity of what is currently going on. We have tried mass migration for over 20 years and the country is in a worse state now than it was then. Even Blair recognises it.
          That is not being racist, a bigot or anything else but just demonstrates how far our mainstream politicians have lost the plot.

          • I’m bearing those in mind, I bring home an army pay check, and I still stand by what I said, the cost increases in the service are not offsetting the pay rise.

            And the childish one was the dehumanising comment that is trying to other people fleeing to our country and making them acceptable targets for harrasment and assault. You have a problem with the rate of imigration? Fine. But the rhetoric you are using is not only rooted in racism but gives ammunition to the “defund the RNLI” crowd and the people who want to let immigrants drown.

            It’s bigotry, and xenophobia, and I’m not afraid to call it out when I see it.

          • Im afraid I don’t agree with you regarding the pay rise. That other public sector pay workers have agreed multi year increases is because 6% isn’t enough to offset what has been going on for many years. That retention is a major problem and has been for a while suggests that one year with an above inflation pay rise won’t deal with that challenge.
            The number of migrants crossing the channel is not acceptable and whilst some are certainly from horrible regimes it is not the U.K. responsibility to take such numbers on top of Ukrainians, Afghans and Hong Kong Chinese. That many turn up have no ID, which is deliberately discarded before being picked up suggests they are well briefed on what to do to circumvent our poor controls and vetting procedures,
            The French have been telling us we are a soft touch and we are.
            The business of the trafficking gangs is costing us about £2Bn a year, which is largely being taken from the overseas aid budget. Consequently we are stripping back other commitments in support of countries around the globe. People are drowning in the channel and we are reducing our humanitarian relief efforts because we cannot get a grip of people coming here in inflatable boats.
            I am now a bigot, xenophobic, dehumanising and childish because you take my words and weave them into your ideas of who I am but as someone who continues to contribute to the RNLI, didn’t vote for Reform and has friends and colleagues from different parts of the world i don’t fit your logic so sorry to disappoint.
            I’m very content for you to call me what you like because I disagree with you and I can resist the temptation to use stereotype words to describe the type of person you might be. Tough debates and the ballot box is where these decisions are made although I fear the latter has become difficult because people don’t like the words used or the topics even discussed, whilst in the background the dissatisfaction with the mainstream parties grows.
            This is a severe problem facing the country and I will not be silenced on this topic because it upsets someone’s sensitivities on the use of emotive words.
            All the best

          • Agree. I share your views. Careful with the term “mass immigration” I got pulled up for that one a few weeks back and agreed to downgrade to the term “immigration levels are too high”
            It is a ticking timebomb that will have consequences in later years. Adding to an ageing population does not help matters either.

          • Unfortunately we have progressed in the U.K. so much so that the use of certainly harsh but descriptive language is used as an excuse not to address serious issues by people who seem happy with the status quo. This plays into the hands of the extreme globalists and the genuine far right. Neither view represents the vast majority.
            I was fortunate to be educated at a time in a down at heel state sector school that still encouraged tough debate and disagreement without the need to somehow prove that your opponent is morally and intellectually inferior because they might have the temerity to hold an opposing view. This modern phenomenon was best evidenced during the awful BREXIT debate.
            We are heading to an unhappy place.

          • Yes but almost all that migration was to fill jobs that the British pubic were either not qualified to do or do not wish to do for the money and conditions offered.

            265,000 NHS staff are migrants, with almost 100,000 migrants a year coming to work in the NHS..and we still have around 125,000 vacancies unfilled…

            intotal the government gave out 350,000 health and social care visas, so around 250,000 came to work in social care, and there are around a total 375,000 immigrants working in social care..of but there are still 150,000 vacancies.

            so unless we can find around 390,000 extra healthcare workers ( and they take a long time and a lot of money to train) and 525,000 social care workers form the UK population, then migration is going to be huge..and I’ve not even started on the people who run our hotels,restaurants and build our buildings.

          • You were up late last night!
            The stats don’t quite back up your narrative. 379,000 students including 100,000 dependents arrived last year.
            We had 1.4m people unemployed in the same year.
            I am not against migration but the numbers are wildly out of control.
            Businesses that thrive on increasing demand are happy with it as it also provides a dampening effect on wage growth.
            Our economy seems to be developing into a giant ponzi scheme. It is genuine GDP per capita growth for your average person that really matters.
            You are totally correct about it takes time to recruit and train healthcare staff but if you cut training places as the coalition did in 2010 and then reduce bursaries then you dent recruitment. They were very clearly warned.
            Even the Labour Party recognises that migration must come down because it is at unsustainable levels and we need to train our own people first before plugging gaps.

          • I’m not saying it’s a good thing, the numbers I gave are about right, but they are generalised as there are no definitive statistics and they change a lot…remember the NHS and social care are made of many many 10,000s of employers ( there are 40-50 thousand organisations in the nhs system before social care)…so the numbers difficult but the ones I used are from issued visa ( 350,000 health and social care visas in one year) as well as vacancies estimated…but in the round we have 350,000 visa a year issued at present ..and of the 2.8 ish million health and social care workforce between 20-25% of them have migrated to this country.

            Personally I think we should be looking at a policy where we are recruiting our own because is morally correct, more than anything else stealing healthcare professionals from the second and third world because you cannot be arsed to pay to train your own is a morally bankrupt act.

            So a couple of key actions…our nurse, dr and other healthcare professional training programs need to be very significantly increased..( the problem is to train professionals takes the time of experienced professionals..so to train you take way direct patient care time). So if you look at our nurse workforce only around 50%of new registrants are UK trained 50% are migrants..it varies each year quite a bit but we train about 25-30,000 registers nurses a year and have 40-55,000 new nurses join the register each year losing around 40,000 a year from the register ( although in some years we loss more than we gain, and around 150,000 nurses are hitting retirement age in the next few years..we also have around 50,000 vacancies)…but essentially If we look at just nursing ( which is a 750,000 strong workforce) we need to train more like 60,000 a year not the high 20,000s that we train now. Essentially all our health professions are like that in that to supply our own we should be training about twice as many…

            The problem is placements, i alway struggled to actually find providers organisations willing to train staff and provide mentors and Clinical supervisors…it sucks a lot of clinical resource to train new clinicians and they would all rather just recruit qualified individuals..remember these are all independent companies and organisations with contracts, they can fill their workforce how they want..( the NHS does not really exist as people think it does).

            It also takes a profoundly long time and a serious amount of money to train healthcare professionals…a very basic pharmacist is 5 years, a basic ward nurse around 4 years, an emergency nurse practitioner in an ED around 6-8 years, staff grade reg grade Drs are a decade min, consultants and nurse consultants 15 years.

            So due to resources now we cannot just open up the training pipe..it would take years to double so we train what we need, then it’s taking 5 years after that to really get even basic grade clinical staff, up to 15 years for the more advance roles..essentially we could probably sort our basic nurse, physio, radiographer, pharm issues in around a decade if we pressed the go button now and around 20 years for the more advanced grades.

            Social care is actually really easy in that you can train somebody in social care in a few months..but the job is not easy and we need to pay a lot more (even getting it to min wage) and work out the issue of workflow so it’s a viable career..we need most social care workers between 8-10 in the morning and 8-10 in the evenings..but not in the middle of the day..so how do you make that a living job..not a job where your not paid to travel between clients and spend most of the day not working or being paid ( you may be seeing 4 clients and spending 2 hours doing it but you are only paid for an hour) when Tesco pay more and will give you a shift that’s a proper working day.

            All in all It will take a lot of time, planning and a shed load of cash..in the meantime unless we want our health and social care to collapse we are probably going to have to issue those 350,000 health and social care visas a year, no matter how morally bankrupt it is.

          • BTW a really great response.
            I have worked regularly across defence, healthcare, education, emergency services and local authorities in my 35+ years career in construction and project management and the one thing they all have in common is the high proportion of senior managers with an oversized bureaucratic empire to match.
            The previous Government actually did increase staff numbers in the NHS but productivity has actually gone down. The incoming Government has provided a pay rise but with no commitment from healthcare unions to improve efficiency.
            We can do more with what we currently spend but some powerful vested interests that lobby hard need to be dealt with. It will mean reform to put more money into Primary care and prevention measures, which will meet severe resistance. Your are so right about how the NHS is just not one huge entity as people think it is.
            All this makes a difference because we can afford to train more of our own people if we spend our money more wisely.
            I have started to think that the number of nurses, police, prison officers, doctors etc should be set by an independent body from Government much like the way the BoE sets interest rates.
            This avoids the catastrophic cuts to training and recruitment of many roles in the public sector that we witnessed in 2010. We are currently living through the impact of those short sighted and incompetent decisions.
            If we had a PM who could explain why certain levels of migration are required but had a plausible road map to manage those levels down to a sustainable level (circa 100k) that would be a great start. If not then the housing crisis will only worsen along with public services whilst social tensions build still further.
            7.5m more people in the next decade if current levels of migration are allowed to continue will bring disastrous consequences.

          • Maybe the pay rises given out may encourage UK citizens to apply for those jobs.
            Maybe going back to the ‘old fashioned’ idea of not charging Nurses 9k a year for courses may encourage young people to consider a job in the Health Service.
            Maybe reigning back on using immigration to fill jobs will allow UK citizens the opportunity to get the experience required to apply for the jobs that they havent got the experience for.
            I appreciate you work/have worked in the Health Service and have far more applicable experience than I however..
            Using the negative government policies instigated by Blair and given steam by Cameron and Johnson and coupling that with the impact previous immigration has had on the availability and capability of UK citizens to continue to justify the rationale for continuation of that immigration is a somewhat circular arguement and one that businesses have used for many years to justify not training (nor paying) UK staff.

            No one is suggesting that controlled immigration for essential jobs will not continue to be required however there needs to be a seismic shift in policy and to the attitude towards training UK citizens to do those jobs ..and of course that will include paying them accordingly.

            Or we just continue down the Blairite route of using immigration to keep wages low and damn the training and development of the UK population.
            (See Starmer and the young people ‘EU Freedom of movement they are exploring)

            Makes me laugh when Johnson stated when PM that we would always need Indian IT guys as they were good at it….ignoring thet fact that the UK a mere 15 (or so) years ago had a great IT base far better than India. However the large service players (banks etc) were allowed to skwaff all of that (tax paying) epxerience up the wall to cut the bottom line and sod the associated impact to knowledge, experience,development and to the UK ITservice industry that caused.

          • edit to Jonathan sorry I should have read some of your further replies first and replied to those …but hopefuly you get my drift.

          • Indeed, but as noted with healthcare this will take major investment in the workforce over about 2 decades and we will probably need increased immigration flows into the nhs for a few years ( to manage demand and free up experienced staff to train the increase in trainees), but then after a decade we could look to drop the numbers significantly…but I think politicians need to be honest and tell the public that we have essentially parasited off second and third world health systems,have around 30% of our NHS workforce as migrants and will need a national action plan lasting a decade for phase 1 to ween ourselves off.

            social care as I said is slightly quicker, but we need a total change of view around people who deliver social care and stop treating them like easy to replace scivies…it’s hard work that demands a lot in the way of mental fortitude, compassion, empathy and the ability to self reflect ( AKA significant emotional intelligence, and they are less easy skills to find than we think) and if the people providing don’t have those, the nature of the work means you risk it lapsing into an abusive situation ( there is a hell of a lot of abuse and lack of companionship in social care,because we don’t pay the level that shows respect to the role and recruits people with high levels of emotional intelligence ( if your mind is that way inclined, you can find a lot of jobs that pay well, therapist, nurse, social worker.

            essentially our biggest problems root problem are basic societal paradigm level problems and are twofold…

            1)attitude to caring professions..we don’t see them as wealth creating professions or industries ( every dr nurse, healthcare manager, social career is a public sector leach…vs in many countries that see especially health care as wealth creating industry…healthy population = wealthy population vs sick population = poor population). we need to realise that healthcare is wealthcare and invest appropriately.

            2) demographics..we essentially have three key demographic issues that interact in a very bad way and are what is killing our health and social care system..birth rate..we have a low birthweight problem, each adult only creates .74 children..or 1.49 per couple..to sustain ourselves we need to be producing 3 children per couple..we need social engineering to make sure that happens. Because we now all live on average to 82 ( the other big problem)..this would not be so bad if we did not have the third problem a major social issue in this country called poor health and refusing to take care of ourselves, most western nations have a healthly life expectancy of around 72-73 years and a full life expectancy of 82..which means for most western nations they only spend around 9 years in very poor health ( the frail elderly and multiple morbidity) but in the UK we only have have a healthy life expectancy of around 67-68 years..so on average we spend almost 14-15 years in very poor health ( frail elderly and multiple morbidity)…the issue with this is that someone in that very poor health category can costs around 10 times or even more a year in healthcare than the average person ( £20,000 to £50,000)…the only other nation with the same sort of health demographics ( even worse actually) is the US and their system is collapsing even through they spend 4 times the amount per person than we do…4 trillion dollars a year…

            essentially to deal with the core problem we need more babies ( double the birth rate) and to half our years of unhealthy life, bringing our healthy life expectancy up to 73 years from 68, to do that it’s all about diet and exercise.

    • Thats standard with government departments, none of them get the in year money for the rise that year.. they also do one last little bit of a funny wheeze..although your annual pay rise occurres on the first day of the tax year, they don’t pay it out until after the pay review bodies have all sent in there recommendations and it’s all agreed..that mean you tend to get your pay rise backdated in around Oct time..what this means is anyone who leaves between April and Oct does not get their pay rise..if you change employer ( so change hospital etc) you don’t get the pay rise between the 1 April and when you start your new job and finally you get one really big backdated pay check..in which you tend to end up paying more tax…that goes to the treasury and only slowly corrects back….

    • The thinking behind closing the “shops” was partly security, aka Provo attack. It is a good idea but given the amount of imported and home grown with zombie knives? Would need some serious security in place.

  8. Thank goodness. 3/4 being rejected or giving up is ridiculous.
    Choosing to join the forces shouldn’t be a long process.

  9. Basics, why this hasn’t been addressed for years is sheer incompetence, a recruitment process that deters recruitment is not fit for purpose. The glacial time lag is the big reason why people find something else, really basic problem to solve.

  10. “We’ve delivered the largest pay rise for the Armed Forces in over 20 years,”

    Actually no you didn’t as this was funded from within the MoD budget – it wasn’t new money.

    Political spin!

  11. Get rid of Capita and recruit using ex servicemen to do the same job. Capita have underperformed in most of their contracts for years.

  12. Am I the only person noticing that of the millions of fighting age males who’ve landed on these shores, none seem the least bit interested in defending this new county that they now call home? Whenever you see recruits they’re mostly indigenous whites from poorer working class areas of Britain, especially the North. Lets see some statistics. People lie but numbers don’t unless cooked. That seems to be the biggest indicator that something is going wrong.

    • You need to take a much closer look at our Armed Force’s. They come from all backgrounds, all four corners of the nation, and many religions and nationalities are represented.

      • Hear hear Robert.
        Our Armed Forces are one of the best legacies of the Empire, with people serving in them from all over the globe, not just from around the nation.

      • Dont forget the Commonwealth. Lots of lads and lasses join from Commonwealth countries although the 5 Eyes security restrictions apply so they can only join certain branches.

  14. I appreciate the sentiment of setting targets here, it definitely sends the right message out that radical change is needed in this process. It sets an aspiration we need to shorten recruitment time, so it’s the right idea. However, I worry about the consequences of not meeting these targets and whether missing them by a few days really matters, RAG targets and all that! My main concern is, unless we increase recruitment staff and streamline the processes they and applicants need to follow I worry we’ll end up with recruitment staff just making rash decisions about applicants, just because they have a 10-day or 30-day target looming over them.

  16. 3 out of 4 being rejected…sounds like we have a public health crisis…bad food and a bad approach to personal responsibility for fitness and welling being is killing us..

    it reminds me of my lectures when I was a wee 20 year old many many many decades ago on why the heath system and public health was created.I will give you one guess…The NHS,School dinners, Health visitors…all came out of one thing and that was war..

    honest you only need to look back at why public health was invented, it was war..all the key drivers for public health and health care happened after majors wars..

    boer war…after the British army wheezed its way across South Africa, it was realised that 40-60% of young men were not medically fit for service and that those that got through were hardly prime. There was an uproar and consternation that there was no way such an unhealthy and malnourished population could ever run and rule and empire…So we got:

    1) free and compulsory child health checks in schools
    2) free school meals for poor kids
    3) advice on child health for poor mothers ( the first health visiting service).
    4) national insurance act covering some workers
    5) merchant shipping act ( health inspections for seamen)

    World War One
    Of 2.5 million men assessed for fitness to fight around 25% of them were considered unfit for front line duties ( graded B2 or C3 on the scale). Promoting Lloyd George to say, “you cannot maintain an A1 empire on a C3 population”

    after that war and wheezy population of soldiers, they set up the ministry of health to

    1) train doctors
    2) inspect, organise and fund hospitals
    3) inspect and ensure sanitation

    Then we had WW2 and the first understanding that a new type of war had developed, one in which the whole population would be a target..this prompted the creation of the Emergency Hospital service then the emergency medical service..so government could control the nations health systems in times of war..this allowed the government to manage the casualties from Dunkirk and the blitz, creating the understanding that modern nations needed organised healthcare systems to be able to go to war…and at the end of the war we got the NHS….a system created to both ensure a fit population to fight and to manage mass casualties during a war.

  17. I hope I am not misconstrued, but all the advertising I have seen is aimed at the wrong demographic if one uses the known composition of population and historic patterns of service to our military in all branches.

    Getting the young wizards on board is over due.

    In brief and not having read the fine detail, I don’t believe Labour activists will have changed from an anti-defence outlook.

  18. Largest pay rise- Yep…But…
    Didn’t mention that it was coming out of the existing budget with no extra money to fund it. At least , unlike the train drivers, doctors and everyone else who got an unfunded black hole pay rise the Armed Forces cannot be accused of freezing granny to death on this one!

  19. I joined the RN on 2 Jan 1981.
    I left at the end of 2014 so perhaps I am a little out of date on the current situation but through my job I interact with MOD and RN staff and other nations Armed forces staff on a daily basis (Bar Fridays which is a sacrosanct Brunch Day!) so i still understand where the RN is with regards to the issues it faces. Oh, and it’s not the only one. The USN also has big issues with recruiting and training.

    Anyway, back to Jan 81

    The first of the three intakes for that year of 200 odd 16-25 year old Baby Tiffs arrive at HMS Fisgard. It’s taken them the best part of 6 -8 Months to get here with medicals, isometric testing, interviews, security checks.
    Note that figure.
    6-8 Months.
    That was just Fisgard. Raleigh was taking non-Tiffs monthly. The RM, RAF and Army were doing the same for their recruits.
    The Armed Forces at that time where recruiting, checking, training, and delivering many thousands of recruits every year. They were geared up for it.
    Is cutting “100 policies” going to change the current cluster?
    No.
    Medicals? I hope you don’t need to phone a GP to get one…
    How do you do a security check within 30 days?
    There are people doing DV jobs now that haven’t got a valid in date DV because of the delays in the security vetting system.

    Another Sound bite that won’t deliver results.

  20. Where are all these cyber divisions and drone divisions magically going to appear from when people still in fight tooth and nail to get a monitor or laptop.

    Also Capita are given hard targets on niche trades so when “Youth A” who wanted to be a drone pilot then finds out he/she is going to be a chef,loggie or signaller instead you’d have more faith than me in convincing them otherwise.

    More “hope and change” b*ll*cks straight out of 1997 that’ll amass to nothing. Starting to come to the conclusion none of the main parties are fit to lead this country.

  21. Good to hear that they’re looking at taking it seriously. The ideas about reviewing the refusal policies is good.
    However, the real task will be getting the response times down; identifying why it’s taking so long (potentially farming it out to 3rd parties who don’t resource properly with the aim of maximising profit?), and actually taking the required actions to change that (up to and including rescinding contracts and bringing functions in-house / re-cutting the contracts with greater bite) are not necessarily going to be easy to implement.

  22. We can all tell Healy how to fix the recruitment issue. Get rid of SERCO. Get the regiments back into their local recruiting offices. Let those with direct experience of life in the forces tell their stories to potential recruits. Do what they do in the US, fully fund everyone who wants to join the services through University in exchange for a minimum 6 year contract.

    With this reform, joining HM Armed forces would give individuals a meaningful career path and show that they value intelligence and offer real growth prospects.

  23. We can all tell Healy how to fix the recruitment issue. Get rid of SERCO. Get the regiments back into their local recruiting offices. Let those with direct experience of life in the forces tell their stories to potential recruits. Do what they do in the US, fully fund everyone who wants to join the services through university in exchange for a minimum 6 year contract.

    With this reform, joining HM Armed Forces would give individuals a meaningful career path and show that intelligence and training offers real growth prospects. Offer those who do not have a degree, the chance of a fully funded degree, provided they serve a minimum period of 6 years following graduation. This allows those who join infantry battalions the opportunity of carving out promotion opportunities to people who thought joining up is a better than living at home on the dole. At the same time, it will give people from working-class backgrounds the opportunity to climb out of the societal rut they have been born into and would normally stay in. Better educated troops mean a better Armed Forces and better country.

    Paying their university fees while expensive would open the Armed Forces up to a talent pool they currently do not fish in.

  24. We can all tell Healy how to fix the recruitment issue. Get rid of SERCO. Get the regiments back into their local recruiting offices. Let those with direct experience of life in the forces tell their stories to potential recruits. Do what they do in the US, fully fund everyone who wants to join the services through university in exchange for a minimum 6 year contract.
     
    With this reform, joining HM Armed Forces would give individuals a meaningful career path and show that intelligence and training offers real growth prospects. Offer those who do not have a degree, the chance of a fully funded degree, provided they serve a minimum period of 6 years following graduation. This allows those who join infantry battalions the opportunity of carving out promotion opportunities to people who thought joining up is a better than living at home on the dole. At the same time, it will give people from working-class backgrounds the opportunity to climb out of the societal rut they have been born into and would normally stay in. Better educated troops mean a better Armed Forces and better country.
     
    Paying their university fees while expensive would open the Armed Forces up to a talent pool they currently do not fish in.
     

  25. We can all tell Healey how to fix the recruitment issue. Get rid of SERCO. Get the regiments back into their local recruiting offices. Let those with direct experience of life in the forces tell their stories to potential recruits. Do what they do in the US, fully fund everyone who wants to join the services through university in exchange for a minimum 6 year contract.
     
    With this reform, joining HM Armed Forces would give individuals a meaningful career path and show that intelligence and training offers real growth prospects. Offer those who do not have a degree, the chance of a fully funded degree, provided they serve a minimum period of 6 years following graduation. This allows those who join infantry battalions the opportunity of carving out promotion opportunities to people who thought joining up is a better than living at home on the dole. At the same time, it will give people from working-class backgrounds the opportunity to climb out of the societal rut they have been born into and would normally stay in. Better educated troops mean a better Armed Forces and better country.
     
    Paying their university fees while expensive would open the Armed Forces up to a talent pool they currently do not fish in.
     

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