Britain’s Chief of the Defence Staff has acknowledged that the Armed Forces are continuing to shrink by “about two to three hundred” personnel each month, but expressed cautious optimism that the trend is beginning to stabilise.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, appearing before the Public Accounts Committee on Monday, told MPs: “It continues to be a problem. I think we should acknowledge that. So the Armed Forces are getting smaller each month to the tune of about two to three hundred, but that decrease is getting considerably less than it has been over the last couple of years.”
He explained that the decline is not uniform across all services: “If you look at it through the lenses of the three services, the Navy has stabilised and is starting to get bigger now. The Air Force is reasonably stable, and then the Army is still on a downwards trajectory.”
However, he added that forecasts suggest “we will start to rise across the whole of the Armed Forces in the next two to three years.”
Radakin placed emphasis on recruitment reform, saying that while demand remains strong — “in the order of 13 people applying for every place” — conversion of applicants into recruits remains suboptimal. “We are not as strong as we should be… but we’re better than we used to be,” he said. To improve matters, he pointed to ongoing efforts to re-evaluate rigid entry standards: “We’ve looked again at some of the barriers, not to reduce the quality, or the competitiveness, but to allow more people to come forward.”
One area under scrutiny has been medical criteria. Radakin questioned whether the Armed Forces have been “too rigorous on medical standards that look at people as if everybody’s going to serve for a full career of 22 years, when on average most people it’s closer to 10 years.”
He said the government had implemented “about 100 variations” to medical standards last autumn, aiming to improve flexibility and remove unnecessary blocks to entry. “Can you look at someone’s medical prognosis maybe five years at a time?” he asked, arguing that such an approach “gives them a route in” and avoids disqualifying recruits over potential long-term issues that may never materialise.
The Admiral also underscored broader changes designed to boost retention and morale, including accommodation upgrades and improved starting salaries.
“We used to have a system whereby you were on a sort of, almost like a probationary wage for the first six months of your career… We’ve now brought that forward so that everybody joins on their substantial salary that you get in that first rank – that’s a huge increase, so that’s closer to £25,000 rather than £18,800.”
He concluded that the Armed Forces must do better at “treating people as individuals” and giving them “reasons to stay in”, highlighting that those who join do so to “serve their country” and “be developed during their time in service.”
The last point – absolutely spot on.
Recruitment is a problem; but it won’t be solved without retention. We need to give people a reason to stay.
I’ll give you an example of how my cohort were mismanaged by APC – all but two of us in my cap badge on promotion to Major were told – “because of the numbers, you will probably never command a company.”
Well, command is what everyone joined for and what we wanted to stay for. It was mind boggling as we were so short of Majors that most of us had already held acting rank and commanded a company. So most people promptly resigned. Two years later, the regiment was bringing in other cap badges to command companies because it didn’t have enough home grown (not to mention the gaps then left in the staff appointments).
Equally difficult to retain soldiers who have been promised flexibility, but then get let down. And of course, retention is a downward spiral. The disaffected leave, creating gaps. Those that stay have to plug those gaps and lose the flexibility they were promised and become disaffected …
The disaffected are a drain on morale too….
As a x member of Her majestys armed forces why would a young man offer up his life in service so that the government 20 30 40 50 years down the line is willingly going to through you under a bus for doing your duty .
That may have been your aggenda bobA but gues what .its probably beacause some people want to serve there country and get back stabbed by the same country that send them there did you ever think of that instead of oh poor me i didnt become a major ?
APC is an archaic relic from a long gone jolly boys past. It should have been got rid of at least a decade ago. I’m surprised no one has taken them and the whole board system to an employment tribunal yet and made out like a bandit.
Bloke who can run fast and organised a mess do once = promote
Bloke doing a uni degree in his spare time = dev dev better luck in next year or the year after pal.
Joke of a system that no one on civvie street can get their heads around when you tell them yes that is how it works, they thought I was pulling their legs.
To take a silver lining from a particularly shitty grey cloud, the UK labour market is absolutely boned beyond belief, especially for young people. That should make for a far more fertile hunting ground for UKAF, and be far better/more valuable for young people that working almost any other job in their late teens and early 20s
Ah yes, but “they won’t get out of bed for less than £40k…”
After 24 yrs service, nor should they
Hmm unemployment is only 4.4% hardly boned but it was 11% when I joined up that’s boned.
If that’s the unemployment rate it is close to what is considered full employment by economists which is 4%. That is because a rate of 4% is deemed to represent natural fluctuations in the labour market such as people transitioning between jobs or industries or new graduates looking for their first job.
With unemployment this low, the forces are competing with every other industry that is short of labour.
Some of the Army loss is due poor equipment etc and no tours any more on top of pay etc. Not saying start a war but some like tours they give a soldier a chance prove them self and be tested which some do enjoy. There is no simple one reason i know but boredom, lack working kit does not help. Plus its all negitive news about the Army, empty promises on kit orders and numbers housing etc.
Indeed
Army’s not very digital environment as well as the lack of interesting stuff to do is a big problem.
If you keep people busy and busting around they are generally happier – provided it is purposeful….
Plenty of tours for those willing to put the work in.
You don’t think they see Russians/Ukrainians dying horrible deaths due to FPV drones are having a factor? Getting plastered all over social media etc.
Nothing better to help with retention than sitting in a massive garrison in the middle of nowhere. When we had barracks all over the place at least there was a bit of variety.
Why not recruit more Gurkhas into the army , very loyal and fierce soldiers .
I believe that is happening with the new “King’s Gurka Artillery” unit. But we also need domestic recruitment.
Lack of support from government when you leave is a problem. Why would anyone join these days to maybe end up destitute!! It wasn’t always like that when I left in 93.
Physical fitness whilst still very important for many roles, such as the obvious infantry etc, is becoming increasingly less important for non frontline roles. And there should still be minimum standards. But to exclude people for the range of bizzare reasons we all know about is bordering on ludicrous in the current recruitment environment.
If someone’s job is to mainly analyse intelligence imagery, and they are, or have the have the potential to be, really good at it; and they are extremely enthusiastic about it, then disqualifying them because of acne or other relatively minor and manageable conditions seems odd. My wife convinced a doctor to give me an over the phone diagnosis of asthma, without my knowledge or consent (she thought she was doing me a favour), but that could well lead to a ‘computer says no’ moment within the current process (if I ever did get around to applying for the reserves).
The UK’s population pyramid isn’t too favourable when considering recruitment prospects, though not as bad as many other countries. So we need to let a higher proportion of those willing to serve do so, otherwise we simply won’t be able to muster the manpower needed. The skill sets required within the forces has also changed significantly in some areas since many of these recruitment policies and standards were set.
Yes ukraine war has shown physical fitness is only a priority for combat infantry and even then do you really have to be able to run 8 miles in full combat gear , though obviously a big plus . And let’s be honest in time of war fitness picks up . Israel has recently shown how good all female tank crews are . So why not have all female tank crews , female x3 crew in an Ajax , female artilery gunners . Time to think outside the box abit and be more modern . Its obviously much better to have places filled with not so fit people of normal intelligence than no one at all .
Maybe they should stop the diversity hiring like the RAF got found out over. If white males want to apply let them and pick the best person regardless. Ruling out the demographic most likely to join up is stupid.
Well a big problem is how the country is ran if it were ran better and had a good leader who loves the people in it more people would put their lives on the line but at the moment what are we fighting to protect its not a uk problem its a europe wide problem
1 I absolutely refute that statement numbers are at a high highest since cold war. This is what happens when media or your family don’t want know things but seems went hill bill murderous
What I’m saying obviously i myself have concerns with minorities in the army we hope to phase that all out recruits steady work if they are trained then most could serve for years taking a wage ofcourse we will let go recruit new more train and repeat the old britain is dead long live the empire
Same old same old yawn yawn……….