Armed forces recruitment falls short of targets

Well they might learn. RAF turned down white males. Accommodation is crap. Pay is too. And the people responsible for recruitment? Incompetent is a kind word eh? Some form of conscription will be needed. It really is that simple.

Should have kept the old recruitment system and not used a civilian company that has never achieved recruitment numbers

Who would want to join when governments cut the defence budgets, cut capabilities, crap accommodation, being thrown out like a used chew toy when you leave and when it takes ages to hear back ??

From what I have heard in conversations with people related to RAF recruitment, acne can be a disqualifying fact in not being recruited.

This is not a recruitment problem. This is a cultural problem.

The problem seems to be more a case of it taking too long from a person showing interest to being offered a post. Get rid of the external recruitment agency – they’re not fit for purpose. Set a target of, say, 2 months maximum between show of interest and job offer – anything more than this timeline would be, frankly, incompetence.

Odd really in the cold war year’s manpower in all three services were reasonably good for the size of our nation and the world now is much worse .I do believe it’s a culture problem to a degree but has we know pay housing etc also an issue. However over the years cuts and service men & women more or less sack over night like in 2010 cuts didn’t help this gives the wrong singles to our young people .At the end of the day HMGs have to take some of the blame has a lot was they doing .

A quick Google uk has around 140k armed forces persons. If we say 150k target in 2025 . Give every member a Five thousand pound pay rise a year . That will be 750 million pound a year extra roughly ?
Considering the 10s of billions squandered wasted in govt every year , ilegal migrants in hotels costing us all at least several billion a year as one example .
Then 750million would be for me , pound for pound the most cost effective way of improving the armed forces .
Even accommodation could be sorted quickly .

Time to bin crapita

Sadly I’ts no great surprise.

What a surprise. I’d actually hazard that recruitment targets haven’t been met in the last 10 years, or probably since capita took over fullstop. In addition, these figures are inflated, they show anyone who has got past the initial interviews, but prior.to starting recruit training

The recruitment process, all on line is horrible. You never see or hear from a human. Very dispiriting, no wonder numbers, are down.

Out of a population of 68m, even the targets are modest numbers. It would be interesting to see the latest figures for applications. The last time I saw them, the conversion rate from application to appointment was very low, suggesting that the recruitment process is the major cause of the shortfalls.
It needs to be taken back in house asap

As an ex forces veteran myself, I’ve tried multiple times to re-enlist, I’ve had issues with my knee (ACL) but nothing which can’t be fixed with a regular routine. Rejection after rejection from the civilian recruitment because I don’t tick the right boxes. Defense shouldn’t be about ticking boxes, it should be about who wants to defend their country

There are lots of veterans who are considered too old for reserves but are still fit and have a great knowledge base. I’m sure lots would consider doing something along the lines of a local defence force like the Baltic countries.

Get those convicted of minor crimes out of prison and into some kind of Land Army as they had during WW2 instead of having hundreds of fit young men AND women loafing around in prison cells all day long doing nothing and costing the country an absolute fortune.
If the threat of having to spend two years or more as a conscript as punishment for their misdeeds it might make them think twice about causing the country and the general population so much grief. Everyone over the age of 16 is quite capable of knowing right from wrong and should be made aware that if they commit crimes of any sorts they will have to face the consequences, both male and female, and everything in between . A spell in the Army would do them the world of good and turn them into decent productive citizens. Also target those idiots who go around spraying so called “ tags “ with paint aerosols on walls and buildings and make our towns and cities look so awful. They certainly don’t do that in Singapore or many other foreign cities, the punishments for plastering graffiti all over the place are quite severe and are definitely a deterrent.
It’s time we got to grip with those idiots who spoil our towns and cities with graffiti. Don’t lock them up, sign them up, for two years or more.

And they are still scratching their heads into why retention is poor!
We tell them why, do they listen?
Want to give us the world when we leave though. Absolute jokers! Word is getting out that it’s a shit show!

I did 2 tours at the RAF Careers Information Office in Liverpool as a Corporal Case Progress clerk and Sergeant Office Manager in the 1980s and 1990s, the second busiest office in the country and always met our recruitment targets!
The government at their time, always shortsighted never should have cut the ties between the civilian and military community!

Initial recruitment has been operated by the outsourcing company CAPITA. Since being awarded this contract, around 2012?? Every year they have fallen short of their recruitment targets. Do they not get invited to meetings to discuss their under performance and a plan to hit their targets the following year?

Anyone involved in training or being trained, are the intake classes half empty or are they run half as often? I believe the time between initial contact and starting a training class can be as long as 9 months, in this time a number of candidates are lost to more immediate forms of employment.

I can’t think why anybody working at the MoD hasn’t worked out if CAPITA are consistently delivering only half their targets, surely by asking for double, you’ll get what you want (a trick that used to work very well with the MoD stores system)

Many of us here have been pointing out the shortcomings, and abject failure of governments/politicians over the past few years, and them allowing bean-counters to decide what the Military wants and needs.

As been said before, currently, no-one cares why ‘John, Robert, Mary and Methuselah’ want to leave the Army, Navy, Airforce and the RFA.
No one cares that the mess hall is operated Group 4, and that the food for the most part is shite.
No one cares that the pay is piss poor.
No one cares that former refuse collection companies ‘own’ and operate military vehicles.

One could go on and on, but we all get so tired and bored of it all. Other than emulating great great uncle Oberon, who served in the guards at Sevastopol, there is little incentive to join the 21st century Army any more.

Other than the prospect of flying the latest drone or an F35, why join the RAF considering they don’t go abroad anymore.

As for the Navy… 21st century people/months away at sea/wokeism x √ 9= bugger all interest.

For me, the Armed Forces needs to be revered again, looked up to and appreciated again, respected again.

That’s what you get when you don’t pay enough and have no commitment incentives beyond an average pension in 22 YEARS time.

Career officers in schools have long given up on suggesting the military.

I remember in my RNR days 18-21 year olds being desperate to join the regulars but being told sorry, no vacancies – come back in two years.

Decades of defence cuts have also destroyed traditional military families, where generation after generation joins up. Dig out any old issue of Navy News from the 1960’s or even 1970’s you are guaranteed to find a photo of a CPO proudly welcoming his JR son on board.

Somehow the UK armed forces have to rebuild a perception that they offer a career, a profession, a trade, and an opportunity to see the world. And that this is not the last resort after the dole, with redundancy likely after the next defence review in a few years time.

How about focusing on the most prevalent demographic – white males….