Capita Entrust has been awarded a £7.5 million contract by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to provide adventure training for British Army recruits.
The initial three-year deal includes the option for a two-year extension.
Under the terms of the contract, Capita will deliver a range of physically and mentally challenging outdoor activities—such as rock climbing, mountaineering, caving, kayaking and canoeing—to support the development of recruits undergoing the Common Military Syllabus. The programme aims to build resilience, leadership, and teamwork skills among new soldiers.
Personnel from Capita will also be responsible for maintaining and inspecting personal protective equipment (PPE) to ensure safety standards are met throughout the training.
Colonel Angus Philp of the Soldier Academy said: “Adventurous Training is an important component of the Common Military Syllabus which gives our young soldiers the foundation skills for their military careers. The challenging nature of these activities develops mental resilience, teamwork and leadership skills, as well as providing an opportunity to demonstrate and embed the Army’s values and standards.”
Capita Entrust, a division of Capita, has previously worked with the MoD on training programmes. While the company highlighted the award as a continuation of its collaborative work with defence stakeholders, the contract comes amid wider scrutiny of private sector involvement in military training and service delivery.
Claire McAnulty, Managing Director for Capita Entrust, said the company’s goal was to provide “safe and effective training that will instil British Army values and standards in recruits.”
The award follows ongoing reforms to Army recruitment and training, with the MoD seeking to outsource certain non-operational functions while retaining direct control over core military instruction.
Given the appalling job they made of recruiting, why in the world would you let them supervise Adventure Training.
For years the Army ran courses, both doing adventure training and to become Adventure Training Instructors.
It give those who are qualified, a chance to spend time away from their Regiment with a bit of stability.
Bad idea.
Please someone tell me this is a joke. Up till now, as Mark says, the army has devised and delivered Adv Trg using its own very well trained personnel. One of my first such experiences was being trained as a Unit Expedition Leader at Ballachulish as a Lt in the early 80s, and then leading Adv Trg expeditions with seasoned NCOs who had also got an Adv Trg qualification. Now we will pay a discredited contractor millions to do this.
IIRC Adventure training *as part of the common military syllabus* has been contracted out for quite a while. When I went through Phase 1 I’m pretty sure that my AT week was run by civies too (but this is a decade plus ago so memory might be faulty).
I never served,, I was an army cadet. I remember the excitement of the adventure training because it was taught by the “regs” in the cadet training team. Iirc Corporals had to complete a stint in either regimental info teams, cadet training team or recruitment offices. My sons 2 years into the cadets and hasn’t heard of any Regular support from any training teams which might explain why he’s also not done any adventure training other than a visit to a council run clip n climb.
Seems the Armed Forces have turned into a Pantomime.
If any of the men and women who gave their ultimate sacrifices and service in WW2 were able to see the state of play in many areas of Britain today 80 years on, would they have went to fight ?
War is very much human factored – Soldiers have to be ‘Revved Up’ like a machine but don’t shout to loud 2025.
Is the writing on the wall ?
This must be a joke crapita buggered up recruitment what happened to the army running their own adventure training
Read the article, the army still runs it’s own AT, this is just a contract to cover some phase 1 activities.
When I joined the army as a junior soldier in 1978 we spent a week at dollgallau in Wales those instructors were military but if the army is now paying civvies to do it fair enough but there’s no reason why military can’t do the job it would be cheaper considering crapitas record in recruitment
Agreed Mr Lee,
It’s either the Military gets a grip or it doesn’t.
It’s either Military or it isn’t.
With potential War on our doorstep – The heads got to be in the right place or lose it.
G Ivan: “It’s either the military gets a grip or it doesn’t.”
Give me a break, this isn’t a black and white field, and if you really want to make the “war on our doorstep argument” then I can turn around and say “Well that means that every soldier should be in a deployable role and we should outsource fun activity co-ordinator roles to civies.”
True but as I pointed out my recollection is that Phase 1 AT has been at least partially civie run for a long time.
Good grief!!!!! What on earth is going on?
There are clowns and there are clowns. This country (just a few phrases government/mod like to spew) “world leaders, innovative,cutting edge etc etc.
Yes we are all of the above in being clowns.
Dear God, MOD Rewarding failure..again. Adventure and Expedition Trg/Cses are and should remain core functions of the military. Recce, Logistics, Comms, Medical, Accommodation, Feeding and Transport (fuel) Clothing etc are all plans and Orders that are taught by a cadre of qualified Trg NCO’s and PTI’s.
Paintballing is so much fun.
“Dyb dyb dyb”.
In fairness this is only for phase 1 recruits. I cant rmember the last time in 6 years that we got to do any adventirous trg. Sure 6 people a year got to go and do one exped or skiing trip, but the rest of the regt?
This! So much THIS! Nobody here is reading the article. It’s not the army divesting itself of AT, it’s specifically the 1 week of AT that every phase 1 recruit does, which I’m pretty sure has been civilian run for ages. Also which unit are you in? Mine mandates at least 1 week of AT for every soldier per year, and it holds CoC responsible if you don’t complete it (unless Ops precludes).
I assume JSMTC still exists at Llanfair ( Indefatigable ) with both military and ex military instructors.
If this is Phase 1 only, then a very minor gripe if civvy.
As I said, nobody is bothering to read the article. Although I will say when I went through my AT session during training we didn’t go to Llanfair, we went to Brecon. Canoeing on the Usk, caving in Porth yr Ogof. AFAIK there is no JS AT centre in Brecon which might be part of the reason for this being contracted.
I’m Pretty sure in a few years the government is going to in a few years contract out the military to a private company
Capita again. Brilliant news! They have after all been so successful so far.
Someone very senior in Whitehall, has been bought and paid for by Capita. You could turn around and say “so what… others are doing it”, and you’d be right. Serco was recently awarded a big fat cheque, to provide something or other for the MOD.
Unfortunately it will continue to happen, as these big multinationals ‘buy up’ or ‘buy out’ any competition. These multinationals are not a benefit to the UK government, in any way shape or form. Why? because they end up as the only supplier in any and all sectors, stifling any form of external competition, whilst charging whatever they like.
As an example… BAE systems.
They get brought on with loosely defined assistance contracts to save a bit of money short-term, destroy the original organizations ability to provide the service, become the only game in town through acquisition/merger/dodgy handshake agreement with competitor etc. Then charge what they want to provide the service or the organization collapses.
Originally as you say, brown paper bags, envelopes full of cash or highly-paid, do-nothing retirement job offers were likely involved. At this point, 40 years on, they don’t even need to buy anyone. The alternative is some senior civil servant and/or minister either pays-up to the private company, asks the treasury for billions to regenerate the ability in the public sector or watches their department collapse.
It always ends the same, we pay more for less but the Treasury is happy as their pension line-item reduces. (See NHS cleaners, Prison Officers, and on and on and on.)
These companies are literally “too big to fail” as it takes the UK with them if they do, we don’t have the quality or quantity of leaders in Parliament or the Civil Service to do anything about it.
Spot on!
The Royal Navy do exactly this but with uniformed serving personnel, why can’t the army do this?
MoD loving giving money to Capita
They could have given contract to pgl, this is why dull boring people like Cameron get paid 50 k for after dinner speeches after leaving office.Crapita should be banned , they overcharged for prison ankle bracelets where people no longer were in system or had died and recruitment farce.
This has to be a joke ? Surely the army can̈ do its.own adventure training, the military did this when I served in the 70s and 80s. It’s the same as Capita idiots recruitment. Let the forces alone to do this. This has to be corruption for someone,, greasy palms somewhere ??