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The UK armed forces are shrinking by up to 300 personnel a month, the head of the British military told MPs on Monday.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, chief of the defence staff, warned it would take up to three years for the military to start growing again, as he highlighted that the British Army — already at its smallest size since the Napoleonic era — is the worst-affected service.
There were 180,780 personnel in the UK military, of which 127,040 were full-time trained recruits, in January, according to the latest government statistics. Last year 14,830 people left the armed forces, while 12,850 people joined, but the departures were down 8 per cent on the previous year, while enlistees were up 20 per cent.
However, while the trend of departures is decelerating, critics have raised concerns that the British armed forces continue to shrink at a time when the threat of conflict is growing, with war raging in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Conservative MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the Commons public accounts committee, raised the problem of recruitment and retention in the armed forces during a committee session on Monday.
Warning that “you can’t operate any military operation without appropriate personnel”, Clifton-Brown said that “in recent times, for every 100 soldiers that are recruited, 130 leave” the British Army, a situation that is “clearly unacceptable”.
Radakin acknowledged it “continues to be a problem”, adding: “The armed forces are getting smaller each month to the tune of about 200-300 [personnel].”
He said the army was worst hit. “The navy has stabilised and is starting to get bigger now. The air force is reasonably stabilised and the army is still on a downwards trajectory,” he added.
Arguing that the issue is “easing” slowly, Radakin continued: “The forecast is that [decrease] will bottom out and we will start to rise across the whole of the armed forces in the next two [to] three years.”
However, he said the military must improve its ability to convert applicants into recruits. Insisting there is no lack of interest in enlisting, he said that around 13 people apply for every military recruit successfully taken on.
The Ministry of Defence has already removed some barriers to entry and is examining further ways of allowing more people to sign up, without reducing the quality of the armed forces or its “competitive toughness”, the chief of defence staff said.
This may involve further altering the medical standards expected of personnel. “Are we too rigorous on the medical standards that look at people as if everybody’s going to serve for a full career of 22 years, when on average, for most people it’s closer to 10 years?” Radakin asked.
One option he outlined would involve examining the prognosis of any applicants’ medical issues over a five-year horizon, to allow them a “route in” to the services, rather than blocking people on the basis of a health issue that “might materialise in 20 years’ time”.
Ministers already approved 100 changes to the military’s medical standards last autumn, removing a ban on people with asthma or severe acne from signing up.
Radakin also said a “whole host of initiatives” are under way to bolster retention, including improvements to accommodation and “substantial pay awards” for personnel in each of the past two years.
A six-month “probationary” salary for the most junior new recruits, which was equivalent to £19,000 a year and less than the national minimum wage, was abolished in favour of a starting salary closer to £25,000, he said, as an example of an issue that had already been “corrected”.
Radakin said the military’s senior leadership must ensure new recruits felt able to serve their country and embark on “fantastic careers”, which involved treating them as individuals and being “clearer about the stability of life for them and their families”.
