Military suffers critical skill gap as threats grow
BRITAIN’S ARMED Forces are significantly understaffed in critical areas such as intelligence and engineering, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has warned.
A report published by the National Audit Office (NAO) states that, as of January this year, the country’s full-time military was operating at 5.7 per cent below the current target.
With more than 8,200 regulars needed to meet the requirement, the NAO highlighted how this is the “largest gap in a decade”.
The NAO stressed that alongside the gap in personnel numbers across the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, there are “much larger shortfalls in critical skills”.
With 102 “pinch-point” trades, the watchdog said there are not enough trained regulars to carry out operational tasks without cancelling leave or training within these areas.
MP Meg Hillier, chairwoman of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “In these uncertain times, it is more critical than ever that Britain has a well-staffed Armed Forces with the technical knowhow to handle threats to national security.
“But the NAO report shows that the Armed Forces are woefully below complement, especially in crucial areas like intelligence and engineering.”
According to the NAO, most of these so-called pinch-points were in six areas including engineering, intelligence, logistics, pilots, communications and medical.
This includes a lack of some 2,400 engineers, with the largest among Royal Navy weapons engineers – a shortfall of 700 intelligence analysts, and a need for 800 pilots, especially in the RAF. With the impact of the shortfalls becoming “more severe over the past year”, just six are expected to be resolved over the coming five years, with 23 becoming worse, the NAO said.
The report said the reliance by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on a base-fed workforce model, where young recruits in lower ranks are developed and trained over time, has not enabled capability gaps to be closed quickly enough.
With constantly evolving threats facing the UK, the NAO said the “increasing risk of cyber and electronic attacks will change the capabilities and skills that the Armed Forces will need in future”.
“The new demands will add to the pressure to increase capability in some trades that already have shortfalls,” the report added.
With a 24 per cent shortfall in the number of regulars recruited to the Armed Forces between 2016 and 2017, the number of regulars leaving the military voluntarily is on the up, the NAO said. It said the percentage of those choosing to leave the Armed Forces has increased from 3.8 per cent a year in March 2010 to 5.6 per cent in December 2017.
In a bid to tackle the shortfalls, which the NAO said “result mainly from recruitment and retention problems”, the MoD spent more than £664m on these areas in the last five years.
But Ms Hillier said the MoD “needs to take a long hard look at its current approach”. COMMONWEALTH GAMES medallists from Yorkshire joined their triumphant teammates touching down at Heathrow Airport from the Gold Coast yesterday.
Among those returning home was Leeds’ badminton star Gabby Adcock, who won gold alongside husband Chris in the mixed doubles on the 11th day of the Games.
In all, Yorkshire athletes won 18 gold medals as part of Team England’s hugely successful Games campaign – more than Canada and New Zealand. Yorkshire athletes, either through individual achievement or team contribution, also won 14 silver and 13 bronze medals.
Also arriving home yesterday were Team England’s final gold medallists of the Games, the women’s netball team, who clinched the title just hours before the closing ceremony.
The team included Keighley’s Natalie Haythornthwaite, who plays for Coventry-based Wasps Netball. Having qualified for their first ever final in a major tournament, the Roses went one further by toppling top seeds Australia with a buzzerbeating goal in a nail-biting finale.
Helen Housby scored the winning goal with no time left on the clock to settle the score 52-51 in England’s favour, a moment that is sure to live long in the memories of all who witnessed the feat.
Yorkshire’s other medals included a clutch of five – including three golds – by Leeds gymnast Nile Wilson, three bronze medals accumulated by Sheffield swimmer Eleanor Faulkner, a gold for Pontefract squash star James Willstrop and three titles won by Harrogate diver Jack Laugher.
In total, England won 45 gold, 45 silver and 46 bronze to finish second in the medals count behind the hosts.
Team England will be keen to build on its success at the next games, especially thanks to the array of teenagers who took home medals from the Gold Coast.
They include 18-year-old Thomas Hamer and 16-year-old Ellie Robinson, who both took golds in the pool.
The women’s artistic gymnastics team have an average age of just 17, four of whom were Commonwealth debutantes.
Taeja James, 15, was the youngest English medallist at the Gold Coast with a silver in the gymnastics.