Commonwealth recruits lost after Army vacancies dwindle

MORE than 23,000 potential Army recruits from the Commonwealth have had their applications rejected in the last five years because of a shortage of vacancies.

Figures released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) reveal that last year 7,704 recruits from Commonwealth countries were rejected even though the Army is about 7,500 troops short of its required number of 82,000.

The MoD said that the high rejection rate is due to the limited number of vacancies combined with unprecedented interest in a military career from Commonwealth applicants.

About 1,350 Commonwealth troops are allowed to join the Armed Forces every year, of which around 1,000 join the Army. One former senior officer said rejecting potential recruits from Commonwealth countries when the army was short of troops was “nonsense”.

Col Phil Ingram, a former Army officer and author specialising in security and intelligence, said: “This just doesn’t make any sense, it’s complete nonsense to reject applications from Commonwealth recruits when the Army is so short of numbers. This is another example of real talent being rejected for no apparent reason.”

Last month, a senior official from the recruitment firm Capita told MPs that the medical requirements were so stringent, the England rugby team would be refused entry.

Richard Holroyd, the company’s managing director, said that Capita had been targeting a total of 9,813 recruits for 2023-24 but has only been able to attract around 5,000 since April last year.

Mr Holroyd highlighted that young people with tattoos above the collar line or on their hands, sufferers of hay fever and asthma, people with a high body mass index (BMI), and those who had broken bones in childhood were often being ruled out.

He added: “I think the current England rugby team would struggle to join the Army. Broken bones are a particular issue. A childhood rugby injury can preclude somebody and therefore we are constantly challenging the Army to relook at their policy and processes.”

Mr Holroyd said: “The amount of medical scrutiny that we now have, and the amount of medical evidence and medical science has progressed such that we have far much more data on people than we used to have.”

The figures also show that over 70,000 potential soldiers were refused entry for medical issues such as nut allergies, asthma and historical injuries, such as bones broken in childhood.

Details were released in a freedom of information request, which showed that in 2023-24 over 23,000 potential recruits did not pass the initial selection procedure.

An Army spokesman said: “In 2018 we expanded the number of roles available to Commonwealth personnel, while introducing a 15 per cent cap across all units. Due to an unprecedented number of applications for a limited number of jobs, we are no longer inviting applications from Commonwealth nationals at this point but will keep this under review.”

High rejection rate of applicants occurs even though military is short of required troop numbers