Forces losing soldiers who say family life comes first

Britain’s military is facing a retention crisis because more troops are reluctant to move to new postings

MODERN soldiers are no longer willing to move around the world as figures suggest Britain’s Armed Forces now have a retention crisis rather than a recruitment crisis.

Government data released on Thursday revealed that while recruitment is increasing, the strength of the British military fell for the ninth year in a row, with 14,880 people leaving, up from 14,860 in 2018.

A survey of those leaving suggests a crucial factor is that service personnel are increasingly unwilling to uproot their families to a new posting.

In the recent Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey, the reason cited by 62 per cent of service leavers was the “impact of service life on family and personal life”. The second most stated reason, at 56 per cent, was job opportunities outside the service.

The impact of service life on a spouse or partner’s career was cited by half of service leavers as the reason they “turned to the right” – the military expression for leaving.

Most service leavers – 61 per cent – went for voluntary reasons, with just over a quarter reaching the end of their engagements and about 14 per cent leaving for medical or compassionate reasons, being discharged for poor conduct or dying while in service.

The figures suggest the military is facing changes that the civilian workforce went through a generation ago and can no longer expect partners of service personnel not to have their own careers and to move every few years.

Sasha Lilley, who served in the RAF for 12 years alongside her husband and has two children, both of whom went to four nurseries before the age of five, said: “I’m a very different woman from the one who joined the military. As I’ve got older I’ve changed and the military can’t accommodate me any more.

“We can’t keep resettling the family, and we’re not prepared to do that any more. The military is too inflexible.

“I’ll always be a working mother, but when I went back after maternity leave … it was written on their faces, ‘Why are you 10 minutes late?’ I couldn’t explain that I’d just spent 10 minutes on the way to nursery staring at a fascinating puddle.”

Overall, the figures show that the Army, with 74,400 regular, fully trained troops, is more than 7,000 servicemen short of the target figure of 82,000.

The Royal Navy and Royal Marines, with 29,090 “full-time trained strength”, are under the requirement of 30,600, and the RAF, with 29,930 personnel, is below the target of 31,840.

The figures showed 13,520 people joined the regular Armed Forces in the past 12 months, an increase of 1,593 compared with the previous year.

It may indicate that controversial recruitment campaigns, such as the “snowflake” series, have resonated with their intended audiences. The campaign was mocked when it began in January as it featured Kitchenerstyle illustrations of soldiers with labels such as “snowflakes”, “phone zombies”, “binge gamers” and “selfie addicts”.

Lt Gen Tyrone Urch, Commander Home Command, said at the time: “You may feel like the Army is dumbing down on who it seeks to recruit as these ads are a change to the norm, [but] the Army is open for business.”

Nia Griffith, the shadow defence secretary, said: “Ministers are either in complete denial about this crisis in recruitment and retention, or they are actively in favour of cutting the Armed Forces to these historically low levels.

“The new Defence Secretary should come clean about which it is.”