(10 March 2010) In addition to acceptance of the AFPRB recommendations, Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has also announced today an increase to the Operational Allowance or "bonus" given to deployed personnel in operational locations such as Afghanistan.
Cases that drag on for months or even years can have a significantly harmful effect on the health and welfare of all those involved. Despite improvements I cannot give an assurance this year that the Service complaints system is yet working efficiently, effectively or fairly.
Dr Susan Atkins, Service Complaints Commissioner
(BBC, 1 March 2010) The Conservative party has led a debate on the government's record on defence, accusing the prime minister of showing an "instinctive lack of interest" in the armed forces.
(26 February 2010) Douglas Young, BAFF Executive Chairman and author of Silence in the Ranks, was an early morning guest for BBC Radio Wiltshire (programme presented from a cafe in Tidworth) and BBC Radio Solent (Portsmouth). He also contributed to a TV news package for BFBS. The subject of all three broadcasts was voting arrangements for service personnel and their husbands, wives or civil partners, mainly in the context of the fast approaching General Election 2010, but future arrangements were also touched upon.
(BAFF, Thursday 25 February 2010). The latest electoral registration statistics for Scotland show another fall in the number of service personnel who are registered as service voters. UPDATE: UK-wide electoral registration statistics now available
The Conservative Whip and former army officer Andrew Robathan MP had a prominent role - before and after the 2005 General Election - in drawing parliamentary attention to service voting issues.
From Defence Oral Questions, House of Commons, 22 February 2010:
Andrew Rosindell (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Romford, Conservative)
Can the Minister confirm that all service personnel are being given all the correct information to ensure that they are able to cast their vote in forthcoming elections?
From The Times, February 15, 2010, by Fiona Hamilton
The British National Party was last night accused of plumbing new depths after it hijacked an online campaign to celebrate an amputee soldier’s birthday. Military officials described the political stunt as shameful and condemned the far-Right party for exploiting the predicament of wounded soldiers.
Adam Downey was a signaller with the Royal Corps of Signals when he was hit by a car in Afghanistan at 19. He says changes to the AFCS would make a "massive difference" to his life
BAFF Executive Douglas Young was interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Radio Wales about an expected Government announcement today (10 Feb 2010) of further improvements to the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme for personnel injured on duty after 5 April, 2005. In welcoming improvements, Young supported the call by The Royal British Legion in their Election Manifesto for the Scheme in future to be kept under continuous review.
In his BBC Radio Wales interview, Young expressed concern that today's expected announcement was also preparing the ground for a more rigorous policy in respect of personnel who were unable to return to full military fitness as a result of injury or sickness. Young also commented on a call by the National Audit Office for Defence Chiefs and the NHS to deal with the consequences of a rise in the number of troops requiring treatment or evacuation from Afghanistan.
Spending on defence over the last 12 years has not matched the demands made on our armed forces, and the equipment programme is underfunded by nearly £35 billion, writes Antonia Cox in More bang for the buck: how we can get better value from the defence budget, published on Monday 1 February by the Centre for Policy Studies.
Both major parties are committed to a Strategic Defence Review following the general election. But Antonia Cox argues that besides the hard choices to be made in an SDR, the MoD must show that it has learned the lessons of past failures in military procurement and that we can get better value from our equipment budget. ...
The public wants to see service personnel to be properly equipped. That is more important than local industrial considerations. The good news is that by learning the lessons of previous failures in defence procurement, it should be possible to deliver more for less.
Iraq Inquiry: operational equipment.
British forces went into Iraq without enough body armour because planning for the war took place “at the last minute”, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup told the inquiry into the conflict.
By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent, The Daily Telegraph
Published: 12:35PM GMT 01 Feb 2010
Sir Jock, the head of the Armed Forces, also told the Chilcot inquiry that military aircraft programmes were not properly funded in the run-up to the war.
He was in charge of defence equipment in 2002 and 2003. He told the inquiry that several mistakes were made in the years and months before the war.
Sir Jock admitted that some troops sent into Iraq did not have the proper desert combat clothing and boots, because supplies did not reach the right units.
He also said that some troops did not get the body armour they should have had.
“The other area where we could have done better is Enhanced Combat Body Armour. We didn’t have enough of that in theatre at the time," he said.
“It was all being done so rapidly at the last minute so no one knew who had what.”
BAFF has accepted that there is no practical prospect of the necessary changes to electoral legislation, let alone the complex technical and administrative arrangements, being achieved in time to allow electronic voting by service personnel and their families in the UK General Election which could take place in May 2010.
The possibility of new voting arrangements such as electronic voting for service voters overseas is, however, being looked at with a view to consideration for possible inclusion in future electoral legislation.
UPDATE MARCH 2010 - Some links about electronic voting or 'e-Voting':
From a Times article by Professor Michael Clarke, Director of the Royal United Services Insititute:
from Martin Givens, More guile needed in the Afghan game, Sunday Times 24 January 2010:
No visitor to the British army base in Lashkar Gah, Helmand, could fail to be moved by the quiet sense of purpose of the officers and the cheery idealism of the men and women — hard to appreciate back home when the news is a daily diet of explosions and death. Soldiers spoke of the villages they had helped, the wells dug, the bridges built. Winning hearts and minds on their lips sounds less a tired old slogan, more a vocation.
UPDATE 22 February: The Government again confirmed in Defence Questions today, in answer to a question from Andrew Rosindell MP (Conservative), that emergency measures are being put in place for postal voting from Afghanistan. See Have all service personnel been given all the information to ensure they can cast their vote?
- Are you likely to be on Op HERRICK at the time of the next General Election? The Government has revealed in Parliament that planning is in progress to give you a better chance of successfully voting by post. If this affects you, we suggest you wait out for further info to be issued soon through your unit, and which we will repeat on this website.
- The three Service Family Federations and the British Armed Forces Federation (BAFF) are actively liaising with the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence and the Electoral Commission. Members of Parliament have also been consulted.
But this is not an argument that can or should be left to the military chiefs or the boffins. In the end it is also about the kind of British military effort that fits with the kind of nation we want to be. It is a debate that should be at the heart of the general election campaign too.
From a Guardian Editorial, 19 January 2010
And from Thomas Harding in The Daily Telegraph: Whitehall's civil war will decide our place in the world.
Last Friday Plymouth Sutton Linda Gilroy visited the Royal Navy's premier training establishment, HMS Raleigh.
The visit was part of her attachment to the Royal Navy with the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme, which is designed to give MPs a better understanding of life in the military.
Below is an updated link to a GOV.UK web page which provides, for those currently serving, the online armed forces pension calculator, and a downloadable pension forecast request (form 12) -—
and a downloadable pension forecast form (form 14) for those who have left the armed forces:
Geoff Hoon 'denied Iraq soldiers equipment that could have saved lives''
Tories demand that Chilcot inquiry establishes whether then defence secretary delayed ordering body armour.
The government was accused last night of denying British soldiers vital equipment that could have saved their lives in Iraq as a bitter party political row threatened to engulf the Chilcot inquiry into the war.
Two days before Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary, prepares to give evidence to the inquiry, the Conservatives are demanding that it establish the truth behind claims that Hoon delayed ordering enhanced body armour shortly before the invasion because ministers did not want to alert the public to their preparations and stoke opposition to war.
Injured Armed Forces veterans will be guaranteed priority NHS care for life under new plans unveiled by ministers.
By Aislinn Laing
Published: 4:00PM GMT 11 Jan 2010
The initiative will start with a tailored healthcare plan drawn up before each serviceman or woman leaves the forces.
GPs and hospital staff will be reminded of their duty to provide priority care to those veterans and health authorities will be expected each to nominate a director to ensure they do.
Six pilot projects which saw NHS clinical psychologists appointed to work exclusively with veterans will be rolled out across the country, and six new mental health nurses from the military charity Combat Stress will be appointed in selected NHS trusts to link veterans with the right medical help.
The NHS will also match Defence Medical Services spending on prosthetic limbs for those veterans who need replacements in later life.
NHS doctors who are members of the reserve forces are reporting difficulty obtaining time off for their reserve forces training.
NHS Trusts have also been showing increasing reluctance to recruit staff who are members of the armed forces.
These reports relate to doctors. BAFF is also prepared to publicise any similar problems for other professional NHS staff who are members of the reserve forces.
It seemed unlikely that it could be happening again. But it was......
(Independent, 9 November) Ministers are accused of a "scandalous failure" to help Britain's servicemen and women exercise their democratic right to vote in the next general election after it emerged that more than 60,000 are still unregistered – one-third of the regular armed forces.
Electoral participation by armed forces personnel has again been raised in parliament. The Liberal Democrat peer Lord Roberts of Llandudno asked the Government what proposals they have to enable British military and other personnel serving overseas to vote in any elections in 2010.
From the last page of the report of the independent review into the broader issues surrounding the loss of the RAF Nimrod MR2 Aircraft XV230 in Afghanistan in 2006 -
Chapter 24 of the Nimrod Review report identifies a number of current weaknesses in the area of personnel in the MOD which have an impact on the effectiveness of the MOD Airworthiness regime.
“Safety is delivered by people, not paper” (Andrew Macfarlane, Nuclear Regulator, 2008)
“It takes a whole community to ensure that we get [Operational Safety, Suitability and
Effectiveness].” (A Fleet Chief Engineer, US Air Force, 2008)
Haddon-Cave makes Recommendations for a New Personnel Strategy. From page 560 of the report:
Summary
1. People deliver Airworthiness.
2. There are currently weaknesses in the area of personnel in the MOD, namely:
(1) Undervaluing and dilution of engineers and engineering skills.
(2) Engineers are not required to have professional status.
(3) Decline in the ability of the MOD to act as an “intelligent customer”.
(4) Turf wars and inter-service rivalries for jobs and roles.
(5) Short term two-year postings.
(6) Constant re-naming of posts.
(7) ‘Double-hatting’ and ‘gapping’.
(8) Lack of trained Safety Engineers.
(9) Selfishness, rewards and promotion for ‘change’.
(10) Shortage of manpower and skills fade.
3. There should be a New Personnel Strategy to address each of these weaknesses.
The Report of the Nimrod Review is now available online.
- The Nimrod Review: an independent review into the broader issues surrounding the loss of the RAF Nimrod MR2 aircraft XV230 in Afghanistan in 2006 report (Full report - PDF 4.62MB - download may be slow due to amount of interest)
- The Nimrod Review official website