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
The Defence Force Welfare Association (DFWA) is the representative group primarily concerned with the welfare, individual rights and financial interests of former members of the defence force (in both peace and war).
A Conservative Shadow Minister asked the Government if it will review the prohibition on insulin-dependent diabetics joining the armed forces. The Minister's reply indicated that there were no plans to review the policy whereby the services do not recruit or commission personnel with existing medical conditions which require regular access to medication, such as diabetes. The single services do, however manage individuals who develop diabetes during their service careers "according to their specific operational requirements" and "each case will be considered on an individual basis":
(Source: Lib Dem press release 22 May 2006) As the Armed Forces Bill has its final reading in the House of Commons, the Liberal Democrats have tabled amendments to achieve effective representation for British servicemen and women:
British Armed Forces Federation spokesman Adrian Weale said: “You can’t treat service personnel like children. They are in the front-line of the war against terrorism but the MoD doesn’t trust them to behave responsibly online.”
Below is the text of BAFF's evidence as submitted to the House of Commons Defence Committee Inquiry in 2007-8 into medical care for armed forces personnel and their familes.
The pre-1975 service pensions grievance relates to British ex-servicemen and women who served as regular "Other Ranks", and left the armed forces before April 1975 without completing a 22-year 'full career'. These veterans have no armed forces pension for their years of service in the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, British Army or Royal Air Force. The issue also affects the widows or widowers of pre-1975 service personnel.
We understand the strength of feeling about this so-called "legacy" pension issue. Our original lead on this matter is married to a veteran with no pension for 7 years' regular army service in late 60s / early 70s.
If you are absent from the armed forces without leave, the following links may be helpful:
Do British armed forces personnel have any human rights while on operations?
From a story in the Inverness Courier, March 2008:
Inverness lawyer Douglas Young dedicated more than 30 years of his life to the Territorial Army, serving in Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo. In 2006 he helped set up the British Armed Forces Federation to represent rank and file soldiers as well as officers. Calum Macleod talks to a man much in demand... "Nobody should think [BAFF] is about battles stopping for tea-breaks or anything like that.......