The U.K. National Audit Office (NAO) reports that the Ministry of Defense (MoD) decision to execute Army 2020, the program to reduce the size of the regular Army while beefing up the reserves, was taken “without appropriate testing of feasibility or evaluation of risk.”
The June 11 NAO report
to Parliament warns that moving to the new Army structure comes with significant risks, which if they come about, could significantly affect the Army’s ability to achieve its objectives and value for money.
“Military judgment played an important role in decisions but committing to moving toward an Army structure with fewer regular soldiers and an increased number of reserves within the planned timescale should have been subject to more rigorous testing of feasibility,” said Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office. “The Department and Army must get a better understanding of significant risks to Army 2020–notably, the extent to which it is dependent on other major programs and the risk that the shortfall in recruitment of new reserves will up the pressure on regular units.”
The Army 2020 plan is to reduce the size of the force to produce a savings of some $17.8 billion over a decade to 2021-2022. The plan would result in a regular force of 82,500 and 30,000 trained reserves.
However, the Army didn’t test if it was feasible to recruit and train the required number of reserves by 2018 and 2019, the report said Also, there has not been a significant growth in the overall trained strength of the Army reserve in the last two years.
NAO did find the Army is ahead of its target in its planned reduction of the regular troops to 82,500 soldiers–as of April, its trained strength was 87,180. However, recruitment of new regular soldiers was behind schedule in 2013-14. Part of the difficulty is the recruiting contract with Capita, leading to poor recruitment performance.
Photo: U.K. MoD
However, Chief of the General Staff Gen. Sir Peter Wall hit back at the report, saying: “The NAO report fails to capture the nature of the national austerity we faced at the time these decisions were made. The Army has designed a novel and imaginative structure which best meets the challenges we are likely to face within the resources made available. Thankfully, most of the structural change for our new model, which we call Army 2020, is now behind us. We are recruiting regular and reserve soldiers for this new Army avidly. I am confident that, having made such significant changes, the Army 2020 model will endure.
Defense Secretary Philip Hammond said while much remains to be done, reserve recruiting numbers are rising for the first time in 20 years, and issues are being addressed.
“The Armed Forces are being restructured to ensure they can defend against new and emerging threats to our security. In the future, they will be smaller, but better equipped, able to deploy rapidly to protect our interests anywhere in the world and supported by an integrated reserve force.”
The NAO audit report said the Army has not publicly laid out what aspects of the transition to Army 2020 it needs to achieve by when for it to operate effectively.
“This makes it difficult to measure progress towards full implementation,” auditors wrote. “The Army has also not set clear trigger points for enacting any contingency plans. For example, if the reserve recruitment shortfall persists, there is a risk of staffing gaps in some parts of the Army structure and increased pressure on regular units.”
The report cited other risks, such as implementing Army 2020 alongside other substantial changes such as a new Army basing program, including the return of U.K. troops from Germany.
Additionally, for the first time, the Army 2020 seeks to fully integrate regulars and reserves within a single force structure. Auditors point to a 2014 MoD survey where 65 per cent of regular Army respondents believe that regular and reserve forces are not well integrated.
“In addition, achieving the aims of Army 2020 requires additional funding for equipment which is not yet guaranteed.” The NAO report said.