Armed forces face recruitment crisis

A staffing shortage in the armed forces means there are not enough service personnel to meet demand, MPs have said.

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said frequent overseas deployments and heavier workloads were among the reasons why numbers are falling

There are particular shortages among specialist personnel like vehicle mechanics, armourers, linguists and nurses, according to the committee's report.

The report found that the overall shortfall in armed forces personnel stood at 5,850 - or 3.2 per cent of full strength - in April this year, up from 5,170 the year before.

Numbers leaving early have risen for the past two years and are now at a ten-year peak for Army and RAF officers and other RAF ranks, said the report, entitled Recruitment and Retention in the Armed Forces.

"The impact of continuous downsizing, pressures and overstretch is affecting the Department's ability to retain and provide a satisfactory life for armed forces personnel," it warned.

Several key factors for quitting early, such as workload, inability to plan for life outside work and the impact on family life, "have not been addressed".

The committee's chairman Edward Leigh said: "The MoD has been relying for too long on the goodwill and courageous spirit of our servicemen and women to compensate for the increasing shortages of personnel in all three services.

"The staffing situation has reached the point where there are simply not enough service people to meet levels of military activity planned some years ago - let alone the heightened demands now being placed on them by commitments such as the Iraq and Afghanistan operations."

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