REVIEW: Ministry of Defence: Assessing and Reporting Military Readiness
20 Jun 2005
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE: ASSESSING AND REPORTING MILITARY READINESS
National Audit
15 June 2005
The Stationery Office,
The National Audit Office’s report found that the MoD’s system for reporting the readiness of its Armed Forces is good and continues to improve. The MoD does well at identifying the main factors which might hinder its ability to be ready to undertake future operations. But the report raises concerns about what the MoD is doing to manage these risks, particularly those that are long-term.
Preparing for a future that is, by definition, full of uncertainties is an enormously complicated exercise. The MoD’s system for judging how ready it might be for a range of potential scenarios is sophisticated and compares well with the systems of other countries which the NAO looked at. Military commanders who need to rely on the system have expressed confidence in it. And recent operations have largely validated its accuracy.
As well as the complexity of the system, security issues make it difficult to report publicly on progress. The MoD does report publicly against a Public Service Agreement (PSA) target for readiness but it could be still more open. The PSA requires, for example, that the MoD show a 5% improvement in the number of Force Elements (defined as an individual ship in the Royal Navy; a brigade in the Army; or an individual aircraft, or squadron of aircraft, in the Royal Air Force) that have no ‘serious’ or ‘critical’ weaknesses to their readiness by March 2008. But, as the report points out, because the starting point is not published, it is difficult for the outside world to tell how significant such an improvement is.
As well as examining the system for reporting readiness, the report considers the risks to readiness. These risks are greater because of the unpredictable security environment and the high operational tempo. Military activity levels for the last three years have exceeded the routine scale of effort envisaged by the MOD and this is expected to continue. This brings with it problems such as reduced training, the need for extra equipment and additional demands on equipment and logistics.
The report is broadly supportive of what the MoD has done to identify risk, but it finds areas where more work could be done. The MoD should assess how confident it is that it is able to manage the risks that it has successfully identified. For example, Urgent Operational Requirements can work successfully, as was shown in Operation TELIC, but more should be done to consider and measure the risks of relying on them too much.
The report also calls on the MoD to consider the longer term risks of relying on redistribution of personnel and equipment (in particular ‘cannibalisation’) which is becoming more prevalent. And the MoD should do more to take into account that there may be a cumulative risk to readiness from minor risks which individually are too small to feature in high level reports.
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