Truth to Power: Transforming Military Reserves

The UK established the External Scrutiny Team (EST) to reassure Parliament the reserves would be ready to answer the call of duty, and to ensure delivery of the transformation the Ministry of Defence (MoD) promised in the Future Reserves 2020 Review (FR20).

Today, another transformation is needed; the UK Strategic Defence Review (SDR) stresses the threats and highlights the importance of the reserves in responding to them. NATO and NATO allies are moving faster than the UK in adapting their reserves to these same threats.

A MoD proposal to integrate the EST within the newly formed Military Strategic Headquarters (MSHQ), even if motivated by good intentions, would undermine the assurance that the reserves were ready to defend the nation. An independent EST remains vital for ensuring an honest assessment of the state of the UK’s reserves, and thus an important element of ensuring that Defence and wider society are prepared for the challenges they face. The proposal is deeply flawed and should be rejected.

The EST plays the role of a critical friend, providing informed and honest feedback on the state of the UK’s Reserve Forces and the impact of MoD plans on the reserves. Its statutory independence was deemed essential to support the reserves transformation envisaged by FR20 and captured in the subsequent white paper of 2013. Both publications recognised the need to reverse years of neglect, hence the definition in the Defence Reform Act of 2014 of the team’s responsibilities. This allows Parliament and ministers to monitor the rebuilding of the reserve forces.

There have been serious failures, which have been called out in annual EST reports allowing MOD and ministers to see the reality on the ground. The reserve transformation needed today is arguably more profound, requiring reorganisation for fighting a major war in Europe with the concomitant threat to the homeland. The threat, and consequent need for building the capacity for both fighting at scale and resilience is galvanising NATO and our NATO allies, but the UK is responding far too slowly. From late 2024 to early 2025, NATO expanded the role and contribution of reserve forces, having recognised that affordable mass, depth of specialisation and links to society can best be achieved through greater citizen military forces.

The UK’s SDR contained a welcome recognition that active reserve forces should play a larger role in defence with a commitment to expand, albeit very ambiguously ‘when funds allow’, and called for immediate measures to improve recruitment and retention. It also applauded government efforts to ‘simplify the structures and types of reserves, amplify the visibility and recognition of their roles, and make it easier to scale specialist skills and mobilise them if required.’

Nevertheless, many of our allies are either already much more heavily invested in reserve forces or expanding with a sense of urgency lacking in the UK. In the US, more than half the army and over a third of the Air Force are in Guard/Reserve units, and Scandinavian and Baltic countries all have larger reserve armies than regular ones. Others are rapidly adapting to the threat: France plans to more than double its active reserve (from 46,000 to 105,000) by 2035 and Germany is debating a voluntary conscription model to boost reserve numbers to 200,000.

With the UK looking like a laggard in transforming its reserve forces, now is not the time to silence the UK’s once-strong independent reserve voice by submerging it within the predominantly regular-service staffed MSHQ, whose homework it marks. The EST members are selected by the RFCA Council for their tri-service understanding of reserves and academic weight, and it is currently headed by the distinguished former Chair of the NATO Military Committee and Chief of the UK Defence Staff, Lord Peach. The members understand the reserves – something often lacking in military headquarters whose structure is predominantly filled by regulars – and acts as a counterweight to a regular service-centric view that inevitably prevails in headquarters planning and delivery functions.

Moreover, in its visits to reserve forces up and down the country, which it selects free from MoD influence, the EST is able to give reservists struggling between their civilian day jobs and an all-too-often unresponsive military system the opportunity to tell their story and to know that it will be reflected in conversation with the chiefs of staff and ministers. This valuable audit function tells the ministry and services how their plans are being interpreted by the reservists themselves, allowing remedial actions to be taken that enhance the effectiveness of the transformation plans. And as its members are unpaid, it represents a cost-effective conscience and early warning system of things going awry. The UK needs such a trusted body that can speak truth to power more than ever.

Currently, the EST sits under and is appointed by the Council of the Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations (RFCAs). The independent national body has played a key role in Army reserve and cadet forces and has been their principal advocate since Haldane’s ground-breaking Territorial and Reserve Forces Act in 1907, as the nation prepared for the possibility of a war in Europe against a major power.

The RFCAs, originally county associations, are now regionally based, continuing to connect Defence with society and providing a strong voice for the reserves. They intervened to help stop Kitchener’s attempt to side-line the Territorial Force in 1914, critiqued Tony Blair’s cuts in 1997 while working with the Parliamentary Defence Select Committee and highlighted the Royal Navy’s decision to suspend reserve training in 2020.

The Ministry of Defence has decided that the RFCAs should conform more closely to the civil service rules for Non-Departmental Public Bodies, but ministers have recognised that keeping the ‘activist base’ engaged, with its knowledge of reserve and cadet service and its community roots, is important. Indeed, the SDR said, ‘Building society’s understanding of what the Armed Forces do and increasing their visibility is imperative . . . The Reserves' Forces and Cadets' Associations will be a valuable organisation in delivering this.’ Yet, the plan appears to be to take the RFCA’s critical public audit function – the EST – away from the RFCAs and emasculate it within the MSHQ.

The establishment of this new headquarters – providing leadership and accountability for the armed forces at arm’s length from the MoD – is a strong feature of the SDR. But bringing the EST under its control will mean that people appointed by and answerable to the chain of command will be marking their own homework. This means that the independent voice would be lost entirely. Can anyone imagine that an organisation subordinated to MSHQ would be as free to speak out when red tape is strangling training, where budget cuts target reserve training, or equipment scales are reduced, when these are all the responsibility of MSHQ itself?

Ministers have made it clear that they regard the reserve forces as a key element of our armed forces. Indeed, the current secretary of state has a son who is an Army Reservist, and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces has capped his distinguished regular service by becoming an active Royal Marine reservist. We wonder whether they, and those members of the senior military echelons of defence who wish reserves well, believe that bringing this independent watchdog under command of those it is supposed to be watching will help rebuild the UK’s small and neglected reserves.

NATO is waiting and our allies are showing us the way. This is not the time to silence the independent voice on the transformation of the reserves toward addressing the threats to the UK.

© RUSI, 2025.

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