Ministry of Defence

Reserve Forces REPORT BY THE COMPTROLLER AND AUDITOR GENERAL | HC 964 Session 2005-2006 | 31 March 2006

The National Audit Office scrutinises public spending on behalf of Parliament. The Comptroller and Auditor General, Sir John Bourn, is an Officer of the House of Commons. He is the head of the National Audit Office, which employs some 800 staff. He, and the National Audit Office, are totally independent of Government. He certifies the accounts of all Government departments and a wide range of other public sector bodies; and he has statutory authority to report to Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which departments and other bodies have used their resources. Our work saves the taxpayer millions of pounds every year. At least £8 for every £1 spent running the Office.

Ministry of Defence

Reserve Forces

LONDON: The Stationery Office £12.25

Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 28 March 2006

REPORT BY THE COMPTROLLER AND AUDITOR GENERAL | HC 964 Session 2005-2006 | 31 March 2006

contents Executive summary

1

Part 1 This report has been prepared under Section 6 of the National Audit Act 1983 for presentation to the House of Commons in accordance with Section 9 of the Act. John Bourn Comptroller and Auditor General National Audit Office 27 March 2006 The National Audit Office study team consisted of:

The changing use of Reserves

6

The Department has been successful in using the Reserves

7

The Department has developed a culture where the Reserves now expect to be used on operations

9

Reserve Forces will continue to make a significant 11 contribution to operations for the foreseeable future

Part 2

The capability of Reserves

12

The capability provided by Reserve Forces on operations in Iraq has generally been of a high standard

13

The capability provided by Reserve Forces on operations increases when they are trained, mobilised and integrated properly

14

This report can be found on the National Audit Office web site at www.nao.org.uk

The Department must do more to understand systematically the value and capability provided by Reserve Forces

18

For further information about the National Audit Office please contact:

Karen Jackson, Mark Parrett, Tim Phillips, Bill New, John Baker, Dan Lewis, Matt Ray and Chris Steven under the direction of Mark Andrews

National Audit Office Press Office 157-197 Buckingham Palace Road Victoria London SW1W 9SP Tel: 020 7798 7400 Email: [email protected] © National Audit Office 2006

Part 3

Appendices

The future requirement for Reserves

22

The Department has clearly set out its intent for the use of Reserve Forces

23

The three Services are restructuring the Reserves to meet future requirements but risks remain to achievement

24

Reserves will continue to be crucial in providing deployed medical capability

27

Part 4

The sustainability of Reserve Forces

28

The Department faces real challenges in recruiting and retaining the required number of Reservists

29

Whilst the Department has made substantial progress in supporting Reservists, the Department accepts there is more to be done

37

1 Study scope and methodology

42

2 History of the Reserve Forces

46

3 Survey results

47

4 Reserve Forces in other countries

52

5 Medical Reserves

55

6 Key legislation and policy documents

62

Glossary

64

Photographs by the Ministry of Defence and © Crown Copyright/MOD, image from www.photos.mod.uk. Reproduced with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

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1

The Reserve Forces

Volunteer Reserves

Regular Reserves

Volunteers, many with full-time jobs, give up their spare time to train and have a liability to be called up and deployed on operations alongside their Regular colleagues. Volunteer Reserves typically meet for one night per week and train at weekends and in many cases attend an annual two week training event or exercise. The minimum commitment is 27 days training per annum (or 19 days for some specialist units). Volunteer Reserves are paid an annual bounty, a tax-free lump sum bonus for meeting the training commitment, are paid per hour for the training that they do plus expenses and when called up effectively become Regulars paid at full-time rates according to their rank. Additional remuneration is paid to those whose civilian salary is higher than that accorded to their military rank and legislation is in place to protect their civilian jobs. There are opportunities to become a Reservist in a wide range of units in all three Services across the United Kingdom.

University Royal Navy Units There are 14 University Royal Navy Units at Naval training establishments on or near a campus. Each unit has a training vessel, usually fast patrol craft, a full-time Royal Navy crew and accommodation for twelve people. The units have been established to provide an insight into naval life without any commitment to join the Navy. Undergraduates join the units with the rank of Midshipman in the Royal Naval Reserve. University Officer Training Corps The University Officer Training Corps is a special part of the Territorial Army comprising 19 units based at universities across the country. The aim is to promote the Army amongst undergraduates and future employers. University Air Squadrons

Royal Naval Reserves

There are 15 University Air Squadrons around the country that offer undergraduates flying training and a chance to experience Royal Air Force life. Each squadron has a town house in the main city in its respective region and a parent Air Force Base at which its flight training takes place. This training is given in the Grob G115E Tutor aircraft and students can expect to fly 20-30 hours each year.

Training is conducted in one of 13 Royal Naval Reserve units across the United Kingdom, some of which have satellite units, and at Royal Navy training establishments. Requirement: 3,400 Strength: 2,460 Royal Marines Reserve Royal Navy

All the volunteers within the Royal Marines Reserve have passed through the same rigorous Commando course as their Regular Royal Marines counterparts. Requirement: 990

Royal Fleet Reserve Former members of the Regular Royal Navy and Royal Marines who have a liability for mobilisation. Strength: 10,750

Territorial Army

Army Reserve

There are 341 Territorial Army centres across the United Kingdom. Most Territorial Army recruits will join their local independent unit. The role of each unit varies but includes combat, communications, medical, engineering and logistics. There are also 13 specialist units which recruit nationally and draw on specific civilian skills or previous Armed Forces experience.

Former members of the Regular Army who have a liability for mobilisation.

Requirement: 38,430

Strength: 31,200

Strength: 31,260

Royal Auxiliary Air Force Royal Air Force

There are 20 Royal Auxiliary Air Force units at 15 locations around the United Kingdom, in most cases on operational RAF stations.

Royal Air Force Reserve

Requirement: 2,120 Strength: 1,390

Strength: 9,520

All requirement and strength figures are as at December 2005.

Full-Time Reserve Service Full-Time Reserve Service is a period of service (generally for between 6 months and 4 years) undertaken by a member of a Reserve Force in a designated appointment on a full-time basis. There are 3 categories of commitment: Full Commitment – typically fills established regular posts at a time of manning shortfall and are fully deployable; Limited Commitment – deployable for up to 35 days in a year, limited to 21 days in any one period; Home Commitment – cannot be compulsorily deployed/detached except for essential training. Additional Duties Commitment

Former members of the Regular Royal Air Force who have a liability for mobilisation.

NOTE

Sponsored Reserves Some services which are provided in peacetime by a civilian contractor are provided on operations by staff drawn from the contractor’s workforce who are members of the Reserve Forces, and have been mobilised. Individuals in this category are known as Sponsored Reserves. There are currently 253 Sponsored Reserves associated with a range of contracts including crews for the roll-on roll-off ships, drivers for the Army’s Heavy Equipment Transporters and engineers supporting 32 (The Royal) Squadron.

Strength: 750

Army

Other

Reservists may volunteer for formal part-time work for a specified duration, for a period of 13 or more consecutive weeks in which an individual will work at least one day in each week.

executive summary

Figure overleaf Figure 1 X overleaf

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executive summary

1 The Ministry of Defence (the Department) has used Reserves at unprecedented levels in the last ten years. Reserve Forces have once more become an integral and vital part of the United Kingdom’s defence capability. Regular officers who have commanded Reservists in the field emphasise the importance of their contribution. Over 12,000 Reservists have been deployed on operations in Iraq (Operation TELIC) since they started in 2003; they contributed 12 per cent of personnel in the warfighting phase and on average 11 per cent for the operation to date. In some areas the Armed Forces would be hard pressed to operate without Reserves. Reservist medical personnel provided approximately 50 per cent of the personnel for field hospitals over the entire period. 2 Reserve Forces mainly consist of approximately 36,000 Volunteer Reserves, the largest element being the Territorial Army, and some 52,000 Regular Reserves (former Regular service personnel who retain a liability to be called up) (Figure 1). Reserves perform a variety of different roles in the Armed Forces: some like doctors, nurses and linguists have specialist skills whilst others supplement general military capabilities. The Department has emphasised its commitment to the continuing use of Reserves and considers Volunteer Reserve Forces to be its first choice for deployment on operations ahead of the Regular Reserve. The Department is refining its thinking about the future use and structure of Reserve Forces but this work is yet to be completed and implemented. In particular, it is working towards greater integration with Regular personnel to improve Reservists’ access to training and equipment and to bring closer those Reserve and Regular personnel who are most likely to deploy together.

1

3 The Department has successfully developed a culture where Volunteer Reservists expect to serve on operations at some stage. Indeed, increasingly the majority of new recruits give “a desire to serve on operations” as one of the reasons they joined the Reserve Forces. In the long term, the Department intends to maintain Reserve Forces principally for large-scale operations.1 The Department continues to use a significant number of Reserves on smaller scale operations principally because of the high level of commitment overseas and undermanning of certain trades in the Regular Armed Forces. 4 Post-operational reports by the Department showed that Reservists had provided a very valuable contribution to Operation TELIC and praised their adaptability and high skill levels, although some commanders cited examples of their limitations, for example, some Reservists were less physically fit than needed for such a testing climate. The capability provided by Reserve Forces was greatly enhanced when they had been properly trained (routinely and just prior to deployment), mobilised and integrated with their Regular counterparts. 5 The skills brought by Reservists from their civilian life have been invaluable during Operation TELIC, particularly since the end of the warfighting. The Department has hitherto not had systematic knowledge of these civilian skills but intends to develop a database. The Department recognises that it would only be appropriate to ask Reservists to volunteer to use these skills when the Department’s civilian staff, other Government Departments or contractors could not be used because of the security situation.

Depending upon the nature of the operation, for the Land component a small-scale operation is defined as around battalion-sized (500 to 1,000 personnel); brigade-sized (3,500 to 5,000) for a medium-scale operation; and roughly division-sized (10,000 to 20,000) for a large-scale operation.

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executive summary

6 The Department has little understanding of the costs of Reserve Forces, which can be difficult to separate from the cost of other parts of the Armed Forces. We collated and analysed cost data on the Reserve Forces. We estimate the cost to be some £440 million in 2004-05 including pay, operating costs and overheads2 and the additional costs of deployment which were only around £22.5 million. We recognise that this is not the full cost. The Department is continuing to improve its data on the number of Reservists, training undertaken by them, and their changing availability for operational deployment, and, therefore, on the capability they provide, but it is not yet in a strong position to judge the cost-effectiveness of Reserve Forces. 7 The Department faces a number of challenges in sustaining the future use of the Reserve Forces. All of the Volunteer Reserves are below strength, with the highest manning levels, at December 2005, in the Territorial Army at 81 per cent of current requirement. The Department has more recently been successful in increasing the number of new recruits but turnover is still high, which has a knock‑on effect on the number of personnel trained and available for deployment. Overall, manning has steadily declined until recently when there have been early signs that it has stabilised. There are difficulties in providing training for Reservists, caused by problems with scheduling, resource constraints and the lower priority they are given. The Department is addressing these problems in part through greater integration with Regular units, but ensuring an adequate supply of fully trained Reservists to meet operational requirements will require sustained and concentrated efforts. 8 Many Reservists cite personal, family and employment pressures as reasons for leaving but many also give reasons such as “inadequate support” and “no longer a challenge” which could be addressed by the Department. The Department has done much to improve support given to Reservists and their families, however, it accepts that there is more to be done and continues to work to improve this level of support still further. The Department has recently improved the arrangements for remunerating Reservists when on deployment, ensuring that neither they nor their civilian employers are unduly disadvantaged financially by the mobilisation, and is improving its targeting of Reservists for deployment and the length of the period of notice through Intelligent Mobilisation. Recent measures have been adopted to offer Reservists greater medical support on return from deployment, the effectiveness of which will need to be monitored by the Department. 2



Costs of equipment and some estate costs are excluded.

Reserve Forces

Overall Value for Money 9 It is difficult to sustain operations numerically without the Reserves and there are specialist skills which are more cost-effectively met by Reservists because they are needed infrequently. Equally, Reserve Forces could not substitute for the capability provided by large parts of the Regular Armed Forces, given the inherent limitations in training time and that they are not able to deploy as quickly as high readiness forces. Decisions on the balance between Regulars and Reserves are made, therefore, in large part on the basis of the military requirement. 10 It is difficult to quantify the extent of the costeffectiveness of Reserve Forces as the Department has limited management information on their costs and capabilities. Nonetheless, on the basis of our analysis of costs and our work to draw together information on capability, the evidence indicates that Reserve Forces provide good value for money. Reservists are only paid when on deployment and for the days they spend training together with an annual bounty rewarding their commitment. Given our estimate of the total cost of the Reserves of £440 million, which are not the full costs, this would imply that the approximate cost of a member of the Territorial Army, for example, is some £10,000 a year when not deployed. This compares with a cost of £55,000 a year for a soldier in the Regular Army. These cost comparisons should, however, be treated with care. The costs for Reserves are not full costs; they exclude, for example, the use made by Reservists of existing Regular infrastructure. Nonetheless, this comparison suggests that the use of Reserves is a cost-effective option where that use does not impact adversely on their availability for future requirements or on Reservists, their families and employers. 11 The utility and value of the Reserve Forces have been highlighted by experience on recent operations. As a result, the Department has already introduced or is planning a number of improvements top how it manages and supports the Reserves. The Department must build on these efforts to deliver improvements to capability and to ensure the long-term sustainability of Reserve Forces. On the whole, any investment required to achieve such improvements would likely be modest relative to the gains in effectiveness made.

executive summary

CONCLUSIONS and recommendations 12 The Department has set out clearly the strategic roles it envisages for Reserve Forces in the future except for the numbers of non-specialist Reservists that it would deploy on operations once its operational commitments return to planned levels. Whilst it may be some time before operational commitments diminish or Regular manning improves, it is important that Reservists understand how they will be used in the future. Having successfully established a culture of mobilisation, the Department needs to maintain it across the Reserve Forces as a whole. Recommendation 1: The Department should clarify and communicate better its policy regarding the use of Reserve Forces when its commitment to operations is within the levels it plans for and when it nears full manning in the Regular Forces. It should develop and implement detailed guidelines about how Royal Naval Reserve personnel are to be used on enduring operations and for routine standing tasks. 13 In planning changes to the balance of roles within the Territorial Army, the Department took as its starting point that the overall number of personnel should remain the same. Within this headline figure, decisions about the size and shape of the Territorial Army infantry took into account the need to sustain a significant level of use on enduring operations. Other areas of the Territorial Army were resized to meet future requirements, particularly to mount a large-scale operation. Recommendation 2: As and when operational commitments reduce, the Department should review the balance between the Territorial Army infantry and other areas of the force. The Department should take into account our cost analysis, recognising that the cost drivers are about the geographical distribution of the Territorial Army centres and the administrative overheads involved in managing personnel. Therefore, the marginal cost of maintaining one extra Reservist is not great.

14 The Department has made great strides in improving the processes through which Reservists are mobilised. It is crucial that the Department continues to give Reservists and their employers 28 days’ formal notice of mobilisation and additional informal early warning of possible deployment. It is also important that the Department continues to mobilise first those who volunteer for deployment where this is consistent with operational requirements. 15 Most but not all Reservists have been called out to perform roles for which they have been trained. In particular, the Department has recognised that pre‑deployment training is essential for Reservists, and has increased the length of mobilisation accordingly. All Reservists receive some pre-deployment training at Mobilisation Centres. The Department agrees that, wherever possible, Reservists should also be given training with the Regular unit they are to join but this has not happened for all Reservists. Recommendation 3: In the light of concerns raised by commanders in the field, the Department should review the standards that Territorial Army Reservists are required to achieve at the Mobilisation Centre. In addition, the Department should undertake to provide mobilised Reservists, whenever possible, with a further period of training to enable them to integrate with the Regulars with whom they will deploy, irrespective of the phase or type of operation they are to serve on. Recommendation 4: The Department should take steps to ensure that commanders in the field are made aware, before deployment, of the training that individual mobilised Reservists have undertaken and of any limitations in their operational capability.

Reserve Forces



CONCLUSIONS and recommendations 16 The capability delivered by Reservists in operations improves when they are properly managed. This requires the presence, in theatre, of officers and non-commissioned officers who are aware of the differences between Reservists and Regulars, with the information they need to look after them. Recommendation 5: The Department should ensure that, where Reservists are deployed, they have ready access to officers and non-commissioned officers who understand the particular pressures on Reservists when they are deployed and the support systems available to them. It should also ensure that Reservists always deploy with the necessary administrative data to avoid mistakes and delays, for example in paying them. 17 The Department accepts that, if it is to continue deploying Reservists on operations, there must be more cohesion between Regular and Reserve Forces. The Department is implementing greater integration between Regulars and Reserves in the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. However, there are challenges to be overcome, not least the different working patterns of Regular and Reserve personnel. Recommendation 6: The Department should ensure that Regular Forces, when planning and carrying out their training programmes, take proper account of the training needs and availability of affiliated Reserve Forces. Recommendation 7: The Department should make decisions on the current and future use and structure of Reserve Forces in the light of a full range of information about Reservists, their training, their cost, and the capability they deliver. In particular, the Department should: n



continue to improve its information on the numbers of Reservists and their trained or untrained status;

Reserve Forces

continued

n

take further our work to analyse the extensive information available on the performance of Reserve Forces on operations; and

n

collate information about the cost of Reserve Forces using our template, to calculate their full and marginal costs.

18 Some Reservists provide valuable military capability during their training days, for example, Reservist aeromedical evacuation specialists return casualties from overseas bases including Cyprus. However, in some areas, this is happening to such an extent that Reservists’ training as a whole is at risk. Recommendation 8: The Department must undertake work to establish the proportion of Reservists’ training days that are being used to deliver military capability, so that it can quantify this important, but currently unspecified, aspect of their value. The Department must take care to ensure that the delivery of capability by Reservists during training days does not critically limit the overall breadth of the training that they receive. 19 The Department’s requirement for Army Regular Reserves on a large-scale operation assumes a higher success rate in mobilising Regular Reservists than has previously been achieved. Recommendation 9: The Department should develop robust systems to manage those Regular Reservists it is most likely to require and to ensure that their training is up to date. Informing valuable personnel of their ongoing liability as Regular Reservists will be of key importance in ensuring that they can be mobilised when necessary. Recommendation 10: In recruiting Reservists, the Department must ensure that robust entry standards for aptitude, fitness and health are maintained and applied.

executive summary

20 All Reserve Forces continue to be significantly under strength, and turnover of personnel continues to be high. Total numbers in all Reserve Forces have continued to decline steadily until recently. There is some indication that this downward trend has stabilised in recent months but it is too soon to tell if this will be sustained. Recommendation 11: In focusing on retention, the Department should:

Recommendation 12: The Department should focus its attention and resources on those welfare services which are most used by Reservists and their families, especially those provided by local Reserve units. In particular, it should: n

ensure that information supplied to Reservists’ families is written in plain English;

n

ensure that all Territorial Army regiments have adequate, dedicated provision of welfare support, and that similar measures are available for Royal Naval Reservists and Royal Auxiliary Air Force personnel; and improve the welfare support available to the families of deployed Volunteer Reservists who live far away from the Reserve unit with which they train and those Regular Reservists who have no unit.

n

implement the recommendations in this study about improving Reservists' experience of deployment;

n

ensure that the leadership of Reservists at all levels is of a high quality;

n

make available worthwhile and challenging core training, where possible reducing the number of cancelled courses, and provide Reservists with access to the necessary equipment; and

n

n

increase the amount of adventurous training, which enhances Reservists’ enjoyment and also improves their fitness and team ethos.

Recommendation 13: The Department should address the issues about the provision of medical support to Reservists once they have returned from a deployment. In particular, the Department should:

21 Whilst civilian employers are generally supportive of the Department’s policy of deploying Reservists on perations, it acknowledges that this support may be eroded if current levels of use continue, especially when individual Reservists are called out on a second or subsequent occasion. 22 Reservists and their families make little or no use of Defence welfare services until they are deployed as they live in the civilian community. The Department has addressed some of the issues surrounding welfare support to deployed Reservists, but acknowledges that more needs to be done and plans to address this.

n

undertake to provide medical treatment to all Reservists injured on operations to enable them to rejoin their civilian lives and careers as quickly as possible;

n

institute procedures for the diagnosis and treatment, through Defence Medical Services, of Reservists who develop mental health problems as a result of operational deployment after the demobilisation process has been completed.

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part one

Part one

The changing use of Reserves



Reserve Forces

part one

1.1 The Ministry of Defence (the Department) has moved from maintaining little-used Reserves Forces for a war of national survival to keeping Reserve Forces that have played a significant role in supporting most operations over the past 10 years. This part of the Report looks at how the Reserve Forces support the Regular Armed Forces and how the use of Reserves has changed since the Cold War. Appendix 1 details the study’s scope and methodology. Figure 1 summarises the categories and numbers of Reserves supporting the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force (the Services). This includes the Volunteer Reserves, civilians who train in their spare time, and the Regular Reserves, ex-members of the three Services who have a liability to be called back. A brief history of the Volunteer Reserves is at Appendix 2.

The Department has been successful in using the Reserves 1.2 The Reserves are an integral and vital part of the United Kingdom’s Armed Forces and, since the 1990s, have been used increasingly and successfully on military operations around the world.

The Reserves have made a considerable contribution to defence capability on operations over the last ten years 1.3 During the Cold War, the Armed Forces were organised primarily to defend against an attack on Western Europe by the Communist countries of the Warsaw Pact. A large Reserve was required both to provide reinforcement to Regular personnel on the continent should an act of aggression occur, and to defend the territory of the United Kingdom against direct attack. Thus, the Reserve Forces were intended only for use in the severest circumstances. 1.4 Over the past decade, significant numbers of Reservists have been deployed on expeditionary operations (Figure 2 overleaf), both warfighting and peace support, in a wide range of roles including infantry, medical, media support and intelligence. In 1995, for the first time in almost half a century, substantial numbers of Volunteer Reservists were deployed on operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. Since 2001, Reservists have served in Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, and from 2003 in Iraq.

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part one

2

Acceptance of Volunteer Reservists into Service

Reservists deployed (000s) 10 9 Operation TELIC 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Sierra Leone Afghanistan

Balkans 1 0 1995

1996

Balkans

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

437

1,166

588

621

836

540

2005

2005

573

387

395

175

85

Afghanistan

6

313

252

66

47

Sierra Leone

51

11

0

0

2

8,284

2,370

1,198

8,931

2,611

1,332

Operation TELIC 437

1,166

588

621

836

540

630

711

Source: National Audit Office analysis of Ministry of Defence data

1.5 Operation TELIC is the name given to the United Kingdom’s operations in Iraq and the Gulf region since early 2003. It has required the largest compulsory call out of Reserves since the 1956 Suez Crisis. The call out notices for Operation TELIC were first issued to Reservists in early January 2003. By the time the warfighting phase (TELIC 1) began, over 5,200 Reservists from all three Services had been deployed, contributing some 12 per cent of total United Kingdom forces. Figure 3 shows that, even since the end of TELIC 1, the proportion of deployed Army personnel that is drawn from the Reserve Forces has remained significant.



Reserve Forces

1.6 In some trade groups, the proportion of the deployed force made up by Reservists has been much higher than the average. For instance, Reservist medical personnel have made a particularly important contribution, with approximately 50 per cent of medics in field hospitals on Operation TELIC provided by the Territorial Army.

part one

3

Territorial Army and Army Regular Reserves deployed in Iraq

Reservists have contributed a significant proportion of the deployed Army in Iraq. Territorial Army and Army Regular Reserves as a proportion of the Deployed Army in Iraq TELIC 1

January 2003 – July 2003

12%

TELIC 2

July 2003 – November 2003

18%

TELIC 3

November 2003 – April 2004

10%

TELIC 4

April 2004 – November 2004

15%

TELIC 5

November 2004 – April 2005

9%

TELIC 6

April 2005 – November 2005

8%

TELIC 7

November 2005 – April 2006

8%

Average

11%

Source: National Audit Office analysis of Ministry of Defence data

The Reserves also make a considerable contribution to defence capability in the United Kingdom 1.7 The Volunteer Reserves also deliver military capabilities inside the United Kingdom. Since 2002, Volunteer Reservists have been earmarked to provide the Civil Contingency Reaction Forces. These Forces, of which there are fourteen, each provide a pool of approximately 500 Volunteer Reservists drawn from all three Services to assist, on request, local authorities and emergency services in dealing with a terrorist attack, major accident, or natural disaster. Reservists would in most cases only be called on in situations where the civil authorities and local Regular Armed Forces could not cope. The likelihood of one of the Civil Contingency Reaction Forces being required is therefore low.

1.8 Though the primary means of drawing on Volunteer Reservists for operations is through a formal call out process, much of the capability that they supply in the United Kingdom is provided during the time that they would normally spend training; in some cases to cover for shortfalls in Regular personnel. For example, in November 2005, members of the Territorial Army manned the operations room which supported Regular personnel as they provided cover during a fire strike in the West Midlands. Royal Auxiliary Air Force personnel load and unload transport aircraft at Brize Norton; and the Air Branch of the Royal Naval Reserves use most of their training days to fill in when there are shortfalls in Regular manpower. 1.9 Many Volunteer Reservists in all ranks conduct an appreciable amount of Reserve-related work in their own spare time for no additional remuneration.

The Department has developed a culture where the Reserves now expect to be used on operations 1.10 The Department now considers that the Volunteer Reserves are the Reserve of first choice, ahead of the Regular Reserves. The information provided to potential and new recruits is clear about the commitment they are making, and emphasises the strong likelihood that they will be called out for operations. In focus groups, most Volunteer Reservists told us that they now expect to be deployed on operations. We carried out an extensive survey of Volunteer Reservists and, amongst a range of reasons for joining, most agreed that the principal ones are: the chance to learn new skills; to make a contribution to the defence of the United Kingdom; and a change from civilian jobs. The key findings from our survey of Reservists are given at Appendix 3. Notably, the importance of a desire to serve on operations has increased considerably in the last three years (Figure 4 overleaf).

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part one

4

Reasons for joining the Volunteer Reserves

The desire to serve on Operations is increasing in importance as a reason for joining the Volunteer Reserves. Percentage of Reservists who ranked factor as important 90 80 70

Chance to Learn New Skills Contribution to Defence of UK A way to keep fit

Desire to serve on Operations

60 50

Change from Civilian Job Source of Income

40 Previous Regular Service 30 20 10

Cadet Membership

0

10+

5-10

3-5

1-3

8 weeks 4-8 weeks

1-4 weeks

40 20 0