Army: Recruitment

(asked on 26th February 2015) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what savings to the public purse have been made to date from the award of the contract for Army recruiting to Capita; and how many Army personnel have been reassigned to recruiting during that period.


Answered by
 Portrait
Julian Brazier
This question was answered on 16th March 2015

As the previous Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) stated on 14 January 2014 (Official Report, column 723), the partnering contract with Capita to deliver Army recruiting is expected to save about £300 million a year.

In the same statement he also told the House that just under 1,000 military personnel were engaged in support of recruiting activity on the ground. Now that this initial surge in activity has passed, small numbers of personnel remain on call to deliver support to local unit recruiting initiatives as and when required, but are not specifically assigned to recruiting activities. No additional Army personnel have been assigned to the National Recruiting Centre at Upavon.

Army personnel have always been involved in recruiting at Brigade and Unit level and both regular and reserve personnel continue to play a key role in attracting and nurturing recruits into the Army; indeed, it is long recognised that the best recruiters and exponents of what the Army does are those currently serving. Some of these roles are new (mostly manned on Additional Duties Commitments contracts), as we have adjusted the recruiting process over the past year, and others focus on traditional recruiting activity. It would be disproportionally expensive to calculate the number of such posts.

Reticulating Splines