Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 30 January 2025 to Question 20673 on Haythornthwaite Review of Armed Forces Incentivisation, if his Department plans to implement recommendation 47 on recording skills-based information on (a) regular and (b) reserve personnel to enable career managers to match skills to roles.

The Government acknowledges the important work done in the Haythornthwaite Review of Armed Forces Incentivisation (HRAFI) report completed under the previous Government.

The Government is delivering a comprehensive portfolio of work to fix the people system, and this captures many of the recommendations of the HRAFI report, but goes much further. The portfolio is organised around five Missions aligned to the key themes of the report. These Missions will form the basis of all future work delivered across the People Function.

Defence has been taking forward work that directly addresses the majority of the reports 67 recommendations. To deliver a workforce that is highly skilled and productive, meeting the demands Defence is likely to experience, and helping ensure benefits are felt by our people as soon as possible.

Progress is constantly monitored and reported on through the governance structure to ensure real time oversight.

The progress made within each Mission is summarised below:

1. Workforce Agility. Delivering the right people with the right skills in the right place at the right time will result in a reduced number of gaps across the workforce, increase the percentage of deployable Suitably Qualified and Experienced People and enable more effective and intelligent management of the workforce to support operational effectiveness. This will, in turn be a more rewarding use of Service personnel’s skills, supporting their development and becoming a key lever to satisfaction and retention.

Work is underway to improve engagement with veterans, understand how to make better use of the Reserve forces and make improvements to the workforce planning. The Armed Forces Recruitment Programme will deliver a tri-service recruitment solution by 2027.

2. Skills. This Government will build Defence as a world-class engine for a skills-based approach to recruitment, workforce planning and increased operational effectiveness. This includes the Pan-Defence Skills Framework (PDSF) which will start to be implemented later this year, will represent the first important milestone towards becoming a truly Skills-Based Organisation. A PDSF skills-based pay supplement is being developed to be tested with a cohort of engineers from spring 2025.

3. Reward. In direct response to recommendation 24 of the report, work has begun to trial aspects of a Total Reward Approach with a cohort of engineers to help understand what our people really value in their reward and benefits package, and to inform prioritisation of initiatives. Release 1 initiatives are starting to be rolled out and will see improvements for the cohort of engineers and more widely, including targeted Financial Retention Incentive payments to some of this cohort as well as to junior ranks across the Army. The evaluation of initiatives within Release 1 will inform and shape future reward packages across Defence; an approach advocated by HRAFI.

Within this Mission, we have also recently announced an improved offer for overseas families, with the expansion of the wraparound childcare scheme. We are also continuing our work to strengthen the Armed Forces Covenant in law. This Government also awarded personnel the highest pay rise in 20 years.

Taking a future-focused approach, understanding what drives the retention and recruitment of target generations and using financial and non-financial levers to stabilise and motivate the workforce we aim to attract new talent, incentivise reward and develop a bespoke reward landscape for a better experience for our people and their families.

4. Digital. This focuses on providing a consumer-grade, user experience, which was a big emphasis within the report (chapter three was devoted to this). Delivery of the objectives under the well-established Corporate Services Modernisation and Defence Human Resources Services programmes will go some way to achieving the intent of the report. In line with this, progress is being made with the simplification of policy across military and Civilian systems, supported by the roll out of consistent HR taxonomy. This will deliver an improved lived experience enabled through intuitive, accessible and responsive HR and digital services that meet employee needs in a timely and user-friendly manner; ultimately driving enhanced employee satisfaction.

5. One Defence. This Mission recognises the extent of the cultural challenge that we face in many areas and much of this is captured under our Raising our Standards programme. More specifically, work is underway to review the Service Justice System and Service Complaints process. Defence Reform will make recommendations for a more effective People Department. Underlining the government’s commitment to addressing welfare concerns within the Armed Forces, the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill continues its passage through Parliament. The ultimate goal is to deliver a workforce that harnesses all talents.