News Search Search this site or the web powered by FreeFind Site search Web search Story archive		27-08-2005 Scotsman Army under siege from a fall in recruitment By GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN CHIEF NEWS CORRESPONDENT THE British Army is facing a future in which it will struggle to achieve full strength for years to come, the senior officer in charge of recruitment has admitted. A decline in overt patriotism, a reluctance to accept orders or face physical hardship and an increase in the number of young people staying on in education are blamed for a slump in recruitment which has seen the army fall about 1,200 short of its target for the second year running. The unpopularity of the war in Iraq and the controversy surrounding the deaths of young recruits at the Deepcut barracks are also blamed for discouraging potential recruits. The problem of finding recruits for the infantry was one of the key reasons behind the controversial decision to axe one of Scotland's six battalions and three others across the army. But the army has now admitted that it will always struggle to attract enough young people to fill the ranks of the infantry, raising the possibility that further cuts in the size of the army may have to be considered. The problems come at a difficult time for the government, which has pinned its hopes on being able to withdraw a large number of troops from Iraq next year. The interval between tours of duty has been slashed in recent years and next year the army is already committed to beefing up its presence in Afghanistan. The difficulty is finding enough soldiers to meet the country's burgeoning commitments, particularly if, as seems likely, the security situation in Iraq prevents a significant withdrawal. In an interview with The Scotsman, Brigadier Andrew Jackson, the man in charge of army recruitment, said that times had changed, and young people no longer wanted to join up simply to fight for Queen and country. "I don't think people display patriotism overtly now," he added. Neither did they like the idea of physical exertion and being ordered around, he said. "The sort of thing that people say about the army is that they are not attracted by the physical work and taking orders," he said. Brig Jackson, commander of the army recruiting group and a former commanding officer of the Kings Own Scottish Borderers and of the Stirling-based 51 Brigade, said the infantry posed particular problems in finding enough recruits to fill the ranks, problems which were likely to continue for the foreseeable future. And asked if the army could ever achieve its recruitment targets given the problems it faced he admitted that the infantry would always struggle. "Recruiting into the infantry is difficult and there is no magic solution to that. We have to persuade young people that a career in the army is a good one, but given the competition and in that climate it will continue to be difficult," he said. The army now needs about 14,000 new recruits each year - a figure it has consistently struggled to achieve. "I don't deny that it is difficult to recruit into the infantry. We are working as hard as we can to get people into the infantry," he said. "It is challenging, it is difficult. We didn't meet our targets last year and we don't expect to meet them this year. We are having to work extremely hard to recruit people into the army, particularly the infantry." Earlier this week the Ministry of Defence released figures which showed that it had a shortfall of more than 2,000 trained soldiers. It is particularly short of specialists. Across all three services there is a shortfall of 3,600, a figure which would have been considerably worse had cuts in the size of the army not been implemented. The army does not deny that Iraq has caused it problems with recruiting, though it claims it has not had as disastrous an effect as some would claim. "Research on Iraq [suggests] that it has polarised opinion," said Brig Jackson. "Among those who are interested in joining the army it is a positive influence. They see the army doing something they want to do and they want to be part of it." According to Brig Jackson, the single biggest influence on recruitment figures has been the number of young people going on to tertiary education. The peak age for recruitment is just 17, an age at which many young people are now considering going on to college to study for a degree or other higher qualifications. "Most people seem to be keen on careers - they want variety and they want skills and trades," he said, adding that the challenge for the army was to convince young people that they could achieve as much with a military career. Campaigners trying to reverse the decision to amalgamate Scotland's infantry regiments have blamed the recruitment problems in Scotland on their demise, but Brig Jackson denied that the loss of historic camp badges was to blame. "The vast number of young people don't walk in seeking to join a particular regiment. They ask to join the army," he said. "They don't even know what they want to do, be an engineer or join the infantry. Their awareness of their local regiments is pretty minimal." And he added: "The army's decision to restructure is not the influence on recruitment that people are claiming it is. We have struggled to recruit in Scotland for a long time." Although Scotland traditionally contributes more soldiers to the army per head of population than most other UK regions, recruitment in Scotland has struggled in recent years, leading to shortfalls in most of the country's infantry regiments. Recruitment figures for Scotland were down by about 150 last year and are expected to suffer a similar shortfall this year on the roughly 680 soldiers needed to maintain the army's trained strength. To try to rectify the problem, the MoD is making extra cash available for marketing - up from GBP 14 million to GBP 25.3 million - and a major new advertising campaign is expected in the spring. That will coincide in Scotland with a major push to sell the new Royal Regiment of Scotland to potential recruits. Brig Jackson said he believed that recruits would be attracted to the new Royal Regiment of Scotland once it was seen as a strong and important part of the army: "No-one wants to see the demise of historic regiments but in terms of recruitment it won't make any difference."
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