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Outcome of the SDSR

Suddenly, it's dawned on the Government that a group of willing volunteers might actually be worth having around..................

Please, Please let this be true. My hopes were raised when Cameron told MOD to "Show Again" after that last farce of a Review..... but I still have my doubts. The old Regular habit of cutting the TA in line with any Regular cut, regardless of sensible movement of capability into "Reserve" remains solidly ingrained.

.....I also rather like that comment from Sangreal. On the one hand we are dismissed as parochial, on the other often told off for meddling in affairs we are deemed as not fit to understand. :frustrated:
 
That's cos no-one (anywhere) really knows what's going on with the TA and Reserve yet...literally no-one in the policy area is even passing on rumours - always a bad sign, some might say.

..or maybe a good sign?

The fact that the regular Army c*cked it up in SDSR and has to 'show again' on this might at first hand seem to be akin to prodding the dozing dragon with a sharp stick. However, if the dragon was actually not dozing but listless and at a loss as to what to do next, being poked by a sharp stick might be exactly what it needed...

I agree that no-one really knows what's going on with the TA at the moment but it's not for lack of activity. Whilst it may not be visible yet, there's plenty going on that's very positive (in my humble view). The only constraint might be the ever increasing inability of the MOD to add up some basic sums (how many new aircraft carriers do we need? 2? Hmmmm) as yet more and more budgeting errors come to the fore.

I am amazed that the Govt hasn't just simply applied a moratorium on everything (projects, reviews, initiatives, bidding scenarios, and/or anything that attracts cost) until they get themselves sorted out. It's what a business in transition would do.

In the meantime, activity on the Reserve thankfully goes ahead at pace and with the new Review, FR20, due to announce in June (I'll put money on it being just before the recess) it may be that finally, someone has realised that being part time means you cost less, and costing less is all they want to hear at the moment.

A good chum of mine works in economic forecasting and his view is that 'we ain't seen nothing yet' as far as cuts, union unrest, widening of the 'have' and 'have not' gulf, a stalled economy, beleaguered housing market and some big names going to the wall.

A part time low cost Reserve of motivated individuals to take up the slack might be just the tonic needed as further reductions in the regular force become almost inevitable. Mr Fox, take note.

Of course, the Army and the MOD still operate as if there's 500,000 regulars to play with carrying on as if nothing has changed since we had an empire, more departments doing nothing than in the Kremlin, more civil servants than a civil servant cloning factory, and more 'policy' initiatives than the Labour Party in the 70's (which, akin to the Labour party, no-one reads).

What the Army actually needs, is for someone to grip it and really cut out the endemic waste, to deliver an organisation that befits it's scale. The police have 145,000 policemen - do you really think that they have the same scale of organisation, HQs, Staff Officers and cost presented by an Army 2/3rds the size?

Change on a scale even they can't imagine is heading their way and the Government is looking for good news - the TA being increased in size might just be it.

Sign of the Times?
 
Well AVANTI is not going to address the waste issue. Not one word about changing process, just trying to the same shite with less people and fewer locations. Up here the odds are that the Bde HQ will just migrate to the Div HQ loc, growing in size en-route. My guess is that when the music stops the majority of the senior process-monkeys will still be in place.
 
Well I've just seen the Regt Training Calendar for next financial year, and it aint pretty.
There's a distinct lack of exercises and C1 training is back.
 
And how many Bdes underspent (massively) this year and had to give the money, which could have been used for training, back?
 
And how many Bdes underspent (massively) this year and had to give the money, which could have been used for training, back?

Quite a few sadly.

Reasons?

Poor budget management?
Poor internal messaging as to the availability of MTDs and training despite the GCM?
Hangover from the £20m training cut; trust, momentum, damage to the covenant, recurrence?
Lack of new recruits due to removal of marketing budgets and negative internal messaging because of the GCM?
Single focus on the OCP?
Lack of empathy with the TA by the Regular CofC in the Regions/Divs?
Cost cutting at Regional level leading to low training tempo?

They all sound pretty familiar to me but won't be accepted by the system as reasons. It'll be the TA's fault somehow.
 
Wingle,

My reading would be that its "all of the above", certainly in my Bde area. The real laugh was when it was announced that there was spare cash and urged units to put on extra training in the 3 remaining months of the training year. Several units reps perked up their ears.....and the DTE Rep said words to the effect that " Great. No one has told us that, the moratorium on bids continues. Train all you like, you just can't use our camps...."

The bottom line is that rigidly enforcing the various MTD ceilings means as a matter of plain logic that you will come out underspent. The most you can spend is the target, and any cancellations, no-shows or over-estimates automatically mean you under-spend. That we actually underspent by twice the figure they originally planned to cut.......
 
Sally, from what I've heard, the changes to MTD management via BLENHEIM will mean that 'no-show' underspends will at least be dealt with on a quarterly basis rather than the usual end-of-TY train wreck. By that I mean that the BLENHEIM plans submitted by units will be locked on 31 Mar and henceforth be reviewed every 3 months. As long a your TM is switched on, any MTDs not spent in a particular quarter can be 'thrown forward' into the remaining quarters as new or enhanced training events as long as the reallocation is done before the end of that quarter.

The incentive for this quarterly review is that HQ PSC will 'hoover' up those un-managed, unexpended MTDs into a central pot (which in turn can be bid for by enterprising units or, in extremis, offered up as part of a savings measure by AG). I'm almost certain that this process won't work across TYs so the job of finding a use for roll-over MTDs will get increasingly difficult unless TMs deliberately under-resource events like the traditional bounty wash-up weekends in March. Now there's a reason to get it done early!

The DTE thing is just batshit crazy. Could you PM me with more details? Can't say the future looks much brighter on their frequency though, particularly if they get spot-welded together into the proposed DIO.
 

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