Not Only in Canada you say! Britain Axing Units Also!

[Art Johnson]

 

Fri 2 Jul 2004




Scots regiment to be axed despite warning to MoD

GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN
DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT


Key points
"¢ Royal Scots, army's oldest regiment, and Highlanders could be axed by 2006
"¢ MoD warned against dangerous cuts amid personnel shortage
"¢ Army review assumes reduced domestic and foreign commitments

Key quote
"A policy of reducing or restructuring existing forces in advance of acquiring new capabilities is potentially dangerous" - Commons defence committee report finding

Story in full AN ENTIRE Scottish regiment faces the axe in 2006 as part of sweeping changes in the way Britain's armed forces are organised.

Senior sources say the Royal Scots - the army's oldest regiment - and the Highlanders are most vulnerable, with a question mark still hanging over the future of the King's Own Scottish Borderers.

The Ministry of Defence is ready to make the cuts, which have been demanded by the Treasury, despite a warning yesterday from the Commons defence committee that plans to cut the numbers of tanks, warships and aircraft while awaiting the delivery of new and untested weapons was "potentially dangerous".

In a scathing report, the committee said that, while military planners were being seduced by hi-tech warfare, forces on the ground were operating at the limits of what they could achieve.

With sweeping cuts also expected to hit the RAF and the Royal Navy, the army has been warned that three other British regiments are also likely to be disbanded or absorbed into other units. The MoD is understood to be prepared to go through with the controversial plans despite severe manpower shortages in the army, which is short of about 5,000 soldiers.

The cuts follow a bitter argument between the military and the Treasury, which has been intent on slashing the defence budget.

Senior figures from Scotland's regiments have been summoned to Whitehall to discuss details of the plans. One report yesterday suggested that the meeting could take place as early as today, although the MoD said it was more likely to be early next week. Sources at the ministry warned that the regiments would not be receiving good news.

"It looks certain there are going to be cuts," the source said. "At least one Scottish regiment will go. There are others from other parts of the United Kingdom as well, but Scotland is going to be hit."

A separate source with access to the decision-making process said that, although cuts in the armed forces were a sensitive area, the MoD had insisted that the army had to be realistic.

"There is only so much money and, if the army is going to maintain its reputation around the world, then we have to take some tough decisions," the source said. "The details of how many battalions will have to go are about to be announced, but the reality is that Scotland is almost certainly going to have to lose one of its regiments by 2006."

Army sources said the final decision would not be taken immediately, but the Royal Scots and the Highlanders would be considered the most vulnerable.

Question marks have previously been raised about the future of the Black Watch and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, but both are thought to have escaped the axe. The Black Watch is about to return to Iraq for the second time in two years, after a successful campaign during the invasion of the country when it was instrumental in capturing the second city of Basra. The Argylls are due to return after a tough assignment in the south of the country training the new police and civil defence forces and patrolling the southern parts of Iraq.

The future army structures review has been based on the assumption that there will be a drastic reduction in the commitment to Northern Ireland in coming years and a fall in the number of international commitments.

Planners believe they can manage with fewer infantry and heavy armoured forces, allowing money to be spent on specialists.

But those assumptions were challenged by the Commons defence committee, which warned that they were misjudged and failed to address reality.

It said: "A policy of reducing or restructuring existing forces in advance of acquiring new capabilities is potentially dangerous."

 

[Ian_M]

I remember reading on various UK news sites about the possibility of their Ministry of Defense going to disband some of the Scottish regiments, its a shame really however I can see a reason why. Well the same reason why units are closed out in any country, manpower and money shortages. The United Kingdom just has as many problems as we do with recruiting and since they are in several long term engagements, this will go on and some units will have to be disbanded, reduced in size or amalgamated. Sadly it has to be done, or units can not provide the services or support to their soldiers on the admin side, or be combat capable. If I can find those links again to the articles and if they are still online/open to the public viewing I will post them here.

Personally, I'm against destroying tradition like that just disbanding the unit, or forgetting the honor of the men who served in those regiments. I feel that a regiment, no matter if its company, battalion or regimental size deserves to be remembered, in name, colors, memorials, parades, whatever. The older the regiment, the more it has done to create a name and legend for itself. Its too bad that their system for reserves is different than ours, as I recall (correct me if I'm wrong here) their TA units are extra battalions to each regiment. If they had our system, the names and history of each of those units would be preserved.

 

[McInnes]

That would be quite a loss. The Canaidian Scottish Regiment is sister regiment with the Royal Scots.

 

[Scott]

I can remember betwen '96 and '00 the rumour was that LFAA was going to get rid of our (Highlanders) Balmorals so that we would be uniform with everyone else. That was scary to me as a young Private being that I had just completed my indoc and was already very proud of my regiment's traditions, etc.

I can not imagine losing Highland Reg't's altogether. This scares me as I am sure it does all Highlanders

Siol Na Fear Fearail

I hope that this is just viscious rumour as I do the doffing of the Balmoral thing probably was.

 

[Scott]

I have to now admit that I rushed off typing in anger and did not read all posts through regarding this matter.

Ian_M, I am not familiar with the British Reserve system, but you are 100% right, if they were to have a system comparable to ours, then the Regiment would still have a home in the Military where they, and their former members, could celebrate their history and pass it on to others.

Cheers!

 

[Kirkhill]

And Now, as Paul Harvey would say, for the rest of the story.

Army cannot afford to recruit
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 06/07/2004)


The MoD is deliberately keeping the Army down to 102,000 soldiers, 5,000 below its proper strength, because of a cash crisis.

 

The Army has been short of soldiers for a decade and the rapid increase in overseas operations over the past few years has left it overstretched and unable to cope.

Army chiefs complain that the training cycle has been completely disrupted, with some regiments having served in both Afghanistan and Iraq while others are already returning for their second tour in Iraq.

They were pleased to find recruitment booming in the wake of the war in Iraq, offering potential respite from the problems of overstretch as well as a move towards a fully manned army of 107,000 men.

But, with recruitment booming and the Army's strength approaching 103,000, they were told by the MoD that there was not enough money in the defence budget to cope with more than 102,000 troops.

Furious Army chiefs realised they had only two options: take money from other areas of their budget to pay for the extra 1,000 soldiers or slow down recruitment and accelerate the discharge of soldiers.

The Army Board decided that, with cuts in other areas likely only to damage morale, they had no choice but to order Lt-Gen Sir Alistair Irwin, the Adjutant-General, to bring numbers down to the 102,000 figure they could afford.

Sir Alistair's response was to ban infantry recruitment from May to October to keep numbers down to the level they could afford.

The move has infuriated officers in battalions threatened by defence cuts expected next week because the argument for axing them was lack of recruits but they are currently banned from recruiting.

Battalions set to be axed include the Black Watch and the Royal Scots, both of which have severe shortages. The Black Watch is about a third short while the Royal Scots has kept its numbers higher only by recruiting troops from Fiji. Overstretch has put immense pressure on the Army's more experienced NCOs and officers, most of whom have wives and families and do not want to spend long periods separated from them.

Large numbers of those men, vital to the efficiency of regiments, have left but not enough to satisfy the civil servants. The ban on recruitment was accompanied by a series of measures to speed up the number leaving.

Army personnel chiefs had already instigated active measures to get rid of soldiers under a system known as "manning control".

That involved tearing up the contracts of soldiers due to serve 22 years, when they would receive an immediate pension, and forcing them out early. But, faced with hundreds of legal challenges, they have now resorted to other measures.

Any soldier putting in his notice is likely to be told he must leave immediately, whether or not he has had time to sort out a new job, to bring the number down to the 102,000 level that can be paid for, one defence source said.

"There is an undisclosed, conscious policy to reduce further the size of the Army; ostensibly by the very same people - the Army Board - who supposedly tell ministers how overstretched the Army is," the source said.

http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=4GUXCWFMWJCMXQFIQMGCM5WAVCBQUJVC?xml=/news/2004/07/06/nmod06.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/07/06/ixportaltop.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=31459

Short form Ciivil Servants create crisis in order to justify attacks on service so that government of day doesn't look bad.  A little subtler than their Canadian brethren perhaps but does anybody remember the Canadian Airborne Regiment.

On the subject of Scottish regiments, one "Answer" that is being floated is one big regiment with the equivalent of 4 or 5 battalions and then preserve the capbadges among the constituent companies .... but it looks like its all just a bit of flimflam.  The British Government has got the fix in.

By the way anybody notice the size of a British Battalion, about 550 all ranks, - this for three companies with recce,  anti-tank, and mortar  platoons. Pioneers, snipers/designated marksmen and machine gunners are held at company level.

http://www.army.mod.uk/devonanddorset/org.htm

 

[Guardian]

Read this for some perspective:

MoD funds an army of pen-pushers

GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN
DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT


AS THE army braces itself for some of the most savage cuts in years, figures obtained by The Scotsman reveal that the Ministry of Defence now employs more civil servants than soldiers.

With all army recruitment frozen until October, the army currently has no more than 102,000 soldiers on its books, while the MoD employs 102,600 civil servants.

The MoD has been warned by the Treasury that it must find savings of up to £2 billion from its budget. When Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, announces the cuts next week, he is expected to say that at least four army battalions will be disbanded, including at least one - and possibly two - from Scottish regiments. The axe is also expected to fall on thousands of naval and air force personnel.

The Commons defence committee has already warned that the government's policy of reducing manpower, ships, aircraft and tanks because of an "obsession" with a new generation of hi-tech warfare systems is "potentially dangerous".

Senior army officers have privately expressed grave concern, warning that cuts could lead to the disappearance of all of Scotland's historic regiments in a massive shake-up of the army which would leave Scotland with just one "super regiment".

The MoD hopes to save £70.4 million a year by cutting four army battalions - a fraction of the amount it needs to find in savings to meet the demands of the Treasury.

But opponents say that even if the government accepts that savings must be made to balance the books, there are many other areas of expenditure that could be slashed without weakening Britain's armed forces.

Yesterday, Keith Simpson, the shadow armed forces minister, said: "The public will find it incongruous, to say the least, if the government was to cut front-line troops rather than the growing army of civil servants."

Oliver Letwin, the shadow chancellor, yesterday highlighted a number of areas in which he accused the government of wasting public money on administration.

The figures show that the increase in the government's advertising budget alone since 1997 would cover the cost of running the threatened regiments for another year and a half. In 1997, the advertising budget was £60 million; last year it stood at £161 million.

The government spent £21.3 billion on Whitehall bureaucracy last year, a figure equivalent to £850 for every household in the UK every year.

According to Mr Letwin, Gordon Brown planned to spend £17.2 billion on administering central government last year, but over-ran his budget by £4 billion - twice the amount that he is now seeking to claw back from the armed forces.

In both of the previous two years, spending on administration exceeded the budget by £2.5 billion and in 2000-1 by £1 billion.

"It is not too far off the truth to say that the culture of big government has created exponential increases in overspending on administration," Mr Letwin said.

He also pointed to the increasing cost of regulatory bodies, such as the Audit Commission. Its budget had risen from £111 million in 1997 to £217 million in 2003. Council inspections cost local government an estimated £1 billion a year, he said - £600 million in direct costs and another £400 million in indirect costs.

Mr Letwin also questioned the costs incurred by the Scottish Parliament, pointing out that it now cost £100 million a year more to run Scotland's administration than it did in 1997, an amount which would cover the £17.6 million annual running costs for one Scottish regiment for five and a half years.

Last night, the MoD defended the number of civil servants it employed and promised that staffing levels among the bureaucrats would also be taken into consideration when decisions were taken on where the axe should fall.

"We are looking at absolutely everything and we will be looking at civil service numbers," said a spokeswoman.

"We don't employ civil servants for our own amusement. I know it always looks as if the front line suffers first, but we are hammering down civil service numbers."

Meanwhile, army sources revealed that they were losing potential recruits because the MoD had imposed a freeze on recruitment to avoid having to make soldiers redundant after the cuts are announced.

Approximately 2,350 soldiers will be affected by the loss of four battalions, with 550 expected to be placed in other infantry regiments and 1,800 transferred to the engineers and logistics.

In the meantime, the MoD has stopped all recruitment until October, effectively cutting troop numbers by not replacing soldiers who are leaving the army.

Regiments say that some potential recruits have not been prepared to wait, and one army source revealed that 1,000 fewer recruits were expected to pass through the training centre at Catterick this year compared with last.

An MoD spokeswoman denied that the freeze had been instituted to provide a more palatable way of cutting army numbers.

She said: "We are trying to achieve a balance."

Politicians have promised to keep up the pressure on the government until the decision is announced next week.



Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?