Sir Julian Brazier is a former Defence Minister, and was MP for Canterbury from 1987-2017
As the strategic threats facing Britain and the West multiply there is widespread concern about the shrinking of the UK’s armed forces – a problem we share with many of our allies. But one dimension here has largely been ignored – the hemorrhaging of the regular officer corps of the Army and RAF. The number of Army officers choosing to leave the service early set a record at 792 in the last quarter, compared with typically 450-550 over the past decade, when the Army was larger. For the RAF it is at record levels for the RAF too.
Yet, officers are critical. Despite the essential importance of senior and junior NCOs at the regimental level, an army with a strong officer corps, from general officer to subaltern, will perform far better in war than a poorly officered one and retain its soldiers in peacetime. The RAF also faces the multi-million cost of training pilots –all of whom are officers – and pilot numbers have dropped to the point where a crisis is widely recognised.
These people – so critical to our defence – have no public voice. They are forbidden to speak out, but those who care to do so can look at surveys of those leaving. These put impact on family life as their top issue. At the heart of this for the Army and RAF is accommodation, and the planned upheaval in family accommodation arrangements, which begins to be phased in in March will further undermine the already fragile offer.
For many years, most naval families have chosen to buy houses and settle, aided by the Forces Help to Buy Scheme. Despite having the worst staffing figures of all three Services, the number of Royal Navy officers leaving early by choice is below the rate a decade ago. However, the Navy’s approach only works because its geographic concentration reduces the need for mobility, and Plymouth and Portsmouth, the surface navy’s two principle bases, both offer affordable housing to buy and live in. This includes officers’ staff jobs, mostly in London and Portsmouth.
Simple geography prevents the application of a similar approach to the other two Services, especially for officers, who are expected to be nationally mobile and move frequently. Misapplication of a Treasury rule will shortly shatter the already fragile offer for officers in the Army and RAF – the decision to end rank-based housing entitlements for officers and allocate all family accommodation based on family size under the New Accommodation Offer.
In 1996, the bulk of service family accommodation was sold to Annington Homes, on a sale and leaseback. The Treasury raided most of the receipts and left a large annual overhead counted against Defence spending, so reducing money for essential maintenance and increasing pressure on the Ministry of Defence to squeeze the estate.
Now the Treasury has closed in again, by saying that all benefits in kind should be taxed unless allocated on need – even though service accommodation has been tax-exempt since time immemorial – and for good reason, given the penalties of service life for service families. A major or lieutenant colonel without children will see a two-fifths reduction in house size.
It seems that the Military Covenant has not reached HM Treasury and the new application of this rule gravely reduces the offer to officers’ families. There are implications for discipline and regimental leadership in mixing officer and other rank accommodation, especially in the Army, where the number of “oversubscribed” sites is higher and the proportion of officers much lower. But the starkest impact is on retention incentives.
The US uses a rental top-up scheme in areas where military housing is short but under their policy, despite America’s avowed social equality, even cash payments for housing are based on income (determined entirely by rank and qualifications) for both officers and enlisted personnel, not family size.
An additional challenge is that of accommodation access. The new policy was designed to expand the range of those entitled to accommodation. The new categories reflect modern life, including those in unmarried relationships and those with children from earlier relationships who visit for more than 80 nights a year. But, as the current estate is overcrowded, without more funding this will mean a substantial increase in those being forced to attempt to rent locally. The Ministry promises to pay an allowance but not undertake to find such accommodation. The allowance also may not cover additonal costs.
Nevertheless, the rollout begins in March 2024 and will be implemented over three years, with transitional arrangements. As sweeteners, single living allowance will be extended to those living in single accommodation whose families are beyond a daily commute. Help to Buy grants for deposits are slightly raised by an extra £1,500. Neither, however, helps officers’ families trying to stay together and stop yo-yo-ing between operational and staff jobs.
It is difficult to exaggerate how bad this is for the spouses of middle-ranking officers whose retention is so critical to the Army’s capability. The Army has been concentrated mostly on sites where there is little employment for spouses, Tidworth and Catterick being the largest. Many RAF sites, including Lossiemouth and Valley, are similar. No wonder a lack of spousal employment is the third largest driver for leaving.
Spouses of people in all three services make colossal sacrifices, While their counterparts in civilian life are mustering two salaries to get onto the first step of house purchase, they know that, without a steady second income, it will be much harder for them. Those officers or soldiers/aviators who do manage to buy a house, if they are posted away and let it, pay rent on their service family accommodation (SFA) on top of the mortgage and tax on any rent received whilst trying to manage tenants from afar.
Those dependent on service housing at least expect a decent house to live in. Yet, as has been widely reported, the standard is deteriorating even before this latest blow.
Both these factors apply to all ranks. But compounding it for most officers is that stability is simply impossible, unless past the age of regimental service. Most Army staff jobs are in Hampshire, Wiltshire, or the Ministry – yet more than half the infantry, Royal Engineers and Royal Signals units, for example, are a long way from those areas.
Similarly, RAF staff jobs are concentrated at High Wycombe and London a long way from operational stations. So middle-ranking officers, moving between operational postings and staff jobs, will remain highly mobile, even with stability improving for those in the ranks.
The growing exodus from the Army and RAF officer corps is becoming a flood. Anecdotally, the impact of this policy has already begun, with officers already having signed off as a result of it. More are reporting active steps to prepare for their exit during the three-year transition period. The first “trawl” for the next batch of company commanders in the infantry (critical jobs majors usually compete hard for) has fallen fully one-third short.
Of course, there are other factors too – and not all of them are shown on the Minstry’s exit survey. Nevertheless, the UK is close to losing a whole cohort of the best and brightest officers and a key factor is that an already over-ambitious scheme has been wrecked by a new reading of a Treasury tax rule which drives a coach horses through the Military Covenant.
Officer staffing levels can be massaged by promoting older people from the ranks to replace younger officers, by awarding regular commissions to those who would otherwise fail the quality line, or by simply adding to the growing numbers being kept on after being medically downgraded as unfit to fight. But such moves further undermine the UK’s claim to have top-tier forces.
If this policy is driven through, further wrecking the offer for officers, the consequences for the future of the Army and RAF are difficult to exaggerate. These people cannot speak for themselves. Those who love the armed forces need to speak out.
Sir Julian Brazier is a former Defence Minister, and was MP for Canterbury from 1987-2017
As the strategic threats facing Britain and the West multiply there is widespread concern about the shrinking of the UK’s armed forces – a problem we share with many of our allies. But one dimension here has largely been ignored – the hemorrhaging of the regular officer corps of the Army and RAF. The number of Army officers choosing to leave the service early set a record at 792 in the last quarter, compared with typically 450-550 over the past decade, when the Army was larger. For the RAF it is at record levels for the RAF too.
Yet, officers are critical. Despite the essential importance of senior and junior NCOs at the regimental level, an army with a strong officer corps, from general officer to subaltern, will perform far better in war than a poorly officered one and retain its soldiers in peacetime. The RAF also faces the multi-million cost of training pilots –all of whom are officers – and pilot numbers have dropped to the point where a crisis is widely recognised.
These people – so critical to our defence – have no public voice. They are forbidden to speak out, but those who care to do so can look at surveys of those leaving. These put impact on family life as their top issue. At the heart of this for the Army and RAF is accommodation, and the planned upheaval in family accommodation arrangements, which begins to be phased in in March will further undermine the already fragile offer.
For many years, most naval families have chosen to buy houses and settle, aided by the Forces Help to Buy Scheme. Despite having the worst staffing figures of all three Services, the number of Royal Navy officers leaving early by choice is below the rate a decade ago. However, the Navy’s approach only works because its geographic concentration reduces the need for mobility, and Plymouth and Portsmouth, the surface navy’s two principle bases, both offer affordable housing to buy and live in. This includes officers’ staff jobs, mostly in London and Portsmouth.
Simple geography prevents the application of a similar approach to the other two Services, especially for officers, who are expected to be nationally mobile and move frequently. Misapplication of a Treasury rule will shortly shatter the already fragile offer for officers in the Army and RAF – the decision to end rank-based housing entitlements for officers and allocate all family accommodation based on family size under the New Accommodation Offer.
In 1996, the bulk of service family accommodation was sold to Annington Homes, on a sale and leaseback. The Treasury raided most of the receipts and left a large annual overhead counted against Defence spending, so reducing money for essential maintenance and increasing pressure on the Ministry of Defence to squeeze the estate.
Now the Treasury has closed in again, by saying that all benefits in kind should be taxed unless allocated on need – even though service accommodation has been tax-exempt since time immemorial – and for good reason, given the penalties of service life for service families. A major or lieutenant colonel without children will see a two-fifths reduction in house size.
It seems that the Military Covenant has not reached HM Treasury and the new application of this rule gravely reduces the offer to officers’ families. There are implications for discipline and regimental leadership in mixing officer and other rank accommodation, especially in the Army, where the number of “oversubscribed” sites is higher and the proportion of officers much lower. But the starkest impact is on retention incentives.
The US uses a rental top-up scheme in areas where military housing is short but under their policy, despite America’s avowed social equality, even cash payments for housing are based on income (determined entirely by rank and qualifications) for both officers and enlisted personnel, not family size.
An additional challenge is that of accommodation access. The new policy was designed to expand the range of those entitled to accommodation. The new categories reflect modern life, including those in unmarried relationships and those with children from earlier relationships who visit for more than 80 nights a year. But, as the current estate is overcrowded, without more funding this will mean a substantial increase in those being forced to attempt to rent locally. The Ministry promises to pay an allowance but not undertake to find such accommodation. The allowance also may not cover additonal costs.
Nevertheless, the rollout begins in March 2024 and will be implemented over three years, with transitional arrangements. As sweeteners, single living allowance will be extended to those living in single accommodation whose families are beyond a daily commute. Help to Buy grants for deposits are slightly raised by an extra £1,500. Neither, however, helps officers’ families trying to stay together and stop yo-yo-ing between operational and staff jobs.
It is difficult to exaggerate how bad this is for the spouses of middle-ranking officers whose retention is so critical to the Army’s capability. The Army has been concentrated mostly on sites where there is little employment for spouses, Tidworth and Catterick being the largest. Many RAF sites, including Lossiemouth and Valley, are similar. No wonder a lack of spousal employment is the third largest driver for leaving.
Spouses of people in all three services make colossal sacrifices, While their counterparts in civilian life are mustering two salaries to get onto the first step of house purchase, they know that, without a steady second income, it will be much harder for them. Those officers or soldiers/aviators who do manage to buy a house, if they are posted away and let it, pay rent on their service family accommodation (SFA) on top of the mortgage and tax on any rent received whilst trying to manage tenants from afar.
Those dependent on service housing at least expect a decent house to live in. Yet, as has been widely reported, the standard is deteriorating even before this latest blow.
Both these factors apply to all ranks. But compounding it for most officers is that stability is simply impossible, unless past the age of regimental service. Most Army staff jobs are in Hampshire, Wiltshire, or the Ministry – yet more than half the infantry, Royal Engineers and Royal Signals units, for example, are a long way from those areas.
Similarly, RAF staff jobs are concentrated at High Wycombe and London a long way from operational stations. So middle-ranking officers, moving between operational postings and staff jobs, will remain highly mobile, even with stability improving for those in the ranks.
The growing exodus from the Army and RAF officer corps is becoming a flood. Anecdotally, the impact of this policy has already begun, with officers already having signed off as a result of it. More are reporting active steps to prepare for their exit during the three-year transition period. The first “trawl” for the next batch of company commanders in the infantry (critical jobs majors usually compete hard for) has fallen fully one-third short.
Of course, there are other factors too – and not all of them are shown on the Minstry’s exit survey. Nevertheless, the UK is close to losing a whole cohort of the best and brightest officers and a key factor is that an already over-ambitious scheme has been wrecked by a new reading of a Treasury tax rule which drives a coach horses through the Military Covenant.
Officer staffing levels can be massaged by promoting older people from the ranks to replace younger officers, by awarding regular commissions to those who would otherwise fail the quality line, or by simply adding to the growing numbers being kept on after being medically downgraded as unfit to fight. But such moves further undermine the UK’s claim to have top-tier forces.
If this policy is driven through, further wrecking the offer for officers, the consequences for the future of the Army and RAF are difficult to exaggerate. These people cannot speak for themselves. Those who love the armed forces need to speak out.