Military Readiness Increasing

UK Ministry of Defence, The Public Affairs Committee report into Military Readiness describes the MoD's system for defining measuring and reporting readiness as 'sophisticated'. The report was welcomed by Armed Forces Minister, the Rt Hon Adam Ingram MP. 
 
However, Mr Ingram highlighted a number of areas in which the PAC report does not reflect the current UK Forces readiness situation. “It would simply not be true to interpret the report to say that about a third of Britain's Armed Forces would struggle to deploy. At the moment no forces are reporting critical weaknesses”, he said. 
 
“No military in the world is designed to have 100 per cent of its forces at full readiness at any one time. As of last September 79 per cent of Forces were ready to deploy with no serious or critical weaknesses. Performance continues to improve and we confidently expect to exceed the target we have agreed with the Treasury of an annual average of 73 per cent by April 2008,” he added. 
 
“The Committee is right to highlight continuing likelihood that greatest operational demands will be made on the Army and some areas of the RAF and that we consequently focus efforts on those assets, but, as the committee recognises, this has not prevented the Royal Navy carrying out its operational tasks.” 
 
Last June the NAO praised the MoD for the good system it has in place which compares well with other countries' systems. The NAO noted that the system has the confidence of our military commanders, has proven itself on recent operations and is continuously improving. 
 
Mr Ingram said: 
 
“Given the overwhelmingly positive report into military readiness produced by the National Audit Office last June I find it somewhat surprising that the Public Accounts Committee can look at the same evidence and produce the report they have produced today. 
 
“Recent operations prove we can deploy the right number of forces to achieve our objectives. In June the National Audit Office was absolutely clear that the MOD has a good system for reporting the readiness of the Armed Forces and has a good understanding of risks to readiness and good plans in place to mitigate them. 
 
“The impact of current operations on the Armed Forces is judged by the Chiefs of Staff to be manageable and the Armed Forces as a whole remain ready for future operations.”  
 
Background Notes and Information: 
 
1. The NAO's original report is available on the NAO Defence Value for Money website http://www.naodefencevfm.org. 
 
2. Having 79 per cent of forces reporting no serious or critical weaknesses does not mean 21 per cent of UK forces would be unable to deploy. A serious weakness, as opposed to critical weakness, is one that would make delivering the force element concerned within the required time difficult but not impossible. The key to dealing with a serious weakness is identifying the weakness and addressing it. 
 
3. The MoD will respond to the PAC in detail in due course.