Reserved Occupation? Thoughts on the RF30 Review.

The Reserve Force 30 review has been published by the MOD this week, setting out a possible vision for the future structure and operation of the British Armed Forces reserve forces component.

The paper, written by former Minister, now Lord Lancaster, puts forward a series of recommendations about how the MOD should look to transform reserve forces into a very different body, and one that is more able to reflect the modern military.

It is important to note that this paper is not final policy, it is proposals for Ministers to consider, and identify whether they wish to adopt, but it is worth considering this review in more detail and thinking about what it could mean for the future of the Reserve Forces.

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

The UK has had a curious relationship with its reserve component for many decades. The Territorial Army was responsible for holding the line in 1915, when its volunteers stepped forward after the attrition of the original regular British Expeditionary Force, and managed to form the core of the Army for long enough for to generate reinforcements and replacements that in turn began to form the Army that won in 1918.

After WW2 and throughout the Cold War there were large reserve forces, drawn from both volunteers, and also ex-regulars. In theory, for much of the later Cold War, the British Army could draw on a nearly 70,000 strong TA, and a regular reserve that could number several hundred thousand people, on paper at least

Throughout this period regular exercises were held testing the ability to call up large parts of the system, ensuring that mobilisation worked as planned, and that people could quickly return to units to bring them up to full strength. On paper this worked, although it was highly reliant on people keeping contact information up to date and being willing to return if called on to serve.

On paper at least this regular reserve commitment continues to this day, with people leaving the military being liable, in theory at least, to be called up for a reserve liability long after they have left the military. Whether they are of any value though is perhaps a more valuable question to ask.

At the same time the volunteer reserve has remained in existence, although significantly smaller – todays total force numbers some 33,000 reservists in total, roughly 20% of the overall strength of the British Armed Forces.

The force exists to provide both individual reinforcements, and some formed units to step into the line to augment the Regulars. Reservists can be employed in their spare time (evenings and weekends), full time on a contract (e.g. multi-year service), and also as mobilised reservists (called up for a determined period of time), as well as operating as company sponsored reservists (e.g industry or contractors who don uniform at times of crisis).

Reservists are employed in a variety of ways, from supporting individual units, through to enhancing exercise battlestaffs or being mobilised in support of operation as well as on full time contracts. There is no single way of employing a reservist, and each service has very different views on how they should be employed – the Army relies on formed units, the Royal Navy uses them as individuals for the most part.

The challenge facing the reserve is how to stay credible though, and this is what the RF30 paper is trying to address. At its heart is the challenge of trying to work out two things – firstly, what does the military want from a spare time capability, and secondly, is it possible to be a credible member of the armed forces in your spare time?

Defining what the reserve brings is not easy, and requires a clear understanding of how it can enhance the regular forces. In the Cold War the plan was reasonably clear – provide several divisions of troops for fighting in BAOR and home defence, as well as support to clearing mines and keeping ports open, as well as discrete support to air operations.

It was simple (in relative terms) to plan for the activation of a plan that would see people sent to clearly defined roles and places on a map in order to do a job that would fit into a much bigger plan involving total war.

In the modern environment though, it is much harder to explain what it is that you want a reservist to be. Is it someone with no relevant skills who can augment a rifle platoon? Is it someone with hugely transferable skills from industry that can use them to the benefit of the military at a fraction of normal cost? Or is it some kind of fusion of people who can be helpful as a pool of bodies, but who are not needed to be on the books full time?

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

These are very different requirements and call for very different models of operation. A reserve of rifle volunteers is easy to run, but you need to be certain you can get the bodies when required, and have them for long enough to make useful – the full OPTAG process for a tour these days is several months long, so you are realistically looking at a 12-18 month mobilisation for many people – at a time when the Army is short on op tours, is it better to use reservists or send regular augmentees who need less training time?

Finding people who are experts is a good one on paper, but is hamstrung by a military system that, except for a few small outliers, does not approve of direct entry – you could have a world leading expert in some areas brought in as a private and not recognised, except by chance. The RF30 report refers to examples like this, and notes the difficulty of trying to capture the skills data of the workforce, and employing people in a way that makes them usable.

The problem is trying to square the circle that the military place a high value on earned credibility by a combination of courses, training and other ways of promoting that means that outsiders (e.g. anyone who hasn’t done the same) are seen with some suspicion and afforded less credibility.

Direct Entry Colonels may be listened to, but would they be credible in the eyes of the people they represent and have power over, or would they wear the rank without credible credentials? This is a real challenge – if you want your reserve to be a source of skills, how do you persuade people to join in a way that means they will be listened to and treated with respect for their knowledge?

The report proposes getting around this by creating a series of ‘specialists’ who will not wear rank but who will instead be brought in and able to speak with credibility on their chosen subject. On paper this seems elegant, a way to bring people in without the challenge of rank debates and upsetting those who would see it as ‘jumping ahead’.

But paradoxically such a move could backfire. The military like an established order and hierarchy and they like to know how things stand. Go to a military meeting and the first thing established in the opening 30 seconds is the pecking order – people use either their rank tabs, or introduction by rank to determine who they are, and where everyone fits into the system. Saying “Hi I am specialist Bloggs” will disrupt this and cause confusion – are they officers, other ranks – how special or senior is a specialist and are they really a proper military person if they don’t hold a real rank?

Although this seems minor, it is a major issue in what is an existentially hierarchical movement, where all aspects of engagement and interaction are governed by rank titles and relative position to each other. Introducing a non-ranked ‘rank’ inside the military could cause confusion and reduce the desired impact.

Also more pragmatically stripping rank away also may reduce the incentive to join the armed forces for potential volunteers. Many people join the reserves for a new skills or adventure, or to escape the day job. To find yourself without a rank, and doing your day job in uniform may seem distinctly unappealing to many people.

The challenge that has also not been defined is what is the ask of the military on the reservist and is it sustainable? In the Cold War it was easy, people joined knowing they would only be called up for WW3. Today people can be called up for many different reasons, and the military expects to have a significant share of your professional time.

For some this is fine, they lead lives or work in roles that permit them to give freely to the armed forces when required. But others do not – their circumstances are more complex and they cannot down tools for a 9-12 month mobilisation regularly.

Is it feasible to expect that people can be credibly spare time members of the armed forces in a time when the skills and training required to be competent are time demanding? The potential problem is that in assuming the reserves will shoulder more of the regular burden, you have to assume that the reservists are able to commit the time both for training, continued development and to mobilise as required and when required – this is little short of a very intense full time ‘spare time’ job.

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This is the problem – 21^st century defence operations are complex and need people at short notice to be ready to do challenging tasks. Are reservists always going to be available in the right combination of skills and experience to take on sophisticated roles, or should aspiration be scaled back, and instead turned into a call for volunteers to fill general roles?

Employers may not welcome their staff joining the reserves, particularly if called into highly specialist roles, if the expectation is that they will regularly be called on to support military operations. The more staff are away, the harder it is to fill their role, and the less supportive many employers may become of employing someone who has a spare time job which has full time aspirations on their time.

Striking this balance is crucial, and trying to steer a path whereby the military can define what it is it wants from its reserve, without breaking it. There does seem to be a good opportunity to create a body of people who can support defence in a variety of ways, but it has to be clear on the demands on their time and resource and support them properly.

One of the most intriguing parts of the RF30 report is the way it discusses making much better digital use of skills of reservists and trying to put them in the right roles – e.g using expats to work abroad in local embassies, or creating a ‘LinkedIn for Defence’ to allow volunteers to put their skills up and be contacted to go and support local units on specific tasks.

This sounds both fantastic and also likely to be counter intuitive to many military who like clearly defined roles and admin. The idea of having a reserve structured so that people are essentially kept on the books and only brought into to random work matched to their digital skills advert may be a step too far – what happens if person X has a great skill set but is ‘only’ a Lance Corporal? Will volunteers want to join knowing they will only be employed to do their day jobs, or will they want a wider challenge?

If implemented the move to this digital skill link up could be really potent – it is a real frustration that Defence isn’t great at finding people with some incredible skills due to the silos in which useful information is kept. How many undiscovered skills and talents lie inside Defence right now, lost because people cannot share their experience easily?  If this could be fixed, it could be the start of quite a powerful change to how the MOD uses its talent and really enhance the reputation of the Reserves as a result.

The report proposes three sets of reserves in future – essentially individual augmentees, such as those discussed above, those serving in formed capability units who will deploy as a unit, and finally making deeper use of the regular reserve.

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

This last proposal is intriguing because it goes to an area long neglected by Defence. This gigantic pool of people, far larger than the modern military, who possess experience and training, but who have long since walked away from the system.

Is it realistic today to assume that Defence can call on them, and that they will answer this call? The idea that someone could leave the military and move on with their life and then find themselves brought back into service years later seems unlikely, but remains theoretically possible.

The question is what value does it serve for the military to draw back legions of retired stalwarts into service? How useful today is someone whose last job in the armed forces was as a SeaDart maintainer, and whose knowledge of the regular military right now is close to zero?

As people step away, their relevance and contacts diminishes to the point of their value to the system being close to zero. To actively tap into this pool of long lapsed staff seems unwise, if only because so many would no longer meet medical entry standards, or have lost all useful knowledge that it may be faster to train a recruit from scratch.

But this pool represents a cadre of people who have served, who could act as local assistance in the event of a crisis or natural disaster and who could act as representatives of the military in areas like local schools, talking about what service means. There is perhaps something that could be done to better tap into this network of people in a non military manner – perhaps as the cadre of a civilian reserve, or as military ambassadors who could provide support and insight when required.

What isn’t clear though is what is the military benefit of having regular reservists still in existence as a concept? Fundamentally all but unemployable, and without any real operational role to fill, there seems little value in retaining this legacy role and title. Far better to encourage those who wish to retain links to act as affiliates of the volunteer reserves, than maintain a nominal but utterly unworkable system of regular reservists which could never credibly be used.

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Overall though the RF30 paper is a really thought provoking read that does a good job of trying to grapple with the question of ‘why do we need a reserve at all’? That there is a need for some spare capacity in the system is undoubted. Its also clear that having the ability to draw on niche skills, only occasionally needed is helpful too. But how is this best employed?

The reserve represents a link between the very closed world of the armed forces, and that of wider society. It is the best way to enable regular military personnel to engage with people who can shape public views of the military outside of the ‘bubble’ that the regulars exist in.

It is a good way to raise awareness of the military and help people understand what can be done, and provide some form of ability to respond. But it is much harder to do now than it was in the past. Paradoxically the smaller the regular forces become, and the more complex their operating environment is, the harder it is to bring reservists up to speed. To be an effective reservist working alongside the regulars is almost a full time job these days.

There isn’t an easy answer or quick fix here – instead the solution seems to be to continue to draw on volunteers giving of their time to help the military, and to so in a way that enhances the regulars ability to do their job. To get this right though will call for probably more engagement by the regulars with the reserve than has been the case in the past – rather than treating it as a bolt on of people who may or may not be there, to get this right really calls for a step change in how the regulars manage their reservist colleagues.

This may include more postings into reserve units, shared training, having individuals work inside regular units and so on. Its really important to ensure that both groups understand one another and how they think and work, to minimise friction and increase the ability to get the most from the talent they have access to.

Ultimately the RF30 review should perhaps be seen as a good discussion on how best to do talent management. There is a pool of people out there with skills and experience of real value to Defence, whose personal circumstances mean that they are not full time members of Defence. The trick is to work out what needs to be done to get the best from this talent pool, and ensure that Defence reaps the benefits from it, and doesn’t squander it away by mistake.