National Audit Office says five years needed to close gap, with shortage of intelligence analysts

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The armed forces are experiencing their biggest staffing shortfall for a decade, including a recruitment crisis among intelligence analysts, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has said.

A National Audit Office report found the number of full-time military personnel, known as regulars, was 5.7% or 8,200 people, short of the required level, and that it would take at least five years to close even part of the gap.

The report also highlighted a 26% shortfall in the number of intelligence analysts in the face of the increasing risk of cyber-attacks.

It comes the day after senior security officials in the US and UK held a rare joint conference call to directly blame the Kremlin for targeting government institutions, private sector organisations, infrastructure and internet providers.



Meg Hillier, the chair of the public accounts committee, said the report showed it was critical that Britain had well-staffed armed forces with the technical know-how to handle threats to national security.

“The report shows that the armed forces are woefully below compliment, especially in crucial areas like intelligence and engineering. The Ministry of Defence needs to take a long hard look at its current approach,” she said.

Auditors identified 102 trades in the armed services that do not have enough trained regulars to carry out operational tasks. Most of these “pinch-points” were in six areas – engineering, intelligence, logistics, pilots, communications and medical.

The NAO found a shortfall of 2,400 engineers – with the largest among Royal Navy weapons technicians – 700 intelligence analysts and 800 pilots.

With the impact of the shortfalls becoming more severe over the past year, only six were expected to be resolved in the next five years while 23 would get worse, the report said.

The MoD’s plans were “not a sustainable long-term solution,” it said.

“The department’s reliance on a ‘base-fed’ model – where it recruits regulars into the lowest ranks and develops their skills and experience over time – has not enabled it to close capability gaps quickly enough,” the report said.

Each of the three armed services have their own intelligence-gathering teams and recruit their own staff to fill their roles.



The 2015 strategic defence and security review increased the requirement for many intelligence analyst trades. Some within the RAF were required to double or treble recruitment targets in order to meet the new demand.

Demand for intelligence analyst skills, particularly linguists, often changes rapidly depending on emerging threats, but it can take years to train regulars with the skills that are needed.



According to the report, industry and other government intelligence-gathering agencies have targeted and recruited many of these staff.

In response, the MoD has set up specialist recruitment teams and introduced “retention payments” for those in intelligence roles, the report said.

An MoD spokesman said recruiting and retaining talent was a top priorityand that there was a range of schemes used to attract and keep skilled personnel.

“The military has enough personnel to meet all its operational requirements, including being active on 25 operations in 30 countries throughout the world,” he said.

