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New figures paint a devastating picture of the army’s failure to retain demoralised, sceptical and under-utilised troops - and recruit enough new ones to replace them. Overall Army numbers dropped for the eighth year in a row in January to 75,880. They stood at 86,000 in 2015 and, according to the Future Army 2020 plan, there are supposed to be 82,000 soldiers next year - making a shortfall of 6,120. Prince Harry’s former regiment, the Household Cavalry and the Brigade of Guards - responsible for guarding the Queen and the Royal Palaces - which are hundreds of men short.

Even the elite Parachute Regiment, which supplies almost half the number of troops needed by the SAS, is more than 110 soldiers understrength. The worst recruited infantry regiment is the Scots Guards which is 230 soldiers below “workforce requirement”. One source within the regiment last night conceded that it was “no longer operationally effective”. Every tank regiment and almost every artillery unit is understaffed, and specialist regiments are not immune, either. For the Royal Corps of Signals the figure is a staggering 800 shortfall - the size of a full-blown battalion - while the Royal Engineers and Royal Logistic Corps are down 684 and 400 respectively. Crucially even the Intelligence Corps, which gathers information on Britain’s potential enemies and vaunted by the MoD as essential because “in modern warfare, knowledge really is power”, is 20 per cent short of the personnel it needs to function effectively. There are a myriad of factors at play, and it’s true that some are just beyond the Army’s control. High civilian employment levels always affect recruitment, and Generals cannot help the Government’s current unwillingness to engage troops in combat - in favour of using them as trainers for other forces - which removes the most important incentive to join for so many. Nor can they control the Treasury’s tight grip on the purse strings which has led to a series of disastrous streamlining projects in the name of saving money.

Guards from the Household Division, which is seriously short of soldiers

Last week’s damning parliamentary report on Capita - contracted by the Ministry of Defence to take over the recruitment process – pulled no punches: every target missed, and an improbable 321 day lead time from signing up to walking through the barracks door which, of course, is causing so many willing recruits to simply abandon the process. The Army says it’s fighting back. It recruited 9,000 soldiers last year, there’s a new IT system in the offing and a recent snowflakes” campaign is said to be “exceeding all expectations”. But the stark fact is that recruitment is not enough if even more troops are leaving. And poor retention means there’s a steady deficit of around 2,600 soldiers which the Army is simply failing to plug. At the heart of the problem is low morale. In the first place, the more understaffed a regiment is, the more frequently those mundane tasks such as guard duty come round. It leads to a vicious race to the bottom and when the black humour begins – will the last soldier to quit the battalion turn out the lights – it’s too late to stop the rot. Then there’s the challenge caused by poor conditions across the army’s estate. Money has been ploughed into new gyms, but this was surely of little solace to soldiers in the Royal Irish Regiment - 80 men short of its required number of 550 – who have been forced to put up with squalid, rat-infested living conditions and lack of hot water for showering and washing at their Shropshire base for the last six months.

“It’s one thing if you’re on operations or in theatre,” said one corporal. “But when you’re home you expect better conditions. We were better off in Kabul.” The army is no stranger to morale issues, and historically it was the sense of regimental family that shored up these problems. The reorganisation which began in 2010 aimed to deliver an effective fighting machine which met the demands of modern warfare while saving the Treasury money. The overall size of the army was chopped from 102,000 to 82,000, and included new self-contained Strike brigades, at the ready to respond to a crisis at a moment’s notice, as well a specialised infantry group. But the race to modernise has undermined that very foundation with the formation of super-regiments. At times like today where soldiers are unlikely to take part in combat, maintaining morale at home is more important than ever, and that begins at the top. Commanding officers were traditionally recruited from within the regiment. Suddenly, they became chess pieces to be moved across an Army-wide board to fill gaps. Many even commute hundreds of miles to return home at weekends. The problem with parachuting officers in is that there is no guarantee that they will be a good fit. “It’s not always a case that a good horse runs of any going,” said Brig Allan Mallinson, author of The Making of the British Army.

Overall Army numbers dropped for the eighth year in a row in January to 75,880

“Once, we would know strengths and weaknesses of candidates because they came from within the regiment. We could make the right choice, depending on whether an operational tour was coming up, or whether the regiment was entering a fallow period. They require very different skills. “Now commanding officers are being parachuted from battalion to battalion, seeing their promotions as stepping stones to greater things. This removes the sense of responsibility. They enact policies knowing full well they won’t be around when the results of those policies is felt. “In some cases, commanding officers are excellent in the field, but when they’re back at barracks, regimental discipline and administration just falls apart.” The problem runs down the line. “The bigger the regiment and the more movement of officers there is, the less junior ranks feel there’s continuity, that they're part of a family, and that their worth is going to appreciated in the years to come,” he said. “Can any corporal or sergeant really feel now that he’s part of a small family that remembers and rewards?” This chipping away at regimental loyalty extends to centralised recruitment.

Even the elite Parachute Regiment is more than 110 soldiers understrength

Brig Mallinson added: “When I was commanding everything was my responsibility. Recruiting was part of that. I was very conscious that for the rest of my life I’d be carrying around the reputation of those two-ands-a-half years in command. Where has the ownership gone now? “The Army will accuse me of being a dinosaur and not keeping up with the times. But we saw these problems coming. I reply that they have ignored the wisdom of the ages.” An Army spokesman said: “The Army has developed a range of measures to speed up the recruitment process. This includes new measures to reduce the time between applying and starting training, greater access to military role models for recruits and a new IT system. “The Army meets all its operational commitments to keep Britain safe.”

COMMENT BY COL RICHARD KEMP Poor manning levels due to cost-cutting A TIME when the Army is not at war and hitting the headlines makes recruiting tough. As does full employment, but poor manning levels are due mainly to a privatised recruiting machine forced on the Army by cost-cutting politicians. A potential recruit rarely meets a real soldier - vital in encouraging young people and allaying their fears - until well into the application process. The recruiting bureaucracy is virtually impenetrable. As a former soldier, I am often asked to help navigate the system, but even my understanding of the Army has rarely enabled me to do much in the face of "computer says no". How can an eager applicant be expected to wait 12 months from initial inquiry to sign-up? Poor manning levels are also caused by excessive outflow. An army savaged by cuts is a declining industry. Conditions of service have been eroded and soldiers publicly dragged through the courts falsely accused of war crimes. All this takes its toll and creates a vicious circle where unpleasant duties come round more often in undermanned units and soldiers leave. I have been heartened to see generals actively trying to unlock the recruiting logjam as well as an imaginative advertising campaign, the Army's surge into social media ANDTV shows, like Raw Recruits. But I fear the problem won't be solved unless the Army takes up recruiting methods used by battalion commanders that achieved full manning two decades ago. I inherited an undermanned unit but was able to turn it round by sending my troops to scout for talent outside McDonald's and other gathering places for likely lads.The key was getting smart young soldiers in uniform on to the streets - more effective than the shiniest computer or Twitter