£1 million a month will be lost by the MoD until the problem is fixed

Millions of pounds — equivalent to the annual salary of 1,000 troops — has been wasted by the Army on a botched computer system that has damaged Britain’s ability to recruit soldiers.

Leaked Ministry of Defence documents seen by The Times expose the scale of the IT fiasco at the heart of the Government’s attempt to save money by laying off regular soldiers and hiring reservists.

The Recruitment Partnering Project, a £1.3 billion scheme intended to enable the Army to recruit online by bringing in Capita, the outsourcing giant, is almost two years behind schedule and will not be fully operational until April 2015 at the earliest. Up to £15.5 million has been spent building the flawed computer system behind the project, but it has