'Province preservation order is ill-conceived'
IS the "Afghan" exemption from redundancy either fair to all or in the best interests of the Service?
If the Army is truly committed to transforming into a more agile (read smaller) pool of excellence, everyone accepts difficult decisions over manpower are unavoidable.
Exempting those who are below the quality line for this new organisation just because their post identification on June 12 happens to have an operational tick next to it has two very serious and unfair consequences.
Firstly, the leaner Army continues to carry an individual it would otherwise have selected to let go.
Secondly, and more importantly, it will have to dismiss someone it would have preferred to keep because the rank quotas imposed are absolute.
With the low-hanging fruit of the volunteer tranche completed, are we comfortable that the needs of the media and comms branch and the popular press appear to be dictating who will be left when the music stops? – Name and address supplied.
Col R Wardlaw, Directorate of Manning (Army), responds: Within the overall constraint of delivering reductions to Army strength while fighting on combat operations such as Op Herrick, the exemption was introduced to protect both the interests of the Service and those individuals committed to deployments.
It achieves this by delivering two key effects.
First, it preserves operational capability by ensuring that those personnel training for or deployed on combat operations are not selected to the detriment of the preparation for, or conduct of, the mission.
Second, it ensures those deployed on operations, routinely in life-threatening situations, are not distracted by the prospect of redundancy – something which self-evidently may be dangerous both to them individually and, as critically, to those around them.
Turning to the impact operational exclusion will have on the quality of those chosen, while it is fair to say that all exemptions will reduce the pool of eligible troops, rigorous grading and selection boards by the Army Personnel Centre will ensure that within a given field only the lowest scoring applicants and, where necessary, non-applicants will be selected.
Furthermore, every selection is then subject to a separate process of reconciliation to ensure that it is consistent with the broader needs of the Army.
Finally, a soldier who might otherwise have been selected for redundancy if it were not for the operational exclusion, may very well be eligible for consideration in subsequent tranches. Indeed, this was one of the key considerations for having more than one stage.
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