Defence Training Review (Hansard, 27 March 2001)

§ Mr. Hoon

Training is crucial to the success of our armed forces, and of the business of the Ministry of Defence itself. It represents a resource investment of some £4.2 billion each year. Increasingly, we face new challenges and it is vital to ensure that our training continues to meet our needs and is cost-effective. Against this background, my predecessor announced on 22 July 1999,Official Report, columns 614–615W that he had ordered a fundamental review of education and individual training. This review has now concluded and its report, entitled "Modernising Defence Training", is published today. A copy has been placed in the Library of the House.

The key findings of the review are that, overall, our training and education are of high quality, as demonstrated by operational successes, most recently in Kosovo and Sierra Leone. Improvements are nevertheless required to ensure that we have a training and education system to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The report therefore sets out a coherent set of measures designed to deliver a training and education system that is better integrated, aligned to operational and business needs, responsive to change and cost-effective.

To reflect changing operational priorities, in particular those which emerged from the Strategic Defence Review, the report proposes more joint training between the services, and more multinational and inter-agency training for individuals at all levels. In line with the modernising government initiative, we will introduce improvements to civilian training and to leadership and management training, and will make the leadership expertise of MOD and the armed services more widely available as a resource for the UK as a whole. We will exploit the opportunities provided by new technology to make training better and more accessible, in particular through the expansion of e-learning.

We also propose significant improvements in the field of education. The Royal College of Defence Studies, the Joint Command and Staff College and the Royal Military 548W College of Science, with two new organisations—a Joint Services Warrant Officers School and a Defence Leadership Centre—will be brought together to form a Defence Academy, which we intend to become a national and international centre of excellence for postgraduate education and research. We plan to set up a defence sixth-form college and a defence undergraduate bursary scheme to boost recruitment of engineers and scientists, and to introduce a programme of progressive civilian accreditation of defence education and training. A common theme behind many of our proposals is the need not only to prepare our service and civilian personnel for the tasks we require of them, but to support their personal development, in line with the Government's commitment to lifelong learning which is already enshrined in the learning forces initiative. This will help recruitment and retention, and also—recognising that for most people the services will not be their only career—provide transferable skills and qualifications that will enhance the national skills base.

We have identified significant scope for improving coherence and cost-effectiveness through training and estate rationalisation, in particular by delivering a significant proportion of specialist training in new defence schools, either joint or lead service, rather than on an individual basis. As well as eliminating duplication, this would improve the quality of training, particularly that in support of joint forces and operations. This will be investigated further by project definition teams over the next 12 months. Subject to the outcome of this work, we believe that the rationalisation programme will result in more cost-effective training and will free resources both to fund improvements we have identified and for defence as a whole.

Finally, to drive through and sustain all of these improvements we will establish a Director General Training and Education, who will provide a central strategy and policy focus.

The review has been comprehensive and wide-ranging, and has been conducted in close consultation with all interested parties both within the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces, and outside, including allies. The resulting proposals will build on our existing strengths to provide a better focused and more effective training and education system, ensuring that our service-men and women and civil servants receive the training and education they need to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and helping to maintain this country's reputation for professional, effective and successful armed forces.