By IRNA
London : The continuing war in Iraq and Afghanistan are leading to a worsening performance by the country’s Ministry of the (MoD) against its key Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets, an influential group of British MPs warned Monday.
“We are deeply concerned that the Armed Forces have been operating at or above the level of concurrent operations they are resourced and structured to deliver for seven of the last eight years, and for every year since 2002,” the Defence Select Committee said.
In a report on the MoD’s annual report for 2006-07, the committee said the assessment of its expected achievements against its six PSA targets, which run until the end of March 2008, has “deteriorated.” “At the end of 2007 the MoD did not expect to meet the target for generating forces and expected ‘only partly’ to meet targets relating to defence equipment procurement, and recruitment and retention,” it warned.
Committee chair James Arbuthnot said that the most worrying impact from the two war fronts on the PSA target was “recruitment and retention.”
“Manning balance in the Royal Navy and the Army is not expected to be achieved by April 2008, and the Army and the RAF (Royal Air Force) are failing to meet harmony guidelines,” Arbuthnot said.
The continuing pressure on our Armed Forces personnel, he warned is “likely to have an impact on retention and there are some disturbing signs of an increase in early departure in the Army.” The report found that that the most worrying aspect was “the shortfall in the Army Medical Service which included; an 80% shortfall in Radiologists; a 62% shortfall in Orthopaedic Surgeons; and a 46% shortfall in Anaesthetists.”
The committee was also critical of the MoD over its spending and for substantially going over budget for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Arbuthnot said the government’s increase in defence set out in its 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review, which includes an additional Pnds 7.7 billion (Dlrs 15.5 bn) for defence by 2011, is to be welcomed.
But he warned the defence budget will be “under substantial pressure given that several funding commitments.” This included plans to build two huge carriers.
The committee chairman said the MoD would need to “limit further cost growth on existing equipment programmes and to be realistic about the number of equipment programmes that can be funded.”
“The MoD will need to take some difficult decisions in the coming months as part of the Planning Round process and the Defence Committee plans to monitor this closely,” he said.