Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the interview by the Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families with the Financial Times on 9 August 2023, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle skills gaps in the armed forces.

On 19 June 2023 the Ministry of Defence published the Haythornthwaite Review into Armed Forces Incentivisation. Defence is already the largest provider of technical apprenticeships in the UK and we will now look to implement the report’s 67 recommendations, establishing a holistic reward and incentivisation strategy to attract and retain skills, maximise operational effectiveness, and provide a modern, flexible, and people-centric system fit for the future which is shaped around emerging generations’ needs.

To facilitate this, we are working to implement the Pan Defence Skills Framework (PDSF) as a new Whole Force approach to identifying, defining, and managing the skills of Defence’s people and their associated roles. The PDSF will be used by Regular and Reserve Armed Forces personnel as well as Civil Servants, giving Defence a Whole Force view of the skills we have and allowing us to see the places where we need to focus our resources.

The PDSF will also enable us to better recognise skills, as recommended in the Haythornthwaite Review, to be able to better reward Armed Forces personnel for the skills they hold. Extensive work is currently underway to codify the skills we have in Defence. The PDSF project team expect to begin a phased roll-out of the PDSF through 2024.

As we move forward, the data provided by the PDSF will facilitate flexible deployment, zig-zag careers, lateral entry, empowered careers and will introduce more transparency to appraisal and promotion. It will ultimately enable teams to deploy personnel where they are needed most, helping Defence create the fighting force the nation needs for the future.