Hansard

Officer Recruitment

Volume 767: debated on Friday 5 July 1968

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Captain Kerby

asked the Secretary of State for Defence, in view of the officer redundancies at present occurring in the Army, what is the purpose of the current officer recruiting campaign; what has been the cost and the total number of officer recruits in the last six months; how many short service commission officers have been turned down for regular commissions during the same period; and for what reasons.

Mr. Boyden

The purpose is to recruit a large number of young men whom the Army still needs to fill junior officer posts and thereby to ensure that the Army has officers of the right ages in the future. Redundancies are occurring mainly in the rank of major and above. In the first six months of this year:

  • (a) £108,667 has been spent on officer advertising;
  • (b) 917 applications have been made for a commission in the arms and corps whose officers are trained at R.M.A. Sandhurst and Mons O.C.S.; while 256 men started training at the two establishments;
  • (c) excluding quarter-master commissions, 45 applications for regular commissions from non-permanent officers have been turned down or deferred. Either the officers were not up to standard or there were no vacancies.