Army uses AI to speed up recruitment as staffing crisis bites
Army recruiters are using artificial intelligence to speed up the hiring of new soldiers amid a staffing crisis across the Armed Forces.
AI software is being used by outsourcing company Capita to process prospective recruits’ medical records provided alongside their application.
The development comes after the Ministry of Defence (MoD) admitted the Army had failed to meet recruitment targets at all of its training centres for the last five years.
Capita runs recruiting on the Army’s behalf under a £1.4 billion contract that has been repeatedly criticised by Parliament for leaving the military short of personnel ready to start basic training.
A Capita spokesperson said: “Face-to-face contact and engagement with serving personnel will always be at the heart of Army recruitment, but there are parts of the process which have become quicker, simpler and more effective through the use of artificial intelligence technology.
“We are deploying these tools to streamline recruitment, get people into basic training faster, and help prevent candidates from dropping out.”
The company said that its recruiters must sift through medical records that can be up to 100 pages long, saying these can take “up to an hour” to evaluate manually.
Hoping to save time
The entire recruitment process from application to passing out is currently five months, Capita confirmed. But it is hoped some time can be saved through new technology.
Last summer, Capita built its own AI software, it said, which its medical professionals use to scan and summarise these records.
A Capita spokesman said this could cut the time needed to process would-be recruits’ medical records by almost a third.
The MoD was contacted for comment.
News that AI is being used in defence recruiting comes after Capita executives admitted that they are “likely” to hit just 70 per cent of the Army’s recruiting target this year.
Richard Holroyd, the chief executive of Capita’s public services division, told the House of Commons’ defence committee in January that his company was instructed to bring in 9,813 new recruits.
“We are likely to out-turn at 70 per cent of that figure,” Mr Holroyd told MPs, meaning that Capita expects to miss its target number of new soldiers by almost a third.
Falling short of targets
Army recruiting has been beset by problems throughout the Capita contract, which was first signed in 2018.
Earlier this month, the MoD admitted that all of its basic training centres fell short of their targets.
The Army Foundation College Harrogate, the Infantry Training Centre Catterick, the Army Training Centre Pirbright and the Army Training Regiment Winchester were supposed to begin their training programmes with 44,111 recruits.
Yet only 35,638 began their courses, with usual drop-out rates through injury or voluntary withdrawal running at between 20 and 30 per cent.
The personnel shortfall risks leaving front-line units struggling for manpower, while Defence Secretary Grant Shapps was forced to “rule out” the return of conscription if current shortages continue.
A recent parliamentary report by the defence select committee, entitled “Ready For War”, said that the Armed Forces are facing a recruitment and retention crisis.
The report said the Army is working at 130 per cent of its capacity, the Royal Navy has too many tasks and not enough ships, and the RAF’s number of operational flights has doubled over the last 12 months.
