A Bureaucratic Approach to Safety is Weakening the British Army’s Training.

The growth of an overly burdensome safety regime is restricting opportunities for the British Army to train at scale. This poses risks of higher casualties and reduced capability if it is called on to fight a war, and of reducing safety through undermining confidence. 

In recent years, a number of fatal accidents involving UK service personnel have been reported, each a tragedy in its own right. At the same time, since the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the armed forces have become a significantly safer environment than the wider civilian world; service personnel are 56% less likely to die each year than their civilian peers. While statistics are no comfort to a grieving family, this provides some perspective for the evaluation of Defence’s approach to safety.

See articles: Spectator here

RUSI here