The UK’s armed forces are looking to develop a new digital recruitment system.
A procurement notice has been issued under the Armed Forces Recruitment Programme, looking for support in the delivery of a model for the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force by March 2022.
Under the programme, run by the Army, it wants to develop a core business application to support recruitment.
It is considering whether an off-the-shelf package would align with how the forces run their recruitment and wants to capture and rationalise relevant data across the three forces.
The priorities are for candidates to have a smooth experience in making applications, for staff members to be able to process these and make evaluations easily, and for gatekeepers to access information.
In addition, the system will have an integrated analytics facility as senior leaders need to be able to use the system to determine strategy and plans for the recruitment process.
NAO criticism
The Army’s record in recruitment came in for serious criticism late last year, when the National Audit Office published a report identifying significant problems with its Recruitment Partnering Project.
It pointed to a shortcoming in the Ministry of Defence’s failure to provide its partner Capita with the IT infrastructure to deliver an effective online recruitment system. The system was launched four years late and has since suffered technical problems, contributing to a shortfall in applications.
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