16.1 |
The welfare of Service Personnel
requirements,
deployment patterns and the unique culture of each Service”, and
on
the “routine
level of concurrency” that the Armed Forces were resourced and
structured
to
sustain.
16.
The table
below shows the Harmony Guidelines for each Service in
2003.8
Individual
Separated
Service
Unit tour
intervals
Royal
Navy
Army
Royal Air
Force
In any 36
month period,
no one to
exceed
660 days.
Fleet Units
to spend
maximum of
60%
deployed in
36 months.
In any 30
month period,
no one to
exceed
415 days.
24 month
average
interval
between Unit
tours.
In a 12
month period,
not more
than 2.5% of
personnel
to exceed
140 days.
16 month
average
interval
between Unit
tours.
17.
On 17 January
2003, Mr Blair agreed the deployment of a large scale UK
ground
force,
comprising the headquarters 1st (UK) Armoured Division and three
combat
brigades,
to Iraq (see Section 6.2).
18.
There is no
indication that the potential pressure on Service Personnel,
including
with
respect to the Harmony Guidelines, was a consideration in that
decision.
19.
The Service
Personnel Board (SPB), chaired by Lieutenant General
Anthony
Palmer,
Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Personnel) (DCDS(Personnel)),
discussed
the effect
of current operations on personnel welfare on 21 January
2003.9
The
SPB
commented
that the “shift to expeditionary operations was having a
significant impact on
people”.
The lesson from Operation FRESCO10
was that
“wider welfare considerations
needed to
be taken into account in advance of decisions on
commitments”.
20.
Mr Adam
Ingram, Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Min(AF)), told the
Inquiry
that the
Government knew that the invasion of Iraq would put additional
strain on the
Harmony
Guidelines:
“… we had
been involved in both Iraq and Afghanistan, still engaged in
Northern
Ireland,
still having people in Cyprus, still having people in Sierra Leone
and other
parts of
sub-Saharan Africa, and still having a significant lay-down in the
Falklands.
“All of
that made it very difficult to meet harmony guidelines, although it
varied
between the
Services – the Army under most strain … and significant key
enablers
8
Fourteenth
Report from the Defence Committee, Session 2007-2008,
Recruiting
and Retaining Armed
Forces
Personnel,
HC424.
9
Minutes, 21
January 2003, Service Personnel Board meeting.
10
Op FRESCO
was the provision of emergency cover by the Armed Forces in the
event of industrial action
by civilian
firefighters.
5