Assessing And Reporting Military Readiness

Readiness is the term used to describe the means by which the Ministry of Defence holds its military forces at varying levels of preparedness to respond to emerging operations. An effective system for assessing and reporting military readiness is a key part of modern armed forces capability, in order to manage risks and address any deficiencies and plan for the future. This has become increasingly important in recent years given the unpredictable nature of the current security environment. This NAO report finds that the MoD has a good system for reporting the readiness of its armed forces, although there is scope for further improvement, both to better define and measure its Public Service Agreement target for readiness, and to manage the main areas of risk, such as logistic support.

The Ministry of Defence has developed a sophisticated system for defining, measuring and reporting on the readiness of the Armed Forces. Following a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General (HC 72, 2005-06) the Committee looked at two issues: the readiness reporting system and operational commitments; and logistic risks to readiness. It found that almost a third of forces had serious or critical weaknesses in their required peacetime readiness levels and that the Armed Forces were still recovering from large scale operations in Iraq and for five of the past six years they have been operating above the most demanding combination of scenarios envisaged in defence planning assumptions. The increased strains on the materiel of the Armed Forces are shown by the rise in equipment cannibalisation and redirection of resources from support of the Royal Navy.

Current Army and Marine Corps guidance has generally improved the quantity and objectivity of readiness information available to decision makers. As in the past, Army Regulation 220-1 and Marine Corps Order 3000.13 direct units to report on two types of missions-the core missions for which units were designed as well as any other missions they may be assigned, but recent changes to the guidance also added new requirements. Units must now provide objective, personnel and equipment data to supplement commanders'assessments of their units' assigned mission capabilities. The updated service guidance also provides additional criteria, which are intended to help unit commanders consistently assess their units' mission capabilities. The newdata and additional mission assessment criteria improve the objectivity and consistency of readiness information provided to decision makers. However, to clearly identify units that recently returned from deployment, the Armyregulation now requires units to uniformly report a specific service directed readiness level rather than assess and report the unit's actual readiness level.As a result, decision makers lack a complete picture of the readiness of some units that could be called upon to respond to contingencies.While the Army and Marine Corps have taken steps to implement the revised readiness reporting guidance, units are inconsistently reporting readiness in some areas. GAO site visits to 33 Army and 20 Marine Corps units revealedthat units were using inconsistent reporting time frames, and GAO data analysis showed that 49 percent of Marine Corps reports submitted between May 2010 and January 2011 were late. Furthermore, units are reporting equipment and personnel numbers differently, and some units are not linking their two types of mission assessments, in accordance with current guidance.The federal standards for internal control state management must continually assess and evaluate its internal controls to assure that the control activities being used are effective and updated when necessary. However, Marine Corpsand Army quality assurance reviews have not identified all the inconsistencies and system mechanisms are not preventing the submission of inconsistent data. Until internal controls improve, decision makers will continue to rely onreadiness information that is based on inconsistent reporting.

NSIAD-99-119 Military Readiness: Readiness Reports Do Not Provide a Clear Assessment of Army Equipment

On the basis of your concerns about the combat readiness of U.S. military forces as the individual services deal with reductions in force size and the expanding demands of peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance operations, we reviewed the equipment readiness in active duty Army units. As requested, this report addresses whether active duty units (1) have the equipment required to conduct their wartime missions, (2) are keeping their equipment in good condition, and (3) can sustain the equipment in a two major theater war as required by the National Military Strategy. While details are classified, a high percentage of active duty Army units have the major equipment items they need for their wartime mission. Moreover, Army information shows that units are maintaining the bulk of their equipment in a fully mission capable condition. Despite these positive indications of readiness, current readiness reporting systems & and not comprehensive enough to reveal all readiness weaknesses. For example, they do not show operational limitations that have been caused by extensive shortages of support equipment essential to effective, sustained use of major equipment items. Units could deploy without this equipment and could perform their basic combat missions, but they would be limited in their capability, flexibility or sustainability. Additionally, the Army has stated that its equipment is aging and becoming increasingly difficult to maintain and maintenance managers at units we visited told us that their mechanics are devoting increasing amounts of time to keep equipment operating. These problems are not reflected in readiness data, which show units are able to keep their equipment serviceable. We have reported that serviceability rates do not provide a good assessment of equipment condition because equipment that is old, unreliable, and difficult to maintain may still be reported serviceable.