IAN BRUCE
Defence Correspondent
The Herald
9 August 2005
RECRUITMENT for Scotland's infantry regiments has all but collapsed despite a multi-million-pound advertising campaign aimed at increasing enlistment.
Only 13 of the 49 places allocated to Scottish units for basic training at the army's main recruiting depot at Catterick in Yorkshire could be filled in the latest intake.
Concerned officers also report that fewer than a fifth of the 530 new volunteers needed annually to keep existing regiments up to strength have signed up so far this year.
Insiders say the fall in recruitment is "catastrophic" and mirrors twin concerns about the war in Iraq and the controversial amalgamation of Scotland's historic units into a single regiment.
Plans to merge all six regiments into a six-battalion Royal Regiment of Scotland on St Andrew's Day this November have already been postponed to next year, the army has confirmed. There will then be a further merger of the King's Own Scottish Borderers and Royal Scots into a single battalion.
A spokeswoman for the army in Scotland said "things could be better", but denied there was a crisis. ''We are about to launch a combined recruitment drive involving both regulars and territorial part-timers north of the border. We are suffering from the fact that more young people in the target 16 to 25-year-old age-group are opting for further education rather than a military career.
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"Iraq is also a factor. Many parents are worried about the prospect of their sons and daughters being posted to a potentially dangerous operational area."
The latest prediction by recruiters forecasts a 35% shortfall in infantry recruits across the army as a whole in 2005. Scotland has produced only two months-worth of its recruitment targets in seven months, a deficit running at more than twice the UK average. The recent high-profile advertising campaign involving television, newspapers, radio and billboards to persuade youngsters to join "the Scottish infantry" has fallen on deaf ears.
Jeff Duncan, campaign manager of the Save the Scottish Regiments organisation, said: "The top brass failed to take account of the crucial tribal factor in Scotland. Volunteers want to follow in the family footsteps in the regiments recruited in their home areas. We warned the MoD destroying that framework would have a devastating effect on recruitment. They didn't listen and now they are paying the price."
Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart Crawford, a former tank commander and now military consultant, also said a super-regiment "undermines the tribal loyalty of potential recruits . . . If this catastrophic situation continues, the new RRS might have to be whittled down to a three-battalion unit in about five years, destroying Scotland's military heritage once and for all".
Already 38 of the army's 40 infantry battalions are under strength, suffering from a backlash over the Iraq war, Deepcut training depot recruit deaths, and prisoner abuse scandals. Scotland's understrength infantry has 225 Fijiians and other Commonwealth soldiers in the ranks to aid numbers.
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