We were told earlier this year that “all 3 services have worked hard to limit the numbers of personnel involved throughout the armed forces redundancy programme which has meant that this final tranche will only consist of up to 1,505 personnel.
This will include a maximum of 1,425 soldiers, 10 medical officers from the Royal Navy and 70 medical personnel from the RAF.”
- Final Tranche of Armed Forces Redundancies
- From: Ministry of Defence and The Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP
- History: Published 23 January 2014
- Part of: Defence and Armed Forces
Whilst these figures reflect the final ‘tranche’ of redundancies they hide the fact that in these modern times some 20,000 people leave the Armed Forces each year.
But all Service Leavers share one thing in common – leaving the military life for Civvy Street. Each carries a kit bag full of hopes and fears and many cases along with the hopes and fears of their dependents.
Planning for this move between two distinct worlds can be traumatic and there is the Career Transition Partnership to help out.
Add these two figures together and some 21,000 personnel will leave the armed forces over a 12 month period.
So after having carried out a personal assessment (individual or family needs, money, education and transferable skills to name just a few key parts of that assessment) what one question should every Service Leaver (SL) ask themselves?
It is, “Do I want to move where there is family but a risk in finding work, or do I want to move where there is work but risk feeling isolated?”
When I carried out resettlement advisory sessions with SLs I always came back that question. I believe that everything else follows on from that one decision.
The MAPP has a resettlement planning tool that can help service leavers (SLs) work with dependents, friends and family (both inside and outside the armed forces) on a 24/7 timetable. Tasks can be shared and advice given, meaning an SL (or their spouse or partner) is never alone even when operational tasking takes them right to the wire.
