by Atul Hatwal
Shocking new figures uncovered by Uncut reveal how the Ministry of Defence has slashed payments to injured troops by 9% over the past year.
Between 2010/11 and 2011/12, claims to the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme – the support fund for servicemen and women who are injured in the line of duty– rose by 20% from 7335 to 8830. But at the same time, the number of claims where compensation was awarded remained virtually static, rising slightly from 3,890 to 3925
This means that the proportion of injured soldiers, sailors and aircrew who received compensation fell from 53% in 2010/11 to 44% in 2011/12, a drop of 9%.
The size of the fall will prompt speculation that money and not troops’ welfare is dictating compensation policy.
The latest figures were buried in an obscure statistical release that was issued by the MoD without a press release or any detail about the striking fall in awards in the summary.
News of the plunging levels of compensation comes weeks after the independent Armed Forces Pay Review Body warned that impending pay cuts would be “damaging for…motivation”.
The combined impact of lower pay and reduced support if injured will likely hit the forces’ already fragile morale.
Worse still, as the cuts bite for frontline troops, the litany of bungled spending and wasted resources keeps mounting up for the MoD.
A damning report earlier this year from the Public Accounts Committee found the cost of Britain’s biggest military programmes had soared by £500million in a year because “wasteful” defence chiefs failed to “live within their means”.
And just last month it emerged that the MoD’s decision to change the planes to be used on the new aircraft carriers, reverting back to the original choice made by the last Labour government, will cost £250 million.
Despite these disasters, and the impact of cuts on forces’ morale, the government has pressed ahead with its ever deeper programme of cuts to the military.
The secretary of state for defence, Phillip Hammond, proudly boasted to parliament that the government would be able to balance the defence budget as a result of their efficiencies.
But with the drop in forces’ compensation now evident, the extent of the cuts seems to be even deeper than previously admitted.
Atul Hatwal is editor at Uncut
Tags: Armed Forces Compensation Scheme, Atul Hatwal, MoD, Phillip Hammond
Its an absolute disgrace. Instead cut Trident and our useless Nuclear Arsenal as CND have suggested, and cut the TAs and re-introduce National Service conscription. That way Defence will be out of the red, and we solve the youth unemployment problem and ASB at a stroke. There is no better way for citizens to understand what figting soldiers have to go through than to induct young people into a Citizens Army. That way the ordeals of dealing with casualties and Post Traumatic Stress are brought home to them.
Having said that, our troops should not be involved in overeas regional conflicts and civil wars; let the Arabs fight their own wars in the ME. Let Muslims deal with Muslims in Afghanistan; we should not interfere except as a UN peace keeping force,but not as a Nato strike force.
Doesn’t it rather depend on what injuries they are being compensated for? Without comparing like-for-like this is just unsubstantiated outrage…
Perhaps it might be worth investigating what the categories of injury are and how the ratio of severe:minor injuries might be changing as Herrick winds down?
Trident should be the very first thing to go.
Please ask your MP to sign EDM 96 which calls for it to be cancelled.
Signatories include Sir Gerald Kaufman.
http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2012-13/96
Many thanks.
I was ‘inducted’ into my National Service at Catterick Camp in 1952 prior to spending most of my two years full-time in the Far East (‘shot at for four bob a day’).
In the first four weeks we were taught how to march, halt, salute anything that moved (and paint anything that didn’t move) and how to kill people using a wide variety of weapons.
Sadly, no-one ever explained why we should WANT to kill anyone.
And we were forbidden to contract PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) in Korea and Malaya. Anyone who had the temerity to be killed, stayed there – no Wootton Bassett then – and I left some very good comrades in a ‘corner of a foreign field’.
It was entirely appropriate then that it was me who moved the anti Iraq war motion at our CLP in February 2003 (carried ‘nem con’) and was gratified that our MP was one of the 139 Labour members who voted against it. (And I am continually reminding people that this was only carried by the Tories voting for it – which makes that conflict a Tory war – not a Labour one).
Since then I have left the Labour Party (as a result of many issues – mainly concerning the loss of democracy) but will continue carrying my own message regarding war and such matters to anyone who cares to listen.
The half-time score is: jingoism 3 – pacifists 1. Hopefully we can overcome such blind prejudice in the second half.
Mick Williams
I too am ex armed forces and can tell you that since leaving the services it is clear you have lost all contact with reality.
To suggest it was a “Tory war – not a Labour one” is the most ludicrous comment I have ever seen on the matter.
The Tories voted in the commons based on the pack of lies fed to the country by the Labour government or more specifically Tony Blair.
I voted Labour at that point and supported Iraq based on the “evidence” the country was presented with. How was I to know a spin doctor had made it up?
After watching Gordon Brown and John Major at the enquiry this week I realise that Labour will lie under oath, as Brown clearly did regarding McBride and John Major seemed straight forward – even down to his praise of Neil Kinnock’s honesty.
I assumed blatant lies would have stopped by Labour supporters after Brown was thrown out but your post leads me to realise how wrong I am…
Anon E Rat
139 Labour MPs did not believe Blair – the leader of their Party – and neither did anyone who had a firm grasp of the reality that he had hi-jacked the Party on behalf of people who were not socialists at all.
A few years ago, at Labour’s centenary, the novelist Linda Grant said: “For the first time in a hundred years the working class have not got a party to call their own”.
Never mind Blair’s weasel words about ‘the many not the few’, the Party’s original clause IV made clear that the party’s main objective was:
“To secure for the workers, by hand and by brain, the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable means of production, distibution and exchange thereof.”
This remains the most succinct definition of what Labour should be about and until it gets back to that it will not secure the return of those like myself who have left in disgust at the way that the Party has changed.
Mick Williams
“Anon E Rat” – Glad to see the New Labour smear merchants are still alive and well and for a man of your age you need to grow up frankly. Typical squaddie.
Since when did the Labour Party act in any socialist manner?
Despite their huge majority when did they repeal any union laws from the Tories for example.
You may not have noticed Mick Williams but the credit crunch aside (where any incumbent will be punished) there has not been the election of a single socialist government if free will in voting is allowed.
The fact is socialism is pathetic and hated by normal people and Labour under it’s most successful leader was the party that took this country into a war based on lies.
I notice you don’t answer my point about it being LABOUR who took this country to war and not the Tories and if those weak spineless members of the PLP didn’t have the balls to resign from the party like George Galloway then unlucky.
Labour took us to war end of. You’re as bad as Gordon Brown forgetting about the activities of his schoolboy bully Damian McBride…