Royal Navy and Airforce get low-code bridge in UK military recruitment saga
- Reference: 1614857288
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/03/04/navy_and_airforce_get_lowcode/
- Source link:
A contract award notice said the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy were naming the supplier to build a no-code/low-code “applicant support tool” with reporting analytics to help with the hiring of personnel.
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The plan is to “provide a more efficient recruitment operating model; enhance the recruiter's experience; improve the candidate's experience; remove the need for local off-system candidate tracking tools; and introduce new capabilities such as ranking candidates across all careers offices in a single merit order list to allow selection of the best available rather than taking 'first past the post',” [3]the notice said .
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Crew aboard the HMS Westminster Type 23 frigate in 2018
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The call-off from the G-Cloud Framework Agreement would result in a three-year deal for subscription fees and professional services.
The accompanying contract said data may be processed in AWS data centres in the UK but that no personally identifiable information would be stored in that cloud.
The Airforce and the Navy have access to the much-troubled [6]Defence Recruiting System , the result of a 2011 £1.3bn deal with Capita, but the low-code platform could also address legacy systems.
Capita's Recruitment Partnership Project (RPP) for the Ministry of Defence went live in 2017, [7]riddled with bugs and missing critical functionality, leaving recruits unable to register .
What's the price of failure? For Capita, it's a £140m extension to its MoD recruiting contract [8]READ MORE
In 2019, [9]MPs described the British Army as naïve for signing the deal.
The Royal Navy and Royal Air Force were also affected by the glitches, but to a much lesser extent, losing around 150 and 84 recruits respectively since November 2017, according to [10]a report from spending watchdog the National Audit Office .
Nonetheless, Capita has been awarded a [11]two-year contract extension worth £140m , set to start in March 2022.
Now the UK armed forces are [12]tendering for a new system set to be worth between £1bn and £1.75bn including a transition period, a seven-year contract and an optional three-year extension.
In October last year, the [13]government launched its second effort to bring together military recruitment in the UK . The new model, set to be in place from 2024, would help ensure that the quantity and quality of candidates meet the needs of all three services, while providing a clearer route for people looking to join the armed forces, the government said at the launch of the Armed Forces Recruiting Programme (AFRP).
“All three services are looking to transform their recruiting operations over the next 2 to 5 years and have given commitment for alignment and coherence by March 2024,” it said.
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Meanwhile, Capita marches on undeterred. After the British Army renewed a contract that retained Capita at the heart of its recruitment services, the [15]outsourcer snaffled a £1bn deal to provide training services for the Royal Navy and Marines. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/14/capita_recruiting_partnership_project_140m_extension/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YEESLypofMcHHwCbGyvRvQAAAAQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/84722945-eaa7-43cf-b229-f7fd8f611c13
[4] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/03/03/shutterstock_1249950520.jpg
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YEESLypofMcHHwCbGyvRvQAAAAQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/22/capita_british_army_applications_declined/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2017/12/08/capita_recruiting_partnership_project_borked/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/14/capita_recruiting_partnership_project_140m_extension/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2019/03/01/capita_mod_defence_recruiting_system_project_pac_report/
[10] https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Investigation-into-the-British-Army-Recruiting-Partnering-Project-Summary.pdf
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/14/capita_recruiting_partnership_project_140m_extension/
[12] https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:605926-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML
[13] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/next-steps-for-future-tri-service-recruiting-programme-revealed
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YEESLypofMcHHwCbGyvRvQAAAAQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/18/capita_navy_training/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Stranger things have happened ..... and are happening all the time too, nowadays.
One does have to ask, given the litany of admitted failures, are they, Capita, a Trojan Horse destroying homegrown talent in favour of a foreign power, or is it just serial incompetence based upon the fraudulent promise of excellent products and services ‽ .
Here we go....
Cloud.
Block chain
AI
And now low code.
This year's bullshit bingo candidate.
Re: Here we go....
This year's bullshit bingo candidate so far. There's plenty of time left.
Low code
Nothing fancy, just re-branded BPM. It does work under the right conditions and automating a well-defined process is a good example where BPM works well. I have used Pega in a bank to automate credit processing which is highly regulated and needs to support large volumes, way more than RN/RAF applications.
Better solution
Press gangs!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressment
Re: Better solution
If the RAF were to follow the Navy's "accustomed to the sea" model, and press those "accustomed to the air", that'd be half the population up for grabs
Back in the Mists of the Past
I vaguely remember a time when military recruitment had passed on from grabbing people and hitting them with sticks, yet still needed no computing; instead youths, mostly, strolled into Army Recruitment Centres.
No doubt spoilt by the IRA --- though if anywhere should be securely screened from attack it is such places --- but it didn't cost billions to run.
Re: Back in the Mists of the Past
Armed Forces Career Offices still exist. You need somewhere to do Phase 1 candidate interviews before actually sending them off to a selection centre somewhere.
The IRA were an issue. Most centres have discreetly armoured glass and you have to be buzzed in through the front door.
But they've reduced the number and some are also "branch" offices, usually staffed full-time by Army bods with RAF and Navy/Marine advisors only available a couple of days a week. There aren't many where you can walk in and bods from every service are available to talk to you. In many cases they're no longer a one-stop-shop covering the whole process between enquiry and central selection, meaning you might have a small office in your town where you can sign up and talk trades, but you then need to travel to go to an interview, or book appointments to speak to a relevant advisor.
Consequently it makes increasing sense to centralise and digitise the administration, which also reduces physical paperwork being held in branch locations, simplifying DLP/Infosec from a Physical Security standpoint. They also want to avoid recruit details being shipped between offices via USB stick cough . Shipping a dossier of recruit details from an office to a handful of Selection Centres is one thing, but when they can be bouncing to different recruiting offices there's far more scope for material to end up in the wrong place.
A recruitment application where "no personally identifiable information" will be used...
Won't that make recruitment a bit difficult?
So now it's low code
They obviously haven't the faintest idea what it is, but it's trending, so we'll ask for that.
Um, guys, low-code means you don't need a coder to write it up. You can do it yourselves. THAT'S WHAT IT'S FOR.
Tendering for a low-code "specialist" is like hiring someone to eat your food for you. You can eat it yourself.
Truly Crapita can do no bad. One has to wonder how many civil servants or/and military personnel are expecting jobs when they leave their current employers.