6.
CONFIDENTIAL
b. The level of demand for some 10% of courses, including those at the Staff Colleges, is frequently double the available capacity, and this situation is likely to continue. Any significant decrease in capacity on these courses will be severely detrimental to our objectives.
C.
DESO
The fluctuating and largely unpredictable demands of sales-related training are placing further strain, particularly in the RN, on training staff, and difficulties are being experienced in the provision of suitable LSP for in-country advice and training. predicts that the recent high level of sales of defence equipment will continue. Further, they consider that related training and support packages will continue to be critical factors in the successful outcome of most sales
efforts. Any further decrease in training capacity would therefore aggravate detriment to the Services and could
harm export sales.
The National Audit Office have noted in their latest
report on Service Training that only some 83% of planned service trainee days are actually achieved. While this might suggest that there is scope for improving the productivity of the training machine, it would be misleading to assume that the outstanding 17% could be used for F&C training, s ince the areas in which the shortfall occurred, notice of availability and the circumstances surrounding the under- utilization need to be taken into account. The range of courses in which F&C students participate is relatively narrow when compared with the spectrum of training activity, and capacity on irrelevant courses is of no use to F&C training
staffs.
7. It should be noted that while many overseas students take up places on courses planned to meet UK requirements, there are countries (including some which are targeted for
assistance) whose armed forces are insufficiently sophisticated to benefit from courses designed for UK
servicemen or whose equipment differs from that in current British use. This applies particularly to some of the smaller
E-3
CONFIDENTIAL