UK Armed Forces seeks digital recruitment platform provider

The Armed Forces Recruitment Programme (AFRP) is looking for a supplier to roll out, manage and host a digital recruitment system, as it looks to rationalise recruitment data capture across the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.

As a core critical business application for the AFRP, the recruitment platform is expected to provide a smooth application experience for candidates, while still allowing staff members to process applications easily and enabling gatekeepers to access information.

Data analytics capability will be one of the key features of the platform, which will support senior staff in determining the strategy and plans for the recruitment process.

The procurement exercise follows several blunders around the delivery of the current online platform used to support recruitment in the Armed Forces.

A 52-month delay in rolling out the system under a £495m contract with outsourcing firm Capita caused the Army to miss its annual recruitment targets by an average of 30%, according to a report from the National Audit Office (NAO).

Originally developed to cater for the three branches of the Armed Forces, the problems faced by Capita in delivering the system were centred around the scale of requirements, including the level of customisation, lack of IT infrastructure provided by the Ministry of Defence, and the number of interfaces with other IT systems.

The Royal Navy and Royal Air Force also used the online recruitment system when it was launched and experienced reduced applications and enlistments, but didn’t feel as much of an impact as they had their own business continuity arrangements, the NAO report stated.