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Proposals to integrate the External Scrutiny Team into the Military Strategic Headquarters will undermine the only honest safeguard for transformation of the UK’s reserve forces.

The UK established the External Scrutiny Team (EST) to reassure Parliament the reserves would be ready to answer the call of duty, and to ensure delivery of the transformation the Ministry of Defence (MoD) promised in the Future Reserves 2020 Review (FR20).

Today, another transformation is needed; the UK Strategic Defence Review (SDR) stresses the threats and highlights the importance of the reserves in responding to them. NATO and NATO allies are moving faster than the UK in adapting their reserves to these same threats.

A MoD proposal to integrate the EST within the newly formed Military Strategic Headquarters (MSHQ), even if motivated by good intentions, would undermine the assurance that the reserves were ready to defend the nation. An independent EST remains vital for ensuring an honest assessment of the state of the UK’s reserves, and thus an important element of ensuring that Defence and wider society are prepared for the challenges they face. The proposal is deeply flawed and should be rejected.

The EST plays the role of a critical friend, providing informed and honest feedback on the state of the UK’s Reserve Forces and the impact of MoD plans on the reserves. Its statutory independence was deemed essential to support the reserves transformation envisaged by FR20 and captured in the subsequent white paper of 2013. Both publications recognised the need to reverse years of neglect, hence the definition in the Defence Reform Act of 2014 of the team’s responsibilities. This allows Parliament and ministers to monitor the rebuilding of the reserve forces.

There have been serious failures, which have been called out in annual EST reports allowing MOD and ministers to see the reality on the ground. The reserve transformation needed today is arguably more profound, requiring reorganisation for fighting a major war in Europe with the concomitant threat to the homeland. The threat, and consequent need for building the capacity for both fighting at scale and resilience is galvanising NATO and our NATO allies, but the UK is responding far too slowly. From late 2024 to early 2025, NATO expanded the role and contribution of reserve forces, having recognised that affordable mass, depth of specialisation and links to society can best be achieved through greater citizen military forces.

The UK’s SDR contained a welcome recognition that active reserve forces should play a larger role in defence with a commitment to expand, albeit very ambiguously ‘when funds allow’, and called for immediate measures to improve recruitment and retention. It also applauded government efforts to ‘simplify the structures and types of reserves, amplify the visibility and recognition of their roles, and make it easier to scale specialist skills and mobilise them if required.’

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