I see it as the pre-WW2 National Service that Chamberlain brought in, get a shed load of people measured for kit and through Phase 1 maybe even Phase 2 and then out but available for immediate call up.
However as mentioned above they are blathering about Cyber so maybe that’s where Special K is going?
With the gap year commissions I think it was a shortened course at Sandburst, with more of the time spent on exercise / deployment with a regular unit.
Again I think it’s something that’s been very badly sold, what they should’ve done is have 2 separate programs:
Program 1 - National Volunteering for young people, comprising of the proposed 1 weekend a month
Program 2 - 30,000 Gap Year Commissions (or whatever they want to call it). Oh and by the way of you join program 2 (or as a Regular, Reserve or <insert list of public jobs including Police & Fire Fighter here>) then you are exempt from Program 1.
A lot of it for me comes down to what you want to achieve, are you looking to give people a taste of drill, shooting and tactical camping so that they consider a military career or are you looking to smash through Phase 1 & 2 to create a ready reserve to fight the Russians?
If the former then maybe the French approach of 1 month between the age of 15-17 could work better?
Votes. Cynical, but I don’t believe there’s a well thought out endgame/ long term plan.
I wouldn’t be surprised if any implementation was allowed to fall flat at a small, trial scale and never spoken about again.
Anyone remember David Cameron’s Big Society?
It’s ok, today their thinking is that in future public sector jobs will only be available to people who have completed their national service 
What if… “National Service” was a mandatory thing - for all young adults to complete X years of Public Service…
This could include military service, emergency services, NHS, Social Care, Youth / Adult care, Judiciary / CPS - but also include engineering, cyber, construction, utilities, education etc… on the provision that everything is done in the public / national interest…
It could be linked to an apprenticeship scheme, with an international, industry recognised qualification - with the aim of providing on job training, to create entire cohorts of employable young people…
Young people that have had the opportunity to actually “have a job” and experience the benefits of being paid for something meaningful - while working within a team…
This could be used as massively ramped up version of Work Experience and the Technical Vocational Education Initiative that was around in the 70s / 80s.
Make it a condition that it has to be completed by their xx birthday.
Tax incentives for the private sector based on the number of young people that they take on - and a further incentive if they complete.
Build in a “day release” program so that young people can leave school at 16 (or even 14!) on the basis that they have to return for 8 hours per week to cover basic maths, English, science, cyber & RPHE / Social studies… so that they achieve SOME GCSEs or equivalent.
Encourage young people to use it as an opportunity to get a foot in the door within a career sector they want to pursue…
Sir Humphrey Appleby? I thought he commissioned a poll to be against national service?
One of my favourite, most quotable, scenes.
No matter what type of National Service it is, one Thing remains true, Conscrips don’t make good soldiers. The Defence minister said it himself, All it would do is decrease Morale, and discipline in whichever sector it is implemented
Image getting told you need to get a cancer screening, off a 18 year old who’s being forced to be there
or your house being saved by a conscript firefighter, who isn’t getting paid to run in
It’s a daft idea aimed at the gammons
This is basically what NCS is meant to be these days. It doesn’t work.
That’s what I used to think, but the international evidence says otherwise. The Scandinavian model competitively selects the top school leavers, who see being selected as a privilege and their service as a duty. Meanwhile, our Army gets the school leavers who can’t do anything else.
Because in the politest way, high achieving young people have better things to do and would be more beneficial to society as a whole by sticking to their current career trajectory.
You’ve hit the nail on the head, The British public for the most part don’t take pride in the Army especially. Anytime i tell someone that i’m joining up i get looks like i’m wrong in the head.
with that in mind, do we think that people will try their best if forced it
I’ll alert all of the Serviceman in WW2 and Korea.
Let’s be realistic 1 weekend a month volunteers aren’t going to be doing any of these things. I would guess that no thought has been given to what they would be doing, at best sweeping up?!
Aside from something Cadets want to do as their residential for DofE I don’t really know much about NCS.
Outside of I’ll informed TikToks no one is suggesting firing people into the military in this policy announcement.
It’s changed since I left through another recontracting.
Previously there were 3 main phases which were an AT residential, a “skills” week and then a “social action” (read: community service) week. People completing those 3 or 4 weeks (it varied by area) could then become a graduate and do ad-hoc giving-back to their communities.
It’s now changed to “Year of Service” and I understand it has much more of a focus on the social action element of things over a more prolonged period. It very much aligns with the community service idea that the Tories are now pushing for the volunteering element of National Service, as I understand it, just not explicitly with public services (although it can be).
The conscripts only accounted for ~30% of the British Army in WW2. and although I can’t find the stats for that war, you can see the failure of conscripts from russia, any the yanks in vietnam.
Do what’s the point if they’re not learning skills or actually doing good???
My comment was made in reference to anything really, try motivate a dog left when it wants to go right. you need a lot of motivation that this gov can’t afford
Finland has the gold standard when it comes to integrating universal military service for males into both the national defence and local community level: some 80% of young men complete it, and the country has one of the highest proportion of university graduates in the world as well, so military service is compatible with further education and employment. One can volunteer for longer periods in order to train for specialist trades, and do further training and service on overseas operations, such as UNIFIL and Afghanistan when the latter campaign was being fought.
Finland has similar civilian firearms legislation to the UK pre-1989, so one can own a target, hunting or semi-automatic service rifle and use it on shooting ranges or in the forests, or indeed, in defence of one’s nation and freedom, as in the case of the 1939-40 Winter War.
The Norwegian armed forces, like other NATO countries, had universal conscription during the first Cold War, but today’s highly-selective model bears little relation to the former system, which was heavily subsidised with weapons and equipment supplied by the USA. The current model has been criticised within Norwegian military circles as being elitist and of limited or no utility in the face of a major war… particularly since Feb 22. The defence of Norway still relies on rapid reinforcement by NATO allies, particularly the USA.
A nation’s armed forces aren’t there as some sort of social engineering programme for young people, in order that they become more productive and moral members of society: they exist to kill or threaten to kill its enemies, and thereby defend itself and protect its overseas trade and interests, military and UK foreign policy objectives the National Servicemen fulfilled between 1948-63.
It seems that the Conservatives have already had to tone down the mandatory and military aspects of this National Service proposal: the British people have always been anti-military, and the UK Armed Forces just don’t have the training establishments or resources to accept thousands of short-term recruits, let alone employ them in operational roles.
The last time Britain could have had conscripted service personnel would have been in the 1980s, when we had large forces: you need large regular armies to have large conscript armies, unless one adopts either the Finnish, Israeli or Swiss methods of militarising nearly all their male citizens, and a fair proportion of female citizens as well.
If the British public weren’t anti-military, then they wouldn’t have allowed the near-constant defence cuts (or ‘Reviews’) that have been inflicted upon the UK Armed Forces since 1992 by both Conservative and Labour Governments: they are both equally to blame for running down our defences. But there’s no votes in defence matters for any political party.
A lot of those who served in WWII would have volunteered for their chosen service rather than wait to be conscripted: one of my Grandfathers joined the Royal Navy and the other the Royal Marines before they were called up. If you read any of the autobiographical accounts written by wartime RAF servicemen, they volunteered for that service as soon as they were able. As we know, many were former Air Cadets.
So you’re right: those who were conscripted rather than volunteered made up a relatively small percentage of Britain’s armed forces in WWII. What is remarkable is that immense numbers of British citizens were not only enlisted, but well-trained, armed and equipped for service in an immense globe-spanning conflict, thereby turning a relatively small pre-war army and air force (the Royal Navy was already a formidable service) into arguably the best examples of those two services compared to both allied and axis powers in terms of quality - and even quantity to a lesser degree. 
I think a simpler thing would be to link with university fees.
Each year you work in the public sector after graduating the government pays/writes off 10% off student loan.
It mean that students clear their student loan quicker & the public sector get the best applicants that can’t be tempted by the private sector (who would need to match with equivalent pay).
You volunteer in the public sector doing a recognised role (CFAv, reserves, specials, on call firefighter) you get 5%.