Future British Army Structure (Next Steps)

Army 2020 Refine, formerly known as Future Army Structure (Next Steps) or FAS (Next Steps), is the name given to an ongoing restructuring of the British Army, and in particular its fighting brigades.

The British Government gave an indication of its proposals for the future structure of the Army in early 2008, in a press report stating that it was considering restructuring the Army into a force of three deployable divisional headquarters and eight 'homogenous or identical' brigades, each with a spread of heavy, medium and light capabilities. This report indicated that the existing 16 Air Assault Brigade would be retained as a high-readiness rapid reaction force.

Subsequently, it was reported that the former Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, wanted to see the Army structured so as to extend the interval between operational tours from two to two-and-a-half years.

In 2010, the Strategic Defence and Security Review was published. As part of the plans, the British Army will be reduced by 23 regular units, and by 2020 will number 117,000 soldiers, of whom 82,000 will be regulars and 35,000 will be reservists. The Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 increased the planned number of reservists from 30,000 to 35,000.

On 7 June 2012, the Secretary of State for Defence set out some key considerations for the future of the British Army. Refinements to the plans following the 2015 Review became known as "Army 2020 Refine". Further changes were announced in a written statement in December 2016.

The originally envisaged future structure was announced on 19 July 2011 in a briefing paper entitled Defence Basing Review: Headline Decisions. This structure had five identical multi-role brigades, each of around 6,500 personnel. However, in June 2012 a significantly different structure known as Army 2020 was announced.

The divisional headquarters of 2nd, 4th and 5th Divisions were disbanded in 2012 and replaced by a single formation known as Support Command, based at Aldershot.

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