One Rank One Pension: Its impact on the defence budget

Published as an Issue Brief by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF)

http://www.orfonline.org/research/one-rank-one-pension-its-impact-on-the-defence-budget/

The One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme will pay a uniform pension to armed forces personnel, who retire with the same rank after the same length of service, regardless of their date of retirement. It has quickly become one of the most politicised of all military issues in the country today, which may be called odd, given that the political class rarely takes interest in matters related to the military. Indeed, the debate over OROP, ostensibly an employee-benefit programme, has become a leitmotif of all that is wrong with the nation's treatment of the military. Lost in the political din, however, is the key question of affordability. Not being discussed either are questions on long-pending structural reforms in the military, on issues like officer shortages and the need for modernisation. This paper examines the potential impact of OROP on the nation's coffers.