UK Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey: a short history and description of a key strategic information tool

The tri-Service Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey, commonly known as AFCAS, was introduced in 2007 to coherently assess and monitor the attitudes of Regular Service personnel in key policy and management areas and is used by groups internal and external to the Ministry of Defence. It is a statistically valid and robust survey which is annually distributed to almost 28 000 regular serving personnel. AFCAS data have been used to inform the development and evaluation of a wide range of personnel policies, including remuneration, accommodation, flexible working, career management and training. AFCAS allows for the tracking of attitudes over time, as well as the analysis of differences between respondent cohorts. AFCAS is well regarded as it is a one-stop shop survey for strategic personnel issues. This article describes the purpose, content, conduct and use of the survey to inform Armed Forces personnel policy.