I've got a fiver on the old HR system being reintroduced within 5 years
Which old system?!! The one that told me I was no longer an employee whose career had to be managed, but was now an "account number"? Under the same system I was once "interviewed" for a "managed move" by a young HR lady two grades below me. (How many Wg Cdrs would be happy with a selection board chaired by a Flt Lt? It simply wouldn't happen). She had absolutely no idea what an engineering programme manager was meant to do and kept asking if I knew how to do things I'd learned in the very first month I worked in MoD as a 16 year old. Which is another way of expressing what I said above. If you have no idea of the benchmark, how can you select the right person?
Want to know one question she asked? (Which she didn't understand, it was just a standard question). She offered a scenario whereby I'd discovered one of my men committing fraud (making a false declaration on aircraft equipment certification). What would I do? You can imagine my reply (which amounted to saying what I'd actually done in real cases, 4 grades before). She erupted and told me I was wrong. Under no circumstances should I take any action whatsoever, in case I hurt the person's feelings. Diddums. I told her the outcome of her policy would be aircraft accidents. She replied, so be it.
Her boss at the time, the idiot in charge of "HR" at AbbeyWood (Director of Personnel, Resources and Development), fully agreed with her. In that one ruling he did more damage to MoD than anyone here can imagine.
But if you mean the system that existed 25 and more years ago, before the term "HR" was invented, than I'd be content.