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Armed Forces: Recruitment

Volume 477: debated on Monday 16 June 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what (a) target and (b) actual recruitment to the (i) Army, (ii) Royal Navy, and (iii) Royal Air Force was in each year since 1997. (210696)

The following table shows the recruitment targets form 2000-01 to 2007-08 and the actual recruitment from 1997-98 to 2007-08 to the UK regular1 forces by service.

1997-984

1998-994

1999-20004

2000-01

2001-02

2002-03

2003-04

2004-05

2005-06

2006-07

2007-08

All services

Intake2

23,510

26,000

25,550

23,020

23,720

26,350

23,540

17,590

18,150

519,790

521,310

Target3

n/a

n/a

n/a

25,490

23,340

25,340

23,270

18,270

18,840

19,870

21,900

Navy

Intake2

4,600

4,770

4,950

4,620

5,010

5,220

4,120

3,690

3,940

53,770

53,860

Target3

n/a

n/a

n/a

4,840

5,040

5,060

4,160

3,750

3,930

4,030

4,260

Army

Intake2

15,380

16,990

16,500

14,770

14,930

16,690

15,260

11,720

12,730

514,300

514,520

Target3

n/a

n/a

n/a

16,670

14,160

15,270

14,490

12,250

13,400

13,950

14,550

RAF

Intake2

3,530

4,250

4,100

3,630

3,780

4,450

4,160

2,180

1,480

1,720

52,930

Target3

n/a

n/a

n/a

3,980

4,140

5,000

4,610

2,210

1,500

1,890

3,080

n/a = not available

1 UK regular forces includes nursing services and excludes full time reserve service personnel, Gurkhas, the home service battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment and mobilised reservists. It includes trained and untrained personnel.

2 Actual recruitment (intake from civilian life) figures are taken from table 3 in TSP1, the latest edition is available at www.dasa.mod.uk.

3 Recruitment target figures have been provided by the single services.

4 Recruitment targets are not available pre financial year 2000-01.

5 Denotes provisional and subject to review due to ongoing data validation of the joint personnel administration system (JPA).

Note:

Numbers are rounded to the nearest 10.

Source:

DASA (Quad-Service)