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Written question asked by Gordon Prentice (Labour) on Tuesday, 21 April 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 23 April 2009. It was answered by Bob Ainsworth (Labour) on Tuesday, 28 April 2009 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Armed Forces: Resignations

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many soldiers bought themselves out of the Army in each year since 1998.
Answer

As soldiers are no longer able to buy themselves out, this question has been interpreted to mean all those individuals who voluntarily left the Army.Due to the ongoing validation of data on the Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system, a break down of exit by reason, including voluntary outflow (VO), cannot currently be produced for the Army from 28 February 2007 onwards.However, the following table shows the number of soldiers leaving under 'VO' from 1998 to 28 February 2007:

Soldier voluntary outflow from trained strength to civil life
Financial year Number of voluntary outflows
1998-99 5,950
1999-2000 5,310
2000-01 5,310
2001-02 4,980
2002-03 4,610
2003-04 4,500
2004-05 4,880
2005-06 4,620
April 2006 to March 2007¹ 4,410
2007-08 ²—
¹ Only 11 months of data currently available. ² — denotes unavailable. Notes: 1. The figures are for trained regular army other ranks (soldiers) only and therefore exclude officers, Gurkhas, Home Service battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment, full-time reserve service, mobilised reserves, TA and all other reserves. 2. For the purpose of this PQ, VO is defined as all exits from trained personnel which are voluntarily generated by the individual before the end of their agreed engagement or commission period (i.e. time expiry). Females who leave on marriage grounds are included in VO exits. 3. Due to the rounding methods used, totals may not always equal the sum of the parts. When rounding to the nearest 10, numbers ending in five have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias.

Soldier voluntary outflow figures can be found in Table five of Tri-Service Publication five 'UK Regular Forces Outflow from Trained Strength to Civil Life' which can be viewed on the DASA web at the following link:"http://bravo.dasa.r.mil.uk.applications/newWeb/www/index.php?page=48&thiscontent=60&date=2009-04-20&pubType=1&PublishTime=09:30:00&from=home&tabOption=3"

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
491 c1155W; 270868
Session
2008-09
Subjects
Armed forces Resignations
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk