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Armed Forces: Marital Status

Answer

This information is not held in the format requested. Following the phased introduction of joint personnel administration, marital category data are no longer available. Personal marital status is recorded in order to determine entitlement to allowances and service families accommodation. These status categories are: PStat Cat 1—a legally married member of the services or a member of the services who has registered a civil partnership; PStat Cat 2—a member of the services who has parental responsibility in terms of the Children Act for a child(ren) and is regarded as the centre and prime mover in the life of the child(ren), provides a home where they normally live with the child(ren), accepts financial responsibility for the child(ren) and where the child is unable to care for itself, provides a carer, who is not the natural parent of the child(ren) during absences attributable to service life; PStat Cat 3—a member of the services not in PStat Cat 1 or 2 and provides financial support to their former spouse/partner by way of a voluntary agreement; PStat Cat 4—a member of the services not in PStat Cat 1 or 2 and provides financial support to their former spouse/partner by way of a court order; and PStat Cat 5—all other members of the services. The following table provides a breakdown into which personal status category Armed Forces personnel have declared themselves belonging to on their service record:

Personal Status Category	Army		RAF		Navy
	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female
1	21.67%	1.20%	9.76%	0.93%	7.18%	0.38%
2	0.29%	0.26%	0.18%	0.18%	0.09%	0.07%
3	1.88%	0.05%	0.74%	0.01%	0.63%	0.01%
4	0.16%	0.00%	0.04%	0.00%	0.06%	0.00%
5	28.91%	2.79%	8.41%	1.90%	9.58%	1.40%
None recorded	0.32%	0.03%	0.44%	0.10%	0.27%	0.08%
Totals	53.24%	4.33%	19.55%	3.12%	17.81%	1.94%

Joint personnel administration has for the first time allowed service personnel to take responsibility for their own administration. All service personnel are encouraged to notify the service authorities if a child, for which they have responsibility, begins to live with them. However, this is not always done, particularly if they do not reside in service accommodation or the notification of such information does not generate an entitlement to a particular allowance. As a result data that could be provided for children against specific personal status categories do not give an accurate representation of the numbers of children for which our service personnel have responsibility. Information relating to marital categories on legacy personnel systems could be obtained only at disproportionate costs.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

5780; 714 c31-2WA

Session

2008-09

Subjects

Army Air force Divorce Navy Separation Marriage annulment

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk