§ Sir D. Rentonasked the Minister of State for Defence what are the present duties and establishment of the Royal Observer Corps; how far below establishment is the present strength; and what steps he is taking to encourage volunteers to come forward and fill the gap.
§ Lord LambtonThe Royal Observer Corps is the field force of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation for which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is operationally responsible. It is required to be ready to report the position and power of nuclear weapons' bursts over the United Kingdom and to record and report the intensity of the radioactive fallout. The information gathered would be transmitted to both military and civil authorities, and would be fed in from the underground posts which the Royal Observer Corps maintains throughout the whole of the British Isles.
The establishment is 12,537 and the present strength 11,100, all part-time volunteers save for a small nucleus of whole-time Royal Observer Corps officers.
Efforts are constantly being made to encourage recruitment to the corps, but publicity tends to be local rather than national.