§ Patrick MercerTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the cost was per capita of training a 225WS successful military recruit to the agreed standard (a) in 1997 and (b) in the last 12 months; and what the difference was expressed in percentage terms. [88334]
§ Dr. MoonieThe information is not held in the format requested. However, the average cost of initial training for successful recruits is set out as follows:
£000 Officer Other rank 1999–20001 Royal Navy 25.3 4.4 Royal Marine 97.9 31.8 2001–02 Royal Navy 31.1 6.9 Royal Marine 103 33 1RN/RM figures for 1997–98 and 1998–99 are not readily available
£000 Officer Other rank 1997–98 Army 40.6 5.6 RAF 15.8 3.8 2001–02 Army 52.6 7.3 RAF 17.9 4.5 The 2001–02 costs were calculated on a resource basis (thus including overheads), whereas costs for previous years were only based on cash. It would, therefore, be inappropriate to make a percentage comparison between the two sets of figures. There are also significant differences between the services in the scope of initial training so that it is generally inappropriate to use these figures to make inter-service comparisons.