John Spellar – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Spellar on 2016-10-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what proportion of people leaving the armed forces are still unemployed six months after the end of their service.

Mark Lancaster

UK Service personnel with four or more years’ Service who voluntarily left the Armed Forces in Financial Year 2014-15 (the latest statistic available) and used the Career Transition Partnership (CTP) services had the following estimated employment outcomes, up to six months after leaving:

Notes: The Ministry of Defence (MOD) does not record the training outcomes of Service leavers. The following categories of personnel have been included in the definition of those leaving Service voluntarily; those reaching the end of their engagement; those giving notice to terminate and those medically discharged. Figures include all Service leavers who used the Career Transition Partnership, less Early Service Leavers (this includes those with less than four years’ service and those compulsorily discharged). The numbers and percentages for employment outcomes cannot be summed together, as the unemployment figures were calculated on a different population to the employment and economically inactive figures. All totals and sub-totals have been rounded and so may not equal the sums of their rounded parts. When rounding to the nearest 10, numbers ending in “5” have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias.

For Early Service Leavers (ESL i.e. those with less than four years service or those compulsorily discharged irrespective of length of Service), the Future Horizons Programme (FHP) for ESL was introduced on 1 October 2013. Between 1 October 2013 and 31 March 2014 approximately 33% of eligible personnel participated in FHP. During Financial Year 2014-15 some 62% of eligible personnel participated in the Future Horizons Programme. Prior to the establishment of FHP all ESL were entitled to unit level support as part of standard MOD policy.

From 1 October 2015, the resettlement provision for ESL is termed CTP Future Horizons. Official statistics on the six-months post-discharge employment status of ESL who used CTP Future Horizons will be published in January 2017 as part of the CTP official statistic.