Army Cadets / British Rifles /

Mr Manderson

I am working on your FOI request. Grateful if you could just clarify
your third question as there are several definitions of tour. My
assumption was information relating to an operational tour - such as in
Iraq or Afghanistan but I may be incorrect with this. Please clarify asap.

Thanks

DES Sec Pol Sec JSC 1b

AN400/G/Zone 4

Ref: 27-05-2008-073025-007

Dear Mr Manderson

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Thank you for your e mail of 24 May 2008 requesting information about
rifles and the Army Cadet Force.  Your correspondence has been considered
to be a request for information in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. 

Question 1:

Has the Ministry of Defence made an enquiry into replacing the current
British Rifle with one capable of being fired left handed?

The SA80 family of weapons, including the SA80-A2 Individual Weapon or
Rifle 5.56mm cannot be fired left handed.  The SA80 will remain in
service until 2020 and there are no plans to investigate a left handed
variant in this time frame.

Question 2:

How many Light Support weapons (LSW) have been taken from Army Cadet Force
Regiments to be handed back to the British Army?

900 LSWs (the entire stock of the ACF Regiments) were taken for
refurbishment by the Army in 2002.

Question 3:

What additional payments are made to British Soldiers who complete a tour
of duty in Iraq for example?

Additional entitlements for an Operational Tour to Iraq are as follows:

1.         Operational Allowance.  A tax-free allowance of
£2,380 for a 6-month operational tour, or pro-rata payment of £13.08 per
day. 

2.         Council Tax relief.  This equates to £140 for a
6-month tour.  

3.         In addition, personnel on a 6 month tour will also
accrue Longer Separation Allowance (LSA).  While LSA is not tied to
Operational Tours in the way that Operational Allowance and Council Tax
relief are, it is nonetheless an additional entitlement that will be paid
to personnel in Iraq if they are separate from 'home' for periods in
excess of 10 days; thus, those on operational tour will receive LSA for
the full 6 months of their tour.  LSA is taxable, and is paid on an
incremental scale, depending on the length of separation experienced
through their career.  There are 14 increments, ranging from £6.38 to
£26.94 per day, although the majority of personnel currently claiming are
on increment Level 1 (£6.38 taxable per day) or Level 2 (£9.97 taxable
per day).    

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your
own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for
the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for example commercial
publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. Most
documents supplied by the Ministry of Defence will have been produced by
government officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on
the arrangements for re-using Crown Copyright from the Office of Public
Sector Information at: [1]http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/index.htm

Information you receive which is not subject to Crown Copyright continues
to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from
which the information originated. You must ensure that you gain their
permission before reproducing any third party (non Crown Copyright)
information.

If you are unhappy with this response or you wish to complain about any
aspect of the handling of your request, then you should contact me in the
first instance. If informal resolution is not possible and you are still
dissatisfied then you may apply for an independent internal review by
contacting the Director of Information Exploitation, 6^th Floor, MOD Main
Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail [email address]). Please note that
any request for an internal review must be made within 40 working days of
the date on which the attempt to reach informal resolution has come to an
end.

If you remain unhappy following an internal review, you may take your
complaint to the Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section
50 of the Freedom of Information Act. Please note that the Information
Commissioner will not investigate the case until the internal review
process has been completed. Further details of the role and powers of the
Information Commissioner can be found on the Commissioner's website,
[2]http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.u...

I hope this helpful.

Yours sincerely

DE&S POL SEC JSC

Ministry of Defence

References

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1. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/index.htm
2. http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/