Army Secretariat
Army Headquarters
IDL 24 Blenheim Building
Marlborough Lines
Andover
Hampshire, SP11 8HJ
United Kingdom
E-mail:
xxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx
Ref: FOI2022/02428
Website:
www.army.mod.uk
Mr David Gee
request-836461-
23 March 2022
xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Dear Mr Gee
Thank you for your email of 24 February in which you requested the following information:
1) What proportion of recruits enrolled for the long course at the Army Foundation College (AFC) completed
their training in the last five years?
2) Of the remainder (who did not complete training), what proportion left due to a) exercising their right of
discharge, b) medical discharge, and c) being dismissed for poor performance, behaviour, or other such
reason?
3) Can you please also send whatever guidelines used by Commanding Officer at the College explaining
the conditions under which recruits may leave or be dismissed?
I am treating your correspondence as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) 2000. A search has now been completed and I confirm that the Ministry of Defence holds
information within the scope of your request.
The answers to questions 1 and 2 can be found in the table below:
16/17
17/18
18/19
19/20
20/21
Junior Entry (Long)
900
836
845
1086
1034
Basic Training
Starts at AFC
JE(L) Cohort
206
194
252
358
408
Discharge at AFC
1. Not required for
26%
39%
33%
5%
3%
Army Service /
Other
2. Discharge As Of
53%
46%
59%
75%
82%
Right
3. Defect in
12%
10%
2%
14%
8%
enlistment
procedure
4. Unsuitable /
0%
0%
0%
1%
1%
Conviction /
Misconduct
5. Family /
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Compassionate
7. Medical
9%
5%
5%
6%
4%
Discharge
Notes/Caveats:
1. The data has been provided from a single Service source rather than official statistics produced by
Defence Statistics as they do not collate this information.
2. Cohort rates can change over time.
3. This data is not to be used for other purposes or compared with other sources.
Under Section 16 of the FOIA (advice and assistance) I can advise you of the following:
1. In relation to question 1: A significant number of trainees churn from the Junior Entry course to an
Senior Entry course. This means that they don’t complete training at AFC but neither do they
discharge and they may (or may not) complete Basic Training (BT) elsewhere. Accordingly, we are
providing cohort numbers for trainees who actually discharged from AFC.
2. In relation to question 2: Distribution across categories relates to the discharges in 1. above.
In answer to question 3: Discharge is governed b
y Queen’s Regulation codes and AGAI 49 (attached).
If you have any queries regarding the content of this letter, please contact this office in the first instance.
Following this, if you wish to complain about the handling of your request, or the content of this response,
you can request an independent internal review by contacting the Information Rights Compliance team,
Ground Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail
xxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xx). Please note that
any request for an internal review should be made within 40 working days of the date of this response.
If you remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you may raise your complaint directly to the
Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act. Please
note that the Information Commissioner will not normally investigate your case until the MOD internal
review process has been completed. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information
Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Further details of the
role and powers of the Information Commissioner can be found on the Commissioner's website at
https://ico.org.uk/. Yours sincerely,
Workforce Team
Army Secretariat
