Army Policy and Secretariat
Army Headquarters
IDL 24 Blenheim Building
Marlborough Lines
Andover
Hampshire, SP11 8HJ
United Kingdom
Ref: ArmyPolSec/D/N/FOI2022/10712
E-mail
: xxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx
Website:
www.army.mod.uk
Mr David Gee
request-898734-
xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
7 October 2022
Dear Mr Gee,
Thank you for your email of 14 September 2022 in which you requested the following
information:
Can you please tell me: 1. How many suicides/open verdict deaths in the army
between 2001 and 2020 were of infantry personnel (including infantry trainees). 2. The
number of infantry personnel in each year between 2001 and 2020.
I am treating your correspondence as a request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) 2000. A search for the information has now been completed within the
Ministry of Defence, and I can confirm that the information in scope of your request is held and
is provided below.
Question 1. In the period 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2020, there were 64 coroner
confirmed suicidesi verdicts among UK regular Army Infantry personnel.
Source: Defence Statistics Health.
Question 2.
The number of Infantry personnel in each year between 2001 and 2020 is
provided in the table below.
Table 1. Regular Army Infantry personnel, as at 1 April each year, 2001 - 2020
Year
Total
2020
19,355
2019
18,836
2018
19,629
2017
20,778
2016
21,561
2015
22,005
2014
23,217
2013
25,875
2012
26,712
2011
26,797
2010
27,367
2009
26,598
2008
25,401
2007
25,691
2006
26,292
2005
27,310
2004
28,664
2003
28,786
2002
28,863
2001
28,927
Source: Analysis Army
Notes/Caveats:
1. The figures are for the Trade Trained Regular Army only and therefore exclude Gurkhas, Full Time Reserve
Service, Mobilised Reserves, Army Reserve and all other Reserves, but includes those personnel that have
transferred from GURTAM to UKTAP.
2. All Officers of Paid Rank Colonel and above are excluded from these figures, regardless of late Arm/Service.
3. Other Ranks in Senior Soldier Continuity Posts are excluded from these figures, regardless of late
Arm/Service.
4. Figures are for all Infantry personnel, regardless of where they may be serving.
Section 16 (Advice and Assistance). You may find it helpful to note that the information
presented includes coroner-confirmed suicides in line with the definition used by the Office for
National Statistics (ONS) in the publication of National Statistics. The National Statistics
definition of suicide includes deaths given an underlying cause of intentional self-harm or an
injury/poisoning of undetermined intent. In England and Wales, it has been customary to
assume that most injuries and poisonings of undetermined intent are cases where the harm
was self-inflicted, but there was insufficient evidence to prove that the deceased deliberately
intended to kill themselves and thus given an open or narrative verdict by the coroner.
Figures are for regular personnel and only those reservists who have died whilst on
operational deployment as Defence Statistics Health do not routinely receive notification of all
reserve deaths.
Figures for suicides/open verdicts include both trained and untrained personnel.
The Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system is the most accurate source for demographic
information on UK Armed Forces personnel.
A service person’s cap badge was identified using the ‘Cap Badge’ field in JPA. Anyone with
a Cap Badge of ‘Infantry’ has been included in this analysis.
Defence Statistics Health produce an annual National Statistic on
Suicide in the UK Armed
Forces which is released at the end of March every year.
If you have any queries regarding the content of this letter, please contact this office in the
first instance. Fol owing 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,
Army Policy and Secretariat
i Suicides collectively refer to all suicide, open verdict and narrative – open deaths in line with National statistics reporting.
