Army Policy and Secretariat
Army Headquarters
IDL 24 Blenheim Building
Marlborough Lines
Andover
Hampshire, SP11 8HJ
United Kingdom
Ref: ArmyPolSec/D/N/FOI2022/12210
E-mail
: xxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx
Website:
www.army.mod.uk
Mr David Gee
request-898734-
xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
14 November 2022
Dear Mr Gee,
Thank you for your email of 20 October 2022 in response to my letter of 7 October 2022
(FOI2022/10712) in which you requested some additional information:
A. I'd like to ask a follow-up question. Of the 64 coroner-confirmed suicides in the
infantry between 2001 and 2020:
a) What were their ages in years at the time of their death?
b) What were their ages in years at the time they enlisted?
B. Can you also please confirm that in calculating that there were 64 infantry suicides
in the period, whether infantry trainees were included in the count?
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 A. The information is provided in the table below.
Table 1: UK Regular Army Infantry coroner confirmed suicides by age at entry1 and age at death,
numbers.
1 January 2001 to 31 December 2020
Number of
Number of
Age
entries1 by
deaths by
(years)
age
age
16
18
0
17
18
3
18
4
6
19
5
3
20
9
5
21
3
6
22
0
4
23
2
5
24
3
3
25
0
1
26
1
3
27
0
2
28
0
1
29
0
2
30
0
2
31
0
2
32
1
0
33
0
1
34
0
3
35
0
2
37
0
2
39
0
2
40
0
3
43
0
1
44
0
1
52
0
1
Source: Defence Statistics Health
Notes/Caveats
1. There are known data quality issues with recording of entry date, with entry dates for some
personnel having changed over time. Therefore, the figures provided for age at entry are an estimate
based on records held. The earliest entry date on record was used in this response.
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 include both trained and untrained personnel.
Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system is the most accurate source for demographic
information on UK Armed Forces personnel.
A service person’s Arm/Service was identified using JPA. Anyone with an Arm/Service of
‘Infantry’ has been included in this analysis.
A service person’s age at enlisting was calculated using the ‘Entry Date’ field in JPA. There
are known data quality issues with this information for some personnel who have transferred
from one service to another service, have served under an alternative assignment type (e.g.
Reserve Forces), are re-entrants or have transferred from Other Ranks to Officers and their
entry date may correspond to any of these events. The earliest entry date on record was used
in this response.
Question B. As was advised in the response to your previous request (FOI2022/10712) and
has been explained again above, the figures for suicides/open verdicts include both trained
and untrained personnel.
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
