Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much funding was allocated to the Reserve Forces and Cadets Associations and Defence Relationship Management for entertaining reservist employers in the financial years (a) 2021-22 and (b) 2022-23 and (c) 2023-24.

The Ministry of Defence does not allocate any funding specifically for the purpose of entertaining Reservist employers. However, Reserve Forces and Cadets Associations (RFCAs) and Defence Relationship Management (DRM) do run a number of events both nationally and regionally at which hospitality is offered, including buffet lunches and hot/cold drinks as appropriate. This ranges from formal events such as the Partnering with Defence Conference in London, where catered breaks and lunch are provided, through to offering participants on ‘unit experience’ visits with a ration-pack lunch.

Regional funds allocated across the 13 RFCAs include an element for ‘Employer Support’. This budget line covers a number of costs including event hospitality, entertainment, venue hire and advertisement. It would exceed the disproportionate cost limit for a Parliamentary Question to investigate every event across the period in question to separate out the relevant elements; for this reason the figures provided below show the total sums for employer support activity where there was an element of hospitality and an estimate of the element attributable to hospitality. Information for Financial Year (FY) 2023-24 is not provided as this remains subject to discussion and may be subject to change.

The figures for budget allocation where there was an element of Reservist employer hospitality are shown below:

RFCAs

DRM

* Cost growth here directly attributable to:

- increasing success of Employer Recognition Scheme Gold awards, necessitating an increase from four events in 2021-22 to nine regional events in 2022-23.

- increasing number of Armed Forces Covenant signatories and associated signing ceremonies.