Reporting of the Future Reserve 2020 (FR20) target population
Proposal to align reporting of the Future Reserves 2020 target population within a single consistent definition across all 3 services.
The 2011 Independent Commission to Review the UK’s Reserve Forces recommended increasing the size of the Reserves; the numbers they advised became the FR20 programme targets.
The planned 5 year growth of the reserve forces’ was set out in a statement to the House on 19 December 2013. Performance against these targets is reported in the UK armed forces quarterly personnel report 2014 .
Due to differences in the ways that each reserve force is used, each service has assumed slight variations in the groups of volunteer reserves that should be counted towards these targets. The result is an inconsistent reporting of reserve forces trained strengths, which we intend to address through the changes proposed within this consultation.