Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many and what proportion of (a) regular and (b) reserve armed forces personnel have made an expenses claim on the Joint Personnel Administration system in the last year.

During Financial Year 2017-18, 95,964 regular and 10,731 volunteer reserve personnel (a total of 106, 695 personnel which represents approximately 58 per cent of the combined total strength) submitted an expenses claim via the Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system. Together they, along with other cadres of personnel with access to the JPA system (including Cadet Force Adult Volunteers and the Military Provost Guard Service), submitted 404,600 expenses claims.

All regular and reserve units have access to the JPA system and provisions are in place for deployed or detached personnel to submit claims if access in theatre is not readily available.

The JPA system is programmed to randomly select five per cent of different types of expense claims for audit to be carried out at Unit level. In addition, each of the single-Services conducts a similar manual percentage audit of claims submitted by their Service personnel.

During Financial Year 2017-18, some 17,800 regular and reserve Service personnel who submitted an expenses claim were required to refund payment either in part, or in full. It is not possible to provide a breakdown of refunded payments by regular and reservist claimants.

Information on the value of unclaimed expenses, and the number of instances where an expenses claim was rejected is not held.