Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the School staff instructor grant for schools with a Combined Cadet Force.

Funding for School Staff Instructors (SSI) was introduced to help support the sustainability of cadet units in schools, assist with the growth of cadet numbers, and support the Government’s ambition of having 60,000 cadets in school cadet units.

The Department has not made a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of this element of the Government’s support for Combined Cadet Forces. In April 2022, the Ministry of Defence ‘Sponsored Cadet Forces’ statistics showed that there was an increase of 23% in adult volunteers and a 10% increase in the number of Cadets on Combined Cadet Forces in the year in which SSI funding was introduced. These statistics are available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1077952/OS_MOD_Sponsored_Cadet_Forces_Statistics_April_2022.pdf.