Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the average time between completing online application forms and successful applicants starting training is for each of the reserve forces.

The new Maritime Reserves online application facility went live on 4 June this year. They have received more than 280 applications through this route to date but none of the applicants has yet been allocated to training. For the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, the average times are 109 days for Officer applicants and 134 days for other ranks.

For members of the Army Reserve who enlisted in August 2014, the average length of time between application and enlistment was 251 days. The Army aims to reduce this timescale considerably and has recently made changes to enable applicants to join the Army Reserve as quickly as possible. These include changes to the medical process; increasing capacity at assessment centres; and simplifying and streamlining applications by removing an interview stage for Reserve soldier candidates. It is the Chief of the General Staff's intention that units should have greater control of the process to minimise unnecessary delay.