Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many service personnel are under investigation for boarding school allowance fraud as at 19 July 2021.

The allowance is question is called Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA) and assists Service personnel to achieve continuity of education for their children that would otherwise be denied in the state-maintained day school sector due to the mobility of their family. CEA is available to all Service personnel, irrespective of rank, subject to them satisfying the qualifying criteria. Service personnel may select from a wide variety of schools across the UK from within the independent and state-maintained sectors that meet set criteria.

The number of Service personnel currently under investigation, as at 19 July for suspected CEA fraud is 11.