The annual report of the Armed Forces' Pay Review Body contains recommendations for the pay levels for members of the naval, military and air forces. Recommendations include: that there should be a general increase of 2.8 per cent for military pay ranges under Pay 2000, effective from 1 April 2004, with an uprating of 3.2 per cent for personnel in the lower pay grades; the introduction of standard rates of specialist pay to be introduced, to be increased in line with overall pay recommendations; and the annual salary for new entrants should begin at £11.432.

The annual report of the Armed Forces' Pay Review Body contains recommendations for the pay levels for members of the naval, military and air forces. Recommendations include: a three per cent increase in military salaries from 1 April 2005; a five per cent increase in daily rates of Separation Allowance and a £50 increase in associated bonuses; a three per cent increase in all rates of Specialist Pay and Compensatory Allowances; and increases in accommodation and food charges.

This annual statistical compendium from the Ministry of Defence contains a wide range of data relating to the armed forces, defence expenditure, service and civilian personnel and defence activities. Findings for the period 2003-04 include: i) defence spending was the Government's fourth highest expenditure, with a provisional outturn against the Departmental Expenditure Limits of £37.2 billion, and a total value of MoD fixed assets of £86.3 billion as of March 2003; ii) the total number of MoD personnel fell by 34 per cent between 1990 to 2004, with service personnel down by 32 per cent; iii) the proportion of serving personnel from the ethnic minorities stood at 4.9 per cent at April 2004, compared with 4.3 per cent the previous year; iv) in 2002-03, MoD net expenditure on R&D activity totalled £2.7 billion; and v) the MoD spent around £1.7 billion on conflict prevention activities worldwide during the year 2003-04.