UK defence statistics 2005

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 2004-05 include: defence spending was estimated to be the Governments third highest expenditure, with a provisional outturn against the Departmental Expenditure Limits of GBP 38.4 billion, and a total value of MoD fixed assets of GBP 87.3 billion as of March 2004; the total number of MoD personnel fell by over 35 per cent between 1990 to 2005, with service personnel down by 34 per cent; the proportion of serving personnel from the ethnic minorities rose from 1.3 per cent to 5.3 per cent between 2000 and 2005; in 2003-04, MoD net expenditure on R&D activity totalled GBP 2.7 billion; and the MoD spent around GBP 1.1 billion on conflict prevention activities worldwide during the year 2004-05.