The Sponsored Reserves are a category of reserve forces in the British Armed Forces, created by the

Reserve Forces Act 1996 {{Unreferenced, date=January 2022 The Reserve Forces Act 1996 is a piece of British legislation that provides for the maintenance and composition of the British military's Reserve Forces. Provisions of the Act to make ''"An Act to make provisi ...

. It allows for certain support or specialist tasks to be carried out by trained civilian professionals. The

Royal Fleet Auxiliary The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) is a naval auxiliary fleet owned by the UK's Ministry of Defence. It provides logistical and operational support to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. The RFA ensures the Royal Navy is supplied and supported by ...

, for example, are sponsored reserves subject to the Armed Forces Act. The first sponsored reserve unit was the

Mobile Meteorological Unit The Mobile Meteorological Unit (MMU) provides meteorological and environmental support to deployed elements of the UK’s joint forces, in order to enhance the effectiveness of national or combined contingency operations. Principally but not exc ...

, providing mainly aviation weather services to the

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

and the

Army Air Corps Army Air Corps may refer to the following army aviation corps: * Army Air Corps (United Kingdom), the army aviation element of the British Army * Philippine Army Air Corps (1935–1941) * United States Army Air Corps (1926–1942), or its p ...

.Met Office press release
, metoffice.gov.uk Other Sponsored Reserve Units have been developed in line with the 1998

Strategic Defence Review The Strategic Defence Review (SDR) was a British policy document produced in July 1998 by the Labour Government that had gained power a year previously. Then Secretary of State for Defence, George Robertson, set out the initial defence policy of ...

References

Military units and formations of the United Kingdom {{UK-mil-unit-stub

See also

References