Restricted Separation

Flexible Service is available to Regular Service Personnel.

Being in the Forces can mean long and/or frequent periods spent away from home, with the uncertainty of spending time away in the future, and this can have a big impact on your personal commitments and family life. Restricting your liability for separation will give you the opportunity to control the time you spend away at important points in your life and hopefully make service life more attractive.

Restricted Separation (RS) is defined as absence that prevents you returning to your permanent duty station or Residence at Work address overnight or permanent residence (if different) during normal stand down periods, like weekends.

This means that for each period of 24 hours’ separation, using the above definition, 1 separation day will be awarded.

Some limited liability for separation is retained by MOD and your X-Factor payment will be reduced for as long as the Flexible Service (FS) RS arrangement is in place.

Under RS you will still be liable for up to 35 days’ separation in a year, which will enable you to be tasked for normal duty, such as courses, exercises and meetings, but will give you protection from significant long-term deployment.

This liability limit will be reduced proportionately for periods less than a year or where you combine RS with Part Time (PT) working.

For example, if you combine RS and PT, your RS limit will be reduced in the same proportion (by 20% or 40%) and you can only be separated on days when you are on duty or have additional duty liability (unless you and your Line Manager agree a variation or the FS arrangement is suspended or terminated). So for a 20% reduction, the maximum separation in a year would be 28 days and for a 40% reduction, 21 days.

Some types of separation, like Adventurous Training, which are for essential tasks to support operational capability, do not count towards these separation limits.

If you are serving on Military Local Service Engagement (MLSE) terms, such as Military Provost and Guard Service, you already have restrictions to separation (limited to 30 days within 30 miles of home unit per year) which reduces the applicability of Flexible Service (FS).

This means that if you are on MLSE terms you are not eligible for Restricted Separation but you can still apply to work part-time with a proportionate reduction in your 30 day separation limit.

Here is guidance on how to Apply for Flexible Service.