PingDit,
You quote that:
As of 1 July 07;
RAF 94.3% manned against a target of 45,020
This means we had 42453 people. However, this isn't quite the end of the story. The Medium Term Work Strands (MTWS) have the aim of reducing the RAF down to 41700 (ish - I'm doing this from memory) by 1 Apr 08. Thus the current establishment itself is due to fall significantly over the next few months. This means that we still need to get rid of another 750-odd Service personnel over the next 7 months and on 1 Apr next year we will be 100% manned. Senior officer utopia!
I'm not justifying this approach - just giving my understanding of the plan!