I cannot rephrase. In lieu of the word "percent," could the percent symbol work in the two sentences below? Also, I don't think hyphens are needed for the phrasal adjectives, because the context is clear without them. And stylistically, I don't think the % sign needs to be used after 10 in the second example below. OK to the two examples below with the % sign and no hyphens? He said, "We expect a 10% a year increase in funding." Mr. Mulrooney said, "The figures represented a 10-15% a year increase in funding." Thank you.
Yup. Do you mean that funding is multiplied by 1.10 each year, or (if current funding = $1,000/year) that, each year, $100 is added to the annual funding? $1,000, $1,100, $1,210, #1,331, etc. vs. $1,000, $1,100, $1,200, $1,300, etc.
1/ I'm an accountant, so 10% seems fine to me. However, I'd rather see "per annum" than "a year"; if you're going to use one Latin phrase, why not use two? 2/ As far as the ambiguity is concerned, I think the two following sentences are clear enough: He said, "We expect a 10% increase in funding over last year." He said, "We expect a 10% increase in funding year on year for the term of this government." 3/ This sentence is nonsensical: Mr. Mulrooney said, "The figures represented a 10-15% a year increase in funding." because if I know what the figures are, I'd know what the increase was, I wouldn't need to give a range. i.e. if funding increased from £1,000 to £1,097, I'd know that the funding had increased by 9.7%, although I might round it t0 10%, or describe it as approximately 10%. I'm more likely to say: "We expect a 10-15% a year increase in funding." because the anticipated increase is an unknown.
