Cuts in defence budget, so what's your boss's best penny pinching idea?

[airborne_artist]

HMG should follow Ryanair, who've banned staff from re-charging mobiles at work. Saves about O'Leary about £750 a year (according to my estimates):{ :{

[L1A2 discharged]

So just get a 'liver-in' to plug it in, electric is included in costs for accom.


:ok:

[The Helpful Stacker]

Personnel are only scaled for 3 of those lovely new 'Royal Air Force' badges for their CS95 even though they are scaled 4 items that require them.

:ugh:

[NFI]

Tell me more Mr Staker.

Is this badge meant to make the ones who did not get made redundant feel good!

[mutleyfour]

Is this badge meant to make the ones who did not get made redundant feel good!

No, its to stop the Army guys from pinching RAF combats as part of their cost cutting measure.

[tucumseh]

Sorry, I can’t usefully contribute as civvies are routinely disciplined for having money saving ideas if there happens to be a couple or more zeros at the end. However, a few gems from various bollockings by senior managers over the years may amuse/amaze:

“It’s your job to spend money, not save it”.

“You are an embarrassment to the Department for saving that money”. (£18M)

“(Avoiding waste) is of no concern to DPA”.

“If you insist on (saving this money), I shall make arrangements for you leave the Civil Service”.




Guess which one was the Air Vice Marshall.

[The Helpful Stacker]

Tell me more Mr Stacker.

Is this badge meant to make the ones who did not get made redundant feel good!




No its to give the RAF more of an identity when wearing CS95, other than a blue/grey beret, a nice blue rank side and a cap badge of course.

Apparently some folk in the media world still have trouble telling us forces types apart.

I think I'll whack a Gems in for handlebar moustaches and white silk scarves on a piece of wire.

ps, Do you like the new RAF sandwich bags folks? Quite a pretty penny spent on those lovelies.

[Pontius Navigator]

Situation:

Pub at Otterburn.

Lunchtime. ^ aircrew, all in DPMs enter pub, sit down and read menu.


Landlord approaches, could we sit with our firends at the other end of the dining area as we would put off his regulars spread out like that. Look around and see no friends, just a bunch of pongoes in DPMs.

The subtlities of rank badges and caps passes over most non-military types. Much like the subtle variations between army units with their ties, shirts, shoes, not to mention cap badges, berets and even trousers, which leave the average airman totally bewildered.

[JessTheDog]

Why not (re)introduce leather flying helmets and goggles for everyone in the RAF?!?:D

[joe2812]

Recognising the difference won't matter when everyone joins this European combined tri-service Squadron/Unit thingy...

[Sloppy Link]

You can have ammunition or flying hours. Your choice. HM Treasury.

[vecvechookattack]

Close Merryfield. Use the additional manpower to fully man ATC at Yeovilton.

[uncivilservant]

Cut 3,500 jobs in the DLO to save money (thanks, Mr Brown - or is Gordon a Moron?). Hire in 7,000 "external assistance" personnel at 20 times the cost of 3,500 civil servants.

[Icarusthesecond]

Not really a penny pinching idea but..................

Scrap the Hawk 128 project and save millions and millions.

Plenty of other aircraft that can do the job for squillions of pounds less.

Won't make 2 Jags happy though

[D-IFF_ident]

How about renting aircraft instead of buying them?

Imagine each frame costs around 6 million pounds. If we lease frames at 1 million pounds a year and we lease 200 aircraft then we save the taxpayer 200 million pounds.....

over the five years that we are in government.


After that any further expenditure can be blamed on the next, and obviously incompetent, government.

[Purr Harder]

Ok cost cutting ex using value stream analyisis;

Lets get rid of:

BBM, Reds, QCS, 32 (the Royal) Sqn, AOC parades, freedom off parades, Never worn No 1s

or it that just me? :E

[lynx pilot]

Gents , if you are still having dramas differentiating between the services here is an aide memoire;

Army - Will be adorned in green kit, covered in crap.

Navy - No green kit but do a good line in bunting.

RAF - Will be adorned in quilt from nearest hotel - "check in not dig in"!

[Stevemcmli]

How about renting aircraft instead of buying them?

It's already been done.

Aren't 99 (On Tick) Squadron's C17's leased from Boeing?

Imagine getting your heavy airlift assets repossed!

[insty66]

How about renting aircraft instead of buying them?

What's the third party liability like if we hurt someone with them? and what's the excess if we write one off?:hmm:

Just wondering! ;)

[D-IFF_ident]

How about cancelling all cleaning contracts at every unit? Have bull nights to keep the offices spanking, followed by moral-boosting sing-songs, no alcohol of course, just in case. Do I win 25 pounds from GEMS?

[SirPeterHardingsLovechild]

We're renting this machine back off the company that we sold it to. That way, it come of the monthly account and not the annual capital expenditure account.

Monty Pythons - Meaning of Life - Scene - Birth



Life imitating art

Delete 'machine that goes ping' and insert 'Married Quarters'

[ShyTorque]

>Army - Will be adorned in green kit, covered in crap.<

Words more correctly arranged:

Crap - covered in green kit, will be adorned Army. :rolleyes:

I vote for removal of all the door handles on the "push" side of the doors, melt them down and make a couple more Typhoons.

And as for those vastly overpriced Apache things, get melting...... isn't the AAC one of those regiments that needs merging, especially as all the best folks transferred to light blue years ago?

I'd now put my body armour and helmet on except that due to cash cuts there aren't enough to go around.... :E

[JessTheDog]

How about cancelling all cleaning contracts at every unit? Have bull nights to keep the offices spanking, followed by moral-boosting sing-songs, no alcohol of course, just in case. Do I win 25 pounds from GEMS?

Don't even say this in jest, "they" might be watching! :eek:

How about ditching all the corporate communications crap? You could build a lot of SLAM blocks out of compressed bales of Focus and other such dross!

[4fitter]

I will admit to being the holder of a substantial budget and I suppose like most prudent types, I take this responsibility seriously. However, I am constantly frustrated at Treasury guidelines, Liverpool Bills, corporate governance and other associated impositions. Whilst not an accountant, I did do a year on corporate financial strategy on one of my degrees and so feel relatively qualified when it comes to the sums.

I suggested to my masters that as a trial, they could give me my gazzilions and I would open a bank account. Service pay would be excluded and given back to PMA as I have little or no control over this. Other units would be denied the opportunity of using my UINs and Liverpool Bills accepting any old signature.

I could employ my own labourers/chippies and buy spares from B&Q and I suggested that if I came in under budget we could spread the savings to all the staff as a bonus.

What do you think the answer was and how do you think my OJAR looked ? Well I'm not going to be promoted so I keep chipping away but be assured there are some of us out here who do listen to the boys and girls and do care.

And by the way, I refuse to distribute glossies on my unit but instead talk to the troops myself.

[PPRuNeUser0211]

im all for the previous, stop filling our crewrooms full of tosh mags and "newspapers" and just go for a few DASC flyer stylee a4 sheets once a month. Would save thousands and who the hell wants to know that little jonny over in DPA has invented a new abacus that will save thousands so long as we spend a million to buy two of them in the first place?!

[The Rogue]

Funniest I have experienced was a flight commander who wanted to save on Sqn admin costs and worked out that aircrew could get by with 3 pens, 3 pencils, a rubber and sharpener per financial year. Said person then insisted we all be issued the aforementioned from the admin office and would not recieve any more for the rest of the year!

:ok:

[exleckie]

Heard a story today which is very fitting.

Was told that some fine chap at Brize thought money could be saved by buying cheaper recycled paper instead of the normal A4 paper.

A few months later, the budget for fax, copier, printer repairs / replacements launched itself through the roof due to inferior quality paper wrecking and jamming everything . Another chap reorders normal A4 and brize is left with several tons of useless paper to get rid of.

Hmmmm, that really saved a few pennies didn't it. Not.

[BEagle]

Everybody told him that's what would happen - but he had to know better! And he outranked everyone else on the base, so of course he knew best!

I'm told that there is a mountain of the vile grey junk stored out of the way somewhere at the Covert Oxonian Aerodrome....

Another great Kelvin Rucksack triumph!

[ZH875]

Same thing happened at W*ton in late 90's and at the secret Wilts airbase in 2001.

Some day the bean counters will realise that cheapest does NOT equal value for money.

[buoy15]

The MOD has just been offered a new style Chinagraph pencil wax

I'm off next week to conduct a hot weather trial to check it's suitability prior to signing the contract.

Starts with 1 week in Gibraltar. Then 4 days in Cyprus and the 3 days in Duhbai. From there we go to Sri Lanka (3 days) and on to Singapore for a week. Down to Sidney for another week and then dash off to Hawaii for 4 days. Next is San Diego for 5 days and down to Key West for 4. From there to Bermuda for a week finishing in Lajes for 3 days, then home.

Air travel is 1st class to make sure we meet the deadlines and accomm is minimum 4* to ensure we get proper rest, plus allowances of course.

I'm lucky to have a team of 5 scientists and statisticians to record all the details so the pressure on me is not too great.

This will be a bit hectic, but I'm really looking forward to it.

As a bonus, I'm allowed to take my wife with me as it is such a grueulling time away from home.

I really hope Jack Straw loses his seat on Thursday so I can go on more trips like this without achieving anything.

[boswell bear]

suggestion

how about letting civvys fly fast jets (I'll do it for food and lodgings) we train you to fly all the other aircraft :)