RAF Spends more on Accountants than Jets

[ORAC]

MoD Spends More on Accountants Than Fighter Jets (http://order-order.com/2016/08/25/mod-spends-more-on-accountants-than-fighter-jets/)

[Jimlad1]

To cut a long story short, no it doesnt.
This is a classic bit of spin, as if you look at the areas covered under that heading, its all the test and evaluation and other categories too. Essentially its the 'everything but capital cost of the kit itself' bit of the budget which covers a very diverse set of issues, and isnt just about management accountants.

So yes, its a typical august silly season story made up by someone who saw accounts in the title, didnt understand what the totality of the area was and came up with a totally misleading conclusion.

[SASless]

Almost sounds like an Accountant's Mission Statement don't it?

its a typical august silly season story made up by someone who saw accounts in the title, didnt understand what the totality of the area was and came up with a totally misleading conclusion.

[Jimlad1]

Oh for gods sake. No its not, I'm not an accountant but i am fed up of bull**** stories like this which are completely misleading. people moan about the lack of understanding of airpower, and stories like this go a long way to helping contribute to it.

The actual report is here - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/548285/Commentary_relating_to_Finance-Economics_Annual_Statistical_Bulletin_Trade-Industry-Contracts_2016-a.pdf

Essentially its a breakdown of how spending falls into various National Statistics derived classifications of different industry, including car hire, T&S, utility bills and the like. Its a non entity of a story in the middle of a very silly season.

[Wander00]

Oi, no anti-accountant jokes - I are one! (Well a Chartered Management Accountant, courtesy of the RAF and the then RAPC at Worthy Down)

[Saintsman]

Was it an accountant who decided many moons ago, to replace the toilet rolls with single ply because they would be cheaper (after the days of shine paper of course)?

Then because fingers tended to break through the paper, people doubled up and just to be sure, doubled up again. Result - twice as much bog roll used than before...

[Wander00]

That's not "accountants" - that's the "law of unintended consequences", or "sh1tty finger syndrome"

[BEagle]

Saintsman wrote: Was it an accountant who decided many moons ago, to replace the toilet rolls with single ply because they would be cheaper (after the days of shiny paper of course)?


Rather like the wonderful idea of Kelvin Rucksack when he became Stn Cdr of a certain Oxonian aerodrome....

"We will use recycled paper in the station's photocopiers / printers", he decided, "it will save money". But failed to do any research first.

So after a few weeks, or probably days, of using that awful grey paper on which the printing faded after a couple of months in a file (remember those?), most of the printers and photocopiers stopped working.... The cost in getting them repaired outweighed the cost saving of the wretched grey paper several times over. 'Different budget', no doubt...

I once asked one of the Xerox folk who was unbuggering the large, rather gucci printer in Ops why it kept failing... "Because you've been using this cheap recycled paper and the fibres clog up the machine as it wasn't designed to use such rubbish", he replied.

So Kelvin decided to use normal paper once more. Which was a bit of a shame as half a hangar full of the grey stuff had just been delivered....

It's probably still there....:uhoh:

[megan]

'Different budget'Our hard standing was bitumen, and with time would break up, thus requiring repair, not to mention FOD. We asked if it could not be made concrete, thus avoiding problems. Answer: Concrete would be a capital cost with no tax relief, but bitumen maintenance was a full tax deduction. Oh, well.

[Chugalug2]

Beagle:-
"We will use recycled paper in the station's photocopiers / printers", ....half a hangar full of the grey stuff had just been delivered....

Why the delivery of any grey stuff? I took the first bit to mean that the "recycling" would all be in house, ie Formal Official Letters printed on the back of yesterday's flying programme etc. No jamming of printer/copiers (if it didn't jam first time round why should it now?) and a nice warm smug pudding-basin haircut/open toed sandals feeling for all to share in. Seems to me a golden opportunity to raise Station morale was sadly missed here. :E

[Wander00]

"Different budget" reminds me - Wyton was trial budget station early 90s - staish and I cooked up a plan to use the variation in oil price to pay for double glazing and heating in AMQ - all entirely legal but a certain AOC was VERY unhappy. Worked the first year so year 2 we did the officers' patch. AOC incandescent, but happy bunnies on station.

[Haraka]

Late 80's and just up the road from Wander00 in a certain almost windowlesss building opposite HQ RAF Support Command it became obvious that a moratorium was brewing. (You know the HQSC that had burned down earlier and a certain Air Officer interviewed then stated that the destruction of the HQ would have " absolutely no impact " on the RAF's capabilty).
Come the day and a large portion of HQ Support Command's construction and improvement projects were canned overnight. To the AOC's displeasure JARIC came through absolutely unscathed and our O.C. was carpeted as to how we had escaped.
It just so happened that I had been acting OC GD for a few months in the run up and so, not being a scribbly, had naturally made my face well known to the Wonders and Blunders team over the road
They" just happened to let it slip" that the moratorium would not be imposed on projects that were already let and running. So I had simply pushed ahead with DoE and got the whole lot started almost simultaneously.


Ah well, JARIC and most of the station is being demolished now anyway........

[Wander00]

Well done, Haraka