Defence Budget
I do not know how much of the budget is tied up with PFI/PPP or rental agreements (I will find out though) but about a third of the defence budget is in procurement.
The truth is that PFI/PPP, medical care, operations, engineering, logistics, accommodation and family welfare, amongst other policies, may all need re-evaluating and that the command and control of the air force along with servicing procedures may require a good shake up.
However, UKNDA was set up to lobby on non-political, tri-service lines for Sustainable, Adequate and Appropriately Funded Armed Forces. With a minimum of 3% of GDP as the base line. (source: UKNDA Founding Document)
A respondent said “throwing money at the problem” is not the answer. Put that way and with no balancing argument the author probably has a point. However, the problem is more complex and the root of it is money or lack thereof.
In 1985 the defence budget was around £33bn or 5.1% of GDP, in 2007 it was around £33bn or 2.2% of GDP. In the intervening period the defence budget fell consistently to a level of around £23bn levelling out in 2001. Defence inflation runs at between 7-10% pa. I.E. The costs double roughly every 7.5 years. To achieve 3% of GDP the defence budget will need to rise by some £12bn this year. (sources: DASA, the late Tim Garden and The University of York Centre for Defence Economics)
At the same time, in an effort to save money for ‘Front Line First’ the number of RAF uniformed personnel has reduced ( 52200 in 1997 to a target of 41000 today.) Supply policy was revamped under the ’Just in Time’ label (just too late being fair comment), depot and unit stocks reduced, deployment FAP’s reduced from 30 to 7 days, repair and manufacturing became largely contractualised/civilianised and some aircraft fleets were taken out of service or reduced in size.
The consequence being higher rates of effort with fewer personnel, spares and aircraft, leading to fatigue and overstretch in all senses of the word.
Having reduced to save, the forces worked on the assumption that only one major war fighting operation would be undertaken at a time (Contingency Level Force (CF)) and then for six months only. Or, one rotating operation (Formation Level Force (FL)), being replace by fresh troops and equipment every 4-6 months. A CF and FL would not be concurrent. Then Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq along with several standing commitments happened, all concurrent operations, the latter 2 at high intensity. In 2002/3 the Government released a new document 'Delivering Security in a Changing World' where these assumptins were amended to ...'support 3 simultaneous small to medium scale operations...one an enduring peace keeping mssion (eg Kosovo). However, how this was to be funded was not made clear.
Government policy dictates the nature and level of HM Forces commitments. Therefore, The Government must fund these commitments or reduce the tasking to a level commensurate with the allocated funding.
MOD, command or engineering reorganisation, whilst always an option, may save cash and lead to more efficiency but cannot overcome the basic principle that to ensure the safety, welfare and effectiveness of our Armed Forces they must first to be properly funded.
UKNDA is committed to this end.
(The source unless otherwise stated is me: In a former life I was tasked to write the RAF/RE/HQ Logistic input for all RAF CONOPS following ’Options for Change’)
Last edited by blanketstacker; 9th Jan 2008 at 08:02.