Leon:-
Give the money back to the Station Commanders
Aye, and then reinstate the Powers of Subordinate Commanders, instead of referring everything forever up the CoC to nameless and faceless bureaucrats. The Armed Forces are disciplined Services, not M&S or Tesco.
Your Boss should be the focus of your commitment to serve, and you should be the focus of his. How can that work if he has no real powers of command but has to plead forever upwards on your behalf or, worse still, you are left to do the begging for yourself?
Station Commanders used to be the equivalent of Mayors (more like the continental variety, rather than UK political appointees) of their "towns". They had their budget and spent it according, in their view, to how it would best work for the Morale and Efficiency of their command. Of course it wasn't consistent. If you had a poor SC you had a poor Station (I experienced one such). If you had a poor Boss you had a poor Squadron (thankfully, I never did). However, if you had a good Boss and a good SC, you knew it because everything around you and your own sense of being valued told you so. It was something called leadership...