Looking at one of the reports on the subject
Ministry of Defence £2bn 'cash pile' scandal as thousands of troops sacked - Telegraph
An “overzealous” austerity drive meant the Forces were missing out on vital equipment, senior military sources have told The Daily Telegraph. They have accused ministers and civil servants of failing to manage the defence budget properly after the MoD failed to spend all the money it was allocated for 2012-13.
Without knowing what proportion of the underspend is DE&S's, I suspect that it will be music to Bernie Grey's GOCO ears. In his
Business Plan 2010 - 2013 https://www.gov.uk/government/.../de...lan201013U.pdf
j. Budget not overspent: Budget is not underspent
by over 1% against TLB control totals.
If he has missed his Target using Civil Servants, would a Contractor, sorry Partner have done it better?
Reading on,
A senior military officer commented: “The MoD can hardly expect the Treasury to increase the budget for capital equipment when we can’t even spend the budget we’ve been allocated. It just makes us look incompetent.”
and
That plan is based on the assumption that total spending on equipment will rise every year from 2015. But those increases have not yet been confirmed, and defence chiefs worry the underspend will make it harder for the MoD to negotiate the increases they need.
countered by
“We now budget prudently and then roll forward any underspend to future years, allowing us to place new equipment orders.”
shows incredible naivety. The Treasury and, for that matter, MoD (centre), probably will argue that less money will be needed in later years. If the Defence Finance courses are still run, I wonder if they still warn of the perils of underspend and the financial equivalent of pilot induced oscillation.
Being long out of it, is it still the case that gash money from staff can be translated to material but the same from material can't be spent on staff?