Tourist, wrong!
The bizarre decision by AMSO to discard spares stock-holdings and thence trigger an immediate cost saving was followed inevitably by a severe lack of spare parts, all of which had to then be ordered up individually, and if available were often the same parts that had been sold for a song and then re-bought for a King's Ransom. As you so rightly say:-
The military is given a budget.
so the only solution was to raid yet another budget, which had hitherto been ring-fenced, ie that of Air Safety and in particular that of Airworthiness Provision. Annoyingly that in turn was protected by mandated regulations, so it was necessary to order those with delegated airworthiness responsibility to disregard the mandated regulations but sign them off as complied with. Annoyingly that requires the issuing of an illegal order. Annoyingly that is an offence under Military Law, which annoyingly VSO's are also subject to.
You may be content that they feel free to disregard the duty of compliance that subordinates are bound in law by, but I am not.
When you say that:-
VSO's decide what to spend it on.
You are wrong, insomuch as they have to spend it in accordance with mandated regulations, unless and until they be changed. They were not, they were simply disregarded and forgotten. Many today do not know that they exist because they are not told, not even by the MAA who also seem to be blissfully unaware. That doesn't mean that they don't exist and all are bound by them. Annoying, isn't it?