airpolice
An interesting tale that rings true. (And anything that wastes MoD money is relevant to a forum where many complaints are about lack of funding).
In 1993 I started a new job on helicopters and inherited a raft of correspondence from Bill Paying Branch in Liverpool. Long story short, there was an apparent shortfall on an RN sonics contract and could they please have another £1.5M to pay it off, as the company were claiming the contract had been completed 2 years previously. Drove up to Wolverhampton to pay a visit, sniffed round their workshop and uncovered about 20% of the kit they had allegedly upgraded and delivered lying in a corner. (That shocked them, that an MoD project manager actually recognised the kit). Further investigation showed we'd been double-charged on about 40 items, and even triple-charged on a few. Auditors went in, but came down on the side of incompetence, despite serial lying, false record keeping, falsified delivery advice notes and more. My Director was furious as it was clear fraud, and we'd been getting rocks from the RN about shortage of kit and delayed contracts. Company had to issue credit notes, to be offset against next contract. (Why think about giving them another?) Point being, MoD doesn't have too many specialists to investigate such things, and finds it easier to roll over.