SDSR Revisited ?
 

Todays Financial Time reporting that SDSR may be revisited. Apparently mistakes have been made. No **** sherlock!

Defence review may be reopened in funding crisis - report | Reuters

This has already started, I think they're looking for another £1bn due to an 'error' in the initial calculations. Looking to lop another 10,000 off the Army as a starter. :ugh:

But not in a good way. More like "now you've got used to the planned cuts, we can squeeze in a few more".

Bets on what extra is going to go please!

Sqn of GRs?
The C130K?
Puma upgrade?
A400M?

Fun fun fun......

Doesnt reflect well on the lords and masters both in and out of uniform, does it? :sad:

I think the phrase used by one of the senior CS's went along the lines of "its going to make them look like complete idiots"...

There will be at least one positive coming out of it though... the chances of us getting involved in any meaningful way in any Blair style intervention in the immediate future are going to be very severely diminished.

Kind of goes some way towards tempering the biggest negative of barely having enough resource to properly look after your own back yard before you get forced to press the Trident button, but still... every cloud and all that. :E

It will only be bad news I,m afraid, I see in todays press that LOA and "other" expenses have now been hammered for the troops, bet the civvies dont get touched though

"
It will only be bad news I,m afraid, I see in todays press that LOA and "other" expenses have now been hammered for the troops, bet the civvies dont get touched though"

Going to bite here - CS allowances are being reviewed, and will be cut in time. They are totally different to forces allowances though so I'd expect to see changes made in line with the rest of the wider civil service and not the forces.
EDIT - release is now out of AFF website.

http://www.aff.org.uk/linkedfiles/af...allowances.pdf

The FT article:

FT.com / UK / Politics & policy - UK military faces further £1bn in cuts

The final paragraph says this:

Umm.... Yes! :hmm:

S41

JIMLad

My point is that the Troops will be affected and be impacted almost immediately because they have very limited protection from these sort of events, the CS on the other hand will only eventually be impacted after no doubt several rounds of "consultations" with their Union.

Its the fairness of it all that stinks to me, every Government in history (well as long as I can remember) have said they will sort out the Civil service, and never have, in the end they pick on the easy targets, in this case the Lads, its just another kick in b&ll$cks for the military and it will be the Privates, Seamen and Airmen who get the worst of it , not those sitting in RAF Buckinghamshire

BT, it is a case of poacher/game keeper and the birds.

Wasn't the problem due to the new CDS getting the PM to agree to an Army of 95000 without checking whether there was money for this strength - guess what, there isn't!!!

Not even close. As StopStart alludes to below, having got away with the premise of major cuts without sparking armed insurrection or an overthrow of the elected Government, they now are simply moving in to fine tune those areas where they think they will get away with it again - and they will.

SDSR Revisited
 

I hate to say it but i think its bye bye reds. :sad::sad:

And bye to Leuchars, the Puma update, the refit for HMS Ocean and then to Devonport:hmm:

Hmmm, another £1billion in cuts eh?! Well, if this pathetic excuse for a Government told Brussels to go whistle for the £1billion 'fine' levied on the UK due to the Labour/DEFRA monumental c*ck-up with the Single Payment Scheme, no SDSR revisit would be needed. Simples! :{

PS a certain newspaper website is reporting:-

I've got the answer, seeing as the overseas aid bill got a boost of £4,000,000,000 they could take the £1,000,000,000 out of that. Any further cuts to the defence budget would be utterly indifferent, reckless and Treasonous!:mad:

FB:)

It will only be bad news I,m afraid, I see in todays press that LOA and "other" expenses have now been hammered for the troops, bet the civvies dont get touched though"


I'll bite as well, civil servants have already lost Incidental expenses allowance as well as the same reduction in motor mileage allowance as service personnel. They have also slashed the terms for voluntary and compulsory redundancy.

Management are also removing the move on PPI terms if you change jobs and the new job is further than daily travelling distance, unless the business are are willing to fund this. Guess how many will actually do this in future?. That will mean civil servants will have to move home entirely at their own expense.

When all the jobs go to Abbeyood which is fast becoming the centre of the universe most people won't be able to afford to move even if they wanted to. So when your job is cut and they tell you to go to the other end of the country you have to bear the cost or leave.

Thats before they get round to reducing the terms of such expenses.

I was talking to someone from private industry who has just got a temporary census job for the Dept for National Statistics. they were horrified to find that the CS only pays 25p per mile. So much for civil servant fatcats.

We are all going to be shafted so why knock the CS?

EGGP

Although the Reds total cost to the MOD balance sheet is very small indeed - they may be disbanded, but an awful lot else will have to go as well to achieve the new saving target.

To my mind, the main problem caused by the Reds continuing to exist is not that they cost a lot of money which could be put to better use elsewhere, but that the existence of a full-time display team who put up a large formation of brightly-painted jets suggests to the public that the RAF/MOD can't really be that short of money or else we wouldn't have this 'extravagance'. The revenue which the Reds bring in, directly and indirectly, is largely overlooked.

Christmas all year for civil serpents
 

It's small beer in military terms I know having been involved, but how many people know about this, and what do people think the reaction to this generally may be;

There is a EU Directive that UK must have conservation measures in place, with categorisation of areas concerned, and what 'appriate steps' are taken to protect these areas, all around the UK coast...

When faced with this, it seems the civil service thought to themselves - "conservation, who deals with that ? I know, get the conservation lobby to sort it, they're always moaning, they can make the recommendations"...

So 4 groups were set up to divide up the coast, and a multitude of steering committees and conservation charites involved who think it's all their Christmases come at once - end result, they are trying to virtually ban anchoring by small craft at the majority of anchorages which have been in use for centuries.

What will be of interest here, apart from any boat owners reading, is that these areas designated 'no anchoring' or even 'no go at all ' are to be strictly policed with both ( presumably RIB ) patrol craft and on shore !

I happen to be one of a small group of yachties who have ganged together to fight this, and there is hope we may influence the dafter decisions and deflect - but no way stop - this all happening; whole new rows of shiny seats for conservation servants, and some whole new force presumably to police / patrol by land and sea.

The first question we are asked every time is " How is this possible at a time when we're crucifying schools, NHS, Care Homes, Defence, everything ? "

( apologies but perhaps understandably that's Joe Public's thoughts of cuts )

As I say the process is unstoppable, the theory is that it's cheaper for the 'Government' ( any flavour ) to set up this nonsense than the humungous fines from Brussels if they don't.

Personally I'd like to see some figures on that, but in the meantime we're extremely busy fighting our cause - if 'they' - the conservationists seeking to influnce the decisions - get their way, there will be no safe anchorage from the Solent to Portland, which is pretty important in a small boat with a family aboard in a gale...
And that's just the test case at Studland, the same is due around all our coast.

I've brought this up as my blood began to boil - again- reading this thread; you may be heartened to hear the sailing magazine where all this came to light, and our organisation to deflect it was formed, was white-hot after the last cuts a few months ago - and I, my father and two uncles had a total of 139 years working at Hawkers / BAe Dunsfold...

In case anyone is interested in our little war - any boat users who haven't heard about this won't believe it but sadly it's true -

Boat Owners Response Group

Yes, the BORG ! - actually suggested by our retired co-founder, stays in the mind...

Good luck to all of you, maybe there will be transfers to this new force ?!

The Red's problem is the aircraft. I believe they have sufficient airframes at the moment but probably no money for 128s.

Presumably it's thought the export prospects for more 100-series ( or any other ) Hawks is already fully explored, so no point equipping our 'best salesmen' with current / slightly future standard kit ?

Civilians V Military
 

"My point is that the Troops will be affected and be impacted almost immediately because they have very limited protection from these sort of events, the CS on the other hand will only eventually be impacted after no doubt several rounds of "consultations" with their Union."

Would you like to repeat that claim in front of the part of the MoD where I work! 250+ civilian posts to be cut in the next two years, 25,000 in the MoD as a whole, civilian pay frozen for at least two years, Pension & redundancy benefits (negotiatedt by Mrs Thatchers Govt not Labour) slashed , T&S restricted

I have a mixed civilian and military staff and both are being adveresly affected. As the man said: "We are all in this together" (except the bankers!)

Just 250 which a mere fraction/percentage of the military that are being made redundant, come and spend a few days at ISK where a whole RAF skill set is to be removed.

It just proves one thing to me, like everyone with an ounce of common sense said at the time the SDSR was done far to hastily, and now its come home to bite because it wasnt done properly, and they (ConDems) have got away with it, their new logic will be that we can get away with some more using the same arguament. The ConDem legacy will be to leave a proud nation defenceless through ineptitude and lack of experience and military leaders who came across as gutless.

But anyone who seriously thinks that once the economy perks up a bit that cancelled military contracts will be reinstated are living in a dream world. Even if the politicians admit they made a mistake (which they wont of course) they will not be prepared to spend any money unless its for one of the following:-

That bottomless pit called the NHS
Out of control Immigration
Out of control Assylum seekers
Foreign Aid to countries who are better off than us (eg India)
Continually bailing out the Eurozone

I,ll save you a Billion..dont shut Kinloss saving 500million or so, dont shut Lossie or Leuchars..another 500million, because thats aproximately what it will cost per base to shut them

Cancel the stupid Puma upgrade, an aircraft well past its sell by date and that will only last another 4 or 5 years after upgrade.
Reduce the number of senior officers, goodness knows how much that would save, because none of them had the decency to resign over the cuts.

Hear Hear. But what kind of hearing will this degree of sound common sense be granted by the government. My fear is the "lets cut a leg off in order to save weight" mentality could prevail, because only being seen to close things down can the otherwise erudite bean counter be convinced that money is being saved.:}

FB:)

Thanks for finding that Jim

I know allowances has raised it's head in other threads but to actually see it in black and white rasies some ugly questions. Does anyone know if RB of fg pay is actioned as soon as you hit a gnd tour or if you volunteer to stay away from flying?
Strikes me that given the vast reduction in cockpits it's going to be difficult for people to manage only 2 years or less away from fg. Or is fg pay going to feature in this reveiw of specialist pay this year? They can't affors what should have happened ages ago which is a different pay stream ala JRs tech trades versus others because it would lead to a big pension hit, can they??
I hope they realise that I don't have to earn much on top of my pension to hit my salary less fg pay and therefore there are going to be no benefits to staying in soon - there will be an exodus, then an FRI :rolleyes:

"Cancel the stupid Puma upgrade, an aircraft well past its sell by date and that will only last another 4 or 5 years after upgrade."

Bluetail - Without going into things in depth in an open forum, the Puma upgrade will provide a huge leap in capability and until 2025 for the paltry sum of £400m. To re-engine 30 Merlins is costing over twice that amount, JUST for engines!

If you have access to anybody in the know that can give you the details it may be an idea to ask them. It might just save you making random and slightly uninformed statements.

HG

Well 30 Merlins have twice as many engines as 24 Pumas (nearly)!

But I don't like the way the cost of the Puma upgrade has apparently increased by 33% in barely a year...not surprised, just not happy...

wasting money
 

Well i got told a story today from someone who is in the know.

When the RAF retired the jag fleet they sold the majority of the fleet for
total £17.000 i was told 15 airframes to a company in suffolk ( i think you know who ) then when the RAF need more airframes for cosford the RAF bought 2 jags for £17.000 each so yet again the RAF wasting money.

Then another story same company bought a load of brand new shar canopys still in there transit boxes. Then the indian airforce enquired to the RAF to see if they had any they wanted to sell so the RAF put them onto this company, Well it turns out this company sold them to the IAF for £100.000 each .

This is what i dont understand why dont the RAF ask other nations if they need or want any airframes or spares instead of scrapping them or selling them for next to nothing as companys like the one in suffolk are rubbing there hands together thinking thank you RAF anything else you wanna sell .

To sum up my uncle had the right idea come back maggie thatcher all is forgiven ok she mucked up abit but she would never let the armed forces get in state it is in today.

Right il get off my soap box now .

Oppurtunity cost is the flavour of the day... go back a while we withdrew from the Royal Tattoo... if we are completely reaslistic, they stand no chance without sponsorship from outside; fortunately, I think they will attract it.

What a bloody sorry state of affairs Blabour drove us to. :mad:

Doesn't the MOD realise it IS part of David Cameron's Government.

Whilst they may serve the elected government of the day, you do understand that MoD, other departments, the civil service and military personnel are non-political, and not part of ANY government, don't you?

Whilst there was much debate over whether SDSR was a true strategic review or just cuts, there can now be no doubt that SDSR MkII is simply a Defence cut. Just call it DC MkI (with all sorts of connotations) and the collective faces of MoD are saved, right?:}

I sure as income tax hope that Blair gets his comeuppance at the Chilcot Inquiry later today!:mad:

FB:)

I take it you are being sarcastic?

As stated by other posters, yet again MoD is being stiffed by the BCs as a result of their "can do" attitude.

Nary a whisper of complaint when whole fleets and capabilities were chopped. e.g. MPA. Just an unseemly rush toward gongdom.

Other Departments are fighting their corner to the last, so the BCs turn again toward the supine MoD Stars, approaching from the side the goings tilt them toward. "Cheques" and balance takes on a whole new meaning.



On the other hand, it won't have escaped the BCs that it remains MoD policy and practice that knowingly wasting money is highly rewarded, while those who refuse can wave good bye. Until MoD are seen to rescind that particularly fraudulent rule, they will be a prime target.


As for politics & MoD, I'd say Bernard Gray is definitely a political appointment as CDM (?). His brief will be to implement his 2009 report. Or at least those parts that don't upset the BCs. He'll find resistance from within to the remainder. For example, he suggested it would be a good idea to both quantify and cost requirements before letting contracts. (On the basis that one must quantify before one can cost and if you don't, how does anyone know what the equipment budget should be?). MoD ditched that notion in 1987. How many are left who can produce the regs of the day and effect seamless regression? (I've still got mine - they are the bible for time, cost and performance). And he'll probably discover the SDSR cuts mean he has to write another report against an ever-shifting baseline.

What a bloody mess.

"Just 250 which a mere fraction/percentage of the military that are being made redundant, come and spend a few days at ISK where a whole RAF skill set is to be removed."

You forgot to mention that the civil servants at ISK and elsewhere where there is a base closure will also lose their jobs as well. The 25,000 civil servants to go is a larger percentage than the service staff who are being made redundant.

As I said in my last post we are all being shafted.

TOTD

You need to take Heights Goods advice as well, talk to somene in the know.

regards

retard

You can blame the Braun one again. RAC or resource accounting requires the owner to acknowledge cost of ownership. In, say, your Harrier canopy cost £100k then the MOD has to pay the Treasury £6k pa (assuming 6% which was a figure I saw quoted).

Also in never-never-land, a stores building whose racking is 6 feet and whose ceiling is 12 feet in, by definition, 50% empty. That extra space has to be paid for ..............

PN's right - disbanding the RED's is the answer to all the services problems, not sure why it's never been mentioned before?:ugh:

Another £17Bn?
 

Word on the street is that there is still a £17Bn 'hole' in the equipment program over the next 4 years.:eek:

Not to step on anyone's fear-filled rantings, but there is this...

MoD denies plans to reopen SDSR - Defence Management


Of course, this could be the standard "denial before confirmation" that officials like to give.