SAVE OUR SERVICES (SOS) _ SDSR 2015
 

During his recent visit to Scotland, the Prime Minister indicated that the MOD would not be exempt from the next round of cost cutting, which is apparently due in two years time: SDSR 2015?

The Defence Secretary has stated that he will fight this but presumably in a post-Afghanistan era, it will be argued that the forces are still too big and need further trimming against their future perceived role – whatever that might be.

Although the armed forces are generally well regarded by ‘Joe Public’, I don’t believe the regular bleating which follows changes/cutbacks etc will ever really strike home unless the general populace are made to see the dire state of the forces. That might come if the services were to suffer a major setback on operations but it also might come from the MOD taking an axe to some of its scared cows. What might those cows be? I offer some thoughts but there must be others if not aplenty, certainly worth looking at.

1. Disband the Red Arrows or transfer their funding to somebody else.
2. Withdraw the Household Division from all public duties, disband the mounted regiment, withdraw all horses, scarlet uniforms etc and guns and limbers.
3. Sell HMS Victory and failing reaching the reserve price, remove all funding and scrap the vessel.
4. Disband all service bands.
5. Withdraw all support and any ‘hidden’ funding for charitable activities such as the Fairford show.
6. No public allowances for the purchase of service mess kit for officers on commissioning.
7. Disband BBMF and sell the aircraft.

Before I am lynched for this heresy, thrown in the Tower or struck from your Christmas Card list, it will be obvious that something has to give and if not the above, where will the cuts come from?

Thoughts on a postcard!!

Old Duffer

Cannot see why the BBMF cannot be independant like the Royal Navy Historical Flight.

Mine are car tax on petrol, wipes out those avoiding it in one swoop. Then make the car tax office redundant.
Replace tax disc with insurance one.

Referendum's for all, those wishing to stay part of the UK, scrap their assemblies and all the civil service that support them.

Mad cap schemes such as bin tax, tax the producers and companies using excess packaging, cuts waste, reduces landfill and all those trees that are cut down to produce paper etc are saved, additionally you cut the need to waste money recycling plastics, as you haven't made as much.

Make companies clean up their act, those drawing water from rivers must draw it downstream of their outflows.

Full unemployment benefit for 3 years reducing until cease at 5 year point. No benefits until 5 years tax paid.
No council houses the same 5 years tax paid.
Child benefit capped at 3 kids.
Instant deportation for all illegals etc coming from France as no persecution in France, those that destroy their docs would be housed on deserted Scottish island about 10k off coast, be given sheep, cow, basic shelter and tools and left to get on with it.

Tri-service training?

(No bollox about Service Traditions etc that comes later)

In fact tri-service everything as much as possible with the same T&Cs for everyone.

How about a recorded message.

"Thank you for calling Search and Rescue at RAF Valley. This is an emergency number and your call is important to us. We shall shortly be connecting you with one of our operators. Please have the following details ready: your name and telephone number, the nature and location of the emergency, the budget code or details of the credit card you wish to use to pay for this service. This call may be recorded for training purposes!

I thought that had been tried by one of the Commonwealth countries?

Get rid of all uniforms except for the Camo kit. Do away with PEd branches; make everyone responsible for their own fitness. Stop all ceremonial. Close all officers' messes, especially Army regimental ones. Introduce 48 hr passes and confine everyone to camp until morale improves.

I am a firm believer that MoD, in fact all Government departments, should be required to avoid waste, as far practically possible. Only from that baseline can their true financial requirements be established. In effect, each year MoD is given a huge “float” in their budget as it is not policy to avoid waste. They act like a restaurant and build wastage into their costings. Worse, this includes conscious waste.


I have long held the view that MoD’s budget is pretty generous were it not for this policy of condoning, in fact encouraging, waste. Recently, when asked to confirm (or otherwise) that this policy remained extant, both Minister for the Armed Forces (Andrew Robothan MP) and the Head of the Civil Service (Sir Robert Kerslake) stated, in writing, that it remains an offence in MoD to refuse to obey an order to knowingly waste money.


That is a huge elephant in the room.


On top of this, and with increasing frequency, along come minor hiccups like Nimrod MRA4, which poured well over £4Bn down the drain. The reason why it was cancelled was advised to the programme’s “management oversight” team during the programme initiation process in the mid-90s and was the subject of a damning report in 1998. Yet it took another 13 years. Why? I have always suspected MoD waits for those involved to retire before acknowledging such things. The evidence is pretty compelling.

Old-Duffer, I strongly agree with 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. No comment on 6, as I don’t know the details. As for BBMF, I’ve often wondered why the RN Historical Flight did not enjoy the same funded status. Having said that, I plead guilty to unofficially helping them out whenever I could.

Introduce two tone uniform, dark trousers, RAF blue Jacket, this getting rid of the need to replace both at once.

Those of us drawing a service pension should have it severely cut. It's far too big as it is and this would really save money.

Well apart from the fact that BBMF have more Spitfires than the RNHF have aircraft. I am not convinced that anyone would have the capacity to operate the entire BBMF as a going concern without starting to asset strip and selling off of aircraft to pay for the running of the rest. After all, if we carry on as we have in the last few years, in a few years time the entire RAF will consist only of the BBMF and some UAVs.

As a sign of the decline of the British military I would say losing the Reds to, say, BAe control would place us well down the league of global air forces. If it has to be something the public will really get behind, I would say its the scrapping of the Reds.

But then whatever government is in power, left, right or centre, will bow to public pressure and direct keeping the Reds but we will just lose something else (like maritime patrol aircraft, or SAR helos, or tankers, or the entire military flying training system). :uhoh:

OD,

The first two things on your list I would definitely choose as they would strike home on the public conscience far more effectively than the rest. So, yes indeed, Disband the Red Arrows (they've become far to commercialised in any case) and also withdraw the Guards and Household Divisions from Public Duties, that'll get the tourist from hither and fither asking where the Soldiers? and do you mean to say we've come all this way for nothing? etc etc.

But while they would save buttons, it would have the greatest impact on Joe Public's perceptions, for once!:E

FB:)

A bit of thinning of the upper echelons might not go amiss - do we need quite so many "stars"?

I personally know of a 2*, a 1* and 2 Grp Capts that have recently retired of their own choice, and I don't move in senior officer circles.

I don't know if the "system" replaced them, but some of our supposed high flyers have seen the way the wind is blowing and elected to leave and make their own way in the world.

That doesn't alter the fact that as a service we are massively "over ranked"!!

O-D
HMS Victory is already in the private domain, having been transferred to the National Museum of the Royal Navy. Some of her funding, however, remains from the public purse. Wikipedia says:

Centralised Messing. After all PAYD is virtually a cafe now anyway.

Approve self-help T&S. ie lastminuteroom dot com instead of HRG or whatever they call themselves this week. Better still, use a flat rate for T&S and if you want a five star hotel or the ability to take the wife/girlfriend, you pay the difference. HRG charge the military £10 for every telephone call they make and are usually more expensive than last minute rooms. Put the onus for value for money on the individual rather then a monopoly that lines the pockets of former senior officers.

Do something with Defence Housing, because it is a royal mess at the moment and is unlikely to be competitive in comparision to an independant tender.

However we can prophesise all we want to when in reality, pulling the plug on Afghanistan alone will save multi millions of GBP. The care and welfare for the hundreds traumatised by conflict will be a hidden financial burden that will be evident for decades.

Why does nobody ever hear about the Police, Fire and Ambulance T&S taking a kicking. They always did leave the MoD in the shade when it comes to allowances.

Hmm, USMC has ~195,000 serving personnel + 40,000 reserves, with land sea and air forces.

We have, what, 185,000 serving personnel + 36,000 reserves across all three services?

I have no idea how many orifices there are of star rank in the USMC, but I can't imagine it's anywhere near the combined total of our three services.

I'm sure a major platform is going to be cut, very probably from the raf - along with associated redundancies.

How about:

1) Follow the Swiss example and having a 5% professional force with the rest conscripted, and like them, don't get involved in armed conflicts but instead just 'do' peace keeping.

2) Stop funding/buying absurdly expensive kit, buy off the shelf stuff that works and do as the Israelis do and modify/upgrade in house.

3) Bin the reds and keep BBMF. :ok:

Civilianise the military:uhoh:

WW- 1000 posts! Not sure if that's a good or bad thing...

So I am interested what major platform you think is in for the axe?

Save the tourist traps
 

Keep the Reds, BBMF, Changing of the Guard etc.

De-centralise: it doesn't work.

Bring in someone from the LO CO airlines and examine cost savings.

Single source training, PAYG.

Buy your own bullets: you can have as many as you want but you have to buy them.

What is the kill to weapon ratio? If its 5:1 make 4 weapons inert and have 1 that works ;)

Been done. Real gate guardians were exchanged for Airfix kits and some cash to maintain others. I think they still do a certain amount of trading.