Tag Archives: Parts

Some £1.5 billion was reportedly spent purchasing 38 percentmore raw material and ‘consumable inventory,’ such as clothing orammunition, than was needed, according to a report published by theUK’s Public Accounts Committee.“It is unacceptable that the Ministry of Defense is wastingsignificant amounts of public money buying equipment and suppliesthat it doesn’t need,” said Richard Bacon MP, a member of thePublic Accounts Committee.Some central non-explosive depots were reportedly filled to 80 or90 percent capacity because of the department’s habitualhoarding.“The problem is likely to get worse unless the MOD acts now to getrid of the £3.4 billion stockpile of supplies it has identified asno longer being needed,” Bacon said, adding that the departmenthas recognized that it is “wasting significant amounts of publicmoney.”However, the report also showed that the MOD has made littleprogress in improving the management of its inventory over the last20 years; despite previous recognitions – some as early as 1991–that the MOD was wasting huge sums of money, it has continued touse taxpayer funding ineffectively.“Project teams within the department can order as muchconsumable stock as they think they might ever need because theyare only billed for it when they use it,” the report said. As aresult, the MOD has been plagued by regular over-ordering.The report follows suggestions that money from the UK’s foreign aidbudget could be poured into the MOD, after significant publicfunding cuts. The MOD has been repeatedly slammed for financialcarelessness over the last few years.Last June, it was revealed that the MOD was hoarding 54 years’worth of spare parts for the retired Nimrod aircraft, as well as£24 million in items that were not needed by the military,according to reports by the National Audit Office. It was alsoannounced that 22,000 personnel would lose their jobs indecommissions of battleships, fighter jets and tanks.In January 2009, more than £300 million in taxpayer money wasreportedly lost by the Ministry of Defense due to poor bookkeeping,with £8 million written off after being given to hundreds ofsoldiers in error.But earlier this month, UK Prime Minister David Cameron said thathe was “very open” to the idea of channeling billions ofpounds from the UK aid budget to the Ministry of Defense. Theremarks came after the 2012 Autumn Statement made by the UKtreasury, which confirmed the MOD would suffer £735 million in cutsto its core budget.The MoD has come under intense public criticism recently followingthe reports of budget mismanagement. “A lack of basic competencecan be corrosive when it comes to defense planning andfunding,” UK Labour MP Jim Murphy said in the Spring 2013Defense Management Journal.“Continued waste is unacceptable at a time of deep defense cutsand government failure to balance the books,” he added onLabour Press Team’s Twitter page. … Read More