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back to article MPs probe MoD accountancy shenanigans

The UK Ministry of Defence has taken yet another lengthy roasting from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, PAC, which has been examining its recently audited accounts. The MoD is accused of "masking" the costs of its biggest and most expensive equipment projects by creative accounting, and responds by pointing out …

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  1. paulc
    Black Helicopters

    A lot of taxpayer's money going on those labour votes...

    disgraceful really... and it needs to be brought up in open parliament... no surprise that they delayed this one until they just disbanded for the summer so it could slip out and probably slip under the RADAR when they reconvene...

    funny that...

    and as for the artillery corps...

    they're paranoid about losing their reason for existing... they count guns and rocket launchers rather like the RAF count aircraft and the Navy count ships... it's no surprise that the Army consider guns so important that it's a major disaster if a gun falls into enemy hands...

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  2. micheal
    Coat

    and in the 70's

    Labour did the same with the car industry, Leyland crap cars at inflated prices to keep the unions happy, at the taxpayers expense.

    I'm all for keeping the yards open, believe me...we dont manufacture much in the UK now.

    Why not just subsidise them to buid useful things, like the blades for these new wind farms? (bet some foreign EDF owned subsidery gets it). that not only keeps the staff off the UB40 stat's, it helps keep the community together (think about it, pay them to stay at home or pay them to work?)

    I buy British if it's viable (pay a little extra) but i wont pay twice as much for it. Eurofighter is already dead in the water, another example of Labour jumping to the Brussel's master's instead of getting value for money.

    we are part of europe, so let's do what the other euro countries do, take the money and look after number one, bet the new baltic members are loving all the free money the UK throw at them

    last one out of the UK, turn the lights off

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wrong cover up.

    The supposed cover up on the Precision Guided Bomb project is actually normal practice.

    "The headline cost of the major projects went down by another £67m as the MoD shifted the costs of fitting out its strike jets with new smart bomb targeting pods: out of "Precision Guided Bomb" and into various planes' ongoing budgets."

    The project team bid for all the costs required, then transfer the integration costs to the team that maintains the platform in service (Tornado IPT etc.) to have the new kit integrated with the existing aircraft systems. This is always done by the in service IPT as they have the knowledge of the platform, access to it and contractual arrangements with the OEM. As you write so much about military procurement I thought you knew how it was done.

    As far as hurling money at BAES to not close unused factories and sack underemployed defence workers, more has been wasted for less effect than the dockyards, Project Orchid for a start. I often wonder if BAES, legendary bribers of overseas customers, don't do the same in the UK. That is the only explaination for some of the desicions I've seen over the years.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Buying votes is nothing new

    So the party in power has moved a major construction project nearer to the Prime Minister's home?

    This is hardly news.

    I also note, with much amusement that you claim that 54 Reapers would cost us £540m. Maybe that's how much incrementally it would cost the Americans, who already have serious volumes (though probably not enough for that many new UAVs) of satellite comms. For us on the other hand the cost would be far higher (even without the usual 'Special Relationship' markup). The first ten MQ-9s cost the UK £250m (from the BBC) and that's almost certainly a better measure of the life cycle cost than £10m each.

    Of course, in your world it's fine to wind every bill into the Typhoon spend, but ignore those for your pet projects.

    For what it's worth, I basically agree with you. MoD procurement is bloody awful and needs serious improvement. However, your slight inability to understand the basic numbers means that your analyses, whilst often somewhat entertaining, are based on little more than your best guesses. Which seeing as you can't even google to find the right numbers means that the whole edifice falls apart.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And to quote Lord of War...

    "You know who's going to inherit the world? Arms dealers. Because everyone else is too busy killing each other."

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  6. Nigee

    don't let the facts get in the way of a story, but

    GMLRS has a range of 70km not 40

    There is only one regiment of MLRS, the TA regiment provides limited additional capability

    Pictures from Afghanistan consistently show GMLRS being fired from within large base areas

    GMLRS can only be used against targets that are not going to move

    Loitering Munitions are being designed to deal with targets that do move and can be controlled from the ground by the guy who can see the target and coordinate the attack with the troops on the ground (and with a high chance of not engaging the wrong target including friendly troops)

    GMLRS like any other artillery engages targets 24 x 7 at short notice (ie minutes) aircraft can take hours to turn up.

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