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MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
http://www.x404.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=14115		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  grumpiestt [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 7:49 am ]
Post subject:  MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
Quote:
MPs say an auditor's report which found the Ministry of Defence lost track of assets worth £6.3bn is "alarming".

The defence select committee said it was "worrying" that in its efforts to find out more information the MoD had just found more problems.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox said he had set out plans for clearer structures and financial responsibility.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14033318

It's extraordinary how little coverage this report from the Defence Select Committee received yesterday. If a commercial organisation, a charity, a trade union, "lost" such an extraordinary sum heads would roll. Many organisations would simply have to be closed down. But not the MoD! They just keep pouring our money down the drain and then asking for more. Which the government will duly hand over, reducing the benefits of the poorest members of society to pay for it.

I'm not saying we should just blame the politicians, though. How can they be expected to carry out day-to-day monitoring of such a vast, complex (and secretive) organisation? Surely this story points to massive incompetence among the top civil servants. The only other explanation I can think of is that the military equipment we have paid for is being illegally sold to terrorists and drug cartels.

Time a few Sir Humphreys were taken out and shot pour encourager les autres?
Author:  forquare1 [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:03 am ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
Where was it lost? If it has been shipped out to Iraq/Afghanistan/etc. then surely it's the armed forces that are to blame? If it's been sitting in a cupboard and just disappeared, then it's the MODs fault.
Author:  grumpiestt [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
Where was it lost?

That's just the point.

The auditors asked them and they say they don't know.
Author:  Spreadie [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:11 am ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
I bet a fair chunk of that is down to sticky fingers; or bent logistics officers.
Author:  belchingmatt [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
You can understand the loss of equipment such as radios in the heat of battle, but 184m pounds worth. :lol: :roll:
Author:  adidan [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
It's not lost, they just don't know where it is apparently. :roll:

Makes me think of 'known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns....'.
Author:  belchingmatt [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:18 am ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
Time for a full inventory then. If other organisations can manage stock I don't see why the MOD cannot.
Author:  jonbwfc [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:13 am ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
belchingmatt wrote:
Time for a full inventory then. If other organisations can manage stock I don't see why the MOD cannot.

Well, to be fair, most other organisations don't have people firing RPGs and improvised landmines at their 'stock'. Nor do we require every soldier to account for every bullet they've fired.

Jon
Author:  belchingmatt [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
I think counting bullets on the battlefield would be taking it a little too far, and 184m worth of radios doesn't disappear because of an IED. They have been sold, stolen, not received or possibly stored in an unknown location.

What I'm suggesting is they do a full visual count on every item in every building on every bit of land they own. Other companies call this a stocktake.
Author:  MrStevenRogers [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
this brings to mind them immortal words from the film 'independence day'

'you dont think they really spend $50,000 on a hammer or $20,000 on a toilet seat, do ya'

someone or one's are on the gravy train ...
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
belchingmatt wrote:
I think counting bullets on the battlefield would be taking it a little too far, and 184m worth of radios doesn't disappear because of an IED. They have been sold, stolen, not received or possibly stored in an unknown location.

What I'm suggesting is they do a full visual count on every item in every building on every bit of land they own. Other companies call this a stocktake.

Yes, better logistics would solve much of this. Also preparation would mean that they get kit at best prices, so rather than leave everything to the last minute and then pay over the odds, "So they do not give away to the enemy the intentions of the government" as an excuse.
Author:  saspro [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 2:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
belchingmatt wrote:
I think counting bullets on the battlefield would be taking it a little too far,


Soldiers will be issues a certain number of mags when they go out on patrol etc, surely you write that down then write down what they bring back.
They have to be keeping an inventory of stock whilst in the field as if not they wouldn't know what to order in
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 2:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
saspro wrote:
belchingmatt wrote:
I think counting bullets on the battlefield would be taking it a little too far,


Soldiers will be issues a certain number of mags when they go out on patrol etc, surely you write that down then write down what they bring back.
They have to be keeping an inventory of stock whilst in the field as if not they wouldn't know what to order in

You do not have to go that far. Each soldier will have x amount of ammo. Each day they will take what they need. The quartermaster only needs to keep a tally of how much is used each day. Then make sure that they have enough stores to keep them going till the next resupply. As for losing ammo I doubt that the troops in Afghanistan have that much ammo there.

I suspect that it is lost in the accounting. They overpaid for what they got so easier to treat it as lost rather than they procured badly.
Author:  jonbwfc [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 2:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
The problem may at least partially be the MoD has essentially two 'streams' of buying stuff. They have the standard procurement stream and then they have the 'we need this stuff right fricking now' stream which is called something like 'immediate operational requirement'. The former is the one that gets used for the sort of standard kit that everyone gets, the latter is used for stuff that's needed for a particular operation that we only just realised we needed. It tends to get used a lot by special forces blokes, which is why when you see footage of the likes of the SAS in the field they're always wearing/using non-standard kit.

Somehow, I very much doubt the accounting on the 'IOR' kit is as strict as it should be. I very much suspect it's 'pay for it now, do the paperwork later'. There is some oversight on it but i t wouldn't surprise me at all if a large chunk of the missing stock had been purchased under IOR and either badly logged or never delivered in the first place.

Jon
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 4:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: MoD "loses" £6.3 billion of kit
jonbwfc wrote:
The problem may at least partially be the MoD has essentially two 'streams' of buying stuff. They have the standard procurement stream and then they have the 'we need this stuff right fricking now' stream which is called something like 'immediate operational requirement'. The former is the one that gets used for the sort of standard kit that everyone gets, the latter is used for stuff that's needed for a particular operation that we only just realised we needed. It tends to get used a lot by special forces blokes, which is why when you see footage of the likes of the SAS in the field they're always wearing/using non-standard kit.

Somehow, I very much doubt the accounting on the 'IOR' kit is as strict as it should be. I very much suspect it's 'pay for it now, do the paperwork later'. There is some oversight on it but i t wouldn't surprise me at all if a large chunk of the missing stock had been purchased under IOR and either badly logged or never delivered in the first place.

Jon

The SAS have special dispensation to get what ever kit they need.
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