Ministry urged to end ‘cycle of spending failure’

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee told the Ministry to provide precise details by the end of April on its forecast for the cost of implementing last year’s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) and the status of any programmes being cancelled or renegotiated as part of its money-saving drive.

The SDSR decisions to cancel the Nimrod MRA4 and withdraw the Sentinel surveillance aircraft involved the Ministry accepting “greater operational risks” and writing off nearly £5bn of taxpayers’ money, said the committee.

“Such decisions are never desirable,” its Major Projects Report. “The fact that the Department has been pressured to make them offers a compelling argument why it must address the problems which have affected defence procurement for decades and on which our predecessors have commented extensively.

“If it does not, the cycle of failure will continue, with badly needed capabilities being delivered later than planned and cost increases crowding other capabilities out of the equipment programme.”

The committee was responding to an National Audit Office report which found in October that the “black hole” in Ministry procurement increased by £3.3bn in Labour’s final year in office alone to reach around £36bn.