Ministry Of Defence Annual Report And Accounts 2011 12

This publication sets out the annual report and accounts of the Ministry of Defence for the year 2008-09, including a summary of performance against the Public Service Agreement (PSA) objectives and targets. The second volume of the report contains the consolidated departmental resource accounts for 2008-08 and annexes9

Ministry of Defence annual report and Accounts 2010-11 : For the year ended 31 March 2011

Response to HC 1635, session 2010-12 (ISBN 9780215040749)

For the sixth successive year, the Ministry of Defence Accounts were qualified. The Qualifications covered non-compliance with international reporting standards on the treatment of some contracts; lack of audit evidence on the valuation of inventory (worth some £3 billion) and of capital spares (worth some £7 billion); and on the regularity of the Accounts because of the failure to obtain approval for the remuneration package of the Chief of Defence Materiel. The MoD was also five months late in submitting its audited accounts to Parliament. The National Audit Office had found errors in its sample examination of accruals and so the MoD decided to resolve these problems before submitting the accounts. The MoD said they did not have the necessary expertise to manage the financial complexity that featured in the implementation of the Strategic Defence and Security Review so sought assistance. The MoD should ensure its people have the right skills to deal with all financial problems so that they do not need to bring in expensive external accountants. There is also concern about the MoD's reluctance to estimate the full costs of its operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. The NAO did not consider that the MoD has adequate information, especially with respect to recording the cost of its activities and outputs, to run its business effectively. The MoD should set out its commitment to improving its management information. It is also vital that defence spending remains at more than 2 per cent of GDP in line with the UK's NATO commitment.

The Laboratory is part of the Ministry of Defence - the in-house Science and Technology organisation

The MoD sought, in the Estimate, a net increase in Capital and Resource Expenditure (Departmental Expenditure Limits-DELs) of £2,804 million which generated an additional cash requirement of £644 million. It also sought a reduction in Annually Managed Expenditure of some £1,063 million. The Committee welcomes the MoD's efforts to improve the management of assets and stock. They recognise that such exercises and the implementation of the Strategic Defence Security Review are likely to result in significant write-offs, but we would expect the MoD to have a greater understanding of the financial implications of these write-offs and, therefore, greater certainty of the non-cash costs by the time the Main Estimates and the Supplementary Estimates for 2012-13 are prepared. They recommend that, if the way expenditure is classified is changed in future, the MoD should provide a comparison of expenditure on a like-for-like basis between years within its memorandum on the Supplementary Estimates and should also provide full details of the items and amounts affected and the reasons for the changes. In general, while the Committee has no argument with the content of the MoD's Supplementary Estimate, it is unreasonable to expect Committees and Parliament to scrutinise the Supplementary Estimates in less than three weeks. More time is needed to consider the Supplementary Estimate, the associated memorandum and the MoD's responses to questions on the Estimate.

This book explores the process by which defence policy is made in contemporary Britain and the institutions, actors and conflicting interests which interact in its inception and continuous reformulation. Rather than dealing with the substance of defence policy, this study focuses upon the institutional actors involved in this process. This is a subject which has commanded far more interest from public, Parliament, government and the armed forces since the protracted, bloody and ultimately unsuccessful British military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The work begins with a discussion of two contextual factors shaping policy. The first relates to the impact of Britain’s ‘special relationship’ with the United States over defence and intelligence matters, while the second considers the impact of Britain’s relatively disappointing economic performance upon the funding of British defence since 1945. It then goes on to explore the role and impact of all the key policy actors, from the Prime Minister, Cabinet and core executive, to the Ministry of Defence and its relations with the broader ‘Whitehall village’, and the Foreign Office and Treasury in particular. The work concludes by examining the increasing influence of external policy actors and forces, such as Parliament, the courts, political parties, pressure groups and public opinion. This book will be of much interest to students of British defence policy, security studies, and contemporary military history.