'Technical support' spend tops £290m

21 February 2012

The Ministry of Defence spent more than £290m of its equipment budget on outside technical support in 2011, figures have shown.

The latest information on the Framework Agreement for Technical Support (FATS) shows that between April and December 2011, £225m was spent, which, combined with data from January to March, makes a total of £290m for 2011.

Officials within the ministry commissioned 380 companies to provide the support during this period.

In the 2010/11 financial year, the department spent £267m on FATS, compared to £297m in 2009/10.

Technical support spending in 2006 was just £6m, but a change in the rules in April 2009 did away with the need for civil servants to obtain ministerial approval before hiring specialists.

An internal MoD report leaked to The Guardian newspaper last November showed showed "poorly developed or non-existent" internal controls on spending and "major non-compliance" by civil servants using FATS.

FATS rules are set to change again in April this year in order to prevent some of the abuses identified by the report.

Steve Jary, national secretary of union Prospect, said the department was firing too many civil servants too quickly, leading to a greater reliance on external support.

"Prospect has been highlighting the impact of the MoD's savage cuts in its specialist staff for years," he told The Guardian. "The Commons defence committee, the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office have all underlined this in recent weeks."

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "FATS spending has reduced in recent years and spending on management consultancy has also been reduced by from £106m under the last government to £26m over the last year.

"FATS is not the same as management consultancy, it is external technical services providing essential expertise such as independent airworthiness certification that our civil servants cannot provide.

"In many cases we are required to obtain independent advice on the adequacy of safety management arrangements and audit of safety related material for complex weapons. Since July 2010 governance and approval processes for FATS have been improved following an audit, and from April a new framework will ensure external technical support services are used even more efficiently."