Friday 13 November 2009

Those Ministry of Defence Bonuses

The Daily Mail managed to kick up a bit of a stink over the £300 million bonuses. What surprises me is that nobody added the £268 million in overclaimed expenses to that figure.

The most interesting part in the Daily Mail article is the excerpt from their original article. The MoD admit that "senior staff were awarded an average of £8,000 each" (i.e. six months' worth of a squaddie's wages) and that the £300 million bonuses "account for about three per cent of the overall wage bill", so the wage bill grosses up to about £10 billion per annum.

Our total defence spending is only about £33.5 billion, and they admit that nearly a third of it goes to civil servants?

6 comments:

John B said...

MoD staff bill would include civil servants + squaddies. With the remaining gbp20bn going on some combination of useful kit, overpriced toys and daft PFIs...

sobers said...

What I don't understand is why 'bonuses' seem to be some contractural obligation. Surely if you have to pay a bonus, its not a bonus, its part of your salary.

Equally why should civil servants get a bonus anyway? Performance year to year is a) difficult to measure, and b) unlikely to change much, so is a bonus type arrangement really sensible?

This whole thing is proof of my theory that if you give someone a freeby often enough, they come to expect it and get really p1ssed off if you then stop giving it, despite them having done nothing for it in the first place.

neil craig said...

Explains why France can afford a bigger navy than us. We didn't need a fraction as many MoD civil servants when we owned 1/4 of the world.

Ed said...

Richard North has some interesting comments on this

http://defenceoftherealm.blogspot.com/2009/11/wrong-end-of-stick.html

silicone breast implants said...

I would say that the M.O.D controls all the defences of our Islands. They run the armed forces and monitor our skies to make sure we are safe. They are supposed to look after our servicemen and women at home and abroad.

PCB said...

What are some armour and bonuses for runescape str pure no defence maybe 40 attack?