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Forces sweethearts

If you have a family member in the Royal Navy, RAF or army, find support from other Mumsnetters here.

Original poster

Oh we'll make a lot of you redundant cos we've no money, but hey ho we spend £22 on lightbubls

15 replies

ACMDowding · 04/03/2011 08:23

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12643966
that costs 65p.
read on it gets worse! Shocking wastes of money all round

OP posts:
vintageteacups · 04/03/2011 09:52

Then wastage is vast!

The stories DH comes home with would make me laugh were it not for the fact that it's all tax payers money!

For example, civil servants (thinking that because they with the forces, they are in the forces and have the rank they are paid the equivalent to!) they should take every opportunity to go from Bristol to London first class. why on earth, they can't take economy, like DH, I don't know.

DH asked them and they replied, it was their right to travel first class so they would.

Meetings that didn't actually happen or when DH got there (having paid around £200 of tax payers money for the train), the guy in London gave him 5 mins of his time and then said he was off somewhere else.

Some of them don't think about the wastage at all.

mpsw · 04/03/2011 10:31

Do you think this is a procurement f* up, unsuitable PFI, or one of the luvverly DES contracts? DH has certainly fulminated about the latter.

And is the new head of Defence Procurement a Good Thing? (DH has nothing repeatable to say about them, either). Bernard Gray came in from a non-military background, didn't he? Any signs he's making a difference?

scaryteacher · 04/03/2011 11:05

PFI I imagine - I hate to think what the MoD are paying for Shriv for example. Lovely shiny place, but dh used to be on the mess committee when he was ds there, and he said it was like herding cats dealing with the contractors.

vintageteacups · 04/03/2011 17:52

The Shriv ball alone is the price of a two bed house Hmm !!!

And the rent that the MOD are paying for the building is immense.

mpsw · 05/03/2011 12:08

What!!!!

I hope that comes from some ancient endowment, or other subscription fund, not the main budget.

BTW, if MoD is paying rent, who owns the site?

BattyNora · 05/03/2011 12:59

I thought these lovely new homes the RAF had built were lovely at £128,000 -

www.metro.co.uk/news/853644-rafs-128-000-spend-on-bat-houses-reaches-new-levels-of-absurdity

shame they are for Bats as they look alot nicer than most of the maried quarters around here.

Whats more, it seems they spent all this money AFTER they decided they did not need to demolish any other buildings because the Defence College plans for Saints has been scrapped - in ironically - a cost cutting excercise. Hmm

vintageteacups · 05/03/2011 15:34

MoD own the land but not the building.

It was a PFI so the MoD pay the running costs.

Not sure where the ball money comes from.

vintageteacups · 05/03/2011 15:36

BATS ????!!!!

No wonder they got rid of the Harriers then Shock.

mpsw · 05/03/2011 15:46

I thought you might have meant Bastard Air Techs.

scaryteacher · 05/03/2011 20:19

VTC - Shriv balls are great though! Worth the price of the tickets imo.

Asteria · 05/03/2011 20:51

If they binned the contract with Sodexo and went back to mess managers/army chefs for a start that would make an enormous difference...
Someone should go in and talk to the cleaners sometime - they are a wealth of knowledge. Was having a fag with one the other day and she was telling me about a CO's house that she cleaned/furnished for two single CO's in a row. She left the mattresses in their wrappers unless needed and despite this they were all skipped (brand new wrapped ones included)at the end of each CO's occupation. At the very least they could have shoved them into a Mess somewhere.
Don't even get me started on the DE's farcical re-roofing near here. Most of the patch was re-roofed and all that was needed was the odd tile replacing, if that - and now they are blocking up all the fireplaces (one of the only redeeming features in most quarters).

vintageteacups · 06/03/2011 10:27

Oh no! I'm looking forward to having a real fire at out next house Sad

madwomanintheattic · 07/03/2011 06:24

if i was norty i would mention an entire plastic ice rink still in storage and a staff car that gets hidden when the auditors come round.

but i'm not.

oops.

but the shriv balls are some of the better ones. i was slightly Hmm about the semi-clad dancing angle-grinder wimmin amidst showers of orgasmic sparks (!), but no more so than the 'livers-in' lunches that apparently required belly dancers as the entertainment...

sometimes i'm not sure whether to be more appalled by the flagrant expenditure or the casual sexism, but hey ho.

vintageteacups · 07/03/2011 09:45

Was getting slightly concerned then MWITA - DH tells me he has pie and chips or soup for lunch at shriv but there was no mention of belly dancers Grin.

madwomanintheattic · 07/03/2011 14:57

Grin the angle-grinder chicks were shriv though. i honestly didn't know what facial expression to pull, so went for open-mouthed astonishment...

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