Vol. 494 No. 3
10 Mr. Neville asked the Minister for Defence the way in which he intends to delegate day to day administration of the Defence Forces from his Department to the branches of the Defence Forces themselves; and the progress to date in this regard. [17897/98]
As part of the Defence Forces Review process, the Government approved the substantial delegation of financial authority, accompanied by budgets, to the Chief of Staff, the Adjutant General and the Quartermaster General. In An Action Programme for the Millennium, the Government undertook to enhance the efficiency of the Defence Forces by delegating all day to day administration from the Department of Defence to the Defence Forces. I am pleased to report that good progress has been made towards fulfilling this commitment and that delegation continues to work well.
To date, 64 per cent of the non-pay element of the Defence Vote, amounting to over £77 million, has been devolved to the military authorities. The delegation of day to day supply procurement is nearing completion and discussions are continuing with the military authorities regarding further budgetary delegation. In addition to delegating these budgets, the associated administrative processes have also been delegated.
I welcome the commencement order signed by the Minister yesterday following the legislation we passed in this House. I take the opportunity also to welcome the new Army Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Dave Stapleton, to whom that order was assigned. Does the Minister intend to make further progress on delegation, particularly in relation to the Naval Service and the Air Corps where there is serious dissatisfaction about the centralised nature of much of the decision making in which they are involved and the lack of autonomy in regard to budget, staffing and PR management? What actions will he take in this area?
As I said in my reply, 64 per cent of the non-pay area has been substantially delegated. If we examine all the resources available to me, 60 per cent of the total budget goes on pay and 18 per cent on compensation. We do not have much of a say over these two areas as they are decided at other fora. There is an agreement on pay — national, local or otherwise — and then we deal with the judicial decisions taken on the claimants' cases. Approximately 78 per cent is out of our control — there is no question of delegating to anybody. Sixteen per cent of the total Defence Vote is now delegated and the balance is quite small.
The Deputy is correct as far as the Naval Service and the Air Corps are concerned. The scope that exists in this respect needs to be examined but there are a number of aspects to this. The military has to train personnel to be the successful receivers of this new administrative opportunity for dealing with these issues. The military is not used to doing that so it will be done on a phased basis. We all want to have a more enlightened approach to management in the future and delegation to the lowest possible point is the most effective way to go forward. We will continue that within the narrow range that remains.
How many officials of the Department of Defence have been redeployed to other duties or other Departments as a result of this process? What will the total numbers be at the end of the process and where does the Minister think they are likely to be redeployed?
I am sure Deputy Dukes knows the answer to this because people who have long experience here sometimes know the answer before they put the question.
Parkinson's law, is it?
The Deputy may be aware that in the past seven or eight years there has been a reduction of approximately 150 in the administrative strength of the Defence Forces, but in tandem with this change an area which has grown out of all proportion, and which could not have been anticipated, is the administrative requirement of dealing with the new claims. I have had to move significant numbers of personnel to meet the growing requirements in that area. The Deputy is probably suggesting that the overall economies produced by that action have not materialised because of the need to allocate people to new areas but account should have been taken of the significant drop in the overall numbers in the Defence Forces administrative area in the past number of years. I want to ensure we have enough personnel to deal with future critical areas and any reallocation in the Department is clearly the way to go.
