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Written question asked by Madeleine Moon (Labour) on Tuesday, 21 February 2012, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 23 February 2012. It was answered by Lord Robathan (Conservative) on Tuesday, 6 March 2012 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Air Training Corps: Expenditure

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what estimate he has made of the time taken to obtain 2/3 star approval of any spending cost over £1,000 by Air Training Corps, broken down by month of application in (a) 2010 and (b) 2011; and if he will make a statement;
Answer

The requirement for 2 or 3 star approval for all Air Training Corps costs over £1,000 was introduced between April 2011 and September 2011 in line with a Ministry of Defence-wide drive to control of non-operational costs. Outside this period, normal financial delegations pertained.Information on the number of requests for spending over £1,000 submitted for 2 or 3 star approval by the Air Training Corps and the average time taken to obtain that approval by month for the period requested is shown in the following table. For months not shown in the table there were no requests submitted for approval at 2 or 3 star level.

2010 2011
Nov Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Total
Number of requests for 2 or 3 star approval 1 1 1 3 16 12 20 1 55
Average approval turnaround (calendar days) 6 7 6 21 10 11 13 7 —

Of the 55 requests for 2 or 3 star approval, 40 were for travel and subsistence costs. These are shown by region in the following table:

Corps HQ Central and East region London and South East region North region Scotland and Northern Ireland region South West region Wales and West region Total
2010 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
2011 7 5 6 5 11 2 3 39

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
96564; 541 c646W
Session
2010-12
Subjects
Expenditure Air training corps
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk