I tend to steer well clear of the Daily Mail type stories about civil servants and top brass living it up on MoD expenses and Purchasing Cards because the truth is often a whole lot more mundane and defensible than the headlines would have you believe but having read this story in posh persons Daily Mail, otherwise called the Telegraph, I think there should be a serious bout of reflection.
The story is about the loss of perks for Senior Officers and Civil Servants across the MoD
There is often a whiff of class envy about these stories and we do have to maintain some balance, after all, travelling long haul economy for senior managers in most commercial organisations is quite rare and First Class Travel on the rail network can have advantages such as allowing people to work whilst travelling.
We don’t need to be silly.
But one figure in the story did raise an eyebrow;
More than £19 million was saved last year through a ban on all first class travel for civilian and military personnel.
It doesn’t specify whether that is First Class on the railways or First Class by air, which are two wholly different things, but if this figure was made up largely of air fares then it is astounding that successive administrations have allowed this to continue.
There is very little difference between Business and First Class on scheduled air travel, luckily, I have experienced both, except the price.
The MoD, despite having a relatively speaking, huge budget, is constantly telling all and sundry that they are always short of cash.
Sifting the facts from the journalistic bullshit is as difficult as ever but this one does leave a number of serious questions to answer because to be perfectly blunt, £19 million is quite a few Mastiff’s or accommodation refurbishments or decent prosthetic limbs.
Travel Lodge and standard class for everyone everywhere I’ve worked.
Occasional angry yells from jumped up department heads (one liked to fly to head office on thursday morning, have a meeting on friday, another on monday, then fly home tuesday afternoon, apparently the company used to pick up the flight for his bit on the side too).
Actualy, we sometimes flew out a Customer Service Guy from Disney, he flew outrageously expensive class.
I’m fairly sure it’s train travel, not air. Never heard of first class air travel. Air travel at any level has to be signed off by quite a high level ranked officer, I think at one point it was 1*. I think some senior officers are/were entitled to first class train travel but not that many. Like you I’m a bit suspicious of the £19m saving, maybe £19m was spent on first class train tickets (although on first look that’s still quite a bit) in total rather than the actual saving from buying economy instead?
As to train travel, i belive but not 100% sure ATOC (Association of Train Operating Companies) do deals for the MoD. A bit more hard bargaining by them, should bring the price down, even more. And if they dont get now maybe Phill should put a bit of pressure on Justine Greening at the Dept of Transport to get one?
Dave
@ david
1/3 off travel with a rail card, but I don’t think there is any deal with the train companies. Train use, even with these figures, would still be pretty small anyway. Most people fly or get a hire car. Although that might be just from my perspective, as we tend to be in the middle of nowhere miles from the nearest train station.
Travel and Subsistence Budget!
The Army and TA must hire most of the cars and minibuses in the country. And then people like crash one brand new hire car into another brand new hire car. Oops. Not my fault though guv.
Travel should be sensible. Let’s not forget that it is the dignity of the office that is being transported, not the current incumbent.
I see nothing wrong with senior officers travelling first class on trains and travelling sensibly by air. It simply doesn’t do to do otherwise. It’s human nature.
It has probably changed now (I should hope it has), but in between 2000-2003 I flew something like 50 times to the US, mostly West Coast, on JUEP or Watchkeeper or ASTOR business. There was a rule stating that if you flew over 8 hours, it was business class, so that’s what the Travel Cell at HQ LAND booked me. I think Virgin did have a central deal with the MoD at the time, so it might not have been cripplingly expensive. Naturally I signed up for the Virgin frequent flyer programme, mostly to get access to the lounges in LHR and LAX. For the main JUEP exercise, 22 of us flew business class to LAX, all miles credited to my account.
Here’s the stupid thing. There was no way at all – neither the MoD nor Virgin were interested – in transferring the embarrassingly large total of air miles I started racking up from a personal air miles account to a non-existent MoD air miles account. I did not spend the miles. When I left the service I went to COS LAND at the time whom I knew well, and said I felt embarrassed. He got his MA to make a couple of phone calls, then I got a message to say “nothing to be done – treat them as a perk and good luck in civvy life”
So, two family trips to the States for hols, sent both my parents separately across in Upper Class, and I still have about 150,000 miles left. The ruddy things get their validity extended for 3 more years each time there’s a “transaction”.
Surely it is not beyond the wit of the MoD to create a separate UIN for MoD paid-for air miles (and publish a note in QRs forbidding anyone personally gaining air miles for duty travel), and use that to offset some of the cost? Even with a single full time clerk running the UIN, you’d still be saving hundreds of thousands.
@ RT
The rule that you can’t personally profit from airmiles is in now. You can get them but have to declare them as a gift. The station Adj then sorts out the miles, but as I can only vaguely remember the rule, I’m not too sure what happens to them then. Yes I think it would knock the cost down a bit, perhaps not as much as in the past, mainly due to not being able to get business class anymore. Certainly on the trips I’ve had out to the US not a sniff of Business Class (or maybe that was just me!) nor anyone I went with regardless of rank (although no-one was particularly senior on any of the flights). It’s still Virgin as well.
TrT said “we sometimes flew out a Customer Service Guy from Disney”
That’s a coincidence. I used to work for a Mickey Mouse company too.
Middle-ranking (I forget which grade it starts at) MoD civil servants are entitled to first class rail travel and business class air travel on flights over 2.5hrs duration. Some of those at the very top might be entitled to first class air travel. First class rail travel is currently suspended and I think business class air travel has been reduced to flights over 4hrs duration, though RFA officers are getting screwed over even on that.
So far as I am concerned travel perks are part of the conditions of service, like the pay and pension arrangements, and like the erosion to those this is just another part of making the MoD a less attractive employer in what for my profession is a very competitive marketplace. Many of my colleagues have left or are leaving for better pay and conditions in the private sector leaving the MoD with the feckless dregs, those close to a pension and a few stupid or naively committed souls.
No, this is basically stupid crap. What was better, the old pre-Murdoch press with its three-bottle lunches and flagrant miscellaneous charge order blagging, or the Becky Asbo-era papers?
The efficient private sector (as they say) doesn’t pay people to confiscate air miles. Stupid crap, treating serious people like school kids.
Alex,
Contention One: No Change (from the situation as existed in 2003), where the MoD spends call it £50 million on Virgin Upper Class travel, for all sorts of good military / business reasons, and the individuals “pocket” the air miles for personal use.
Contention Two: Have a separate UIN hoovering up air miles from across the £50 million, adminsitered by a pretty small staff, and use £50 million-worth of air miles to reduce the cost of next year’s travel budget, netting an overall saving of call it £5 million (the 10:1 ratio being about what these air miles get you).
It should not even be too difficult. The small admin staff of the UIN put up a web page on DII showing the current air miles balance, the Travel Cell of the unit concerned check, and if enough air miles make the booking to “charge” the UIN those miles. If there is not enough balance, they just book using their own UIN and tell the traveller to make sure to swipe the card at the check in desk to credit his gained air miles for that specific trip back to the central UIN.
Not – to me – basically stupid crap, but what do I know?
X
Tee hee hee
Rest
Actualy “perks” are pretty routinely abused in the private sector too.
Most hotel chains have an equivalent to frequent flyer miles.
Booting you out of business class and the Hilton is win enough for me.
Topman,
“1/3 off travel with a rail card, but I don’t think there is any deal with the train companies. Train use, even with these figures, would still be pretty small anyway. Most people fly or get a hire car. Although that might be just from my perspective, as we tend to be in the middle of nowhere miles from the nearest train station.”
Forces Railcard is specifically NOT to be used for duty travel.
The assumption for civil service duty travel is that it will be by train and air travel must be demonstrated to be necessary or cheaper.
@ Anixtu
I was just using it as an example of where a deal had been done with the train companies.
First time I’ve heard of that, but then I’m not CS.
RT – as I recall the Business Class thing was not just about length of flight, I flew good old Caledonian to both Dubai and Qatar to join ships, and it was Business Class because it was a more flexible ticket, it was a full refund if not used etc, whereas economy class was no refund at all.
Great fun flying on their Hong Kong route, full of pretty HK Chinese cabin crew wearing Tartan outfits
Mind you, free booze on the way to a Muslim country is a bit of a waste……
There’s always a “points card” to abuse. Before the Council gave me the keys to the fuel cupboards at Highways Depots, I always used to wait until I passed a BP station before filling up (and using a fuel card). The Nectar points always came in useful at Christmas in Argos . . . .
I can provide catergorical assurances on a few points.
Firstly, 1st class rail entitlement has been in abeyance for about 3-4 years. I have heard of staff being disciplined for using 1st class travel, even if cheaper than using standard (it does happen!). No chance the department will ever go back to 1st class travel entitlement.
Airline travel – 1st class travel very very very rare (think long haul for Ministers only). Today Ministers go business I believe. Everyone else usually goes premium economy where the routes have it, or fly business. If they fly business, they are expected to work on arrival. The vast majority of long haul flyers I know tend to go economy – the line is ‘fly in the back, or dont go’.
The MOD is definitely not sending civil servants in first class seats around the world!
@ Sir H
Could you clear up a couple of points re CS travel? Are they not allowed on RAF AT for example on a trail out to N. America? Reason I ask, I’ve known it happen where there are plenty of spares seats and want to go on the trial but are told they aren’t allowed and must use civ air.
Topman
There is no RAF AT to north america as such. There is a civilian airline contract, with prebooked seats in economy on a daily basis to DC.
There are trooping flights to some locations for exercises, but they are often picking people up, or doing military stuff. By the time you get to the destination (often nowhere near right place), transfer and factor in costs, its probably cheaper to get you out direct. AT is not free seats – there is a cost somewhere.
RFA (to the extent that they are CS) are required by PRGs to use trooping flights where available. I don’t know if this applies to mainstream CS, I might check tomorrow. In practice it is inconvenient for MoD to send RFA personnel on trooping flights and they avoid it, contrary to our stated conditions of service!
@ Sir H
Yes I know there is no set AT to N America per se, I meant is there a rule that CS can’t use say a Tristar on a trail. They were going to the exact location as the rest of the aircraft were and were involved on the exercise that the trail had been put on for. They were in effect attached to the Sqn.
Topman – may be worth doing an ‘ask the board’ about that one. Ping me an email off line and I’ll point you on how to do just that…
So can I put my Daily Mail outrage away now then?
@ Sir H
That’s on the front page of DII isn’t? I think I know what you mean. I’m not meaning to take it official, I was just curious.
TD – absolutely. As its Daily Mail it may be worth checking to see if first class travel gives you cancer though…
Topman – Front page it is – if in doubt ask, as its always good to get an answer. It does make people think about whether the system makes sense
Topman,
I quote from MoD CS regulations (Policy, Rules & Guidance):
“Where available, RAF Trooping and MOD charter flights must be used, including where they are available for only part of the intended journey/route. In cases where RAF/MOD flights cannot be used, the most economic commercial flight should be booked.”
It obviously doesn’t happen in practice, but them’s the rules.
And with respect to first class travel, SCS Grades 1 and upward(?) are entitled to first class air travel on flights of more than 2.5hrs duration. It may not happen in practice at present, but is still the baseline in the rules.
@ Anixtu
Thanks.