7.9.6.  Financial control and flexibility across support and procurement

Aspects of the financial control and resource categorisations create issues in managing the equipment and support expenditures at DE&S.

Figure 7-18 schematically illustrates the expenditure of the Department by DEL category and budget holder.

Note: Indirect RDEL not shown in annual spend figures; Further £300m spending of non-equipment plan costs that are too small for approval into the NEIP (e.g. long-term partnering agreement with QinetiQ, Joint Supply Chain equipment costs) are also managed by DE&S; * Includes Manpower, Overheads and NNP

Figure 7-18: Financial interaction of support with procurement

Although CDEL and DRDEL Control Totals exist for both EPP and ESP DEL, DE&S manages to the aggregate CDEL and DRDEL CTs - not the EPP and ESP separately86.

The financial control arrangements serve to:

•  make it difficult to trade off between capital and non-capital spending over life for equipment (i.e., 'spend to save'); and

•  make it relatively easy to shift monies within year between the EPP and ESP within a DEL category.

The implications of this are considered further below.

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86 In fact, on an in-year basis the separation between EPP and ESP disappears and is subsumed by a Control Total for DE&S / CDM as a whole