The National Audit Office has issued qualified opinions on the Ministry of Defence’s 2024–25 accounts, citing missing records for major capital projects and a material shortfall of £2.56 billion in provisions for legal and other liabilities.
The NAO found that the MoD was unable to provide accounting evidence for a large portion of projects undertaken by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), a non-departmental public body responsible for aspects of the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
As of 31 March 2025, AWE projects represented £6.13 billion of the MoD’s assets under construction, including £1.5 billion in “legacy projects” that have remained unchanged for several years.
Auditors said the MoD could not demonstrate that the continued recognition of these project costs was appropriate, and that other balances within the £6.13 billion appeared not to meet accounting standards. As a result, Comptroller and Auditor General Gareth Davies limited the scope of his audit opinion on the department’s 2024–25 financial statements.
The watchdog also identified a £2.56 billion shortfall in provisions recognised in the MoD’s 2023–24 accounts, linked to personal injury claims and resettlement costs under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) and the Afghanistan Response Route (ARR). These omissions required the restatement of last year’s accounts and led to a qualified regularity opinion due to unauthorised expenditure.
The NAO said the MoD had not briefed auditors about the 2022 data breach that triggered the ARR scheme until a super-injunction was lifted in July 2025, preventing scrutiny during the 2023–24 audit. The MoD has since begun work with AWE to review its £6.13 billion project ledger, which the NAO will examine as part of its 2025–26 audit.
The National Audit Office made clear that its findings point to serious weaknesses in the MoD’s financial management and record-keeping for long-term capital and legal obligations.
Is anyone surprised? It’s like HMG has spent the last 30 years degrading parts of the MoD as a competent entity.
Or, the AWE is so secret, the MoD has no idea where all the money allocated to the DNE goes?
Or, rampant corruption and money is going missing like the Donald Rumsfeld 1 trillion pre 9/11 saga.
Which is it?
Is the reported 2 billion overspend we heard about a few weeks ago linked to the 2.56 billion highlighted re ARAP and ARR?
If this government cuts 2 billion of military assets to make up the
Shortfall I hope they fall, quickly.
Or am I misreading all this?
M8 it’s just like Network Rail modernisation costs but way more lethal ! Ancient out of date construction / infrastructure / tech which can only be visually assessed to estimate project costs and then when you get into actual implementation it’s a Pandoras Box of unknown issues. Big difference is lack of plans and there is no one around who knows the back story so once it’s been opened there is no way back and that’s £££££.
The other big difference is that a lot of the AWE / DNE infrastructure requires H&S levels that other than Nuclear decommissioning are off the scale. A lot of it was built Post war when H&S was wearing a flat cap and boiler suit as PPE.
It’s all clapped out, maintenance / updates deferred for decades or ignored by our Political masters and now it’s not only got to be able to replace our kit but handle increased volumes for our Australian Friends.
Hi mate.
Thank you. I don’t mind spend if it’s for a reasonable purpose and our DN infrastructure clearly needs modernising.
So what about that ARR ARAP nonsense?
I’ll probably get barred if I said it’s total “Ball Cocks” so I’ll be polite. Quite how we get stuck with the bill when it’s all down to another country deciding to have a go at the Worlds No1 Military Historical “Do not disturb or else country” and us being stupid enough to join in is beyond me.
The word to all those who got paid to help us should be “Oops Sorry but tough”.🤷🏼♂️
Afghanistan vs UK 3 / Nil
Afghanistan vs Russia 2 / Nil
Afghanistan vs US 1 / Match abandoned as Team was losing and went home for warm Apple Pie when they realised they were playing the wrong opponents !
Saudi Arabia vs US 1 / No one talks about that one 🤷🏼♂️
I would think personal injury claims are costing the MOD a small fortune as they are part of that £2.56 billion
Memo To: MOD
FROM: HM Treasury
Darlings
Don’t you worry your pretty little heads about the missing £2.54B. We’ll just not replace the 3 x T26 you’ve sold to Norway, and call it quits. That will still leave you with 5 new shiny boats to play with, plus those silly little T31 with their pop guns and 6 AA missiles.
With all our love
RR
PS: T83? In your dreams.
£25,000 for a lightbulb……………£90,000 for a toilet seat…………
Have we given Shetland to the Danes ?
Just thinking aloud where we might have lost another couple of Billion.
You never know these days.
The NAO has unsurprisingly announced that it will audit the affordability of the MoD’s still to be published Defence Investment Plan.
In other news, water, it’s wet!
Is it any wonder when successive governments have cut, cut, and cut again? The civil servants in the MOD have degraded a once-effective list of departments while creating inefficiencies that no private business would tolerate.
At some point, most likely after it all kicks off, someone will wake up and realise that for Xi, 2027 is more than just another date. China will attack Taiwan in that year. Pushing Western navies out of the ECS and the second island chain is part and parcel of its aim to take and keep its errant island neighbour successfully, and China is actively pursuing this now.
On a second front, China is trying to hobble the Western semiconductor industry before that date. This is important as all modern technology relies on these SoC’s. Meanwhile, in other news, China took 100% of the technology, manuals, and R&D out of the UK from Nexperia. This was right under the nose of the Starmer government, which chose to do nothing because Labour doesn’t want to upset China, despite three intelligence departments notifying their ministry bosses of what it was doing at Nexperia. The Home, Foreign and Defence Secretaries were warned over eight months ago that Wingtech were taking small pieces of the tech from the UK every week.
Whether it’s confusion with what’s happening at the AWE or Nexperia, the UK government is absent in making decisions that protect the United Kingdom. We should all be worried. Had Nazi Germany been half as effective against the UK in 1938 as China has been in the past few years, we would all be speaking German now.
Unfortunately I think the Western economies (and hence governments) are too far entwined in Chinese money & their supply chains to have any chance of autonomy or freedom.
The UK at least started to take notice of the inherent security risk when Williamson called out UK comms dependencies on Huwai (and look where that got him) .
Even some of the Torys including IDS started to get wary as part of the fall out from COVID but they soon forgot all of that when that was consigned to the History books-apart from IDS of course, and restarted the chase for the Chinese Yuan.
China now control much of our infrastructure, and our economy, from Nuclear to Education (see Sheffield Harlam).
I doubt in reality Trump will/can do much to stem their progress , the EU even less and , us, well, we have seen how easily Starmer and co. bend to their Chinese ‘masters’.
The West has had its day , on more than one front- may as well just lie back and think of England…
Unfortunately I think the Western economies (and hence governments) are too far entwined in Chinese money & their supply chains to have any chance of autonomy or freedom.
The UK at least started to take notice of the inherent security risk when Williamson called out UK comms dependencies on Huwai (and look where that got him) .
Even some of the Torys including IDS started to get wary as part of the fall out from COVID but they soon forgot all of that when that was consigned to the History books-apart from IDS of course, and restarted the chase for the Chinese Yuan.
China now control much of our infrastructure, and our economy, from Nuclear to Education (see Sheffield Harlam).
I doubt in reality Trump will/can do much to stem their progress , the EU even less and , us, well, we have seen how easily Starmer and co. bend to their Chinese ‘masters’.
The West has had its day , on more than one front- may as well just lie back and think of England…