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Comments on the Ministry of Defence's 2014 budget

News item | 04-11-2013 | 12:55

The House of Representatives received a letter from the Court of Audit on the Ministry of Defence's 2014 budget on 4 November 2013. The budget and other recent developments have prompted the Court to draw the House's attention to a number of points.

We referred to four points in our validation memorandum entitled In the Interests of the Netherlands: 

  1. The additional operating costs during the transition from the F-16 to the JSF should already be disclosed in the multiyear estimates in the 2014 budget but they are not yet. The estimates for 2019 are therefore less robust than could be expected.
  2. All financial consequences referred to in the memorandum should be incorporated in the 2014 budget. The minister has stated that changes in the financial consequences, as included in the current 2014 budget, can be absorbed by making new agreements with the Ministry of Finance, for example through the use of an unlimited year-end margin. However, the margin cannot absorb all changes. 
  3. In the Interests of the Netherlands refers to an 'ambition gap'. The Minister of Defence uses the term to refer to parts of the budgets for materiel operation that the air force, navy and army must still work out in detailed measures. The measures are not yet disclosed in the budget.
  4. The Ministry of Defence's Defence Investment Plan (DIP) sets out the plans to invest in major materiel, infrastructure and IT systems for the entire ministry. The Ministries of Defence and of Finance have reached agreement on the permissible tension in the DIP. This is not disclosed in the 2014 budget because the DIP is not part of the budget.

The Court of Audit also made a number of comments on a letter from the Minister of Defence of 25 October 2013 in which, further to In the Interests of the Netherlands, she outlines the consequences of the 2014 budget agreements for the Ministry of Defence.

The letter is one in a series of letters sent to the House of Representatives commenting on the government's 2014 budget.

The letter is only available in Dutch.