The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
investment
decisions”. As a result, it was difficult to make decisions about
the marginal
utility of
extra expenditure on one activity compared to another.
633.
The Cabinet
Office offered a number of recommendations to improve
decision‑making
within Government and to increase civilian capability. On
resources,
the Cabinet
Office recommended that the GCPP and the ACPP and possibly other
funds
which
supported conflict prevention activities should be brought together
and “managed
as a single
‘budget’”.
634.
The Inquiry
has seen no indications that the paper was formally considered
by
Ministers
or officials.
635.
Mr Quinault
provided advice to Mr Timms on 13 February 2007 on FCO and
DFID
bids to the
Reserve in respect of Afghanistan.392
In that
context, Mr Quinault commented:
“… we [the
Treasury] have managed to hold the line that in keeping with
the
traditional
approach to these things, while MOD do get access to the Reserve
…
the other
departments have to reprioritise within their own budgets. Arguably
this can
lead to
perverse outcomes on occasion if it incentivises decision‑makers to
prefer
military
responses to civilian ones. But it is a useful safety net for us
[the Treasury]
and not to
be given up without careful thought.”
636.
The “lines to
take” attached to the briefing set out the Treasury’s response
to
the challenge
that it was “perverse that MOD gets its operational costs paid …
from
the Reserve
whereas essential civilian measures have to be paid for from FCO
and
DFID
budgets”:
“•
Arrangements
on costs of military operations are of long standing and reflect
the
difficulty
of planning for the large unplanned costs of
operations;
•
In any case
[the] Reserve is spent, cannot consider more funding
…;
•
That is,
unless MOD agree clearly that what you [FCO and DFID] are
proposing
is
sufficiently vital to rank above more troops in the pecking
order?”
637.
Mrs Margaret
Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, wrote to Mr Timms on 1 March
to
present the
FCO’s bid to the 2007 Spending Review.393
She
confirmed her interest in
working
with the Treasury to identify a better mechanism for funding
civilian deployments
in “hot”
post‑conflict situations such as Afghanistan and Iraq. She proposed
that, ideally,
bids to the
Reserve should include both military and civilian costs. If that
was not
possible,
she suggested establishing a “ring‑fenced, multi‑year contingency
fund” from
which the
FCO could draw.
392
Minute
Quinault to Chief Secretary, 13 February 2007, ‘DOP Meeting on Iraq
and Afghanistan,
14 February’.
393
Letter
Beckett to Timms, 1 March 2007, ‘2007 Comprehensive Spending
Review: FCO Submission’.
548