England

Typhoons billions over budget

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The bill for the RAF's newest fighter has rocketed by billions of pounds due to bad planning and over-optimism at the Ministry of Defence.

That's the conclusion of a report by spending watchdog the National Audit Office, which also reveals £564 million of work to adapt the aircraft for ground attacks is unlikely to be completed until 2018.

It has also emerged that the RAF has been forced to cannibalise some of the state of the art Typhoon jets to keep the Falkland Islands safe because of problems getting hold of spares. It means parts have been taken from airworthy planes to maintain the fighters based in the South Atlantic.

The Government originally ordered 232 in the mid-1980s. That number has since been reduced by 72, but the development and production costs have risen by a fifth to £20.2 billion, and support costs have also gone up.

It is now estimated that each individual aircraft is 75% - or £55 million - more expensive than originally anticipated and the total programme cost will eventually hit £37 billion.

The joint management deal with Germany, Italy and Spain has resulted in problems obtaining spares and meant the RAF has had problems fully training pilots.

NAO head Amyas Morse said: "The Typhoon is currently performing important operational tasks but the full multi-role capability won't be available for a number of years.

"Until this happens the MoD will not have secured value for money from its over £20 billion investment in Typhoon. MoD has put some of the building blocks in place to enable this to happen. But difficult and deep-rooted problems remain to be overcome.

"Our examination has shown that key investment decisions were taken on an over-optimistic basis; the project suffered from corporate decisions to try to balance the defence budget; and the department did not predict the substantial rate at which costs would rise. None of this suggests good cost control, a key determinant of value for money."

Defence Equipment Minister Peter Luff said the MoD and the Eurofighter consortium had learnt from past problems with the programme and that improvements had been made.

He said: "The four partner nations are working hard together to ensure their project management continues to match the excellence of the Typhoon, which is a world-class, multi-role weapon system which meets the defence challenges of the 21st century.

"The Defence Secretary has announced reforms to prevent future delays and cost overruns in Defence procurement, ensuring our armed forces are properly equipped and tax-payers get value for money."