Under fire: MOD

The Ministry of Defence still had no means of measuring value for money in multi-million pound projects, the government spending watchdog has warned.

A system of reducing the waiting times for defence spending projects has still to prove it is making improvements despite the fact it has been running since 1998, the National Audit Office warned on Friday.

In the NAO report, concerns were raised over the 20 largest MoD projects, worth £42.7 billion collectively, but it did find "encouraging" signs of its success.

However, chairman of the public accounts committee, Edward Leigh, said: "I welcome the intentions behind smart acquisition and hope it will lead to the clear improvements in capability that our servicemen and women have every right to expect.

"To be able to properly demonstrate this to us, MoD will need to have an adequate measurement system in place and I am concerned that the NAO report suggests that is still some way off. This leaves us still in the dark overall about whether the expected benefits of smart acquisition are actually being delivered."

Defence procurement minister Lord Bach said in response to the report: "Smart acquisition is beginning to work and this report confirms the improving trend. We have more hard work ahead of us to build on these early successes but we know that we are continuing to move along the right lines".