§ 31. Sir G. Foxasked the Secretary of State for Air if he has any figures indicating the average cost of looking after R.A.F. stores, specifying various types of equipment; and what is considered to be a reasonable price for £1 million worth of equipment.
§ Mr. P. Noel-BakerMore than half a million different items of equipment are held in the stores of the R.A.F. Stocks of more than 250,000 items are sometimes held by a single unit. The stocks include goods which vary widely in character: for example, gardening tools, snow ploughs. W.A.A.F.s' clothing, timber, furniture, paints, and aero-engines. For some stores, such as clothing, the initial cost is relatively low, but the maintenance costs are heavy; for others, such as navigational instruments, the initial cost is high, but the maintenance cost is very low. If the hon. and gallant Member is clear that a useful public purpose would be served by the mathematical abstractions for which he asks, perhaps he would be good enough to suggest the basis of calculation on which the cost-accountants of my Ministry should proceed.
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§ 32. Sir G. Foxasked the Secretary of State for Air whether, in view of the fact that the goods stored at No. 70 Maintenance Unit, Goring Heath, are only worth £2 million and the annual cost of maintenance is at least £130,000, he will consider selling up.
§ Mr. P. Noel-BakerNo. 70 Maintenance Unit at Goring Heath is a Ground Equipment Depot. It supplies tools, instruments, mechanical transport, spare parts for mechanical transport, and many other kinds of general stores, to all the R.A.F. units in twenty-two counties in Southern England and South Wales, and to all the R.A.F. units in Gibraltar and Germany. The number of different items of equipment held in stock is 70,900. Every month about 20,000 voucher transactions of stores received and despatched are carried through. As a rule, several items of equipment are recorded on each voucher. The value of the stores held at Goring Heath on any one day is about £2 million; the annual turnover is many times that sum, and in view of the facts which I have given I think the administrative cost is not unduly high.