§ Mr. BaconTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence who the Finance Director of the Department is; what accountancy qualifications the Director holds; and on how many occasion there has been a qualified opinion on(a) the resource accounts and (b) other accounts of the Department in the last five years. [183428]
§ Mr. CaplinThe Ministry of Defence's Finance and Planning Director is Trevor Woolley. Mr. Woolley was appointed following a Whitehall wide competition and took up post on 13 October 2003. He has substantial financial management experience in MOD at senior level across a range of posts within Head Office and in managing the finances of one of our largest budget areas. Although Mr. Woolley does not himself have an accountancy qualification, his staff includes a senior team of experienced accountants and other professional specialists.
The MOD's first Departmental Resource Accounts were published in 2000 and were disclaimed by the National Audit Office. Significant progress has been made since then and, although the accounts have been qualified in each year, those for 2002–03 received just one qualification.
Trading Fund organisations and non-departmental public bodies associated with the MOD also publish accounts, but these fall outside the departmental accounting boundary and the organisations' Chief Executives and Finance Directors are separately accountable for them.