Concern over Army expenses fraud

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Lieutenant-General Sir David Richards, who takes over as chief of the general staff in August, expressed his concern that servicemen were pilfering and abusing the Army's joint personnel administration (JPA).

Introduced last year, the JPA system allows expenses to be claimed by soldiers via computer, which are checked randomly.

In a document published on The Sunday Times website - which the Ministry of Defence confirmed was genuine - Sir David wrote: "I am becoming concerned over the prevalence of fraudulent behaviour as well as what I can at best describe as 'sharp practice' and at worst dishonesty."

He added: "There are soldiers and even some officers who view JPA as a 'cash machine' and are processing fraudulent claims in the belief that if caught they will claim ignorance and hope to refund the monies with no further action.

"While this may be an acceptable excuse for a small number of our young soldiers as they develop competence on JPA, it is inexcusable for our commissioned, warrant and non commissioned officers."

He likened the experience to that of insurance companies seeing more fraudulent claims in a "challenging financial climate".

Sir David, currently the commander-in-chief land forces, also said "petty pilfering" of stationery and other commodities was "an unnecessary drain on resources, resources that could be better spent looking after our soldiers". And he said the abuse of allowances, while not always in clear breach of the rules, "are certainly in breach of the spirit or the underlying intent".

He urged commanders at all levels to enforce appropriate supervision and management checks, to "protect the less virtuous from themselves".

An MoD spokesman said: "The JPA system has allowed individuals greater autonomy and it is good governance that they are periodically reminded of their responsibilities. This is what this letter sets out to do. Auditing and scrutiny of the system is carried out by random sampling of claims and any fraudulent claims are dealt with robustly."