Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 21 January 2022 to Question 106614 on Ministry of Defence: Stonewall, for what reason his Department did not maintain financial records of the £14,681 the Army spent on Stonewall in the 2017-18 financial year; and what his Department's requirements are for recording and retention of financial expenditure.
In my response to Question 103509 on 18 January and to Question 106613 on 21 January, the Army spent £17,181 in FY2017-18. £2,500 of this was for Stonewall Membership. The remaining £14,681 was spent on Stonewall Conferences as well Stonewall training courses which are purchased on an ad-hoc basis by the Army LGBT+ network. As the full breakdown and specifics are held on archived IT systems it would take time to retrieve and collate the information in a more granular format.
FY2017-18 | Cost |
Training | £13,641 |
Conference Fees | £1,040 |
Government policy is that financial records should be kept for up to seven years. Government departments and agencies’ accounts have to be laid before Parliament and are therefore preserved as published Parliamentary papers. Therefore, supporting documentation may be destroyed after any limitation periods have expired.