Ministry of Defence 'reprieve' on £1bn funding gap
Some 7,000 jobs are expected to be lost from the Army over the next four yearsThe Ministry of Defence (MoD) has won a reprieve on its £1bn funding gap this year, the BBC understands.
The Treasury and MoD have agreed on measures to be taken this year in a deal apparently brokered by Downing Street, the BBC's Caroline Wyatt said.
Some spending will be either frozen or postponed. The Treasury stressed there has been no extra funding for the MoD.
Under the strategic defence review announced in October, defence spending is set to fall by 8% over four years.
The Royal Navy and RAF will lose 5,000 jobs each, the Army 7,000 and the Ministry of Defence 25,000 civilian staff.
But the review, which was concluded before service personnel were deployed to Libya in addition to Afghanistan, failed to close a £1bn spending gap in this year's MoD budget.
'Politically unpopular'Our correspondent said the deal agreed between the Treasury and MoD comes amid increasing speculation that senior military figures are pressing Downing Street to think again about some of the cuts decided in the review.
It is thought that under the terms of the agreement some spending will be either frozen or postponed, some of it to the next financial year.
That would mean avoiding extra cuts this year, which our correspondent said "could have proved politically unpopular, with the armed forces once again active on two fronts".
"Some costs will be shifted from the MoD's budget to the Treasury special reserve, for example the allowance given to those on active duty," she said, adding that there are also targets for efficiency savings, with a clampdown on all non-operational spending.
However, some analysts argue that the MoD budget will come under renewed strain next year, with some of the pain simply deferred unless deeper cuts are made in 2012 or extra money is found for defence.
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