ABSTRACT
The level of defence expenditure is affected not only by the vital strategic and political factors involved, but also by decisions about the social allocation of resources, about how to mediate competing claims on public expenditure and how to reconcile strategic requirements with other important social needs. The proportion of the British defence budget devoted to equipment has shown a slight tendency to fall over the last fifteen years, varying from a high of 42 per cent in 1965/6 to a low of 31 per cent in 1971/2. Defence spending can be broadly split into direct expenditure on personnel, expenditure on equipment, and miscellaneous works and other expenditure. Taken all together the total of individual public sector budgets reflects the government’s priorities about public as against private consumption, about the level of demand in the economy, the requirements of public sector borrowing and so on.
