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IS THIS NELSON'S SPITTING IMAGE? CENTREFOLD PULL-OUT
FEBRUARY 1999
pages 20-21
page 26
Sea Harriers poised for action Invincible set for new Gulf encounter
• HMS INVINCIBLE and the Type 42 destroyer HMS Newcastle leave Portsmouth at the start of the carrier's second deployment to the Gulf within 12 months. Picture: LA/PHOT) Wolfie Wilkinson
A ROYAL Navy task group is approaching the Gulf on a mission to keep the pressure on Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The group - aircraft carrier HMS Invincible, destroyer HMS Newcastle and RFA supply ship Fort Austin - should be in position shortly after Navy News goes to print, where they will join frigates HM ships Boxer and Cumberland and RFA tanker Brambleleaf. RFA Bayleaf, another tanker, sailed with the group from the UK as far as the eastern Mediterranean. Once in the Gulf Invincible's • Turn to back page
LAUNDRY CASH CLEAN-UP Ratings win up to £200
in back tax
ENDURANCE IN THE ICE p36-37
A DEAL WITH the taxman on laundry allowance will mean that sailors and marines will soon get a pay-out of up to £200. The decision follows the Navy's year-long negotiations with the Inland
Revenue which have established the principal of tax relief on laundry charges for uniform clothing. The measure has been backdated to April 1992, which means that those who have served continuously since that date are due tax relief on a total of £920. That produces a rebate of about £200 in tax credit. It is hoped that it will be in next month's pay packet. Those who have served fewer than six to seven years will get proportionately less, the relief being calculated at £120 for each of the first three years, and £140 each for the rest - producing a current tax credit of about £30 a year. Also entitled to relief are exNaval ratings who served from April 1992. No one, serving or exserving, will need to take any action to secure the relief as the
SURRENDER AT SCAPA p25
Navy has supplied all necessary information to the Inland Revenue. Officers, who already have a uniform relief allowance which covers laundering, will not receive the concession. To produce a fair and practical solution, the relief has been calculated at a flat rate which takes into account various uniforms, in both temperate and cold climes, throughout a person's career. A total of about 36,000 people will get some degree of tax relief,
although the change in the tax codes of ex-serving personnel will take longer. A spokesman for the Directorate of Naval Service Conditions (Pay), who negotiated the deal, said the agreement was reached on the understanding that uniform is worn exclusively in the performance of duty. He said: "In negotiations we accepted that socks can be worn off-duty, and they were the only uniform item to be excluded in an item-by-item costing."
Millennium bug 'most important challenge' THE M I L L E N N I U M bug affecting computer date change is the Navy's most important challenge outside immediate operations, such as Operation Desert Fox in the Gulf. Defence Procurement Minister Lord Gilbert warns that the Ministry of Defence has around 30,000 computer systems that use date and time and about half of them have so far been found to be at risk from the bug. About 2,000 systems are
critical to military operations and essential MOD business. To date work is finished on making safe over half of these and the rest should be completed this year. But, warns Lord Gilbert, there is no room for complacency. "Slippage in the programme could affect our ability safely to mount and support military operations, including those in support of the civil authorities." • See page 18.
NAVY SKI CHAMPIONSHIPS p39