The Ministry of Defence has admitted that its current inventory and warehousing IT systems are "at risk of catastrophic failure", due to their age and infrastructure on which they are hosted.

The MoD made the admission in written evidence for the Public Accounts Committee, as its investigated the National Audit Office's recent daming assesment of the its logistics IT systems.

The PAC warned that, while the MoD is planning to upgrade and unify many of its IT systems, similar projects had led to nothing in the past. It will be holding the MoD to "its promise to report back to us on progress in six and twelve months' time", the committee warned in a report. 

Speaking on the publication of the report, PAC chair Margaret Hodge said a failure of IT systems would lead to shortages for frontline troops within a month.

Hodge noted that there were several cases of shortages already. "In some cases, delays in receiving spare parts have led to planes and other vehicles being cannibalized to make parts available. Stockpiling to guard against delays has resulted in some supplies deteriorating before they are used," Hodge said.