Being a trading fund only means that trading receipts must account for 50% of revenues. It says nothing about where those revenues must come from, nor where continuous capital investment must come from.
Their revenues are still 85% from government contracts (bid and no-bid) according to 2013 accounts [1]. From a cursory read, I'd say it cost the government £16m in 2013 and produced £12.3m in profit, with more than £170m of revenue coming straight from governmental contracts and £30m from commercial ones.
I can see people looking forward to cutting £16m from the yearly budget and force all internal contracts to be bids, lowering that £170m bill. It makes an awful lot of sense, from a certain perspective.
Their revenues are still 85% from government contracts (bid and no-bid) according to 2013 accounts [1]. From a cursory read, I'd say it cost the government £16m in 2013 and produced £12.3m in profit, with more than £170m of revenue coming straight from governmental contracts and £30m from commercial ones.
I can see people looking forward to cutting £16m from the yearly budget and force all internal contracts to be bids, lowering that £170m bill. It makes an awful lot of sense, from a certain perspective.
[1] http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/n/e/Annual_Report-web....