WHEN IN DOUBT FORM A COMMITTEE AND EMPLOY CONSULTANTS!
By Julian Nettlefold
10 Feb 10. The common remark for those canvassed by BATTLESPACE after the speech by Lord Drayson today on Defence Acquisition Reform was ‘We’ve heard it all before.”
With questions from the Editor, Robert Fox and Nick Prest of Cohort amongst others about the third item on the agenda – the MoD’s people – Lord Drayson was confident that the £45m paid to consultants would solve the underperformance of DE&S Staff as noted from the Bernard Gray Report. The MoD rejected out of hand Bernard Gray’s recommendations to form a GoCo (Government-owned, Contractor Operated) out of DE&S and parried Nick Prest’s question about how DE&S had problems ‘keeping up with industry.’ He said (well he would wouldn’t he) that there was need to see more people from industry. But he is right in certain areas of DE&S and BATTLESPACE understands that an outsider from Shell is favourite to take over as CDP as long as his salary is way above £250k, thus beating Maj. Gen. Dick Applegate and in house favourite Dr. Andrew Tyler! That is the problem, industry provides a better reward structure. Robert Fox of the Evening Standard quite rightly pointed out that without the three service chiefs in the new committee consisting of the Permanent and 2nd permanent Secretaries, the Chief and Vice Chief of the Defence Staff and the Finance Director, that the current threats would not be taken into account when buying new equipment. “How can you debate the full operational requirements and new threats without these people and how will it be represented? Lord Drayson parried this by saying that the military view the fundamentals effectiveness of defence and change would be made accountable within the annual NAO Review. What he was probably hinting at was that all new threats would be dealt with by UORs outside the main budget which would plod on in its time honoured manner although within these new time limits. He said, when questioned by Andrew Chuter about the timings of these improvements that it would be at least a year before anything would be noticed by which time he will have gone with the rest of this government!”If re-elected, we will draft a second Defence Industry Strategy – following the same principles of the first – during the SDR. We will do it with you (excluding Raytheon Systems!) as our partners, like last time. Good news! What did the first DIS actually achieve?
Syvia Pfeir of the FT commented that Lord Drayson said a new committee to review strategic direction and affordability will not include the single service chiefs “because we need to fix the counter-productive incentives within the system”. He added: “We need to make sure that the decisions made about capability are rigorously examined for their affordability and their requirement – from the perspective of [the Ministry of] Defence overall and not a single viewpoint within Defence.” Instead, the committee will comprise the permanent and second permanent secretaries, the chief and vice-chief of the defence staff and the finance director. It will be a key part of the decision-making process, said the MoD,
together with ministers and the chiefs of the services. Lord Drayson’s words are likely to inflame a heated debate on the direction of defence strategy. The traditional rivalry between the three service chiefs has
become ever more bitter as they fight over the MoD’s dwindling resources. This year has seen public disagreements between General Sir David Richards, head of the army, and Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, head of the navy, on the future shape of the armed forces.
In his speech, Lord Drayson said that “the purpose is to control more closely what projects go in and out of the programme, and to be more active in identifying and dealing with projects at risk of cost growth or delay”. The government needs to “stop making decisions to delay projects, simply to meet in-year cost pressures”. His reforms draw on