Whitehall’s monolith faces reform
David Blackburn 9:05am
The Ministry of Defence is one of Whitehall’s largest and most dysfunctional departments; and it has long resisted effective reform. However,
the parlous public finances dictate that reform take place. 8 per cent Budget cuts have to be delivered, while attempting to bring a £36bn black hole under control.
Strategic retrenchment aside, efficiency is Liam Fox’s most potent weapon. To that end, Lord Levene has conducted an examination into departmental structures. Levene reports that the MoD’s maze of committees and sub-committees should be ripped-up to improve decision making and save money (and perhaps one of the ministry's five ministers of state). 'Sound financial management,' he says 'must be at the heart of what the MoD does.'
Administrative streamlining will also be applied to the services. First, the number of senior officers retained by the MoD will be reduced, but only in line with 17,000 personnel reductions being made to the services as a whole over the next four years. Senior officers will therefore remain perhaps too significant as a proportion of personnel as a whole. To counter that, Levene suggests that a joint command be introduced, where the service arms are represented by one officer. Currently, each service is represented by two officers of equal rank; one who is responsible for long-term strategy, the other for day-to-day operations. This has led to spectacular procurement failures in the past: for instance, at the time of the Strategic Defence Review, the navy was split into two camps: one that favoured a ‘blue-water strategy’ centred on super-carriers, the other favoured a strategy based on smaller and more numerous ships, which demanded that much of Britain’s current fleet be retained for the time being. The intervention in Libya suggests which of those strategies was more suitable to Britain’s likely commitments.
By uniting the services under one joint command and uprooting the obstructive nest of committees, the Secretary of State will be able to manage projects more carefully, which should lessen expensive procurement crises as the MoD prepares to take long-term decisions as the drawdown from Afghanistan begins. There will be some who resist change: both senior officers and MoD officials, both of whom will have their wings clipped. Equally, the most liberal economists might argue that these reforms do not go far enough: difficulties will never be overcome unless procurement is opened up to the international defence market, which will reduce price and encourage greater scrutiny of decisions. But, Levene’s report will make some impact on the dangerous ‘conspiracy of optimism’ that has governed Britain’s defence establishment.
Previous
strapworld
June 27th, 2011 9:23am Report this commentAbout time too. We have got to move towards The Royal Combined Armed Services. Get rid of the vested interests. Have procurement based on what is really needed, not buggins turn.
Well done Liam Fox. But do not let Cameron get his sticky hands on this and give the press conference as though HE did it though!
Now, cut down the MOD civil staff numbers to at least half of the present situation.
Perry
June 27th, 2011 9:38am Report this commentGOOD!
And, Mr Fox, be sure to maintain a perimeter to outFox the H2B.
Alan Douglas
June 27th, 2011 9:54am Report this commentDon't quite know how to put this, but procurement that counts purely price is not enough, unless they add in the costs to the UK of buying elsewhere, ie closed factories, unemployment benefit, lost and/or dispersed skills.
So you may save £ 50m by going to Poland, but when you count in the £ 35m in other costs due to the decision, it looks much less of a bargain. (Inverted figures, no specific project in mind)
Alan Douglas
PrimroseLeague
June 27th, 2011 10:29am Report this comment"We have got to move towards the Royal Combined Armed Services"
Do you mean like Canada did in the 1960s? The same Canada that is now busily restoring separate services...?
The Oncoming Storm
June 27th, 2011 10:40am Report this commentStrapworld, I'm afraid that even with a Canadian style combined service you're still going to get turf wars as the various factions, submariners, armoured corps etc fight to keep their slice of the pie. If you come across any Canadian military fans on the various military forums they're practically unanimous in that amalgamation was a disaster.
What's needed is for ministers to stop the forces from starting turf wars. Sadly in the past it has suited ministers to have the various services looking to put one over on the other, most notoriously Denis Healey playing the Royal Navy and the RAF off against each other over the CVA-01 v TSR2/F-111 saga, Healey ended up shafting them both in the end!
RCE
June 27th, 2011 10:52am Report this commentRemember that those civil servant figures include, inter alia, the civilian guards, fire, medical, and secretarial staff at defence establishments around the country. These jobs were civilianized in past reviews to... erm... save money.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking that all those civil servants that come under 'MOD' wear suits and sit at desks in Whitehall.
HurstLlama
June 27th, 2011 11:08am Report this commentTo continue Mr. Douglas's point relying on oversea's suppliers may have other unwanted effects. Two quick examples. In run up to the first Gulf War the Belgians refused to sell us artillery ammunition - so we went short. We saved a lot of money by buying cheap machine gun ammunition from India, but when we came to use it in action in 2006 it was found to be useless and if the paras hadn't been able to scrounge from the Americans they would have been in (even more) trouble.
Maintaining a skills base, security of supply and confidentiality of cpabalility are all costs that should be factored in to defence procurement decisions.
Roderick Louis
June 27th, 2011 11:18am Report this commenthttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/8600391/Generals-admirals-and-air-chief-marshals-face-sack-Liam-Fox-warns.html
From article:
"... an official review (of the UK MoD) due today will report that the �bloated and dysfunctional� Ministry of Defence leaves ministers 'in the dark' about key decisions..."
How many of the UK's coalition govt's Ministers are aware that work has been ongoing for over 2-years into converting the UK's brand new Type-45 Destroyers into 'ballistic missile defence' destroyers- as part of an 'EU/NATO' ballistic missile defence project*????:
http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20110622_3591.php
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/awx/2011/06/21/awx_06_21_2011_p0-338676.xml&headline=Europe%20Eyes%20Ships,%20Sensors%20For%20PAA%20Missile%20Shield
http://www.defpro.com/news/details/25683/?SID=9730fd89d36f69bcb24e63111f31c536 -
http://defensenews.com/blogs/paris-air-show-2011/2011/06/20/raytheon-sees-european-naval-market-for-sm-3/
CONTINUED
FMJ
June 27th, 2011 11:26am Report this commentWell at least Dr Fox's pension is safe, Phew!
TrevorsDen
June 27th, 2011 11:44am Report this commentI agree with you strapworld.
The decision to build these giant carriers and the contractual arrangement that go with them are a classic case of the shocking state of defence procurement that has led to a 38 billion black hole in the defence budget.
In respect of a 'Royal Combined Armed Services' the US Marine Corps is a model for this and the logiocal suggestion for our land forces is that it majors on special forces at the expense of a notional expeditionary capacity.
There would be I suggest a need for a separate 'strategic command'.
RCE
June 27th, 2011 11:58am Report this commentTD,
Once again you display your ignorance.
The USMC cannot operate beyond a month without the logistic support of the Army, Navy or USAF. They have modular expeditionary forces of battle group and above, and this is a good model for joint forces generally - but they need the reachback and mass of the other 3 services to endure.
Merging would solve nothing. The problem is an elementary mismatch of resources and commitments.
REPAY
June 27th, 2011 12:34pm Report this commentThe MOD paid out 47million in bonuses in the year we could not afford body armour for troops in Afghanistan. Lets hope none are being paid today!
starfish
June 27th, 2011 3:54pm Report this commentREPAY
Rubbish
Wthaever the tabloid press would have you believe these 'bonuses' were in fact delayed pay based on the achievement of objectives
And highly divisive to boot
Insider
June 27th, 2011 4:08pm Report this commentI love the comments on articles about the Armed Forces, pure comedy gold from Armchair Generals who prove their ignorance with almost every word.
For what it's worth IMO this is a long overdue reorganisation but could have been more radical. The "Star Count" issue is a big one, UK Armed Forces are about the size (and sort of shape) of the USMC but have well over double the Star Count. However, if this review is implemented, surely Liam Fox won't need FIVE Ministers of State working for him!!
Monro
June 29th, 2011 9:28am Report this commentThe concern, from a taxpayers standpoint, is that, even with the reforms suggested by Lord Levene, we will still be saddled with a procurement system of staggering complexity.
Given our position today, in Europe and in NATO,and the interdependence, globally, of most of our defence contractors, it must be time to insist on exclusively Commercial Off The Shelf systems procurement.
These will often provide significant levels of required capability for a fraction of the cost of bespoke systems.
Then, at a stroke, you could probably lose about 60% of the entire MOD procurement staff.
It sounds simple, because it is. Now is the time for a true revolution in military affairs, a real revolution in procurement.
All the kit we need is already out there!
Back to top