Former Armed Forces Minister and Rayleigh and Wickford MP, has warmly welcomed the introduction of the ‘new integrated procurement model’, which represents comprehensive reform of defence procurement.
In response to an Oral Statement on the Integrated Procurement Model, by the Minister for Defence Procurement, James Cartlidge MP, Mark said:
“I have waited years for an MoD Minister to issue this statement- and this very good Minister has done just that. It’s true the PAC said that the procurement system was broken, the Defence Committee last summer endorsed that in a Report in a Sub Committee that I chaired, entitled ‘It is broke- and it is time to fix it.’- well I take this as the fix, the put right plan.
Can I welcome it- and in particular the sense of urgency that comes with it? When the Defence Secretary said that we now live in a ‘pre-war’, rather than a ‘post-war’ world, we must do this quicker and crucially faster. The proof will be in the pudding, but can the Minister assure me and the whole House that the point about the sense of urgency will be at the centre of any of this- and he and Andy Start will now get on with it?”
In response, the Minister for Defence Procurement, James Cartlidge MP, said:
“I am honoured by my Rt Hon Friend, we enjoy our robust exchanges- and that is one I will particularly remember. What I would say is that this phrase ‘sense of urgency’ is what I think the public wants to hear because as important as our exchanges are here today, this is really serious and why this is above politics, this is about the fact that our adversaries are rapidly ramping up their procurement defence technology at a frankly frighting pace in a number of cases.”
Commenting further on today’s statement, Mark Francois said:
“Having chaired the Defence Sub-Committee inquiry into defence procurement, I warmly welcome this fundamental reform to defence procurement. As we enter an increasingly dangerous world, it is imperative that our procurement system finally starts to deliver kit on time and on budget- not least as we might actually have to fight with it.”
We have had Defence procurement reform before including Peter Levene’s and Bernard Gray’s, both resulting in some clear improvements but not perfect fixes. What is this new one about? I see no explanation or details.
I think Bernard’s led to the Ajax contracting framework and conflating a development program and production contract into one – as we can witness development /CDR’s still not met or likely to be
If it puts the requirement setters, the procurement specialists and industry engineers in the same room from day one, it’ll be an improvement. If the three functions keep working serially it won’t. I think Francois was chairing a year or so ago when the question was asked, shouldn’t a DE&S representative be in the room when requirements are being fixed? My jaw hit the floor. I had thought they might even be chairing the requirements committee, nevermind being excluded. No wonder we’ve had a series of unrealistic gold-plated requirements that take forever to finalise.
This is new to me, so the organisation that was combined from ‘procurement’ and ‘logistics’ Departments wasn’t represented when requirements were being fixed. As one presumes they are heavily involved in making those cemented requirements happen they would at least be in the room when the requirements are being formulated. You need to aim high but you also need expectations to be realistic so both sides of the equation need to be there before you commit to a project the right balance without either side dominating the discussion otherwise you risk either gold plated unattainable/much delayed on one side or low bar products that generally underperform, unusable even if cheap and maintainable.
The question was asked after the select (sub)committee had talked to DE&S, would it be advisable for DE&S to have a presence in the requirements committee, because DE&S had obviously complained about this to the select committee members. I can’t remember the exact wording, but that’s the gist.
Now it might be they have representation at lower level and might consult with the people who feed into the requirements committee, I would hope so. However, it gave the impression (rightly or wrongly) that immutable requirements were being set by one group of military people and then thrown over the wall to a different group whose job it was to fulfil the requirement within a given budget.
An interesting idea Jon! Sounds good but has few advantages.
A RM will look at info from all sorts of sources, such as: – PXRs, PORs, UOR request documents from Theatre, Combat Development work etc etc. to determine how current in-service equipment is no longer proving to be effective – and will craft a Staff Requirement document such as a KUR document accordingly.
I cannot see a need to do this work with DE&S staff or Industry engineering reps (from which company?); it is in-house work, the business of the User. Cardinal Points (Outputs) requirements is a good approach – to state what effect is required (Outputs based), rather than to specify how that effect is to be packaged/delivered in very fine detail.
There have often been claims of British equipment being gold-plated yet I find it hard to identify features in equipment in-service or in development that are unnecessary. Our small armed forces would be disadvantaged by having basic equipment that is no better than the oppositions; we simply have to have high-performance equipment.
A RFI will be sent from interested Industry to MoD, they will get the Info and then a RFP will go out from MoD on a wide basis. It is then that Industry can decide whether to respond and to have at least a broad idea as to what sort of equipment would meet the requirement.
An Industry Day will then be held for interested Industry to be briefed on the Requirement in a practical sense, to view soldiers on exercise/demo using the existing kit and to hear briefings on its shortcomings etc.
Bringing the RM/the User, DE&S staff and Industry together at the right time is key. But the RM must have the freedom to first craft the Requirement without distraction. When I am ‘drawing up’ the Requirement for my next car, I don’t want or need all the car salesmen in town from multiple dealerships in my living room!
And I wouldn’t specify a bespoke kitchen without knowing the cost parameters and speaking to the people who are going to build it for me.
The missus? Why would she need to be involved? She said she liked green and I’ll be sure to pass that on.
Buying a commodity item is a vastly different proposition from buying a bespoke vehicle for someone else to drive, that won’t arrive for ten years and might have to last the military another twenty or more, through multiple changes of ORBAT.
What is it the finance people say? Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Preparing for the last war is no guarantee that you’ll have prepared for the next one. Of course all the sources you quote are valuable, but why not talk to the engineer who is going to be in charge of designing it for you about whether all the specs will overburden your AFV, or your ship, or not match the power delivery of your engine, (Ajax, Hunter class and F-35). And which nice to haves are going to double the price, but once they are written down you are stuck with? And what won’t cost you that much more and will add flexibility?
It’s bad to know the price of everything and the value of nothing. The reverse is equally as bad. Anyone who rejects useful information because they are “the” expert isn’t doing the job right.
This issue raises a question, why are perfectly good military vehicles being sold off? Having watched several YouTube videos of a dealer who appears to have fields of the bloody things sitting in mud and weeds. There are examples of the MAN 7 tons trucks and specialised armoured wheeled troop carriers and tracked engineering units. Many appear to be straight out of war reserve and if so, why aren’t they in Ukraine? Watching these programmes is painful as the apparent MOD waste is so rife.
Jon, thanks for dissecting my quip in fine detail!
The reason the Requirements Manager can’t speak to ‘the engineer’ at the outset of his work is that this pre-judges who is going to get Contract Award and some time before it happens…or do you invite a design engineer from every company that sends MoD an RFI, to meet with the RM?
I recall the Future Beach Recovery Vehicle project to replace Cent BARV very well – I was on the MoD team that assessed the bids. There were around 10 companies that had bid. When the RM was doing his Staff Requirement (Land) some time before, he had not sat down with 10 engineers from those companies. What was required of him was primarily to have and to exercise military judgement to understand and espouse what was now wrong with the Cent and what was wanted in future.
Requirements should be written to clearly state what is essential (a Key User Requirement) and which are just advantageous or desirable.
I too heard the story (is there a link to an authoritative source?) that the MoD had specified 1,200 capability requirements for Ajax and I shook my head in disbelief. We used to have a system of doing Cardinal Point Specification (CPS) when equipment was wanted quickly (not talking about UOR here, but core equipment) – perhaps that regime has now been lost.
When the tri-national SP70 project failed then MoD issued a cardinal point specification on one page for a new 155 mm self-propelled gun; as I recall only 4 areas of capability was mandated as essential. Four tenders were received and VSEL’s AS-90 was selected.
Of course CPS was used sparsely, perhaps too sparsely. An SR(L) was invariably a lot longer than one page! But I understood it was always meant to be Outputs or Effects based, and should not be so proscriptive as to virtually spell out a solution and inhibit Industry from exercising free thought and initiative.
With CR2 LEP (which became the CR3 project) I was working for Rheinmetall. The Requirements documents (sensibly) did not mandate continuance of the L30A1 rifled gun – it stated the effect required of the gun. We offered the Rheinmetall smoothbore gun, but said that the turret would have to be so much revised that it may as well be a new design. BAE’s bid stuck to L30A1 and a somewhat modified existing turret. CR3 will get a new turret and a smoothbore gun thanks to preferred bidders being free to offer a good solution without being constrained by an over proscriptive Requirements document.
Probably best to watch the Oral Statement by the Minister on BBC Parliament. From memory there were various changes, including the need for long-term ownership of critical projects by both military staff and civil servants involved, to keep expertise and responsibilities during project life-cycle.
Thanks Albert – I’ll take a look at that. Hopefully the Minister knows that serving military officers move on after 2 years, but civil servants especially middle ranking and lower level ones stay in post (or can do) for very many years.
A key issue is that the Service Chiefs (CNS, CGS, CAS) play only a small part in providing overwatch of procurement rogrammes and projects. It is the Senior Responsible Officer who does that and they have in the past had far too many projects to cope with and often have other responsibilities as well. That’s why Ajax went wrong.
This happened before with no real result, and a new government will soon be in.
Window dressing and all too late.
Just my cynical view.
Yep, we’re likely to see a complete rehash, target will be spending as much defence on UK made kit, which on the face of it sounds good. But not if it just becomes a sink hole for the defence budget. I’m all for buying British, heck I even have UK made white goods, a claim I doubt many UK politicians can make. But I want to see my tax money create competive UK defence products that get the most out of the budget and we can export. I very much doubt that’ll happen.
I have been arguing for years that a ‘sense of urgency’ is the key missing element throughout all MOD procurement. Of course, I don’t have the same platform as Mr. Francois, and while I dont agree with all his political views, he certainly doesn’t hold back in the select committees. I suspect he may even be an avid reader of UK Defence Journal, he certainly has referred to that other great site, Navy Lookout.
However, he missed a key issue at the last select committee meeting when he asked the minister about ‘Crowsnest’. A classic example of the worst kind of procurement, he didn’t mention the fact that, after being late and over budget, and still not FOC in 2024, its planned withdrawal is 2029!
Unbelievable that isn’t it, I find it amazing that something that was essentially hacked together in face of emergency was never re assessed in the process of developing two state of the art expensive carriers or if it were deemed sufficient ( I think tolerated at a time of presumed peace) then it were not at least brought into operation in a timely manner and a decent service life ensured. Clearly events suggest it’s not deemed adequate, certainly in a period of such risk even though it was so costly to adapt to present use. Sounds like a better than nothing concept.
Progress which is good. Interesting to see if the new process will incorporate independent Dispute Avoidance and Adjudication Boards sometimes called Conflict Avoidance Boards, which are an enabler of smoother project delivery and hence greater confidence for employer and contractor and keener pricing.
So, speaking as a cynical taxpayer, how does this reform differ from the reform proposed by labour’s John Healey?
Healy wanted “the establishment of a new Military Strategic Headquarters … to ensure that investment is balanced and targeted appropriately across the Front Line Commands (FLCs) and [to] hold them to account for delivery of capabilities.” and “the creation of a new strategic leadership for Defence procurement by establishing a new National Armaments Director which will align procurement activities across the operating domains and deliver a new Defence Industrial Strategy”
In other words, he’s repeating Gray by adding yet another layer of very senior (aka expensive) people to the requirements bunfight who aren’t doing anything other than governance. But he’s also doubling down and adding another layer of very senior (aka expensive) people to procurement who aren’t doing anything other than governance. Hardly a recipe for agility in my opinion. Nor, as NATO’s militaries move towards joint, multi-domain operations is fossilising procurement within the current TLBs a good idea. Replacing Stratcom, Army, Navy and Airforce TLBs with Major Project and Minor Project TLBs might help, even though that’s not the crux of the issue.
I don’t know what Cartlidge’s plan does, but Healy’s won’t help anything. It’ll probably make things worse.
““the establishment of a new Military Strategic Headquarters … to ensure that investment is balanced and targeted appropriately across the Front Line Commands (FLCs) and [to] hold them to account for delivery of capabilities.”
That reads to me all to similar to what has already happened with StratCom and previously the PJHQ.
Great! so whilst the Tories have added 8% more defecne civil servants in 8 years paid from by the defence budget, Labour will add even more!!!! Its good to see we know where we need to spend the defence budget. At this rate we’ll be fighting with sharpened sticks, but hey we can be assured they were bought with the highest level of governance and oversight.
Well if Westminster’s premier Peter Griffin impersonator is happy, that’s all that counts.
You can start my firing almost everyone in the MoD. A lazier set of civil servants there never were, and they’re up against stiff competition from other department s
Okay. Then what? Let’s hear the rest of your plan, because left like that, you’ve just crippled UK’s defences. Perhaps we can have a public referendum on the quantities of ammunition we need to stockpile. Not that there’s anyone left to pay for it, because you fired them. Oh, I know! Let the services do it themselves. Let’s move 5,000 sailors from ships to paper pushing. We’ll only have to mothball a quarter of the fleet if we do that. No hold on. We’ll have to mothball more than that because it’ll also mean a massive outflow from the Navy of people who wanted to serve in the military in ships, not at a desk. I can imagine the adverts: “Join the Navy and see the inside of the same boring office every one else gets to look at.” That’ll really hit the recruitment spot.
No I can’t guess the rest of your plan. Enlighten me.
Wow the only scenario that sounds worse is to put Galloway in there to run it.
We could readjust the ration of civil servant back to 2016 levels, we seem to have correlation less front line units = more civil servants.
Bad idea Levi! The military would fail at a stroke. Without the tail the front end fails.
Oh I know haha, I’m just being bitter and cynical don’t mind me!
I was cynical further up, mate.
It’s amusing how many reforms there has been over the years each I assume costing millions no doubt and yet the problems continue. Can’t help thinking the problem lies elsewhere
Tell that to your Chancellor, he doesn’t appear to think there is any urgency is increasing the defence budget or our PM who thinks a Defence review ( none treasury led) is necessary!!
Hopefully , the new Labour government , should they win) will surprise me by actually proving me wrong and show me their comments while in opposition were not just point scoring.
If a real shooting war start, what would be a nation embarrassment during peacetime after the hollowing out of the armed forces will become a very dangerous situation.
Very true it’s a sad state of affairs mate 😞
Some, including a number of senior American officers (Navy and Army), consider that we failed in Aghanistan and Iraq. They were real shooting wars.
Since then, further cuts!
I believe in Iraq we made a mistake, yes Sadam was a bad guy but he was a product of the country, the various factions, we didn’t need to go in there. He was contained , it was blatant and unnecesary regime change , we did not do sufficient planning for the peace.
Afghanistan we f**ked up. The Taliban knew all they needed to do was out wait us. We improved the country, set it on a better path and then stepped backed. The army collapsed or were already in the Taliban pocket.
In both occasions army/ air force did what the politicians told them to do, so if the politicians are punishing the armed forces over these “ failures” then they are scapegoating their own failure.
Yes Yrump did a deal with the Taliban but Biden should have torn it up .The Taliban did not act in good faith,
Just like Vietnam, where the US forces fought with one hand tied behind their back.
Thanks Michael,
It was down to the Americans to plan for peace after warfighting in Iraq and they did a terrible job of it. Perhaps we should have withdrawn our forces after that warfighting and left this American conflict to the Americans. For a number of years (about 6) we had to run two simultaneous operations (Telic and Herrick) and were too stretched to do so properly.
I am surprised that you consider that the US forces had one hand tied behind their back in Vietnam – their ROE was very loose and included bombing of neighbouring countries (Cambodia for over 3 years, and Laos) and civilian areas. The USAF, USN and USMC aviation dropped 7,662,000 tons of explosives about 3.5 times as much as the US dropped in all theatres in WW2.
Correct me if I am wrong but at certain stages of the Vietnam war, certain areas of the country were off limits?
Not sure about that. The village of My Lai was clearly not off limits and neither were other villages of peaceful citizens. As mentioned neighbouring countries of Laos and Cambodia were not off limits. Civilian casualties due to American bombing or shooting seemed to be exceptionally high.
I think there were very few limits geographically or in terms of ROE for the Americans. I stand to be corrected by anyone with factual knowledge.
It was my understanding, the politicians did underestimate Ho chi min and what he would tolerate in losses.
Perhaps there’s a claim for military deafness and political daftness!