The Ministry of Defence has published its tenth annual summary of the defence equipment plan.
According to a statement:
“Building on the 2020 summary, it sets out our plans for the next 10 years to deliver and support the equipment our armed forces need to do the jobs we ask of them.”
The document contains a great deal of technical information about the projects and the management/funding side of them and you can read that for yourself here but below I’ll try and present the most pertinent information relating to the project in question.
Type 26 – Equipment Background
The project is described as follows:
“The Type 26 Global Combat Ship Programme will procure eight Anti-Submarine Warfare ships to protect strategic assets and sustain national shipbuilding capability. The programme will deliver a world class platform which will have increased survivability against global threats and maintain a high level of fleet availability.
It will operable globally, enhancing the UK’s ability to contribute to sea control, including through maritime force projection and strategic command and control. It will deliver the flexibility to be able to operate across the scale of contingent and non-contingent operations and provide resilience across the Royal Navy.”
In Year Progress Update
“The build of the first Type 26 (HMS Glasgow) continued and the Department commenced procurement of long-lead items in support of the next batch of Type 26 Ships. Type 26 Frigate forecast increases were driven by technical difficulties in a number of key areas that caused programme slippage; these were also exacerbated by COVID-19 restrictions,
driving up escalation and pain share costs (split 50:50 with industry).”
You can read the report here.
Technical delays on the first of class is not unheard of to be fair, not helped with COVID. The most obvious delay I am aware of was the gear boxes(?) being fitted after roll out, involving cutting open the side of the ship to all the gear boxes to be slid in side ways.
Whilst this undoubtedly slowed things down, it is a damn site better than stopping the build and waiting for the gear boxes to arrive…
I just wish that the Treasury would allow the send rate to be increrased so that some of the slippage could be made up. Perhaps that will happen over the full build programme?
I wonder why the cost of the slippage was shared 50:50? I suppose it is good news that the contractors are at least getting some pain, but as a tax payer I’d like to know why it is only half the cost of delay although sharing the coast of COVID is reasonable I would say.
Cheers CR
I was wondering the same thing… If slippage is the fault of BAE and co, why is the split 50:50? The project has be beset by problems and overruns, resulting in the Type 26 being on track to be one of the RN’s most expensive classes, even more so than the Type 45… So why are taxpayers paying for contractor incompetence?
CR, you know yourself, that sometimes if you “beat” the supplier to much, they may not come back, so as with “gain-share”, it is perhaps the right thing to do to have “pain-share” as well.
Hi Mark,
I agree the sharing is resonable, I was simply wanting to know more about why the share was invoked. For example, if there was unforeseeable technical issues then fine, but if it was down to the contractor making poor business decisions or perhaps the MoD doing something daft then not so much…
Anyway, things have changed this morning so I think we need to put our defence industrial base on notice of a coordinated response capable of repairing the damage to our defensive capability. Things are now urgent.
A chilling morning.
Cheers CR
I’m thinking if the MoD is ordering long lead time items that are then.late the prime contractor. BAe will argue these are causing difficulties in meeting the schedule. Hence cost shared 50:50
The guy doing the building work must have been off sick
That is true so many activities in the UK. Not enough labour to complete work on time. Low cost, maximum pain for customer, added profit for the company.
Is the Royal Navy a corporate asset these days? I am sick of the Exec Speak / Corporate Language used these days. I find it childish and very annoying. Rant over, but it all just seems designed to make it easy for poor performance to be excused and used to cover micro meddling by pen pushers, who can only think in terms of PowerPoint and Excel.
“It will operable globally, enhancing the UK’s ability to contribute to sea control, including through maritime force projection and strategic command and control. It will deliver the flexibility to be able to operate across the scale of contingent and non-contingent operations and provide resilience across the Royal Navy.”
Who is the he she they that describes every UK defense program as world class…… It kind of gets tiresome. Everything is always world beating etc. How about just describe it as really good and it fits our needs.
Will it be the best anti submarine frigate in the world. Probably. But they do use the term a lot. It does apply in some cases but probably not everything.
A bit of my Willy is bigger than your Willy
A ship that sails the seven seas arghh