From The Times today 22 March 2018. Managing expectations?
“The armed forces must be ready to slay some “sacred cows” to free up cash for new and more deployable technologies, the top civil servant at the Ministry of Defence has said.
Stephen Lovegrove did not specify which pieces of military equipment he had in mind but said that some capabilities were not deployed very often or were perhaps no longer able to keep the military personnel using them safe from modern threats.
It is the first time a senior official has indicated in public that difficult choices will probably have to be made as part of a review of the armed forces that will conclude in July, unless there is a big enough increase in the defence budget to meet all of the department’s costs.
“If we are going to invest in new, highly destructive technologies, that is going to come at a cost,” Mr Lovegrove, the permanent secretary, said during a question and answer session at the Strand Group, King’s College London, after a lecture on Tuesday evening.
“We need to be rather more ruthless, unless there is to be more money, about getting rid of some of the [capabilities] that are actually deployed less often or [are] incapable of being deployed” because of concerns over safety, he said. “I think we do have some of those capabilities and we need to be prepared to slay the odd sacred cow.”
Potential “sacred cows” could include the army’s fleet of Warrior armoured fighting vehicles that have yet to receive a much needed upgrade, according to a defence expert. The vulnerability of tracked vehicles to anti-tank missiles has been demonstrated in recent weeks in the northern Syrian city of Afrin where a number of Turkish tanks have been destroyed. There is no suggestion that Britain is considering scrapping its Challenger 2 main battle tanks.
Another capability that could be vulnerable is the navy’s amphibious assault ships, HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion. The landing craft were singled out as potential sacrifices last year.
Cutting a whole capability is a more efficient way to make savings than retaining the capability on a reduced scale.
Mr Lovegrove had been responding to a question about whether he thought the Royal Navy, army and Royal Air Force should be merged to some degree to reduce costs. He declined to be drawn on such an idea but said that efforts were under way to reduce duplication in parts of defence. He cited as an example the helicopters operated by the army and the RAF.
The senior civil servant, who has previously said that the MoD needs to find £20 billion in efficiencies over the next decade, described his department’s savings targets as challenging.“
My highlights. Interesting (?) times ahead.