Originally Posted by
Cpt_Pugwash
Tuc, I recall a similar "town hall" meeting led by your favourite CDP, where he stated that he saw no place for technical staff in his department. That sort of expertise could all be hired in. That worked well, didn't it?
Still, glad all that's behind me.
Hope you are keeping well.
Thank you. Despite an apparent shift in Government policy this week, I have refrained from exposing myself to the locals.
Yes, I think that was 1997. Having uprooted everyone to the dreaded AbbeyWood, he announced 600 engineering jobs would go. A few years later an old colleague complained to me that he'd inherited an Integrated Project Team where 70% of the staff were costing him around £3k a day each via an agency.
On this Sentinel issue, and to be fair, the policy was (is?) that one cannot proceed unless there is assurance that the kit can be supported for 15 years. The problem is, that clock can start running 10 years before ISD, especially on avionics.
The other issue is 'five years useful life'. The piecemeal way in which Sentinel seems to have been extended for a year or two at a time militates against receiving any proper funding, as it reduces in each of the last five years of life anyway. If you slip the OSD a year, that just means you have six years of reduced funding, not five. Such a practice is, in effect, planned obsolesecence; as well as a stealth cut in the defence budget.