Originally Posted by
Asturias56
I think we do agree that procurement and long term planning for the
RN HMAF has been ... less than optimum....
Fixed, FoC.
Originally Posted by
Astrrias56
The politicians seem unable to grasp the need for long term planning and commitments - a steady run-down of shipbuilding (what a brilliant idea it was to close Portsmouth for example - not!), stop start replacement programmes, general underfunding - it's been going on for decades now. It's not good.
Shutting Portsmouth as a shipbuilding facility wasn't the greatest - but to be fair, it had only been set up in the early noughties when VT relocated from Southampton. Arguably, it's been replaced by Rosyth, which is only a problem if you're terminally afeared of JockXit, which Wee Jimmie K and her mates appear to have successfully kiboshed, albeit completely unintentionally. Time will tell whether H&W are successfully disinterred and whether Lairds really want to build ships.
The biggest issue in MoD appears to be the belief that RDEL funding is a "bad thing" and cannot possibly ever be permanently increased. Because RDEL pays for people, this is what restricts numbers of people, their wages, their day to day op costs, supporting contracts for logistics and all the other things that make the entity as a whole work. That includes funding the procurement and in-service support staff to actually allow enough of them to conduct their activities in an efficient, sensible manner.
Fix that - and its primarily an accounting and subsequently communications piece - and you go a long way to fixing some of the more intractable problems.