I know people here don’t like me banging on about the MoD wasting money – after all, the NHS do it on a far grander scale – but here’s a few suggestions for the Broons;
1. Stop approving the committal of resources to protecting those who deliberately waste money. It is often said, correctly, that an aspiration only becomes policy when funded. Well, you (and your staffs) actively fund the protection of these people so, logically, deliberate waste is de facto policy.
2. Identify those who condone deliberately wasting money and sack them.
3. Identify those staffs that have a track record of delivering programmes to time, cost and performance. Promote them and learn from them.
4. At the VERY least, recreate the old troubleshooter posts and parachute them into programmes which cannot get enough “greens” on the “traffic light” system. These people used to be hated, but it worked. Thick skins essential, so elderly staffs satisfying 3. above only (as your career is effectively over, so ****** huge bonus for success).
I know I’m repeating myself, and these suggestions are consistently rejected (mainly by those to whom 1. and 2. is applicable, unsurprisingly) but demonstrably the MoD has able staffs who deliver the majority of programmes efficiently. Use them, don’t abuse them. Note, I’m not referring to people who inadvertently waste money through inexperience or incompetence – I’m talking about knowingly wasting money for personal gain (advancement). And I ESPECIALLY refer to people who deliver aircraft or their systems knowing them to be unsafe.
If you want an idea how much the above would generate, just think of the programmes discussed here that have suffered problems that were wholly foreseen, advised to those I refer to; and promptly ignored. Chinook Mk3. £250M and counting? Nimrod 2000. £500M+? And we’re getting 12 (?) aircraft instead of 20-odd. What price that reduction in capability? BOWMAN. £500M, not counting the avoidable regression work that’s imminent? I know I’m not the only one who thinks this way – there are numerous reports by the NAO, HCDC, PAC etc highlighting precisely the same things, albeit after the event. (Get with the programme guys, don’t just invite the sycophants in front of you, speak to those who deliver with effortless competence and see the contrast). But these reports are tossed aside by politicians and MoD alike. “We’re better now, so there are no lessons to be learned” is the mantra. CDP used to send e-mails to ALL his staff when these reports came out, telling them this was the party line (and woe betides anyone who did anything to embarrass the department, like demonstrating competence or save money WHILE MAINTAINING CAPABILITY). The last is very important and is key to this discussion. I used to think Broon was being firmly prudent with the MoD – refusing extra money because he knew they wasted it on a truly industrial scale – he’s on record as saying as much. But I now think he’s given up, which is a shame. The lunatics have won, and still control the asylum.