Whatever happened to contracts that were written with a deliver-on-time-and-in-budget-otherwise-you're-fined clause?
Not the MoD's problem that wages have gone up, surely? That's for the contractor to cover, I would've thought. Or am I being completely thick on how PPP contracts work?
I've run hundred-thousand pound projects in the private sector and if a contractor came to me saying their wage bill had risen, they were running late and needed more money from me to deliver, I'd see them in court for breach of contract.
Its not just PPP contracts that work like this - Looking at this from a 3rd party contractors side, what do YOU do as a Project Manager when the scope starts to creep and its outside of your area of control? What happens when the customer changes their demands, or delays a project without providing any timescales, particularly when you have already resourced the project and committed to the materials? Or costs (fuel, materials, labour, etc) outside your control rise astronomically (as they have over the last few years)? You have to re-scope, and to me thats exactly what has happened here. This all seems like normal project management practice to me. (Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying thats exactly whats happened here, but I'm guessing certainly some of the above is likely to be the case...)
So its all very well saying on time on budget, but that doesn't take into account the realities of a project (and the world), particularly when a CUSTOMER keeps changing the timescales and the requirement and the design (as seems to be the case on defence projects, right up until the last minute), what chance does the contractor have? From my understanding and from what I've seen on here and other places, this seems to sum up defence contracts completely!
If you want something on time and on budget, then don't constantly change your mind throughout the project - accept the deliverables that were scoped, promised and agreed in the first place! That way the only person to blame for any over-runs is the contractor! Even then, there are still factors outside the control of the contractor that would require a rescope.