Bag Man is certainly right about defence not being about delivering to TCP. As I’ve said, dare do that and you can kiss your career goodbye – a simple fact confirmed by our old Director of Personnel Resources and Development, XD and CDP. As my Director once said to me, delivering a programme to TCP was “an embarrassment to the Department” (because it set an unrealistic benchmark for other programmes – the gold standard ones I mentioned earlier). I said my user would rather have the working kit now (especially as we’d launched production and commenced delivery, following successful trials), rather than the three year delay he had tried to impose upon me; to which he laughed and directed me to find a new job in a non-aircraft team. (Got that in writing, so confident was he that his bosses would support him. He was right).
As for jobs, the report confirms the DE&S planned reductions, which on the face of it seem quite substantial. But, one must temper this with the fact that when MoD(PE) split into DPA and DLO, and “support” projects were transferred from DPA to DLO, very often DLO employed whole teams to do what the DPA regarded as a minor task. In my case, I transferred four hours work per week, and was given an extra few projects to make up my time. DLO manned the job (and the IPT still does) with 4 full time posts, plus consultants. A little bit of levelling and rationalisation required there.
Bags - not all are "serpents", and some are still "civil".
