"no organisational model can work unless its senior leadership takes the tough decisions that reconcile ambition with reality. Some of the perceived problems of the current model are simply symptoms of the friction caused by the lack of such decisions in the past."
Very true.
The general thrust of it, I dont see much issue with; Personally, I've been keen on the idea of top to bottom reform for quite some time.
The only slight concern is (apart from if it is achieved rather than being resisted at every turn/kicked into the long grass) that although successful implementation of it may leave us with an arguably better management structure and hopefully, if Gray's procurement reforms are seen through, what of the overall balance of the entire package at the moment and our abilities to respond to events both in UK and regionally (also FI) in the meantime. The lack of the true S in SDSR, with it being a Treasury led scalping exercise and the disjointed withdrawl/drawdown of capabilities/capability holidays/sabbaticals leaves us, in my very humble opinion with a number of years where we are going to be at significantly reduced capability and therefore more vulnerable than what we should be.
Granted, I know Gordon lied about his money tree and the tories are no better than New Liebore, but nonetheless... we've said it so often and although it is always tempered by political realism and a degree of hard won cynicism, the first duty of government is the security and defence of the nation.
Seems like a move in the right direction though. Hope it works.