Mr Blunt has said nothing new, but often it takes a “celebrity” to make the press print a story. So good for him.
There are a number of excellent points made, but a few old fallacies regarding PFI. It was first foisted on MoD by the last Tory government. Labour simply carried it forward. This is the most telling post;
FSTA, as was, was initiated many years ago and finally signed off as the largest MOD PFI by Sir Glenn Torpy. He freely admitted that it was the biggest mortgage the RAF had ever taken out, but it was the only means by which a new long-term capability could be delivered.
When PFI was announced, it was clear to all that imposing it in isolation upon any project that had got past Concept / Assessment would cause huge delays. The increased through life cost was a given; and it was equally clear the intent was to delay expenditure. In practical terms, a short term cut in the defence budget, while mortgaging ourselves to the hilt. Broon, rightly, gets a lot of the blame for this, but he was by no means the first.
However, the original rules included a number of criteria that had to be met. One was “overseas sales potential”. No such potential? A 5 minute job to write an A5 memo (which dates the policy, as we didn’t have PCs or printers!) and you had your PFI waiver. Crack on, meet the ISD. This overseas sales potential requirement was an implicit acknowledgment that PFI cost more, so one needed to demonstrate a compensatory source of funding (to at least UK plc). It was not an excuse to avoid PFI, it was a fundamental requirement before proceeding. So, how many Apache simulators did we sell overseas? I know that companies suddenly included wildly optimistic overseas projections in bids, which impressed the Treasury and Stars but not anyone sensible.
What Torpy’s admission (above) reveals is the top brass rolling over when PFI was increasingly imposed on MoD, as the Treasury realised many in MoD were so career orientated (or just plain stupid) when signing up to PFI, knowing very well it would delay ISD and waste billions but never saying anything. It was Torpy’s job, and that of his fellow Stars, to see this policy for what it was and speak up. Perhaps he did, but not very loudly. It wasn’t “the only way”, because at the same time he and his colleagues were overseeing waste on a monumental scale and doing nothing; something confirmed by MoD’s own auditors in 1996. And, as finally admitted by MoD last year, waste increases risk to life.