You have to ask what you want out of the
PR, or whatever it is to be called.
Like many processes in MoD, there is a lot of effort goes into “higher” level activity, but little or none into the detail; and the devil is in the detail. The final output, from a procurer’s viewpoint, is surely a quantified statement of what the Services need, properly funded, so that procurers can then buy it and support it.
The 2nd floor people are what used to be called Resources and Plans; each Service having an RP e.g. RP(N). They have never delivered what I mention. They just don’t touch that detail – an extension of the Service aversion to detail.
One example. A truism of procurement is; to cost you must first quantify. That may seem logical, but it has NOT been MoD policy to do this since the early 90s. For example, in 1996, the RN issued a statement that it was not for them to quantify or state the FAA’s requirements, it was for MoD(PE); in doing so withdrawing all support from a Cat A project. This statement came about because the permanent instructions I mentioned above were no longer implemented, as they’d disbanded the department.
The natural outcome of this is that unless the project manager happens to be intimately familiar with the Service requirement (less common since Requirement Manager posts were militarised in 1988) then he cannot possibly make even an educated guess at the quantified requirement. What he buys may be too much, or not enough. In hindsight, the former is condemned as waste; the latter, when corrected, an overspend. Yet, he has invariably paid a fair and reasonable price for what has been procured.
A simple example that happened to me a few years ago. The Service said “We want quantity (TBA) of this kit, to a specification (TBA), to be fitted to (TBA) platforms; ISD required in 5 weeks. Cost - £1M each. They supplied just over £4M. Now, setting aside the fact that only a complete moron would have endorsed this URD, you could buy a max of 4 kits, but never actually put them to their intended use because you’d be sitting waiting for (TBA) platforms to turn up, installation design, embodiment, support etc. When I dug my heels in and declared planning blight (despite formal complaints from MB and calls for disciplinary action), they eventually said “Quantity 20”; and promptly agreed to a reduction to £2.7M total at a Screening Meeting the next day. The platforms were never actually stated, but the total cost would easily have exceeded £45M.
You get the idea. This problem had cock all to do with how good or bad the “Planning Round” process was, but the complete failure to apply simple, mandated rules and common sense. And what do you think AbbeyWood staff thought of senior officers descending on the IPT, thumping the table demanded sackings? Twats. And worse, the civilian IPTL, who’d never delivered a project in his life, rolling over and agreeing his staff were wrong not to let a £45M contract with only £2.7M in the pot (in the wrong year). ****. The processes and procedures were robust; but run by fools.