insufficient staff training for CS
While true, I think you miss the point.
When I joined MoD(PE) as a project manager, it was my 6th grade as a Civil Servant. I'd managed projects in two of the previous grades and been an HQ "Staff Officer" in another (posts since Militarised at SO2 level). Some years later, after well over 100 projects, all delivered to at least Time, Cost and Performance, I was still regarded as inexperienced in that 6th grade because ELINT was missing from my cv. My annual report was very specific. Only after doing that on Nimrod R (before/during/after GW1) was I deemed fitted for promotion. Every single day of my career I drew on my experiences from those first 5 grades. The teaching I received from my seniors, who actually thought I was a young inexperienced whippersnapper when well past 100 projects, was invaluable.
Today, that 6th grade is the first grade for direct entrants. They are never required to demonstrate any of the competencies myself and my colleagues gained in the previous 5 grades. To compound matters, there is no one left to pass on practical experience.
MoD can never recover that situation. Gray's proposals are the right thing to do, but for all the wrong reasons. Because what I describe will never be acknowledged openly by MoD, the same lunatics will be running the assylum, but this time getting paid double working for the companies who do the "CO" part of GOCO.
I mention the above because I agree with Jim. Being Military does not guarantee competence in procurement. Not by a long shot. Look at the procurement disasters everyone bangs on about. Study the personnel. I know most of them. Do you? The DG I mentioned above was a CS. But his boss, who approved everything he did, was a former Admiral. The airworthiness debacle, which has the deliberate waste of hundreds of millions per year, year on year, at its root, was led by senior RAF officers. The threats of dismissal for refusing to waste money were instigated by an RAF AVM, supported by an ACM. (Sorry, bit of duplication there; the ACM was also the RAF Chief Engineer who scrapped the airworthiness system).
This isn't an anti-Service rant; just an observation that it isn't as simple as "get shot of the CS".