Originally Posted by
tucumseh
It is the role of the User to quantify his requirement and make materiel / financial provision.
. . .
As the Users stopped doing this in the early 90s, more often than not the M&F provision cannot be reconciled with the actual requirement. Invariably the latter is not matched by the funding. .
The rot probably started with staff economies in the MOD and at HQ. In the MOD whole departments were disbanded with little transfer of responsibilities. At HQ staffs were continually decimated and with both rustication and OOA detachments the staffing levels were reduced to a little more than a first fighting role. The days of station wings working on day-to-day issues with groups and groups working at a more strategic level with command and thus upward to MOD disappeared.
At 1 Gp for instance in the mid-2000s 4 layers of staff were either gapped, retired or OOA leaving just a flt lt and the AOC in one department. The capacity for forward planning practically disappeared.