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Old 28th Feb 2013, 21:48
  #33 (permalink)  
tucumseh
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: uk
Posts: 3,225
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It has not been MoD policy to quantify equipment buys for 20 years. Some still try, but if they fail or refuse to it is regarded as acceptable.

In 1995, for example, the RN formally notified MoD(PE) it would no longer comply, and all quantifying/stating of RN requirements was to be carried out by the PE project manager. This was an extension of the 1987 policy (Hallifax Savings) which cut the relevant RN HQ posts (all civilian). The regulations for doing this work were laid down in permanent LTC Instructions. When the term changed to "EP" no equivalent instructions were issued, which dates this policy better than anything else. Oddly, the LTC Instructions were not cancelled, and for a few years were used by PE to do the Services' job for them. Still got my copy.

This policy required the PM to have intimate knowledge of (a) what the Service already had and (b) what it needed. Until about 1989 that would have been fair enough, but the advent of direct entrants, who skipped the first 5 grades and joined at the lowest (PE) project manager grade meant, by definition, they hadn't a scoobie about what the Services had or needed.

A basic truism of project management. To cost accurately, one must first quantify. As it is not policy to quantify, it follows that it is not policy to cost accurately. (You see where this is going?)

The solution is to implement the mandated Requirement Scrutiny Regulations. As I've said elsewhere, to do so is an offence in MoD, confirmed rceently by both DE&S and the Head of the Civil Service. Margaret Hodge was advised of this while preparing this latest report. That she didn't "go there" is indicative of how hot a political potato it is, because by offering the solution she would be seen to contradict successive Ministerial rulings, from all 3 persuasions (Aintworth, Moonie, Ingram, Harvey, Rammell and, most recently, Robothan). That makes her, and her committee, a waste of space.
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