I agree with the general sentiments about support being the Cinderella of MoD, despite accounting for around 80% of through-life costs. As one MoD Director (Cox) once said “You are the rump end of MoD”, an ethos that is now all pervading.
But if MoD were to study successful projects, they’d find that invariably the project manager, or a key team member, has worked his way backward through the procurement cycle. That is, he started on support (or even disposal) and therefore had experienced all the problems poor support planning and execution caused, and made provision to avoid them.
To this end, in the late 80s MoD(PE) had, for example, an avionic Integrated Logistic Support Unit. In PE, “ILS” was not what it is today, the bloat-fest built on Def Stan 00-60. If you worked in the ILSU you were responsible for ALL aspects of your projects, from cradle to grave. Suffice to say, there is not a single person left in DE&S who has such experience.
This was compounded by the Services getting shot of their own specialist support departments, demanding that PE do the work (a double whammy, given PE became anti-support, along with AMSO). For example, in 1988 the RN formed their Aircraft Support Executive, infamous for not making executive decisions or supporting aircraft. In more recent times, I’ve experienced both RN and RAF declare they will not support a major aircraft programme AT ALL, withdrawing all labour and destroying key files, forcing years of expensive regression. The only way such a programme can be successful is for the PM to have done it all before, and wear his old hats. At least the RN demanded experienced PMs be appointed. Historically, the RAF parachuted their own officers in to manage aircraft projects, regardless of experience (e.g. Chinook Mk3). I always felt sympathy for them, sitting with head in hands hoping some junior civvy would sit down and take over in his spare time. But CDP (Walmsley) was actively getting rid of them, digging an even deeper hole.
The worst day of my career was being introduced to a new boss in 1997. The 2 Star told us he’d been selected, not through normal competition, but hand-picked by senior staffs specifically because his CV was a golden list of aircraft experience, especially support. An entire section was devoted to his maintenance and trials experience. We made enquiries and his total aircraft experience amounted to a half day jolly to Fleetlands to watch a Lynx take off on a Maintenance check flight. That’s where MoD got to between 1988 and 1997, and nobody can tell me it has improved much! This is important in the GOCO context. From one viewpoint, GOCO needs to succeed because this unacceptable standard has become the norm. I think we are past the point of no return. In fact, the 2001 Army initiative I spoke of, which Gray cited as his preferred GOCO model, was required precisely because we didn’t have the in-house capability. An attempt was made to recruit people to be trained up, but they proved incapable because they didn’t have the necessary background. Their degrees in Defence Administration and the like were fine achievements, but little use when we needed hands on practical experience of support. I’m sorry, but if you permit direct entrants to skip 5 or 6 grades of valuable training and experience, without requiring them to catch up in any way, then you reap what you sow. Today, I imagine some form the DE&S hierarchy. Most don’t know they actually skipped grades. The above posts still exist, but most are vacant because no-one wants them. So industry step in at 10 times the cost.....