MoD head under fire for RAF chopper fiascos

[Styron]

MoD head under fire for RAF chopper fiascos

Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday October 26, 2004
The Guardian

The official head of the Ministry of Defence was urged by senior Labour MPs yesterday to resign because of a series of expensive fiascos involving the purchase of helicopters for the RAF.

Angry members of the Commons public accounts committee questioned the permanent secretary, Sir Kevin Tebbit, about mistakes costing the taxpayer tens of millions of pounds.

The RAF spent £259m on eight Chinook helicopters which cannot fly because they do not meet British safety standards, a lack of trained pilots grounded Apache attack helicopters, and because of a shortage of equipment only 24 Lynx helicopters were sent to Iraq rather than the 33 needed.

When Sir Kevin said that no one had been sacked or resigned for the blunders, Alan Williams asked: "Don't you think you should consider your position?"

The Swansea West MP reminded Sir Kevin that the problems with the Lynx aircraft had been identified as as far back as 1991.

Sir Kevin replied that no one had known that the next engagement would be in Iraq.

The MP retorted: "You sound like British Rail saying it is the wrong kind of snow.

"The British army is supposed to be able to operate anywhere in the world." The affair was the result of "downright absolute incompetence", he said.

Gerry Steinberg, Labour MP for the City of Durham, described the Chinook blunder as the latest in a long line of "the most appalling reports" about the MoD.

"It can't be coincidence," he said. "Every time you appear before us, this committee loses its temper. It doesn't happen with anyone else."

"You balls up the Apaches, you also messed up the Chinooks, you also messed up the Lynx

[BEagle]

But he's probably got a jolly nice office chair in the MoD-box. Believe me - I've seen the things!

[joe2812]

Surely the first to go should be the Buffoon? The military can't just get on with things anymore, health & safety and the shortage of equipment is the fault of the government, no-one elses.

[BEagle]

Oh now come on, Joe. Can you really see the oleaginous BuffHoon being held to account? More slippery than a slippery thing, he'll manage to slide out of any admission of responsibility with his usual self-satisfied smug expression.....

[joe2812]

Not a big fan of his are ya BEags :p

Fair point though, I was just saying how it should be!

[buoy15]

I listened to that on Radio 4.
He is of the Bliar, Straw and Buffoon mould - squirming with smug arrogance.
I wonder if the scriptwriters of "Yes Minister" were listening?

Love many, Trust a few, Always paddle your own canoe!!:p

[airborne_artist]

And just think of the excellent index-linked, gold-plated pension he'll get, plus the opportunity to sit on the board of a few companies who will "value" his experience.....

[WorkingHard]

Once again the politocos are being blamed - why? I am no fan of any politician or party come to that but whilst it is they and the taxpayer that hold the purse strings it is in fact the serving officers who make operational decison on buying deployment training etc. So please tell me why a politician carries the can for the clearly abject failure of the decision making process by MOD staff (sevice & civilian) the politician are by nature transient and the MOD makes (or it should) long term strategy decisions.
Do I duck below the parapet now?

[Lee Jung]

Can we not just sacrifice some of the 220 odd eurofighters to pay for sabr/bluh/scmr? I read in Jane's that Turkey are after some. Surely the MoD could flog them off cheap, avoid through life costs and the UK will still benefit from the maintenance/spares contracts.

Also do we need to show any allegiance to Wastelands now that it is wholly italian owned?

[Melchett01]

plus the opportunity to sit on the board of a few companies who will "value" his experience.....

Fine .... just as long as we know in advance which companies - bet you they'll go bust inside 5 years with his "experience" on the board and I don't want my money anywhere near him.

So please tell me why a politician carries the can for the clearly abject failure of the decision making process by MOD staff (sevice & civilian)

Simple - the concept of cabinet and ministerial responsibility. Admittedly, someone may have to explain these traditional concepts of British politics to the incumbent waste of rations, but that in a nut shell is why they should take the rap. They're at the top of the food chain in a democracy, not the military - as much as sometimes I think we could do a better job. So if they're at the top, they make the final decisions, even if it is based on advice from other people, and they should take the fall when it goes wrong.

[VP959]

If you think the IAB make the decisions then it might be an idea to think again. Long screwdrivers from politicians are rife in procurement decision making, especially those emanating from the DTI and the Treasury...............

Anyway, how come the Army managed to "lose" all the Lynx sandfilters from Granby?

To cap it all, how the hell were the procurers expected to get 30 odd new ones made at very short notice, when no bugger in the centre would let anyone know if we were actually going to take part in Telic or not?

[Vox Populi]

Who to blame? The Minister needs to take the fall...

If a minister is forced to quit over one of the many MOD procurement etc failures, the next chappie or chappess is going to have a friendly introductory conversation with the Permanent Secretary along the lines of "...you may have caused the downfall of my mate - but I don't intend to go the same way, so sort it out or bu88er off to Big Guns PLC". Result: a very healthy cynical relationship that will keep Sir Humphrey, sorry Kevin, on his toes.


On the other hand Sir Kevin Tebbit does what he does best, presides over a monstrously incompetent department with a staggering track record of failing the brave men and women of our armed forces at (almost) every turn - and he helps the minister survive by coaching him/her through every difficult encounter, Result: a cosy relationship that will never lead to culture change at MOD.

You work out which relationship applies at the moment...

VP

[Cambridge Crash]

Downing Street quietly announced plans to overhaul the Civil Service 'jobs for life' concept. This has been seen by some as an attempt to remove deadwood and to meet the expected staff reduction levels (Sir Kevin is not deadwood, by the way) whereas some commentators have seen this move as an attempt to politicise the civil service, under a guise of 'pursuit of excellence'. This would involve sellecting 'captains of industry' to head certain branches within depatments (more like 'warrant officers of industry, me thinks).

Having interfaced closely with the US civil service over the last couple of years, I have been shocked and amazed by the level at which 'cronies' are appointed to senior appointments within the Foreign Service (not just choice ambassadorial postings, but senior career policy slots). We can gain a sense of this with the number of external advisors appointed to the Cabinet Office and the Downing Street Policy Unit, whereby the traditional roles of the political heads of government departments have been undermined and the very clever Senior civil service people have been marginalised (or left out in the cold, might be more accurate). Is this what we want?

Crash (the most boring man in NATO)

[tucumseh]

Styron

“Angry members of the Commons public accounts committee questioned the permanent secretary, Sir Kevin Tebbit, about mistakes costing the taxpayer tens of millions of pounds.

The RAF spent £259m on eight Chinook helicopters which cannot fly because they do not meet British safety standards, a lack of trained pilots grounded Apache attack helicopters, and because of a shortage of equipment only 24 Lynx helicopters were sent to Iraq rather than the 33 needed”.


I suppose a good question is, “Were all three were Predictable, Predicted and Ignored?” These committees don’t get into awkward areas like that!



WorkingHard

“Once again the politicos are being blamed - why? I am no fan of any politician or party come to that but whilst it is they and the taxpayer that hold the purse strings it is in fact the serving officers who make operational decision on buying deployment training etc. So please tell me why a politician carries the can for the clearly abject failure of the decision making process by MOD staff (service & civilian) the politician are by nature transient and the MOD makes (or it should) long term strategy decisions.
Do I duck below the parapet now?”


Don’t duck, you’re absolutely right WorkingHard. It is often forgotten that DPA (or MoD(PE) when all these things happened) is invited to procure kit against a Requirement largely staffed and approved by serving DEC (OR at the time) officers. DEC writes the URD and SRD, and their representatives stationed in DPA, the Requirement Managers, write ITEAPs etc. Few of these people are professional project managers or procurers, and you’ll usually find that, on projects that run to time, cost and performance much of this work has actually been done by civilian professionals.

A wider view is required when assessing these three cases/projects. What was going on in that part of MoD(PE) at the time? Were aircraft other than this new Chinook being bought and were they delivered to time, cost and performance? (Yes). Was there a similar, but more complex, requirement to train aircrew on another new aircraft, and was that delivered to time, cost and performance? (Yes). And so on. (The question to Sir Kevin related to helos but if the committee actually knew the structure of the MoD they would include Nimrod, because it’s all part of the same problem). So, having established that effortless competence reigned in some areas, perhaps the real question is not why these three projects failed but why other, more complex ones were wholly successful, at the same time. And if the problems could be foreseen, why was nothing done? In fact, the answers are so simple I can only surmise the committee exists solely to boost the members’ expenses……..

[WorkingHard]

Thanks tucumseh
I was just beginning to think I was alone in questioning the idea that Mr Blair has responsibility for everything that goes wrong. It did seem that the contributors here were more than willing to blame anyone but their own.