MoD ‘missing’ £6.6bn of hardware

[Lyneham Lad]

The mind boggles at the inadequacy of MoD inventory control systems :{
Today's FT:-

MoD ‘missing’ £6.6bn of hardware
By Alex Barker, Political Correspondent
Published: August 19 2009 23:33 | Last updated: August 19 2009 23:33

Ministers have ordered a shake-up at the Ministry of Defence after auditors were unable to find £6.6bn ($10.9bn) of equipment, including about a sixth of all vehicles, weapons and radios used by troops.

The patchiness of the MoD’s record keeping suggests that officials have been taking critical resourcing decisions for Afghanistan without knowing where billions of pounds of equipment is located or whether it is in good repair.

This summer, the National Audit Office refused to sign off on MoD accounts because of an “inadequate level of evidence” that £6.6bn of its assets existed – equivalent to the entire annual defence equipment budget.
It has been a summer of furious political debate about the resourcing of British troops in Afghanistan, where the army has suffered its bloodiest month since the conflict began.

Liam Fox, shadow defence secretary, said the supply problems were part of a “sorry tale of failure” at the MoD. “We have an army at war and an MoD that is simply not up to the task,” he said.

But the MoD said the £6.6bn of assets “were never physically lost” and the NAO figure was an “extrapolation” from its audit.

At the time of the report, the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency, responsible for supplying the armed forces, had been unable to satisfy the NAO’s demand for paperwork to verify the assets, the MoD said.

Misplaced stock includes £1.25bn of equipment deployed with troops, such as machine guns, night-vision goggles, encrypted radios and body armour. Defence officials were unable to account for £350m worth of fighting vehicles that were in theory being used for training and operations.

The remaining unaccounted assets – worth more than £5bn – are predominantly raw materials and spare parts, ranging from bolts and oil to jet engines and propellers.

Problems monitoring stocks of deployed kit have become particularly acute and the value of missing equipment has almost tripled this year. Defence officials say this is partly because of the intensity of operations in Afghanistan.

But the NAO also highlights severe failures in administering stock registers. In some cases budget constraints forced the MoD to ditch plans for more sophisticated IT systems.

The shortcomings have triggered an internal overhaul of MoD procedures and management, designed to improve the response to frontline needs. A single official will be responsible for overseeing support for the Afghan campaign. The position will be responsible for training, logistics, capabilities and equipment purchases.

A system is being introduced next month to track frontline equipment.

[SCAFITE]

As an ex RAF Stacker this does not come as a shock as far back as the 1970s as a young stacker we were using computor controlled stock systems to account for anything over a certain price or if it could be repaired. By the 1990 we had stand alone systems to take on operations so we could still look after and track expensive aircraft and other weapon systems and even your chair which you parked your bottom. It may not come as a shock that the Army even now cannot account for expensive items once issued forward to a unit (this may have changed but was still the case when I left the RAF in 2002.

I am not saying the RAF System of accounting for equipment is perfect but in general it works. So if an RAF Commander asks his supply chappy how many engines for Typhoons or Chinooks we have and what state of repair they are in he will get is reply back quite quick, or how many round of 5.56 we have or how many Land rover and Trucks are on line and so on.

During the first Gulf War as all three services were preparing to go to war the Army had to go on BFBS TV and ask all QM to report their Tank Spares as they had no idea who had what. I dont think its changed.

During that War the RAF had a bad time keeping track of its assets in the field so we brought in USAS (Unit Supply ADP System) which would account for all repairable and major items on operation.

The British Armed forces are going over to a tri-service Supply System and guess who going to get it, not the RAF who looks after its assets but the Army, is it little wonder you are loosing Billions worth of kit. There is also a roumer that the RAF is going to give its Supply System lock stock and too smoking barrels to the Army somewhere down the line.

As a young stacker i was sending emails via internal net to my fellow stackers all over the world in real time in 1976/77 and using sytems to control the RAF Valuble assets and make sure the RAF had its AOG spares ASAP. The Army will take the RAF Back to the dark ages with Supply and the RAF will get what it pays for.

[fisicx]

Doesn't surprise me in the least. Containers of equipment get shipped out, the logistics then have tons of tighly packed equipment to sort out most of which can't be identified and passed onto the end user so just gets stockpiled then lost.

I remember years ago a young soldier at Bremerhaven docks counting landrovers and trailer being loaded on a ship. What she wasn't taking account of was the fact that the land rovers were dropping off the trailers and driving back out to pick up another.

Or the oil pressuge guage put in a box and shipped out to Iraq in the same container as all the ration packs. Needless to say it never reached us.

[ORAC]

Where's the Atlantic Conveyor when you need her....... :\

[teeteringhead]

So perhaps we HAVE got enough helicopters .......

....... but we just don't know where they are! :ugh:

[Mr C Hinecap]

Doesn't surprise me in the least. Containers of equipment get shipped out, the logistics then have tons of tighly packed equipment to sort out most of which can't be identified and passed onto the end user so just gets stockpiled then lost.


Wrong. That is actually one of the better areas of operation. Stuff in the supply chain is under the microscope and is better managed when moving than some ranges are when in storage.

[The Real Slim Shady]

Mr C, that just confirms what we have known for years: as long as everything is in motion the problems are hidden. As soon as the dust settles the warts and all become visible ;)

[fisicx]

The containers all turned up in the port (about 50 of them), the logisitics staff had lists of all the suff in the containers but no way of knowing which container it was. You had hundreds of personel (all three services) running around trying to find 'their' bit of kit with the result that no matter how good the supply chain, if some finds a box that looks about right they will take it away along with anything else that looks useful.

Don't have any problems with the pipeling, it's when it gushes out the other end that it all goes pear shaped. When you are 150km away from the main depot and someone stops off for a brew and happens to have exactly what you want in the back of their truck then it's going to get lifted irrespective of who it belongs to.

[The Helpful Stacker]

One wonders how many spares have disappeared into the ether since 16MU closed and the lion's share of its stock was moved to Germany?

As usual I'm sure the blame game will be played and some SACs will find themselves doing a rack, shelf, bin stock check in an empty tech store, just to satisfy the whims of those at DSDA who don't wish to look too closely at their own shortcomings and would rather attempt to shift the focus to the middle men.:ugh:

[Doctor Cruces]

It's probably been flogged off by MOD so that MPs can have their expenses.

:)

[Jabba_TG12]

Having worked there for a while over the last few years... DSDA is a mess. :(

Lots of legacy systems that dont talk to each other, or are no longer supported by their manufacturers, EDS running the show on other systems - and running rings around DSDA's Service Delivery Managers whilst coining it in hand over fist...

Systems that should have been replaced years ago still in service, expertise to run those systems leaving in droves... and the likes of MMiT and FLIS - god, FLIS in particular - I wouldnt be counting on those two things to improve anything. FLIS is just a giant outsourcing deal to scoop up a lot of the legacy apps that cant/wont live on DII and push them off DSDA's books so they dont have to have any technical expertise in looking after them. And none of the FLIS bidders will have the slightest reason to improve things or to create newer fit for purpose systems - why bother when you can make more money for longer (without the expense of development) by continuing to flog the same old dead horses?

Add that to a civil serpent management team who have taken the art of fudging decisions to an artform.

No wonder they cant find half of this hardware. Its not the in transit bit that is the problem. Its the inventory management at either end and the leadership of DSDA that is screwed.

Granted some of these things used to happen back in the bad old cold war days, where kit would be lost. But not like this. It was never this bad in my day, etc etc... :*

[bspatz]

This is another case of the govt issuing figures that are meaningless in isolation. Whilst £6.6billion is a huge figure it is probably small in percentage terms when you consider the size of the overall inventory. By my estimation the total asset value for the MOD is probably in excess of £350billion. We are therefore talking about a discrepancy of some 2% which frankly is remarkably small for an inventory that is scattered widely across the globe never mind that it has been subject to the inevitable loss of control that occurs during operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Suggest that all concerned are congratulated for keeping the losses so small given that the real aim is to defeat the enemy.

[Blacksheep]

...the real aim is to defeat the enemyEnemy? What enemy? As a member of the public and registered elector I was informed that the objective was to provide aid to the civil power. Are you insinuating that we have been lied to? :rolleyes:

[bspatz]

Blacksheep, in this case the enemy may well be in Whitehall!

[bast0n]

ORAC

Where's the Atlantic Conveyor when you need her.......

I know where those helicopters went 'cos I was on board!

MoD did pay for my camera but baulked at a new garden shed I just happened to take with me. That was a surprise knowing their accounting systems:ok:

[Wensleydale]

MoD did pay for my camera but baulked at a new garden shed I just happened to take with me. That was a surprise knowing their accounting systems


Now had it been a duck house.....

.....although that may well have floated.

I wonder if you could claim for a lost moat from the Atlantic Conveyor?

W

[Data-Lynx]

The Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) public blah seems to be management 'ollocks on steroids,
The reshaping of DE&S is being carried out under PACE (Performance, Agility, Confidence, Efficiency)...

and

As the Defence Management Journal understands it, the EDS Supply Chain Management system is based on Supply Chain Consulting's 'Viewlocity' Control Tower Platform and uses SAS' Enterprise Intelligence Platform to provide performance analysis and reporting.
Sorry, I have no idea what it actually means but I feel the need to stand up for some good souls. The Defence Storage and Distribution Agency (http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/MicroSite/DES/OurTeams/JointSupportChainTeams/DefenceStorageAndDistributionAgencydsda.htm)(DSDA) deployed an Ops Support Group to Iraq to make better sense of containers. The Joint Force Logistic Component HQ has led Op BROCKDALE with its recovery/re-distribution (http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/EquipmentAndLogistics/VehiclesReturnFromIraqForRedeploymentToAfghanistan.htm) of kit and should be home soon. Their facts and figures look encouraging.

http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/416F8DF2-B83D-4982-ADAB-A0A2E608A3CE/0/6LoadingLynx.jpg Lynx Mk9

Meanwhile, MoD and IT projects make for an uncertain future. The Management of the Joint Deployed Inventory (http://www1.steria.co.uk/cms/ukweb.nsf/docs/B26CB656788AE535802573520057EEE0/$file/Defence_Data_mjdiWEB.pdf) (MJDI) is worth a mention as it will absorb all fixed and rotary air stores (USAS and USAS 2 as was) and is apparently due to go live next month. Jabber referred to MMiT (Management of Materiel in Transit (http://www.defencemanagement.com/article.asp?id=354&content_name=Logistics&article=10534)) and FLIS (Future Logistics Information Systems). The latter is a difficult beast to find and the only reference so far is a note in a Defence Management Journal article 'Best in Class' (http://www.defencemanagement.com/feature_story.asp?id=11999). Silence is unhealthy so I'll stick with Jabber for the moment.

The distant past has been awful. I suspect that I am one of many from the Lynx community who has ransacked stores dumps in far-flung places looking for windscreens, intermediate gearboxes and hydraulic bits. The supply bible JSP 886 (http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/MicroSite/DES/OurPublications/JSP886/Index.htm) stacks volumes and annexes higher than the blankets it is supposed to manage. The blah heralds "21st Century Supply Chains" while the combined UK/US thirst for water, fuel and spares increases radically across Helmand.

At the same time, we should not ignore the pockets of improvement that are driven by dedicated teams whose efforts have been missed by the media. The Combat Log Patrols in Helmand certainly have a far better idea of what they are moving over dangerous routes. Perhaps it will be worth another look at the end of September?

[L J R]

OK, I'll admit it......., I have two pair of unaccounted flying socks that I can't remember signing for, so there is my contribution to the unexplained stuff. btw, I use them for flying...

[The Helpful Stacker]

Two pairs of aircrew socks?

How did you manage to get them before the techies and other non-entitled folk got their mitts on them?

Top scrounging that man.:ok:

[Pontius Navigator]

This supply chain everyone keeps talking about - supply chain this, supply chain that

I thought chains were supposed to have weak links? What is wrong with supply line? A line can have gaps unlike a chain that can break :}

[4mastacker]

A system is being introduced next month to track frontline equipment

So, nearly 19 years after GW1, which revealed "weaknesses" in the Supply Chain, there appears to be no progress in changing that situation. One wonders how many career-enhancing studies, projects, trials, appraisals,etc have been carried out in that time and the only success evident is an increase in the number of rings on jacket sleeves.

GW1 changed the way we Suppliers had to support the war task. Previously, the assumption was that the next war would be fought from our hardened, fixed bases and Supply support didn't extend very much beyond the first flash/bang of an incoming ICBM! The end of the Cold War and GW1 changed that assumption, with an ever-changing tactical scenario and showed that we had to adapt our systems accordingly.

SCAFITE took the words out of my mouth; the Army system was (is) stone-age and would only show visibility of assets in depot - not out at the front line - although that may have changed in recent years. To give the Army the lead in any future system would, IMO, be to the detriment of the light blue side and turns round a previous decision that any future system would be RAF-led because of the RAF's expertise in real-time sytems (e.g 4/72 and USAS).

The FT reports suggests that some things haven't changed, although I stand to be corrected. Someone, somewhere needs to ensure that it is the system that is enhanced, not their pension!

[BEagle]

This will be the wondrous supply chain which kept insisting that I still had a Gnat oxygen mask and turning trousers some 10 years after the last Gnat left RAF service......:confused:

Fortunately a friendly Sgt 'knew the system' and wrote out a couple of scrap labels - that kept the stackers' empire happy as rules had been complied with.....:rolleyes:

Somewhere in the USA there are probably still a couple of Olympi which the 'system' allegedly lost trace of some four decades ago.

But when it comes to lorry loads of paperclips...:ugh:

[dkh51250]

So, the Chief Exec of DSDA having met his manpower control targets, closed all of the supposedly superfluous bits of real estate, and got all the other ticks in the boxes received his "BONUS"


Following on from this fiasco is he going to take his lead from Fred the shred, or is he going to show that he has got a conscience?

There are many good guys working in his system who are facing a daily uphill battle against the experts of management speak.

All of that kit that cannot be accounted for has been purchased by financially strapped IPTs, DSDA are merely the temporary custodians, and are not doing a very good job of looking after it.(Ask Sea King IPT)

Air stores are likely to represent a significant proportion of that missing figure, and until control of that equipment is handed back to people who know what they are doing the current situation is unlikely to improve.

[Data-Lynx]

So that would that be the CE who was suspended in May (http://www.telfordjournal.com/2009/05/28/inquiry-at-big-defence-base/) this year with other leading DSDA officials?

[Data-Lynx]

PN asked: What is wrong with supply line? A line can have gaps unlike a chain that can break
So how about a Main Supply Route (MSR)? Earlier this year, the TimesOnline recorded: About 75 per cent of the supplies and equipment used by Nato and US-led forces fighting the Taleban in Afghanistan are shipped to the Pakistani port of Karachi, where they begins a treacherous 1,200-mile land journey to Kabul via the Khyber pass. There is a second route from Karachi through the town of Chaman to the southwest, leading to the Afghan city of Kandahar but that has also come under attack recently.

The ambushes in the Khyber have forced NATO to look for alternatives, including through Central Asia into northern Afghanistan. The supply route is likely to be even more important as the United States increases its troops in Afghanistan, perhaps doubling the number to about 60,000 next year.
So that makes the post Moscow Summit a little more interesting. While most of the media dipped no deeper than 'Development of greater cooperation on Afghanistan', the detail of the US President's success is significant. Under a headline of 'Russia to grant U.S. Afghan supply route', one report stated (http://english.sina.com/world/p/2009/0707/254106.html): The two sides did agree to far greater cooperation on Afghanistan, where Obama is bolstering U.S. troop strength in the fight against Taliban militants and other al-Qaida allied groups.

Part of the deal will allow the U.S. to fly, without transit charges, American troops, weapons and other lethal war materiel across Russian territory. Such U.S. overflights had been limited to non-lethal supplies for the U.S.-led NATO force in Afghanistan, a country from which Russia withdrew in defeat 20 years ago after a decade-long occupation.
Meanwhile, the Brits will continue to stumble up the Khyber. Bother.

[Trinity 09L]

The suspended staff will now understand the real meaning of PACE, =
Police & Criminal Evidence Act circa 1984:uhoh:

[mr fish]

best pair of bike gloves i ever owned were "donated" by a jag driver a couple of years back.

ohh, i feel like crim now:(

[Mr C Hinecap]

So, nearly 19 years after GW1, which revealed "weaknesses" in the Supply Chain, there appears to be no progress in changing that situation.

There has been massive progress and mostly along the lines you know of.

However - bringing 3 dispirit Services together, along with their dispirit depot systems, will never be easy - especially with the Army in the mix. This has been further hampered by a refusal to give priority to the work and regular underfunding of most every aspect year on year. Pushing DSDA further away exasperated the mess - and as for EDS - the less said the better. The car crash a few have been predicting is evident in this report and our masters may yet understand the importance of a single logistics system for the Armed Forces.

[Mr C Hinecap]

OK then you small man - disparate was the word - but post work, post rugby training - that wasn't a bad effort for a post.

Will you be adding to the topic or just having a pop at a stacker for a spelling mistake? Perhaps indicative of the part you play elsewhere?

:E

[Jabba_TG12]

The same.

It was alleged in certain quarters that because DSDA is moving towards the self-sustaining/funding model that as most of the top corridor in Bicester's C16 Building had been replaced with his mates from private industry that Mr Firth was planning to "do a Qinetiq".

And we all know what happened there dont we... lot of people got rich very quick off the back of an undervalued asset.

However, he was found to be clean and therefore returned to DSDA without any kind of stain on his character.

The words smoke and fire spring to mind. I'm sure these kind of investigations arent launched on a whim.... are they??? :suspect:

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

If it’s any consolation to you light blue chaps, DSDA and the Joint Supply Chain has been throwing big spanners (not necessarily with NSNs) into the dark blue supply system as well. The “one size fits all” mentality is alive and well, sitting in Bicester, Andover and Bath. It is, indeed, galling to have a stock management and stores movement system thrust upon one that is significantly less capable than the one already in use.

[SCAFITE]

No Supply or Logistic system will ever be purfect and there will always be folk like the Chap who was still being chased for his kit 10 years after Gan (at least the RAF System wrong or right was checking up on the loose ends). They have to look at the bigger picture, do the Aircraft get their fuel and spares and the spanner boys have the tools to fix any problems. Supply and logistic will alway be a thankless task where nobody thanks the system when its going well, but holy hell kicks in if it falls down (which is right). When a crew of a aircraft jumps in the thing all they want to know is if it starts and the thing is Ok and not be worried whats going on in the back ground to put it there in the first place. The boys in charge of Supply at the top must be made of stern stuff and need to stand their ground to make sure the kit is not being mis-used or lost, and systems in place to make sure this happens.

In the Stan the Supply chain looks as if its having a bad time. the Kit is there but getting it to the folks who need it is an art and cannot be run by 1st rate staff with a 4th rate system. Everybody in the military is important (some may think they are more important than others, but in the big picture they are not) its a team game from the boys in the back to the folks in the front line, be it troops or aircrew.

[Mr C Hinecap]

No - it was to replace the phrase 'petty-minded useless little c***' with something a tad more restrained. If you must know.

[dkh51250]

With a reducing number of MOBs would it not make sense to go to single point holding?

Split locations at MOBs would meet fire regs, and enable DSDA to be removed from the equation totally.

A proportionate amount from DSDAs operating costs could then be allocated to the holding units to fund the extra staff required.

Alternatively, all the Harrier, Typhoon, and Tornado spares could be put in a warehouse near Peterborough, and called, something like 16MU.


The RAF Supply system has been operating a computerised stock control method since 1964. It coped with the wide variety of aircraft that were in service way back then, and in greater numbers. So what exactly were all these highly paid DSDA board members going to bring to the party?