Anti PFI statements from an unexpected quarter?

[Jackonicko]

Sir Richard Evans, BAE Chairman, quoted in the Guardian just before Paris:

“PFI is always going to be more expensive than traditional procurement. It may be handy for Government to keep spending off the public balance sheet but the treasury is right to wonder whether PFI offers value for money.”

Mike Turner, BAE Chief Executive, at a Paris Press Conference:

“PFIs don’t work. All that you are doing is mortgaging the future. You’re just putting off today expenditure to pay tomorrow.”

Senior Executive, Lockheed Martin UK Ltd, at a Paris Press Conference:

“We look at our customers. We see no wavering in the commitment to PFIs and PPPs. Other countries are looking at similar procurement strategies. We recognise our customers’ desire, and we have no problem with that, but you do need to look at programmes individually. A PFI may require massive investment on our part to participate, so we need qualified management and we need to know that delivery of the service is possible, and that risk is properly allocated.”

“Sometimes the Government can borrow money more cheaply than industry can, and in those cases, PFI’s make little sense.”

What? Why? How?

They suddenly don't want to rip off the customer with over-priced availability contracts and instead want to sell (not lease) Hawks as trainers, A330s as tankers, etc?

[steamchicken]

But did anyone see the coverage of that horrible McKinsey study into PFI-ifying most of the DLO? Horror.....and moral terror....when will this awful toryish accounting trick crap end?
Link (http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=415572)

[WE Branch Fanatic]

The issue of PFI schemes has been discussed widely on PPRuNe before, largely by our learned friend BEagle with respect to FSTA. This out-sourcing has been going on for years, and it was the Tories that started it. Look at all the aircraft servicing that is done by civillan personnel. Would these people be deployable in wartime?

On a slight/moderate ranging to major tangent, at the age of 18 I read a book called Project Cancelled. I do not remember who the author was, but the book was about how the UK aerospace industry and Armed Forces were betrayed, yes I think betrayed is a suitable term, by a combination of Treasury penny pinching, short sighted decision making at the MOD, political stupidity, and bad management and in fighting within the aerospace/defence industry. It covered many of the projects that should have made it through to fruition, but instead ended up as scrap. The ones that come to mind are:

- Passing jet engine technology to the Russians, who then fitted it to MiGs fighting Western forces in Korea.
- Allowing Boeing managers access to the design data from the Comet.
- Scrapping various programmes and projects after Duncan Sandys' review.
- Fairy Delta (looked strangely like a Mirage hmmmmm).
- The SR53 and SR177 rocket assisted fighters.
- TSR2.
- Various transport aircraft and helicopter projects.
- Various weapon projects.

Likewise, the medling politicians, bean counters and other various miscreants interfered with the design of the ships and ships' system that would be used in the Falklands, with a cost in lives and a net financial cost.

The same process goes on today, look at decision such as losing the Sea Harrier before its replacement enters service, the reduction in Nimrod numbers, the loss last year of a Tornado F3 sqaudron, stopping the Eurofighter/Typhoon from having a gun, not integrating ASRAAM and SIFF with the Harrier GR9, not equipping all the Type 23 frigates with 2087 sonar, the penny pinching with the Type 45 design...............

The current Goverment is as guily as its predecessors when it comes to allowing the UK to lose key technologies. Many of you know much more than I do on this topic so I will not comment further - except to say that if the politicians are right when they insist that no single nation (apart from the US/Russia/China(?)) can design a combat aircraft on its own, then how come France, with similar capibilities to the UK, achieved coming up with the Rafale?

Many PPRuNers have little time for the UK defence industry, but in my opinion the problems are mainly due to bad management and political interference - not to mention civil servants who do not know what they are doing. I once came accross on the net a DPA person talking about how he was working on the design of the FCBA (as it was back in them there days). What was his background and qualifications? Aviation? Nope. The Services? Nope. Engineering? Nope. Science? Nope. He was a f***ing Sociologist, trying to do an Engineering job.

Yet on occasions the defence industry has risen to the challenge. Freed from the dead hand of beauracracy all sorts of wonders can be achieved. Consider how fast the AEW Sea King was developed in 1982. How long would it have taken via the normal peacetime process?

BAE Systems, and the MOD as well, are infested with penny pinchers and paper pushers at senior levels. Where are the passionate people who are genuinely enthusiastic about getting things done? Can you say that any of the current MOD ministers have real passion for the Forces and defence in general?

I'll finish my rant (maybe this should be in Jetblast or Question Time?) with a qoute from Beyond Endurance, by the late Captain Nick Barker RN (Rtd), Captain of HMS Endurance in 1982....

Sometimes it feels as if we are all invited to take part in a massive game of Musical Chairs, every time the music stops, some poor ba$tard is out on his ear. Perhaps this begins to explain why our confidence and self respect as a nation is often low, and why our standing in the world continues to decline at a pace that few would have thought possible a generation ago.
..........From my upbringing and later experiences I've formed an unshakable belief that given the opportunity (and the right kind of leadership) we do things very well. There are still roots of excellence everywhere and we have young men and women of ability and commitment. But it's not enough. We need leaders of vision and integrity. We should encourage initiative. We should not be frightened to shout down those who constantly say, "Better not". Above all we should have courage, and we should care. All these qualities can be found in our history and traditions.

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

Perhaps BAE managements' sudden dislike of PFI comes from inability to sell new Hawks due to waiting for the PFI process to run its course for the new training system?

Or am I just being cynical? :)

[Archimedes]

WEBF,

The author's name was Derek Wood.

Also, I think it fair to say that the UK government's point about not being able to design a combat aircraft alone referred to the cost of doing it (little realising....) The French were supposed to be in on the project that gave us Typhoon - but departed after making clear that the aircraft would be designed mainly in France, built largely in France, given engines designed and built mainly in France and... well, you get the picture.

As for the Typhoon's gun, Tranche 1 was always meant to have it - but the government decreed that they would not provide the cash to support it, or to buy the ammo for it (IIRC reading Jane's correctly). Tranches 2 & 3 would have been provided with ballast where the cannon would've gone (the 'hole' having to be there since the other countries were keeping the gun). However, although I've never seen any official announcement to this effect, the general view seems to be that the gun (with ammo) is back in. I think Jackonicko may be able to confirm this.

[Jackonicko]

Yes, the fact that the gun is going in is definitely Confirmed!

[pr00ne]

Arc,

It was a blue suited 2 star who made the call on the gun, those present have very clear recall on this. It was not Government or Government inspired.
A direct quote to me from someone VERY close to this call was" what on earth do you want a gun for in the 21st century, you've got 16 missiles for christ sake!"


WEBF,

Your argument is far too simplistic, you have covered nearly six decades of UK industrial and political history, in that time the world has changed out of all recognition.

I also think that we apportion far too much blame on what we like to class as either "faceless Civil Servants" or "meddling politicians" to hide a multitude of industrial and military sins.

[BEagle]

Anti-PFI? Moi??

Surely not - that would be Thoughtcrime and, as we know, Thoughtcrime is doubleplus ungood.

I love Big Brother
I love Big Brother
I love Big Brother...

(Not that cr@p on TV, of course)


But which is going to cost you more - to replace your clapped out car by getting a 4-year bank loan to buy another or to rent one from Hertz every year? My guess is that the latter would ultimately prove more expensive but, hey - I don't Know The Big Picture or Understand The Blue Water Thinking..... :yuk:

[Nozzles]

WEBF's comment on rocket assisted fighters makes me think of where our nation could be, if we had a little more foresight. I saw a documentary about the Brit rocket fighter projects-one of which was a seaplane!!!!! Apparently, the Brit rocket project was favoured by the Luftwaffe as the response to high-flying Russian nuke bombers. Much to everyone's surprise, the F-104 was chosen instead. Subsequently, and post Watergate, the US admitted paying enormous bribes to German polititians to make them choose the F-104. Funding for the rocket/jet hybrids dwindled because there was no immediate profit to be seen, and the project was soon forgotten. The thing that really broke my heart was that apparently, these things were close to being capable of leaving the atmosphere. 40 or so years on, does anybody have a re-useable HOTOL spacecraft?

[Archimedes]

pr00ne,

You are, of course, correct. I just blame Bliar and Buff for everything these days...

I remember said 2* being excoriated widely on these means and elsewhere. However, there was then an outbreak of 'ah, well - he's been told to say this', since, IIRC, it occurred just after the fuss over ACM Day's comments about the Commons Select Committee's report on Kosovo. You'll recall that while it couldn't be proved, the suspicion that he was 'asked' to say what he did by Buff and chums.

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Well let me say that I have never claimed that I hold the opinion that BAE Systems and other defence contracters are blameless in the defence procurement saga. Nor did I ever pretend that the Service folks involved are blameless either. However, the politicians and civil servants must take a major share of the blame when things go wrong.

You only need to look at the Nimrod MRA4 thread to see what the main problem with BAES is - bad management.

See http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69785&highlight=MRA

This is very frustrating as they employ a lot of very capable people and CAN produce the goods when properly managed.

Bad management and lack of what might be called configuration management seems to be common with MOD projects. When the MOD was building new facilities at Aldermaston for the production of Trident warheads there was a major screw up where the pipework used for the ventilation system was of a different size to the "gloveboxes" used for handling radioactive components. And when the new waste disposal facilities needed to be tested, instead of using demineralised water some management numbnuts decided to use tap water as it was cheaper. The result was that the whole lot needed to be replaced. If you wondered what the source of this information is, I saw it on a Panorama programme back in 1993.

There is a tendancy for organisations (including companies and parts of the civil service) to employ people who do understand what the organisation does, and to promote them to managerial positions. Everyone knows of managers who can't begin to understand the problem, but know the cost of every single nut,bolt, capacitor etc. This is a problem not just for the defence industry, but for the entire UK.

I have seen documentries etc on the development of things such as the US U2 and SR71 aircraft an the thing that always strikes me is the attitude of the participants, particularly the managers. They always seemed to have a really positive "can do" attitude and were determined to get the job done. Also they had a real passion for getting the aircraft designed, developed, built, into service, and performing the intended role. Are the BAE/DPA senior people similarly passionate? I refer to my qoute from Captain Barker.

My original posting started to turn into a "what's wrong with the UK?" type rant, for which I apolegise. However, these issues of mismanagement and losing technological capabilities are not entirely unrelated to the issue of PFI schemes.