MoD job cuts prompt lost skills warning by MPs

[BEagle]

The Ministry of Defence has pressed ahead with cuts to its workforce without understanding what skills it will need in the future, MPs say.

From the BBC: BBC News - MoD job cuts prompt lost skills warning by MPs

The Public Accounts Committee......expressed concern that the pressure to make cuts in the short-term meant the MoD had not considered the skills it will need to deliver its long-term strategic objectives.

[oldmansquipper]

What a surprise?

[charliegolf]

Isn't the general idea that the Brains Trust gets to know this **** before the rest of us?

CG

[oldmansquipper]

So...lets get this right

1. The politicians insist on massive cuts to personnel and equipment to get them out of a financial hole they have dug for themselves

2. The Civil Servants implement government policy (its what they do...sometimes)

3. Government is in office for 4 years or so.

4. CS implements policy quickly (with an eye on their own jobs, perhaps?)

5. It goes to worms

6. Government, (Still in a massive hole) sharply criticises the CS for complying with Government policy...


What next? Back to Cats & Traps?

[green granite]

You couldn't make it up.

From the Torygraph:

Ministry of Defence pays millions to rehire sacked civilians

Thousands of civilians sacked by the Ministry of Defence have been re-employed as consultants at “dreadful cost to the taxpayer”, MPs have found.
While the department is in the process of cutting almost 30,000 civil servants, it has rehired many to carry out work as private contractors, according to a report by the public accounts committee.

This has led to the bill for outside consultancy to spiral from £6 million in 2007 to £270 million last year. The report said that the extra cost of re-employing staff as consultants represented “dreadful value for the taxpayer”.



Ministry of Defence pays millions to rehire sacked civilians - Telegraph

[Bob Viking]

Different budgets...

If there's one phrase that annoys me more than anything else in this modern world it's that one.
There is only one budget that we work from as far as I'm aware. It's the annual Defence Budget.
Rob Peter to pay Paul.
Bunch of @$*#%£s.
BV

[Willard Whyte]

What next? Back to Cats & Traps?

That would be a sensible, logical, long term solution, beneficial to military capability and foreign policy when dealing with emerging and semi-established threats.

So, no chance.

[Canadian WokkaDoctor]

You couldn't make it up.

From the Torygraph:

Ministry of Defence pays millions to rehire sacked civilians

Well this former RAF Engineering Officer benefitted (quite a bit) from this while on terminal leave and waiting to emigrate to Canada, so it's not just civies that get re-hired!

Thanks for all the fish!

CWD

[El_Presidente]

This was painfully obvious 5 years ago when I threw myself overboard...4 operational tours in the badlands within the last 8 years of Service, the note on file from my Desk read along the lines of 'we want to keep you but we can't justify trying to because our budget is over spent...'

PMA were just itching to shed people back then to bring the pay bill down, and to save having to fork out for redundancies. Must be twice as bad now...there'll be no broad backbone to the services. Lots of people with sand in their boots but nothing else.

Sad days.

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

Just to follow up on what El_Presidente said, this has been going on for well over 5 years. I worked with a newly promoted CS C1 who's one and only HQ job was storage and movement planning for the Naval Bases. He only saw things from a Naval Base angle and rarely grasped the bigger picture. Unsurprisingly he got on very well with a certain Army-centric storage and distribution outfit that had little recognisable interest in supporting the Fleet. The aforementioned C1 was offered "early retirement" and gladly seized it. Before retiring he was offered consultancy work by the big storage and movement outfit, at a very good hourly rate (more than as a C1) with all expenses paid. Naturally he took it.

He is but one example.

[tucumseh]

I worked with a newly promoted CS C1 who's one and only HQ job was storage and movement planning for the Naval Bases.

This says it all. I have posted elsewhere the suggestion that MoD Civil Servants should be required to meet the "old" Treasury approved Grade Descriptions.

Under those rules, it would simply not be possible for anyone to attain Grade C1 (to an apprentice, this is usually 6 promotions) having such narrow/shallow experience. The Treasury did not define "experience", but in 1990 a procurement Grade C2 in MoD(PE) could not even receive a "Fitted for Promotion to Grade C1" marking (necessary to get on a promotion board) without having managed over 100 equipment projects, across many disciplines, in all phases of the procurement cycle (Concept to Disposal).


Given the above fact, the Telegraph/PAC completely misses the point. Yes, it is bad enough that MoD are getting rid of people only to reemploy them as consultants. Thats been going on for 20 years and the article could have been written any time in that period. The real problem is that previous policy has been to dilute the experience and competence required of any given grade, so there is no guarantee they are re-employing the necessary competence or experience.

[Cpt_Pugwash]

Further to Tucs point above, you don't even get promoted from C2 to C1 these days, as that is now an " advancement ". It can be done as a "managed move" and seems to happen with very little of the old promotion board scrutiny which although not a perfect system, at least sifted out some of the candidates who clearly lacked some depth of experience.

[Jimlad1]

The problem in CS manning is what happens when you scrap the HR system, allow people to apply for promotion once they've been in grade for 2 years and have no interest in offering career management for them.
To save money MOD HR no longer exists in any meaningful way. The MOD CS is expected to try and work out a career path with no guidance, no manning desk, no advice and so on. What did they think would happen?

I've got a fiver on the old HR system being reintroduced within 5 years as they realise the utter clusterfook that the MOD CS manpower plot has become.

[tucumseh]

I've got a fiver on the old HR system being reintroduced within 5 years

Which old system?!! The one that told me I was no longer an employee whose career had to be managed, but was now an "account number"? Under the same system I was once "interviewed" for a "managed move" by a young HR lady two grades below me. (How many Wg Cdrs would be happy with a selection board chaired by a Flt Lt? It simply wouldn't happen). She had absolutely no idea what an engineering programme manager was meant to do and kept asking if I knew how to do things I'd learned in the very first month I worked in MoD as a 16 year old. Which is another way of expressing what I said above. If you have no idea of the benchmark, how can you select the right person?

Want to know one question she asked? (Which she didn't understand, it was just a standard question). She offered a scenario whereby I'd discovered one of my men committing fraud (making a false declaration on aircraft equipment certification). What would I do? You can imagine my reply (which amounted to saying what I'd actually done in real cases, 4 grades before). She erupted and told me I was wrong. Under no circumstances should I take any action whatsoever, in case I hurt the person's feelings. Diddums. I told her the outcome of her policy would be aircraft accidents. She replied, so be it.


Her boss at the time, the idiot in charge of "HR" at AbbeyWood (Director of Personnel, Resources and Development), fully agreed with her. In that one ruling he did more damage to MoD than anyone here can imagine.


But if you mean the system that existed 25 and more years ago, before the term "HR" was invented, than I'd be content.

[Wensleydale]

I remember the same a good few years ago: requirement to cut back on the number of Blue Suits - many made redundant then joined the CS and got their old desk job back as civvies. Now we have too many CS, so they are made redundant and guess what - back they come as contractors and consultants. Same number of people - different budget.