ASDOT Contract chopped?
Thread Starter
ASDOT Contract chopped?
Looks as if the plan has been dropped for dis-similar ACT for the RAF.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...train-against/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...train-against/
ASDOT was a lot more than just DACT; EW training for the RAF/RN and a lot of other facilities were "rolled up" to replace legacy capabilities such as 100 Sqn, 736 NAS and the Cobham Falcon 20s. There has been, IMHO, some very poor behaviours and dreadful requirements management from MoD. Doubtless "the conspiracy of optimism" has served a few individuals well in getting promoted and bailing out before this stage, but the ever moving goalposts and uncertainty about funding has dogged this project nearly from the start, with numerous revisions/recasts. The notion was sound, but the requirements ill-conceived (some would say bloated) and the credibility of some of the bidders to deliver what was required within the budget was being stretched mighty thin. Wait now for panic contract extensions to Cobham and, perhaps, a nice little contract to BAES for another tranche of Hawk T2s to replace 100, 736 and the Reds (and slip a few more in for MFTS perhaps to ease that clusterf*ck)…..A sad indictment all round of MoD's inability to contract out for complex services, and a blow to the concept of "Whole Force Approach".
Thread Starter
ASDOT was a lot more than just DACT; EW training for the RAF/RN and a lot of other facilities were "rolled up" to replace legacy capabilities such as 100 Sqn, 736 NAS and the Cobham Falcon 20s. There has been, IMHO, some very poor behaviours and dreadful requirements management from MoD. Doubtless "the conspiracy of optimism" has served a few individuals well in getting promoted and bailing out before this stage, but the ever moving goalposts and uncertainty about funding has dogged this project nearly from the start, with numerous revisions/recasts. The notion was sound, but the requirements ill-conceived (some would say bloated) and the credibility of some of the bidders to deliver what was required within the budget was being stretched mighty thin. Wait now for panic contract extensions to Cobham and, perhaps, a nice little contract to BAES for another tranche of Hawk T2s to replace 100, 736 and the Reds (and slip a few more in for MFTS perhaps to ease that clusterf*ck)…..A sad indictment all round of MoD's inability to contract out for complex services, and a blow to the concept of "Whole Force Approach".
All commercial officers belong to the Cabinet Office and it is they, not MOD, that let HMG’s contracts of this scale. That’s not to say the requirement setting doesn’t rest with MOD, but even that has to be agreed by the commercial types and can be changed by them. That’s how you exert central fiscal authority in the UK these days. I don’t agree with it, but it seems we’re stuck with it.
I know it’s fashionable to trot out the ‘MOD can’t contract for toffee’ mantra, but in truth MOD (literally) can’t contract at all in this case.
Credit (or discredit if that’s even a thing) where it is due?
I know it’s fashionable to trot out the ‘MOD can’t contract for toffee’ mantra, but in truth MOD (literally) can’t contract at all in this case.
Credit (or discredit if that’s even a thing) where it is due?
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All commercial officers belong to the Cabinet Office and it is they, not MOD, that let HMG’s contracts of this scale. That’s not to say the requirement setting doesn’t rest with MOD, but even that has to be agreed by the commercial types and can be changed by them. That’s how you exert central fiscal authority in the UK these days. I don’t agree with it, but it seems we’re stuck with it.
I know it’s fashionable to trot out the ‘MOD can’t contract for toffee’ mantra, but in truth MOD (literally) can’t contract at all in this case.
Credit (or discredit if that’s even a thing) where it is due?
So at what value is a contract handed over from the MoD to the Cabinet Office, assuming you are correct.
Even frontline commands are handcuffed to HMT - their delegated authority is capped at £100k. Even amounts below this may still have to be referred to HMT if they meet the ever-widening 'novel or contentious' limitations.
The big ticket items are all at the whim of HMT. Even when funded and approved HMT reserves the right to arbitrarily cut funding or delay programmes, even if this attracts additional costs down the line. HMT-induced delays are the biggest additional cost burden on the MoD (I guess they must have a similar death-grip on other government departments, but I have no direct knowledge). HMT-induced costs are always attributed to the MoD and, dutifully, the press follows the usual lines and heaps scorn on the MoD with an artificial belief that there are bunch of senior people in the MoD are moving money around as they see fit within a fixed budget. Even Urgent Operational Requirements have to laid before the Treasury and they don't even have to write a justification piece if they decide not to fund a requirement; a simple rejection will suffice with the operational risk remaining with operational commander.
None of this is new, it just gets overlooked.
The big ticket items are all at the whim of HMT. Even when funded and approved HMT reserves the right to arbitrarily cut funding or delay programmes, even if this attracts additional costs down the line. HMT-induced delays are the biggest additional cost burden on the MoD (I guess they must have a similar death-grip on other government departments, but I have no direct knowledge). HMT-induced costs are always attributed to the MoD and, dutifully, the press follows the usual lines and heaps scorn on the MoD with an artificial belief that there are bunch of senior people in the MoD are moving money around as they see fit within a fixed budget. Even Urgent Operational Requirements have to laid before the Treasury and they don't even have to write a justification piece if they decide not to fund a requirement; a simple rejection will suffice with the operational risk remaining with operational commander.
None of this is new, it just gets overlooked.
Even frontline commands are handcuffed to HMT - their delegated authority is capped at £100k. Even amounts below this may still have to be referred to HMT if they meet the ever-widening 'novel or contentious' limitations.
The big ticket items are all at the whim of HMT. Even when funded and approved HMT reserves the right to arbitrarily cut funding or delay programmes, even if this attracts additional costs down the line. HMT-induced delays are the biggest additional cost burden on the MoD (I guess they must have a similar death-grip on other government departments, but I have no direct knowledge). HMT-induced costs are always attributed to the MoD and, dutifully, the press follows the usual lines and heaps scorn on the MoD with an artificial belief that there are bunch of senior people in the MoD are moving money around as they see fit within a fixed budget. Even Urgent Operational Requirements have to laid before the Treasury and they don't even have to write a justification piece if they decide not to fund a requirement; a simple rejection will suffice with the operational risk remaining with operational commander.
None of this is new, it just gets overlooked.
The big ticket items are all at the whim of HMT. Even when funded and approved HMT reserves the right to arbitrarily cut funding or delay programmes, even if this attracts additional costs down the line. HMT-induced delays are the biggest additional cost burden on the MoD (I guess they must have a similar death-grip on other government departments, but I have no direct knowledge). HMT-induced costs are always attributed to the MoD and, dutifully, the press follows the usual lines and heaps scorn on the MoD with an artificial belief that there are bunch of senior people in the MoD are moving money around as they see fit within a fixed budget. Even Urgent Operational Requirements have to laid before the Treasury and they don't even have to write a justification piece if they decide not to fund a requirement; a simple rejection will suffice with the operational risk remaining with operational commander.
None of this is new, it just gets overlooked.
While there may well be, probably is, truth in your comments, let's not rush to absolve everyone downstream from the repercussions of their decision making.
In the old world, there was much to be gained by sticking to the adage of look after the pennies etc.
Nowadays, we see so much waste that we become conditioned to it. I doubt that HM Treasury dictated the issue of wiggly greens and a Kevlar hat for everyone at basic training. That's more likely to have cost the service money as a result of awarding a supply contract to a former supplier, than to have enhanced operational capability through flexibility.
With such evidence of a reluctance to be prudent with the small change, it's no surprise that the Mandarins think that senior RAF Officers are unable to look after a large budget.
The farce of trainee aircrew holding for years, must be the best example of waste.
The RAF should take a lesson from the commercial world. Establish when (if) Valley will (might) be ready for students, recruit accordingly, and bin everyone in a hold, asap.
Curtail flying pay for people who have not flown for weeks, never mind months/years. Ensure that active aircrew are getting the hours they need to be really current, not just the minimum. Allocate enough staff to sections to be able to support the flying program, instead of this slash and burn approach to being the next guy who deserves a promotion for instigating cost savings by having people doing less.
Just because they’re at Abbey Wood doesn’t mean they are owned by MOD. All commercial officers, who are the only ones with the delegations to sign contracts, are part of Crown Commercial Services.
Curtail flying pay for those who have not flown for weeks?
I'd like to see your maths. Training pilots is expensive and we don't pay them particularly highly so retention is always a challenge. Pay them less and more will walk and your training bill soars. The entire cost of pilot RRP(Flying) is covered by the cost of training just 2 replacement pilots.
As for the 'waste' associated with the PFI for aircrew training, well just what made you think that any of the services thought that any of the costly PFIs were a good idea? Again, look towards the Treasury.
I'd like to see your maths. Training pilots is expensive and we don't pay them particularly highly so retention is always a challenge. Pay them less and more will walk and your training bill soars. The entire cost of pilot RRP(Flying) is covered by the cost of training just 2 replacement pilots.
As for the 'waste' associated with the PFI for aircrew training, well just what made you think that any of the services thought that any of the costly PFIs were a good idea? Again, look towards the Treasury.
Warren Peace
I’m not going to address everything you said but I do have two points.
Firstly, flying pay has been called Recruitment and Retention Pay for years now. The powers that be are doing their level best to get rid of it but soon enough they may find the true meaning of the saying ‘no bucks, no Buck Rogers’. Maybe the RAF need to accept that pilots are a specialisation that need to be paid more than others of the same rank. There I said it.
Secondly, the RAF (and the Navy in their own way) got rid of loads of students back in 2010. Aside from the poor students that had their dreams crushed the whole episode left a very bitter taste across a far broader spectrum of people. It also left a bubble that worked its way through the system.
Is it any coincidence that we have faced a pilot and particularly a QFI shortage over the last few years? Those pilots would all have been well into their second and third tours by now.
BV
Firstly, flying pay has been called Recruitment and Retention Pay for years now. The powers that be are doing their level best to get rid of it but soon enough they may find the true meaning of the saying ‘no bucks, no Buck Rogers’. Maybe the RAF need to accept that pilots are a specialisation that need to be paid more than others of the same rank. There I said it.
Secondly, the RAF (and the Navy in their own way) got rid of loads of students back in 2010. Aside from the poor students that had their dreams crushed the whole episode left a very bitter taste across a far broader spectrum of people. It also left a bubble that worked its way through the system.
Is it any coincidence that we have faced a pilot and particularly a QFI shortage over the last few years? Those pilots would all have been well into their second and third tours by now.
BV
Which bit? Carillion? Patisserie Valerie? HMV? Lehman Brothers? I could go on, but I imagine you get the point.
The ‘commerce is always right idea’ is wrong. I wish the world were as simple as it is in the minds of those who say ‘if only they just did this...’. Regrettably, much of our world is replete with interactive, not systematic complexity.
This will come as a blow to those who believe they know all of the factors that obtain, and also to those who believe all the factors are knowable. It just ain’t so. There is no simple binary cause-effect relationship in a lot of things, no algorithm that just requires a couple of numbers to be applied to it to get the invariably right answer.
That’s not to excuse waste, which people should be rightly concerned about and which does require people to be incentivised to avoid and sanctioned when they make an egregious mistake (Just Culture anyone?). However, don’t assume that just because something hasn’t worked well that the outcome was predictable at the point the decision was made.
The ‘commerce is always right idea’ is wrong. I wish the world were as simple as it is in the minds of those who say ‘if only they just did this...’. Regrettably, much of our world is replete with interactive, not systematic complexity.
This will come as a blow to those who believe they know all of the factors that obtain, and also to those who believe all the factors are knowable. It just ain’t so. There is no simple binary cause-effect relationship in a lot of things, no algorithm that just requires a couple of numbers to be applied to it to get the invariably right answer.
That’s not to excuse waste, which people should be rightly concerned about and which does require people to be incentivised to avoid and sanctioned when they make an egregious mistake (Just Culture anyone?). However, don’t assume that just because something hasn’t worked well that the outcome was predictable at the point the decision was made.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
BV, noted.
FP is not the only specialist pay where people not directly in the appropriate billet continue to receive the pay. Addressing only the remark 'weeks ' would you remove pay from submarine crews for instance?
FP is not the only specialist pay where people not directly in the appropriate billet continue to receive the pay. Addressing only the remark 'weeks ' would you remove pay from submarine crews for instance?
I’m not going to address everything you said but I do have two points.
Firstly, flying pay has been called Recruitment and Retention Pay for years now. The powers that be are doing their level best to get rid of it but soon enough they may find the true meaning of the saying ‘no bucks, no Buck Rogers’. Maybe the RAF need to accept that pilots are a specialisation that need to be paid more than others of the same rank. There I said it.
Secondly, the RAF (and the Navy in their own way) got rid of loads of students back in 2010. Aside from the poor students that had their dreams crushed the whole episode left a very bitter taste across a far broader spectrum of people. It also left a bubble that worked its way through the system.
Is it any coincidence that we have faced a pilot and particularly a QFI shortage over the last few years? Those pilots would all have been well into their second and third tours by now.
BV
Firstly, flying pay has been called Recruitment and Retention Pay for years now. The powers that be are doing their level best to get rid of it but soon enough they may find the true meaning of the saying ‘no bucks, no Buck Rogers’. Maybe the RAF need to accept that pilots are a specialisation that need to be paid more than others of the same rank. There I said it.
Secondly, the RAF (and the Navy in their own way) got rid of loads of students back in 2010. Aside from the poor students that had their dreams crushed the whole episode left a very bitter taste across a far broader spectrum of people. It also left a bubble that worked its way through the system.
Is it any coincidence that we have faced a pilot and particularly a QFI shortage over the last few years? Those pilots would all have been well into their second and third tours by now.
BV
Bob, I quite agree that a Flt Lt Pilot should be paid more than a scribbly, or even an ATCO, but only while he's a Pilot. Not when he or she is doing an Ops job for 18 months, or holding while they get to try out for some other role having been chopped, or carrying a bag for some senior Thruster at High Wycombe.
As for the bubble working through the system, that's what's wrong just now. A cull is the best cure for that. I don't think those guys would actually have been ready to be QFIs, having done two tours, as they would not in fact have been trained, that's part of why they were culled.
The shortfall that will happen, will happen anyway. You can't go back and train people five years ago, so that you have their experience now.
So instead of letting the held up students work their way to the front line and be at a leaving point (in terms of time served or emotionally) after only one tour, why not train, in a reasonable timescale, the recent joiners, so that there is potential for getting a useful return of service from them?
I get the part of DACT where the opposition use bad guy tactics.
But For the 'D' part of DACT could the RAF save a few bob and write the phone number of Lakenheath and Leeuwarden on the Ops room desk address book?
But For the 'D' part of DACT could the RAF save a few bob and write the phone number of Lakenheath and Leeuwarden on the Ops room desk address book?
Looks as if the plan has been dropped for dis-similar ACT for the RAF.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...train-against/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...train-against/
You think that doesn’t happen anyway?! Unfortunately you then have to give back sorties flying red air for the benefit of those you’re flying against (= less time rehearsing your own tactics in a climate of reduced flying hours). Unless you’re suggesting that our standard threats should be AMRAAM-firing US-made F-jets?
You think that doesn’t happen anyway?! Unfortunately you then have to give back sorties flying red air for the benefit of those you’re flying against (= less time rehearsing your own tactics in a climate of reduced flying hours). Unless you’re suggesting that our standard threats should be AMRAAM-firing US-made F-jets?
No I appreciate the problem of simulating Red Air - and was being slightly tongue in cheek.
But also, replicating Red Air you do get flying time and also get to see the picture from the other side - bit like instructing.
Cheapest to just invite the Poles over to play!