ADM Editorial: Reviews don’t fix the problem | ADM February 2012

Katherine Ziesing | Canberra

This may not come as big news to many people but reviews don’t fix issues in government or anywhere else for that matter. They can point out where a process went wrong, assign responsibility and make recommendations but they don’t actually fix anything. The Department of Defence would have to be the most reviewed department in the land. As was pointed out last year, the current government has conducted almost 40 reviews in the past four years under a series of ministers. And this does not account for the myriad of internal reviews that the department undertakes at any given time.

The latest document released in December last year, a preliminary report from the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee on Procurement procedures for Defence capital projects, makes it starkly obvious that this is being recognised.

“In his 2003 report, Malcolm Kinnaird commented on the numerous reviews undertaken into Defence procurement, observing that too often implementation has not been given the priority necessary to ensure that there is sustainable momentum for change and reform.

“Eight years on and having witnessed an endless merry-go-round of reviews and implementation programs, the committee is convinced that the Australian Defence Organisation (Defence) is caught in a cycle of reforms that is adding further complexity to an already complicated and confused procurement process.

“The committee believes that the government and Defence must start to look beyond Defence's procurement processes to the root causes of its capability development woes. They must stop heralding reviews as a solution and accept them as a symptom of deep seated problems. Today's projects of concern list and the recent disintegration of Navy's amphibious capability stand as stark reminders of the magnitude of the problems before Defence.”

Efforts to make the DMO more businesslike have made progress on this issue but “it also recognises that the governance structures within the broader Defence Organisation would not be tolerated in any successful business”.

So a review has concluded in 2011 what we knew in 2003 – reviews and reforms are all well and good but are only useful if they are followed up on. Some of the reforms that Mortimer recommended in 2003 have taken years to fulfil, with some principles only confirmed last year, according to the performance checklist at the end of the report.

The report also acknowledged, “that the current management matrix model may need overhauling or even dismantling” in order to fix the issues it highlights.

The committee is aiming to table its final report mid this year, a document that may see a reshaping of an organisation where “entrenched structural impediments to efficient and effective leadership within Defence could be at the source of Defence's procurement problems requiring reallocation and redefinition of roles, functions and responsibilities”.

Given that two new associate secretaries are entering the mix in the coming months, one wonders what their roles will be. Lines on an organisational chart do little to explain the day-to-day functioning of another layer of bureaucracy to a department already top heavy with management. This is not to say that Defence’s management are not fit for the job. Far from it; Defence attracts a high calibre of people to its ranks. But it’s a question of value. What value will these positions bring to the organisation and the outcomes it aims to achieve?

Yet for all the doom and gloom that the report portends, compared with international benchmarks (of which there are few, given the apples and oranges nature of the business), Australia performs remarkably well. Project complexity for many defence projects is incredibly high, and increases exponentially as developmental elements are taken into account. What other areas of the economy have anything like Wedgetail on their books?  Or JORN? One only has to look overseas at high technology projects that have gone awry to get an idea of what true project failures can look like. Yes, we have had some harsh procurement lessons in the past, but in the main Defence does all right. Not perfect, but far from all out failure.

Perhaps the most important document on the horizon is not a review but a new and updated Defence Capability Plan (DCP) where schedule change, or reprogramming in Defence parlance, will be the order of the day. We know it’s possible that, in the short term, government budgetary pressures may shape the schedule more than capability requirements given the current economic landscape. A World Bank forecast of another flat year for 2012 doesn’t do us favours  nor reports that both the UK and US still need to make more cuts in their defence portfolios. Australia has guaranteed defence funding out until 2018, a future no other industry or country can boast.

Delegates at ADM2012 will hear from politicians, government officials and industry leaders on these issues and more this month. One can only hope that this can provide a forum for some answers, and maybe even some action, rather than just more words. Goodness knows we’ve had enough of those already.