Defence Business: What is New Generation Navy? | ADM Feb 2010

Given the wide of range of platforms coming online in the coming decade and issues associated with driving true cultural change, what does NGN actually mean for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN)?

Katherine Ziesing | Canberra

NGN AIMS to deliver organisational change that will ensure the Navy can deliver on Australia's future capability requirements.

Over the next 20 years, the Navy force structure will include new major destroyers and frigates, submarines, amphibious ships, offshore combatant vessels, naval combat helicopters and other advanced enabling capabilities.

But planning on how these platforms will be manned and supported is well underway under numerous guises.

The NGN program is focused around three pillars of Leadership and Ethics, Culture change and Organisational change.

The organisational change in particular will focus on development of the fleet, managing people at the forces level and ensuring Navy's focus is on force generation.

Training and support will come under Fleet Command and Navy has consolidated the seven Force Element Groups into four Force Commands - Surface, Submarine, Mine Warfare, Clearance Diving, Hydrographic, Meteorological and Patrol Force and the Fleet Air Arm.

The structure is intended to optimise the management of people and equipment and address the breakdowns in the current training processes.

Navy Systems Command has been abolished.

VADM Crane said that, while it had achieved a great deal in the past nine years, times had moved on.

"Hard decisions need to be made," VADM Crane warned in the Navy newspaper last year.

"The new structure will be subject to detailed modelling and stress-testing."

One of the major changes is a drive to initiate more training alongside and increased emphasis on simulation where possible.

VADM Crane says the work/life balance is a very important aspect of NGN.

"When we have to go to sea, we must and will be ready," VADM Crane said.

"But that time must be high value.

"We must maximise the use of simulation to ensure we are at the right level of training before we get to sea."

Heading up the NGN push within the RAN is Captain Martin Brooker as Program Director Navy Transformation.

The program was officially launched in November 2008 by VADM Crane for Navy to reflect on where it was, what it was doing and where it needed to change and how that was going to be achieved.

Navy engaged The Nous Group to kick off the process, followed up by a number of intensive focus groups involving over 500 personnel within Navy at various levels to develop the NGN strategy.

NGN came together as the White Paper was being formed, the Moffitt review into the submarine workforce and the Strategic Reform Program (SRP) were being developed.

NGN is how the RAN will fulfil its SRP requirements.

"You've only got to look around at the workforce environment in Australia and the competing demands to recognise that as a Navy, where people are a key capability, that we need a sustainable workforce," CAPT Brooker told ADM.

"The new structure effectively put the Navy into two key parts; one is Fleet Command which is all the naval forces, submarines, aviation forces, surface fleet forces and mine warfare, hydrographic and patrol force.

"Also within Fleet Command is Commodore Training who has responsibility for both initial and collective training for individuals but also collective training for ships at sea.

"Commodore Support is responsible for infrastructure, effectively the bases that support our naval forces.

"The last person in that organisation is Commodore Flotillas, a pre-existing organisation that is responsible for command of deployable maritime assets when required.

"Fleet Command effectively now has end to end responsibility for the raising and training of all naval capability.

"The other key part is Navy Strategic Command.

"The former Systems Commander position has become the Head of Navy Personnel and Reputation.

"His responsibilities include the traditional people functions such as postings, personnel policy and also OH&S.

"The two other keys players in Strategic Command are Head of Naval Engineering who provides direct advice to the Chief of Navy on engineering matters and the Head of Naval Capability who is also the Deputy Chief of Navy who is responsible for current capability management but also the future capability requirements of Navy.

"In terms of the Moffitt review, we accepted all the recommendations from that report and there were many that applied to the whole of Navy."

NGN is a five year program at this stage but the effects will be enduring, confirms CAPT Brooker.

The plan has enough flexibility and responsiveness that will both support the SRP and the demands of the White Paper plus the updates to doctrine and capability as they come to light.

"At this stage, we're only 6-7 months into the program but there are some very promising signs of change and a there has been a great response from people within Navy and support from various Defence elements outside of Navy," CAPT Brooker said.

Chief of Navy and the NGN team have spent countless hours briefing people around the country, visiting bases, ships, squadrons and other units, speaking to all ranks about how the program will affect them.

This tour supported by multi-media material on the Navy website, such as the Scuttlebutt videos, ensuring that the messages and goals of NGN are being communicated throughout the organisation in order to effect meaningful change across a diverse organisation.

"The tangible outcomes of this program are much future based," CAPT Brooker explained to ADM.

"One of the keys will be Navy having a flexible workforce.

"The traditional model of a career for life is most likely not as relevant to the workforce of today.

"Our view is that you can have a full time career on a part time basis.

"We need a way to facilitate career breaks and people moving in and out of Navy to meet their lifestyle needs, moving between commercial and military workforces and making that easier.

"It's about having a sustainable workforce now and into the future.

"We need to be an employer of choice rather than an employer of last resort."