Bringing together this edition of ADM has once again turned
my focus onto weapons and Force Protection. Our features this month take a
closer look at two weapons programs in particular: light weight automatic
grenade launchers under Land 40 and 81mm mortars under Land 136. And I have
concerns about both of them for similar reasons. Both are ostensibly
off-the-shelf solutions but the process has been carefully questioned as the
program offices conduct market research and examine various contracting models.
As Tom Muir points out in his Land 40 article more has been
spent on the process than what 60 guns would have cost to procure in the first
place. DSTO also weighed in on this program with a Science and Technology Plan.
No wonder a Project of Concern flag was raised and the program, as it then
stood, was cancelled in April this year.
For Land 136, after going to market twice to look at what
industry can offer, the Commonwealth has decided to go down the FMS road again
with their preferred design. Any AIC elements (AIC plans come into play with programs over $20 million and Land 136 has been capped at
$100 million, according to a statement from government last year) will come
with training and through life support.
I get the feeling that the procurement process outside the rapid acquisition framework is somewhat
broken. The Force Protection measures instigated by former Defence Minister Senator John
Faulkner were a direct result of his experience in being with front line troops
in Afghanistan. This lit the metaphorical fire under the process, burning away a lot of the dead paper
involved to get soldiers the equipment they needed.
I have joked with many industry, and even DMO people, that
there is enough paperwork involved in ASDEFCON and associated bureaucratic hurdles
that one could papier mache the capability into being much more easily. And we all had a
giggle at the mental image of a paper defence force. But the joke has stopped
being funny.
There are a host of measures, reviews and frameworks to try
and make the process better. Some of them are even working. The tight budgetary
environment has a way of focusing people as well. DMO CEO Warren King has often
spoken of trying to foster an environment of ‘managed urgency’ into his organisation. There is still a lot of the former and not
much of the latter though cultural change takes time to trickle through
organisations.
The UK has just released a report into their version of the
DMO, the Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S), and what could be done to
make it a more effective organisation. In releasing the report, Secretary of
State for Defence, Philip Hammond said “Great progress has already been made,
but if we are to maintain a balanced budget and continue to provide a better service to the
front-line, we must make real changes to our Defence Acquisition systems –
tinkering at the edges is not enough.”
The new UK White Paper sets out the background to the
proposed changes both to the structure of DE&S, and to the single-source
procurement regime, and the legislative requirements that will be needed to make those changes
operational.
1. Creating a new Government-Owned Contractor Operated
(GOCO) operating model to manage the procurement and support of defence
equipment by the Defence Equipment and Support. This will bring in incentivised
private sector expertise to improve the delivery of the MOD’s equipment program
by introducing systems and ways of working that provide staff with the best
access to the necessary skills, processes and tools to enable them to do their
jobs better, driving value for money in equipment projects.
2. Creating a new statutory framework to ensure transparency
and to encourage efficiency in single-source procurement contracts. This will
provide an assurance that value for money is being obtained for the taxpayer in
this significant area of MOD business.
“A radical improvement in the ability of the whole of MOD to
set requirements and deliver equipment, “right first time”, is needed if the
Department is to be able to continue to deliver an Equipment Program of roughly
the same size and complexity, year on year with 28 per cent fewer people (the
reduction required by the 2010 SDSR),” Hammond said.
Australia faces many of the same circumstances as the UK in
terms of people and budget pressures. It is time to stop tinkering at the edges
and make some meaningful changes in the Australian Defence procurement
landscape.