UK's Armed Forces facing Cuts?

[McFriday]

Bug,
Agree with all your points.
The first unfortunately occurs far too often to be discounted and the first point made in the second para. is equally unfortunately true,
As for the rest of your assessment, for what it's worth, I think you're spot on as well.
Though it has been some time since I regularly brushed shoulders with the British Military, I am left with the impression of some singularly brilliant minds and attitudes burdened by a cohort of others with a very distasteful and damaging parochialism.
Cheers,
Mac

[buglerbilly]

It's over-dramatic in its presentation BUT this report does hit at a core problem with the UK MoD, namely the Bonus culture that has been allowed to grow over the years............I've gotten substantial bonuses in Industry BUT that was from Profits; no profits, no bonuses. There are also STILL far too many people "supporting" the Troops with little evidence they are being significantly reduced............

A classic case of Career Civil Servants looking after Career Civil Servants.............."Yes Minister" was only slightly removed from the truth! :shakehead

Indefensible! MoD pen-pushers set for record bonuses as armed forces face cuts

By Ian Drury

Last updated at 11:38 PM on 3rd January 2011


Archie Hughes was paid an £84,000 bonus as chief executive of the group which is responsible for military equipment in Afghanistan

Defence officials are getting even bigger bonuses while the armed forces face drastic cutbacks.

The pen-pushers were given an astonishing £39.7million in the six months to October, compared with £44.2million in the whole of 2009-10.

Senior officials shared £2.7million, averaging £8,000 each. Junior staff typically took home an extra £775.

One civil servant, Archie Hughes, was paid an £84,000 bonus in the year to April 2010 as chief executive of the defence support group, which is responsible for military equipment in Afghanistan.

Other huge awards of £75,000, £72,540 and £55,350 were paid to unnamed senior civil servants. Yet savage spending cuts to deal with a £36billion black hole are being felt in each branch of the armed forces.

In October, the Strategic Defence and Security Review axed Royal Navy Harrier jets, leaving the country without a functioning aircraft carrier for ten years.

The RAF’s Nimrod spy planes are also being scrapped to save money and 17,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen will be laid off within five years.

Last night, Patrick Mercer, a Tory MP and former Army officer, condemned the bonus culture.

‘Our armed forces get no bonuses whatsoever when they go away to fight. It makes me wonder if we’ve got our priorities right,’ he said.

‘Civil servants don’t face bombs and bullets. Our soldiers, sailors and airmen are the ones who should be receiving these payments, not the bureaucrats.’


The RAF's Nimrod spy planes are being scrapped to save money
[No they are being scrapped because they are a Money Dump of dubious safety.............]

Since Britain went to war with Iraq in March 2003, civil servants have shared £330.3million in bonuses – which the MoD describes as performance linked.

The bonus pot is almost twice the £180million the MoD paid this year for 200 patrol vehicles to replace the controversial Snatch Land Rover which has been blamed for a number of deaths.

It could also have paid for some 18,000 Army recruits, who have a salary of around £17,000.

Reg Keys, the father of Lance Corporal Tom Keys, one of six Red Caps killed by a mob in Iraq in 2003, said: ‘My son died because he didn’t have a radio battery costing a few pence and yet the MoD is spending lavish amounts on bonuses for civil servants.’

Shaun Rusling, of the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association, said: ‘I find this obscene. It is incredible that Government felt it more important to squander this money lining the pockets of civil servants rather than spending it on kit for our troops.

‘Soldiers who have been injured fighting for Queen and country have to scrap for their war pensions so they can live in some dignity yet bureaucrats are rewarded for working in Whitehall.’


Patrick Mercer, a Tory MP and former Army officer, has condemned the bonus culture

Major Charles Heyman, a defence analyst and editor of the British Army Guide, said: ‘It is astonishing that the MoD has been able to justify these payments. Do civil servants face grave danger behind their desks? No.’

The MoD has 89,300 civilian staff compared with 174,000 military personnel. The bonuses were uncovered by the Daily Mail through a Freedom of Information request.

In 2003-4, 39,369 civil servants took home bonuses totalling £24.1million. They reached an all-time high in 2008-9, with £47.5million paid to 71,940 civil servants – virtually the entire non-uniformed staff.

Only a fifth of the workforce missed out on bonuses, raising suspicions that they are a routine part of salary.

The MoD’s annual report says yearly awards are a ‘proven incentive for staff to go that extra mile in their vital work’.

An MoD spokesman said: ‘These are not bonuses, but a proportion of overall salary which is linked to performance. These awards are non-pensionable and have to be earned each year.

‘In 2009-10 the average award, which is taxable, was £677. More than half of all MoD civil servants earn less than £20,000 a year.’



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343855/Ministry-Defence-officials-set-record-bonuses-armed-forces-face-cuts.html#ixzz1A3LsjHmE

[buglerbilly]

UK Defense Chief: Be Careful What You Cut

By John Reed Monday, January 10th, 2011 4:48 pm

Britain must be careful to not to cut the certain 21st Century military capabilities as it attempts to implement “radical” defense reforms over the next decade, said the United Kingdom’s top military officer last week in Washington.

While Britain’s sweeping defense cuts are meant to transform the British military into a leaner, more modern and cost-effective force capable of full spectrum ops, they will be incredibly difficult to pull off, according to Gen. David Richards, chief of the British defense staff.

“We’ve got to make sure we don’t chuck the baby out with the bathwater in order to achieve” the efficiencies and ensuing military transformation, said Richards during a Jan. 6 speech at the Atlantic Council in Washington.

“It will be a close run thing to achieve the levels of efficiencies while ensuring” the British military is prepared to meet nearly any armed challenge in the coming, added Richards.

“For example, we don’t have a cyber command, I’m very keen that we have all the equipment for cyber,” said Richards. “Where do you get the resources for that within an overall reducing envelop? That means we’ve got to dig deeper somewhere else.”

The reforms, unveiled late last year, will trim roughly 8 percent off $53 billion defense budget over the next four years alone.

“What was absolutely necessary to have in one’s Armory even ten years ago, may not be so vital in the future,” said. “Understanding this dynamic is absolutely essential.”

He went on to defend the nation’s plan to greatly reduce the numbers of fighter jets, tanks, transports, spy planes, ships and bases used by the British along with chopping uniformed military personnel by 17,000.

All of these cuts are needed to finance a modern, flexibly military equipped with everything from advanced ISR gear and cyber weapons to soldiers prepared to fight low-intensity conflicts, F-35C Joint Strike Fighters and modern nuclear missile submarines, according to Richards. He described the British military of the 2020s and beyond as having a “quantum leap” over today’s capabilities.

He even warned that the current reforms may not be enough to fully prepare the United Kingdom for 21st Century threats.

“If we stay as we are, we will not be successful in 2020 and beyond,” said Richards. “We’ve turned the corner and I would actually argue that we have further to go in configuring for future warfare.”

The general added that the U.K. must be “genuinely radical” as it moves to transform its military.

Richards has already begun discussing how the cuts will impact U.S.-U.K. operations this with his U.S. counterpart, Adm. Mike Mullen and senior NATO defense officials are set to take up the issue of declining defense budgets next month in Belgium, according to the general.

Reduced defense spending and increased efforts toward government austerity budgets could open the door for mission specialization among the more than 20 NATO members, said Richards.

“I don’t see great appetite for that among most of our nations’ political leaders but it could be that we, the military, have to be very wise on this one and generous hearted and force the pace” for specialization, said Richards.

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2011/01/10/uk-defense-chief-be-careful-what-you-cut/#ixzz1Afq1FCg8

[buglerbilly]

Transforming Defence - the most significant reform for a generation

A Defence Policy and Business news article

10 Jan 11

The force structure set out in the SDSR and the remodelling of the MOD will be the most significant reform programme for a generation Minister for the Armed Forces Nick Harvey said today.

Mr Harvey made these remarks during a speech entitled 'Transforming Defence: Implementing the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR)', at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) today.

See Mr Harvey's full speech at Related Links.

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/People/Speeches/MinAF/20110110TransformingDefence.htm

During the speech, Mr Harvey said:


"The National Security Strategy (NSS) and the SDSR provide the baseline, the parameters, the direction for everything in Defence from this point on.

"Strategy, operations, force structure, resource - all are framed by the vision set out in the SDSR. The SDSR is the agreed blueprint."

He added, however, that we do need to take our time to work through the decisions required to implement the vision:


"They are not straightforward and they are not easy - the devil, as they say, is in the detail.

"We need to make sure the growth of capability is coherent and compatible with current operations, to make sure that where we reduce we do so without creating undue pressure elsewhere, and where we strengthen capability we do so with new efficiency.

"We need to make sure that our people are looked after through the process and that they understand what it is we are asking them to achieve."

Mr Harvey went on to say that the transformation of Defence is not just about creating a coherent defence capability for the future, but making that capability sustainable:


"Just like the rest of Government, Defence must learn to live within its means," he said.

"That is why the reform agenda is not just about the big ticket items decided in the SDSR, it's about driving through new systems and processes - of accountability, transparency, cost control, realistic planning, firm and controlled project management - to bring the efficiency required to keep Defence within the funding envelope."

"Just like the rest of Government, Defence must learn to live within its means."

He continued:


"The SDSR took some very difficult decisions to help rebalance the defence programme and has significantly reduced the underfunding.

"But the act of implementation will require us to continue to develop and refine our plans to live within our means - because we are not there yet."

Outlining the vision of Future Force 2020 Mr Harvey said:


"Throughout the next few years, the mission in Afghanistan remains our Main Effort.

"Having made this commitment in the SDSR, this shaped many of our other decisions; the proposed changes to the Army, for example, and the preference for Tornado over Harrier.

"As we transform Defence we will have to ensure that the decisions we make do not have unintended consequences for operations in Afghanistan.

"This may slow the process down as each implication is worked through, but it is the right thing to do - right for national security and right for the men and women on the ground in Afghanistan.

"Despite the hardship and sacrifice shared with our international partners and the Afghans themselves, we are now operating from a position of strategic strength and there is cause for cautious optimism despite the significant challenges ahead.

"We have made it clear that there will not be British troops in a combat role or in the numbers they are now in Afghanistan by 2015 and depending on progress we may be able to start reducing our footprint earlier as we transition to more of a support role.

"So in transforming Defence we need also to think beyond Operation HERRICK and ensure equally that each decision we make is in line with the adaptable posture set out in the SDSR.

"Future Force 2020 isn't a specific package for a specific operation. It provides a menu of force elements from which we will be able to draw in the future.

"It provides a force structure which will enable us to react rapidly to crises, to conduct operations similar to Afghanistan, but also to respond with flexibility and agility to a range of threats."

Mr Harvey said that the SDSR was not just about cuts, it was about change - transforming to meet the challenges of the future with coherent and sustainable capability:


"It will take time to ensure we are making the best decisions possible, not only for the Armed Forces and our people, but taking into account the impact on the areas concerned.

"At the same time, we need to maximise receipts for the taxpayer from disposals of those parts of the estate we no longer need. All in all, a massively complex jigsaw which we will take some time to assemble.

"I know that people want clarity as soon as possible, but I would prefer to get these things right rather than rush them."

"While the MOD knows it needs to change, it is worth reflecting on the vast amount of work that the Department carries out quietly and effectively."

Mr Harvey also talked about the role of the MOD, saying it is equally important that we transform how we do things as well as what we do:


"To be successful, transformed Armed Forces require a transformed Ministry of Defence.

"We must recognise how immensely complex and wide-ranging the business of Defence is, and, while the MOD knows it needs to change, it is worth reflecting on the vast amount of work that the Department carries out quietly and effectively.

"The MOD undertakes a huge and diverse set of tasks, from military operations to estate management, from medical services to postal services, from meteorology to coastal protection.

"This makes it difficult to bring unified strategic direction to all parts of the Department. Much has improved in the last few years, but much more needs to be done.

"Under the leadership of Lord Levene, the Defence Reform Unit is working through how to create a MOD that is simpler, more effective, better-led, and, quite frankly, less wasteful of time and resources.

"Everything is in its scope. We are looking at the whole system, the 'operating model' of Defence - the internal structure and processes, the senior rank structure, and how people are to be held to account.

"We are looking at how to incentivise staff so that the behaviours we want to see are encouraged - leadership, personal accountability, creative thinking and innovation.

"We are looking at how we generate and sustain forces, as well as at tour lengths and harmony guidelines.

"And in all of this we are working to reduce significantly the running costs of Defence."

Mr Harvey said this programme to transform Defence cannot be done overnight, it will take time to implement:


"But taken all together the force structure set out in the SDSR and the remodelling of the MOD by the Defence Reform Unit, this will be the most significant reform programme for a generation.

"We have new leadership in the form of the new Government, a new Chief of the Defence Staff, General Richards, and the new Permanent Secretary, Ursula Brennan, along with Jon Day and Bernard Gray.

"Success will be collective, as must be the effort. It will be the energy and determination of military, Civil Service and indeed the wider Defence community, including yourselves, that will make the transformation in Defence happen."

[buglerbilly]

Army's 400 tanks may be cut to 50

The Army is set to lose its ability to fight large scale tanks battles under radical plans being drawn up to slash its fleet of armoured vehicles.


Tank Photo: ALAMY

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent 8:30AM GMT 11 Jan 2011

The proposals have led senior officers to question whether it is “a risk too far” to axe more than 3,000 vehicles as part of government enforced cuts under the Strategic Defence and Security Review.

The proposed cuts mean that the country which invented the tank has signalled it is to surrender almost a century’s experience of fighting armoured warfare.

The move also means that the Ministry of Defence will once again throw away billions of pounds in equipment after flushing away £3.6 billion on the new Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft along with millions on axing aircraft carriers and Harrier jets.

Under the plans the 400 strong fleet of Challenger 2 main battle tanks, that played a key role throughout the Iraq campaign, could be reduced to as little as little as 50 tanks, enough to equip just one regiment.

Within the next 18 months 1,400 armoured personnel carriers along with 1,200 CVRT light tanks will be sold off or scrapped. Hundreds of Warriors are to be put in storage with the force reduced from 800 to a maximum of 270 vehicles that will be upgraded in £800 million programme.

Senior officers admit that the move means the Army is gambling it will not have to fight armoured operations outside of Afghanistan for at least the next five years.

“This does mean that our early entry capability is completely denuded,” an officer involved in the planning told The Daily Telegraph.

After the 2015 exit from Helmand they hope that the government will provide the cash to reconstitute its armour by agreeing to the estimated £5 billion vital Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) programme that will produce about 2,000 advanced combat vehicles.

The Army is also being forced to shed its mine protected vehicles that have saved countless lives after being introduced as Urgent Operational Requirements for Iraq and Afghanistan. Although it will cause consternation in the Treasury, which has stumped up almost £2 billion for the vehicles, the Army is not expected to include the 300 Mastiff, 177 Ridgeback and around 100 Warthogs in its core equipment programme meaning they will be axed.

The final touches to the plans are being made at Headquarters Land Forces in Andover in Hampshire and the MoD’s Equipment Capability branch as part of a £5 billion savings package over the next five years. The proposals will be put to ministers at the end of this month

The cuts will mean that 34 out of the Army’s 36 infantry battalions will be in what is known as the “light role” without armour protection.

Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, criticised the "risks" being taken on defence. "This cull of armoured vehicles is a not-so-calculated risk by Government which ends our ability to take part in armoured operations elsewhere.

“The capability gaps emerging from the rushed SDSR get bigger and bigger.”

[buglerbilly]

MORE cuts.......... :dunno

Forces prepare for axe to fall on fighter jet fleet in drastic cuts package

The Armed Forces are braced for another round of drastic cuts as the Ministry of Defence has to make up a £1.6 billion shortfall for the next financial year.


The RAF is preparing for its fleet of 134 Tornado GR4 fighter-bombers being cut by half to 60 jets to save up to £300 million a year Photo: PA

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent 5:25PM GMT 25 Jan 2011

Key defence officials are meeting on Tuesday to thrash out the details of how to make immediate savings to the 2011/2012 budget.

The RAF is bracing itself to its fleet of 134 Tornado GR4 fighter-bombers being slashed in half to just 60 jets to save up to £300 million a year.

Despite challenging the previous government over the helicopter shortages in Afghanistan a key decision will be the likely announcement to cut 12 extra Chinooks that were part of a package ordered by Gordon Brown.

Other important equipment programmes are going to be axed in what will be an embarrassing revision of last October’s Strategic Defence and Security Review.

The MoD has been forced into making the extra cuts after it miscalculated savings in the next financial year.

It was supposed to save £8 billion by 2014-15 as a 7.5 per cut real terms cut to its budget. Half of this was meant to come through headline equipment cuts such as the Harriers, Nimrod reconnaissance planes, frigates and the aircraft carriers Ark Royal and Illustrious. The rest was to come through axing 17,000 Servicemen and 25,000 MoD staff as well as “efficiency savings”.

Service chiefs will sit down today at the Defence Board’s meeting on planning round 2011 (PR11) to discuss what will have to be cut with officials warning that “everything is on the table”.

“We have 34 major procurement programmes and it’s a question of what’s nice to have and what’s necessary to have but no one can see how to take that decision because they’re all regarded as vital,” said an officer involved in the planning.

They will also discuss other savings including exchange rates, fuel and personnel costs.

Operations in Afghanistan could come under threat if the decision is made to chop the fleet of Reaper and Predator unmanned drones that spy and attack insurgents. The move would save an estimated £100 million.

Another candidate for cuts is the new armoured reconnaissance vehicle to replace the ageing Scimitar light tanks. An estimated £100 million would be saved if the MoD cancelled the FRES (Future Rapid Effects System) Scout project with £500 million over four years.

While the Navy suffered the worst cuts out of all three Services in SDSR it could face losing another Type 23 frigate or more likely a Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker or supply ship.

Although politicians are adamant that there will be no further personnel cuts defence planners are contemplating reducing the Army by a further 5,000 to 90,000.

Ministers were supposed to take the decision on some aspects of further cuts tomorrow but all the main decisions have been delayed to March.

“There is not an endless supply of money and people need to realise there is a serious financial situation and there are difficult choices to make,” one MoD official said.

The Treasury is unlikely to step in to make up the shortfall, he added.

A senior military source said: “What we are being asked to achieve is virtually impossible without wholesale reduction of UK forces worldwide.

“People always said if you thought SDSR was bad then just wait until PR11”.

A MoD spokesman said: “We keep a range of options under consideration at all times regarding future capabilities but no final decisions have been taken.”

[buglerbilly]

British Strategists Wrestle With SDSR

Jan 26, 2011

By Robert Wall
London

U.K. military planners are cobbling together a new road map to bridge capability gaps that emerged from last year’s Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR) even as they brace for further cuts to plug funding shortfalls.

“The whole force is about £1 billion [$1.59 billion] down in cash terms for the next few years” with a gap as large as £2 billion per year possible, says Michael Clarke, director of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). “If the objective [of the SDSR] was to balance the books, they are not balanced,” he tells a RUSI conference reflecting on the review unveiled in October.

The issue is coming to a head with Planning Round 11 in its final stages and due for completion around April. Finishing PR 11 “is already a nightmare” due to the financial situation, Clarke says.

The SDSR “significantly reduced the underfunding” in the defense budget, says Nick Harvey, minister of state for the armed forces. However, he acknowledges that “we are not there yet” in terms of balancing the program. A senior Defense Ministry panel is slated to convene this week to discuss the issue.

Given the heavy commitment of all services to Afghanistan, there’s little flexibility in finding near-term savings to plug the gap, notes a senior military official. “Our room to maneuver is clearly limited,” he adds.

The Defense Ministry is looking at infrastructure divestitures and personnel cuts to help fill the residual hole of roughly £4 billion. The savings target is seen as “ambitious.”

Parliament’s defense committee also plans to examine the funding situation as part of a series of hearings investigating various elements of the SDSR.

As for the long term, defense officials stress that achieving the planned force structure in 2020 will require the government to boost the budget in real terms during the second half of the decade. However, officials acknowledge, that is contingent on economic recovery taking hold.

Program-specific issues on the Defense Ministry’s near-term planning agenda include how to transition carrier-strike capability in the absence of a fully operational aircraft carrier, and whether the planned Scavenger medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft program can take on missions associated with the canceled Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft and R1 Sentinel, which is due to be withdrawn from service once Afghanistan operations wind down.

The Scavenger system—which is slated to be developed with France under an agreement signed last year—is still in the formative stage. Early plans called for a nominal 2015 in-service date, but 2018 is now seen as more realistic.

Although the exact mission for Scavenger has not been finalized, Air *Commo. Malcolm Brecht, director of the Air Staff, notes that with the decision to retire the R1 Sentinel, “we will look to mitigate its loss as part of the Scavenger program.”

Scavenger also could serve as a gap-filler in the maritime patrol realm, although the British military is already exploring the extent to which some of the roles the Nimrod was to perform can be reallocated. For example, C-130s could be used for search-and-rescue missions, E-3Ds for sea surveillance, and helicopters and ships for anti-submarine warfare.

The Defense Ministry faces another thorny question as it completes PR 11: How can aircraft carrier operating skills be maintained now that planners opted to have a capability gap until the new Queen Elizabeth-class carrier arrives around the end of the decade? “Transitioning to future carrier strike is challenging but manageable,” Royal Marines Brig. David Hook, the head of Navy resources and plans, tells the RUSI conference.

Top Royal Navy and Air Force officials are now working on a strategy to address those concerns. A series of agreements is being finalized to ensure that both piloting and deck-handling skills are maintained, which includes securing agreement from the U.S. and France to embed U.K. staff on their carriers.

Photo: BAE

[buglerbilly]

Afghanistan Chinooks under threat in armed forces spending crisis

Twelve helicopters promised by government in autumn defence review under threat amid fresh financial uncertainty

Richard Norton-Taylor and Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 February 2011 19.00 GMT


A Chinook helicopter approaches troops during an operation in Afghanistan's Sangin Valley. Photograph: MOD/EPA

Extra Chinook helicopters to support British troops in Afghanistan are potential casualties of a fresh spending crisis facing the armed forces, months after ministers hastily put together the long-awaited strategic defence and security review.

Twelve Chinooks were promised by the government in the autumn's defence review, but Peter Luff, the defence procurement minister, has now said the contract is "subject to negotiation".

He was responding to questions in the Commons yesterday as the MoD searches frantically for at least £1bn in emergency cuts ahead of this year's spending round.

Defence officials have told the Guardian the MoD is negotiating a new deal on the Chinooks.

Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, said today: "The government need to come clean. If they don't sign the contract in this planning round, the vital helicopters they pledged to our troops in Afghanistan will not be delivered during combat operations.

"If this promise is broken, serious doubts will be raised about the government's ability to deliver on its rushed defence review."

Labour was attacked while in office for not giving British forces in Afghanistan sufficient helicopters. In October 2009, Liam Fox, now the defence secretary, called for "the earliest possible increase" in the number of helicopters there.

Officials discovered financial shortfalls in MoD commitments that were overlooked – deliberately or otherwise – in the rush to get a deal for the review's October deadline. Ministers need to sign off new cost cuts by the end of March.

"This is shaping up to be one of the toughest annual planning rounds in the MoD's history," Professor Malcolm Chalmers, of the Royal United Services Institute, said. "In order to make the sums add up, further cuts, beyond those announced in the strategic defence and security review, will be needed.

"There is a widespread perception in Whitehall that the MoD is incapable of running its own budget. The MoD's new management – political and official – is determined to show things have changed."

A defence official said: "We are looking at everything to see that commitments match resources."

Luff told the Financial Times, shortly after the defence review was agreed in October: "There is more to do ... There will be some big decisions yet to take. The figures are eyewatering."

The Chinooks are under threat as the RAF fights to reprieve its Tornado bombers in Afghanistan, saved in the review at the expense of Harrier jump jets.

Officials are said to be looking at a cut in the number of Tornados from over 100 to 60, a figure that could satisfy current operational needs abroad.

Defence analysts have expressed surprise at the decision to maintain the Tornado fleet. "There is growing pressure to look again at the budgetary ringfencing provided for Afghanistan-related capabilities, especially in those areas – such as fast jets – where US assets are available in relative abundance," Chalmers said.

"We are on the horns of a dilemma. Where can you make big savings are [on projects] deemed politically unacceptable?" one senior defence official said.

Problems facing defence chiefs are exacerbated by rising fuel costs, pointing to potential cuts in maritime operations and in training and exercises involving all three armed forces.

Other candidates for cancellation or delay include plans to increase the RAF's fleet of Reaper and Predator drones for use in Afghanistan.

The RAF is expected to get rid of more than 50 Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft which became operational three years ago at a cost of more than £4.5bn. Air Vice Marshal Greg Bagwell, the head of the RAF's fighter and bomber force, was reported as saying last year that this first group of Eurofighters would be "prohibitive for us to operate" and "too expensive to modify". The planes may be sold to Oman.

Defence officials also say redesigning the navy's two planned aircraft carriers will initially cost an extra £190m. Delays in building the ships have already increased their combined cost by £650m to more than £5bn. The MoD delayed the project to avoid spending in the short term.

[buglerbilly]

Order for 12 Chinooks at Risk

(Source: UK Ministry of Defence; issued Feb. 1, 2011)

Various papers report that the order for 12 Chinooks promised to soldiers in Afghanistan may be in jeopardy following Defence Oral Questions yesterday when Minister Peter Luff said the order remained under consideration.

A MOD spokesman said today: "There are some suggestions in today's papers that the decision to buy 12 Chinook helicopters is in jeopardy. The MOD announced as part of SDSR [Strategic Defence and Security Review] that we would be proceeding with an order for 12 new Chinooks.

“We are currently in discussions with Boeing in preparation for the main investigation point."

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Given the wording of the ministerial reply during the Jan. 31 House of Commons Oral Questions debate on the issue, the above denial seems overly optimistic:

-- Question by Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab):

“The Government have pledged 12 new Chinooks, which are crucial for the UK defence industry capacity and for national security because of their role in Afghanistan. Can the Minister confirm that the Government have signed the contracts for these new helicopters? If not, can he explain what that means for the British defence industry, when he expects the contracts to be signed, and when these much-needed Chinooks will enter theatre?”

-- Answer by Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Peter Luff:

“I can confirm the answer to that question when the current planning round is settled, but I assure the hon. Lady that we understand the importance of these helicopters for the mission in Afghanistan.”)

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

British Permanent Under Secretary's speech outlines priorities for Defence Reform


PUS Ursula Brennan with a British soldier during her recent visit to Helmand province. (Photo: Sergeant Rupert Frere)

07:42 GMT, February 3, 2011 In her first visit to Washington DC since becoming UK's Permanent Under Secretary (PUS) for Defence, Ursula Brennan has underlined the need and priorities for Defence Reform in a speech to the Heritage Foundation.
Ursula Brennan with a soldier

Mrs Brennan began her address by underlining the fact that while British Defence is undergoing a period of transformation the commitment to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan is unwavering. Mrs Brennan also praised the 'courage, commitment and leadership' that US forces had shown in the country.

Looking forward, Mrs Brennan placed the issues of Defence Reform within the context of an ever-changing global security picture:

"It is a commonplace that the world is changing around us. The UK has historical and economic ties across the world which make us determined to continue to play an active international role. But in common with other nations with global interests, including the USA, it is much less obvious than it was a generation ago how to manage such threats and how to seize the opportunities," she said.

Mrs Brennan highlighted the emerging powers of India, China and Brazil as a case in point as well as future security challenges such as cyberspace: "We know that such changes will bring both benefits and threats, but the one prediction that we can be sure of is that the future will surprise us," she said.

"Against this background, the fiscal challenges that governments around the world are having to face must be considered as national security issues. For this reason the new UK coalition government has made reducing the national deficit its top priority."

However, Mrs Brennan asserted that such pressures represented an opportunity and had forced a re-evaluation of how Defence is conducted: "Our aim - my aim and that of my UK Ministry of Defence colleagues - therefore, is to take this opportunity to transform Defence, not just what we do, as set by the SDSR [Strategic Defence and Security Review], but also how we do it."

Emphasising the key points that underline the British approach to Defence Reform, Mrs Brennan highlighted the ambition to be the US's 'most capable ally', the commitment to NATO, Britain's nuclear deterrent, and finally the investment in future capabilities: "To achieve this we will need to achieve significant savings," Mrs Brennan said.

"In other words, as the SDSR acknowledged, success or failure will depend on our ability to do our business better. That means innovative and bold reductions in how we deliver our back office and support functions.

"The two big costs in Defence are equipment and people, and to cut our running costs by 30 per cent we will be cutting Civil Service numbers by 25,000 over four years, which is almost one in every three people working in the Department. Efficiency savings will come from non-front-line parts of the Armed Forces too, with military reductions of around 17,000."

Mrs Brennan said that efficiencies will not address the entire financial challenge and some cuts or reductions in capability were also needed; she also stressed that financial challenges would not end with the conclusion of the SDSR.

Mrs Brennan then said that, in contrast to Defence Reform processes of the past, the current process would be different as the Department is not just looking at structure and organisation but also at culture and behaviours, led by the Defence Reform Unit: "The starting point for reform must be the development of a new operating model for Defence," Mrs Brennan said.

"We will develop a new operating model with fewer people second-guessing each other. We will refocus our policy and strategy functions so that they concentrate on the strategic, and stop meddling in the detail of delivery.

"Next is structure… Our current structure is highly integrated, with military officers and civilians working side by side in policy and operational roles.

"This integration is a great strength which no-one wants to lose. But it sometimes results in two of everything, or even four of everything (three Services and a civilian). Integration ensures our Defence Secretary does not have to choose between competing advice, but that should not come at the expense of unnecessary duplication, or blurring of roles and accountabilities.

"Third is culture. One reason why duplication exists in Defence is the culture of respecting the different perspectives and traditions of the three Services. We are clear that Defence Reform is not going to challenge the existence of the individual Services. But does respect for tradition mean that each Service should have its own finance team, its own civilian HR staff? We need to divert as many of those duplicated support resources as we can from tail to teeth."

Mrs Brennan then highlighted the need for acquisition reform, contrasting the need for expertise in the management of huge, costly and complex procurement projects with the military career path of role changes every two years.

In strategy, Mrs Brennan highlighted the challenges of expert teams headed by an expert in that field, for example the undersea team led by a submariner, but asked whether this produced the best dispassionate advice on capability needs: "One solution to that problem is to develop scrutiny and assurance processes to ensure that individual equipment proposals are not only good value for money, but also represent the best way of addressing the military requirement, not a particular Service's view of how to meet that requirement.

"This is fine, but it is an expensive way of getting a single view of Defence needs. The Defence Reform team will be looking hard at pressure points such as these. And at whether, above a certain level, it is more important to be a joint officer than a single Service one."

Mrs Brennan said force generation would be scrutinised and, in particular, 'where different approaches within the Services lead to different outputs for what can look like similar inputs': "The balance between operational tour lengths, tour intervals (the time between tours) and harmony (or nights out of bed) varies quite markedly for reasons that are not always easy to explain," added Mrs Brennan.

"Perhaps even more importantly, we need to look at how we prepare for operations, for example rebalancing between synthetic and live training. It is the intention to go beyond the classic approaches to cost reduction and examine some of the deeper drivers of cost growth. That will mark this out as a different kind of reform."

Mrs Brennan concluded by saying that while she had highlighted the challenges, she had underplayed the achievements of those in Defence - military and civilian: "It is those achievements which give me confidence that the huge challenge we face transforming Defence is not merely essential but the best way to ensure that Britain remains a first rate military power," she said.

"I have no doubt that before this process is complete, considerable heat will be generated. But you can be confident that our purpose is absolutely clear: to strengthen Britain's Armed Forces and our continuing ability to work alongside our US allies where and when required in support of a safer and more secure world."

[buglerbilly]

Army facing huge cuts after withdrawal from Afghanistan

The Army is to be cut by up to 20,000 troops, leaving it at its lowest level since the 1820s, under secret Treasury plans.


The reductions would make the Army the smallest since the reign of George IV Photo: REUTERS

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent 9:00PM GMT 19 Feb 2011

The way they are going here they will demoralise the whole UK Army for many years to come............this on-going slashing of Defence capability is being heavily run by accountants NOT by people that are accurately considering the Startegic needs of Defence.............I'd also slash the civvie element of the MoD far more heavily than has been done to date, there are STILL too many people employed there!

Senior defences sources have said that the Chancellor, George Osborne, supported by the Prime Minister will demand the cuts in a bid to substantially reduce Britain's defence budget.

General Sir David Richards, the chief of the defence staff, fought off Treasury demands for a 20 per cent reduction in the size of the Army during the frantic negotiations which preceded the publication of the Strategic Defence and Security Review last October.

However, the financial crisis engulfing the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is now regarded as so severe that, following Britain's withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2015, the size of the Army will be reduced to "circa 80,000", according to one senior defence source.

This would make the Army the smallest since the reign of George IV, when troop numbers were drawn down after the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Mr Cameron accepted Gen Richard's argument that the Army could not be substantially reduced in size while troops were still fighting in Afghanistan, but there is now a growing acceptance within Whitehall that troops numbers will have to fall when the next defence review takes place in four years time.

Sources have disclosed that following the withdrawal from Afghanistan, defence chiefs will be under pressure to have a "fundamental look at Army manning given that the manpower is the main driver of expenditure".

One defence source said: "When Britain withdraws from Afghanistan in 2015, the Treasury will be knocking on the door of the MoD with a very big hammer – there will be a substantial reduction in troops numbers leaving an Army with a strength of circa 80,000. We will be moving into an era of sharing capabilities with our European allies. The days of being able to do everything are long gone."

However, another senior officer said that the cuts would be hugely damaging. He said: "Effect on morale? In my judgement it is enormous. If you survive an operational tour you will possibly lose your job post 2015, or your chances of promotion will be reduced in a smaller Army."

The funding crisis surrounding the MoD has in part been brought about by spending cuts and what defence secretary Liam Fox has described as a £38 billion "financial black hole" of unfunded equipment programmes.

More cuts and delays to existing equipment programmes will be announced in the next few weeks as part of the Planning Round 2011 (PR11). The cuts could see projects like the Warrior Armoured Vehicle Upgrade Programme being delayed further to save costs while other projects are cancelled or shelved.

Details of the new cuts can be revealed as the MoD starts to seek 17,000 redundancies – already announced in October's Strategic Defence and Security Review – across the three armed services.

The RAF, which will reduced its strength by 5,000 from 44,000 to 39,000 personnel, will be the first service to begin the process.

Pilots, air staff and ground crew will be told who will and who will not be eligible for redundancy packages, which in many cases will be worth tens of thousands of pounds.

As with all the services, the size of the financial package will depend on a number of factors including length of service, pay and current engagement.

The Royal Navy is to cut 5,000 sailors from its ranks, reducing the service to around 30,000 personnel, and its redundancy details will be announced in early April.

A large number of sailors who served on Type 22 destroyers and the aircraft carriers HMS Ark Royal and HMS Illustrious – which will be decommissioned in 2014 – are expected to apply for redundancy.

It is understood that no Fleet Air Arm pilots will be forced into redundancy even though the entire Harrier force has now been scrapped.

Every serving soldier will be allowed to apply for redundancy when the Army releases details of its programme at the beginning of May.

Around 7,000 soldiers will be axed through natural wastage and both voluntary and compulsory redundancies, a move which will reduced the strength of the Army to 98,000 troops, its lowest level for more than 150 years.

Members of the Royal Armoured Corps, the Royal Artillery, Royal Logistic Corps, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers as well as staff officers from the rank of captain to colonel in regional divisions and brigades are expected to be among those facing compulsory redundancy.

The Sunday Telegraph understands that defence chiefs will attempt to manage the process by seeking the cuts in multiple "tranches" of redundancies, between now and 2015 to lessen the "shock".

A spokesman for the British Armed Forces Federation, said: "The government needs to recognise that if it takes the Military Covenant seriously, it needs to treat members of the Armed Forces with fairness and consideration, taking into account the sacrifices that service personnel and their families make for their country.

"The Conservatives made a lot of noise before the election about how they would treat the Armed Forces if they got into government but so far all this talk has proved hollow.

"The Armed Forces need a clear and unequivocal statement about redundancy policy and we need it soon."

Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP and former infantry commander, added: “In the early 1820s we made the mistake of reducing the armed forces to a dangerously low level.

"Within a few years we were having to recruit and retrain to deal with the expansion of the empire - do we learn nothing from history?

“How many times has Afghanistan been “dealt with” before? The one thing we can be certain of with the Middle East imploding and threat diversifying, day by day, is that we will need more troops not less.”

An MoD spokesman said: “As announced in the SDSR, there are plans to reduce the Armed Forces by 17,000 personnel; 7,000 from the army, 5,000 from the RAF and 5,000 from the Navy.

“These reductions will be driven by the structural needs of the three services and will be achieved through a combination of natural wastage and statutory Armed Forces Redundancy Schemes.

“Work is still ongoing to determine from which areas of the services these reductions will come but there will be no impact on operational capability.”


* The last time the strength of the British Army hovered around the 80,000 mark was in the early 1820s.

The Napoleonic Wars had ended and the country, under George IV, entered a period of relative calm in international affairs.

However, there were still demands on defence resources. The British East India Company, which garrisoned the subcontinent, became embroiled in a series of clashes in Burma which became the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826).

Although this conflict was largely fought by the East India Company, around 13,000 British troops were involved.

As the decade progressed a series of extra infantry battalions were also raised for the garrisoning of the colonies, primarily in the Caribbean and Canada.

The period of peace was not to last long – and was broken by a campaign in a now familiar part of the world.

At the end of the following decade, the First Afghan War had begun – a conflict which ended in disaster when a 16,000 contingent of the British Army, the East India Company and civilians were attacked at the Gandamak pass, as they retreated from Kabul. The only Briton to reach the safety of Jalalabad was Dr William Brydon.

[buglerbilly]

Fox to crack down on military overspends

Liam Fox will launch a fierce attack on “ballooning” spending in his own department as figures show projects are running at least £8.8 billion over budget.


The Airbus A400M transporter aircraft order is £603 million over budget and six years behind schedule. Photo: AFP

By Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor 10:25PM GMT 20 Feb 2011

The Defence Secretary will warn the poor practices will no longer be tolerated and will unveil tough new rules on when military projects are given the green light.

The criticism comes as the Ministry of Defence is braced for a scathing report from MPs today over its poor handling of equipment programmes.

The top 15 major procurement projects are now running at £8.8 billion over budget and, between them, are delayed by a total of 32 years.

That includes the A400M transporter aircraft order that is £603 million over budget and six years behind schedule.

In a speech to the think-tank Civitas tomorrow, Mr Fox will pledge to crack down on equipment over runs and ballooning costs both in the MoD and industry and warn the system must start working more like the private sector.

He will say: “For years successive Defence Secretaries have failed to get a grip on the equipment programme and failed to hold the department and industry to account for delays and poor cost-estimation.”

He will criticise what he calls a “conspiracy of optimism based on poor cost-estimation, unrealistic timescales” at the MoD and in industry.

“These practices in the MOD would simply not be tolerated in the private sector, and they will no longer be tolerated in the MoD.”

A “new, frank and honest relationship between Government and industry” is needed and Mr Fox will signal that change must come.

His attack on his own department echoes that of John Reid who described the immigration service as “not fit for purpose” shortly after becoming Home Secretary in 2006.

He is expected to announce a shake-up of guidelines for equipment projects and stricter rules as to when they are given the go ahead.

Mr Fox will say the MoD has a long track-record of projects running over cost and over time.

One source said military equipment is rarely on budget and on time, and the MoD invariably ends up shouldering the extra cost despite the delays.

In October, the National Audit Office said the "black hole" in the order book for defence equipment grew by £3.3 billion in Labour's final year in office.

Other examples include the Carrier and Typhoon projects, which increased by £3.3 billion in cost last year alone, while the Type 45 Destroyer programme is £1.46 billion over budget and delayed by 38 months.

The aircraft carriers programme is more than £1.8 billion over budget.

A report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee is expected to criticise the procurement programme tomorrow.

The MoD budget will fall by 8 per cent in real terms over the next four years while the Coalition Government inherited a £38 billion black hole from the last Labour administration.

But the Government is under fire over its decision to scrap the £4 billion fleet of Nimrod MRA4 reconnaissance aircraft before they have even flown.

It also emerged last week that a quarter of RAF trainee pilots are to be sacked in a cost-cutting cull.

[buglerbilly]

Cuts could cost RAF its fleet of Tornados

Exclusive: MoD spending crisis means planes could be rushed out of service, rather than phased out over several years

Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 February 2011 22.30 GMT


Under last year’s defence review, the RAF’s approximately 100 *Tornados were due to be phased out over several years. Photograph: Reuters

The RAF's entire fleet of Tornado ground attack aircraft could be rushed out of service because of a fresh spending crisis at the Ministry of Defence, the Guardian has learned.

With the department trying to find an extra £1bn savings before the end of the spending round next month, ministers and senior military officials have been presented with a range of unpalatable options.

One involves the immediate withdrawal of the RAF's eight Tornado fighters in Afghanistan, followed by an accelerated withdrawal of the rest of the fleet from service, possibly within three years. Other options include axing thousands more soldiers from non-combat units in the army, or withdrawing more ships from the Royal Navy's already diminished fleet.

"It's a complete mess," said one Whitehall source. "The government wants the military to play a role on the global stage, but the MoD is running out of money to meet its commitments." Any withdrawal from the mission in Afghanistan would cause uproar, but the Tornados are vulnerable because there are only a few of them there, and they could be deemed non-essential: it would still leave more than 100 fast jets from other countries.

Under last year's strategic defence and security review (SDSR), the RAF's 100 or so Tornados were due to be phased out over several years, with the RAF still having a rump of 18 by 2015.

But decommissioning all of them, and more quickly, is now considered a possibility. Under this scenario, the MoD would try to accelerate into service more Typhoon aircraft, the Tornados' long-term replacement. This option may have become more attractive because the MoD is no longer expecting to sell some of its Typhoons to Oman in a £600m deal.

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, a defence expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said: "If all the Tornados are withdrawn from service before 2015, it will be further evidence of just how difficult a task balancing the MoD's books is proving to be. It would be a significant further capability cut in addition to those announced in the SDSR. It is unlikely to be the last as the MoD struggles to meet the savings target it has been set."

He added: "The MoD is consciously choosing to allow gaps in medium-term capabilities – such as carriers and now fast jets – to develop so that it can focus its limited resources on Afghanistan … and on long-term investment programmes. Yet this strategy is predicated on the assumption that, post-2015, the cuts in the MoD will be quickly reversed. If this does not happen future defence reviews will have no other choice than to turn temporary capability gaps into permanent ones."

The scramble to identify cuts has come about because the MoD underestimated the cost of commitments made at the time of the SDSR, which was published last October. For months before the review, the MoD had been expecting to make cuts based on an overall budget reduced by 4%. But with days to go before the review was due to be finalised, defence officials realised the Treasury wanted cuts of 8-10%.

"It was done far too quickly. The MoD tried to do a new defence review in days. It was a farce," said a source.

The defence secretary, Liam Fox, now needs to sign off new cost cuts by the end of March unless the Treasury softens its hardline stance. One option could even see the Treasury making a loan to the MoD to help it through the next year or two.

Earlier this month the Guardian revealed that the Royal Navy would no longer be sending a warship to patrol the Caribbean, where it has played an active role in counter-narcotic and disaster relief operations.

Twelve Chinook helicopters which were promised by the government in the autumn's defence review may also become casualties of the cuts. Peter Luff, the defence procurement minister, has said the contract is "subject to negotiation".

The MoD refused to be drawn on the discussions about cuts. A spokesman said: "A number of different options are being considered. We cannot say with any clarity what those decisions will be. No decisions have been taken yet."

BAE Systems, which part-builds and has a support and maintenance contract for the UK's Typhoons, also refused to be drawn, particularly over any deal with Oman. "That is a matter for the Ministry of Defence," a spokesman said.

Before the SDSR, all three services fought bitterly to protect their own personnel and forces, with the Navy and the RAF bearing the brunt of the cuts. The RAF is likely to be furious if the Tornado is sacrificed as part of the spending round.

The RAF now has 71 Typhoon aircraft, which were delivered in two tranches. It has been reported that the first tranche of 48 could already be obsolete by 2015.

In 2009 the RAF ordered and is awaiting delivery of another 40 of the more modern tranche 3 Typhoons.

It is envisaged that the Typhoon and the Joint Strike Fighter, currently under development, will be the RAF's main attack aircraft from 2020.

[buglerbilly]

DATE:22/02/11

SOURCE:Flight International

VIDEO: Royal Navy supporters fight to save Commando Helicopter Force

By Craig Hoyle

With the UK Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm having already been hit by the early retirement of the BAE Systems Harrier GR9 fleet late last year, its supporters are growing increasingly concerned that its Commando Helicopter Force (CHF) is also at risk.

An internet-based lobby group named The Navy Campaign is encouraging backers to lobby MPs and ministers to safeguard the future of the CHF, and to see through a proposal to replace its Westland Sea Kings (below) with AW101 Merlins now flown by the Royal Air Force. The latter would be modified from the HC3/3A standard to a Mk 4 configuration more suited for naval operations.


© Craig Hoyle/Flightglobal

Plans to transfer the RAF's Merlins hinge on an order being approved for a further 12 Boeing CH-47 Chinooks, but speculation has increased over the last several weeks that this could be at risk during the Ministry of Defence's Planning Round 2011 process.

"If the CHF were to miss out on the promised upgrades and the intended transfer, the Fleet Air Arm will drop below critical mass," the campaign group warns. "At this stage, it will become much easier for opponents to argue against its continued existence."



It notes that the organisation's personnel are specialists in embarked operations and in supporting operations by the Royal Marines, which it says distinguishes it from the RAF's rotorcraft community.

RN Sea Kings are operating from Camp Bastion and Kandahar airfield as part of the UK's Joint Force Helicopter (Afghanistan) organisation. The type is used during the deployment and extraction of UK and coalition forces and to perform tasks such as resupplying forward operating bases.


© SAC Andrew Seaward/Crown Copyright

The Joint Helicopter Command revealed details about the troop-lift potential of its current assets in January, during the UK exercise Pashtun Jaguar. The Sea King can carry between five and 12 passengers in Afghanistan, depending on seasonal conditions, while the more powerful Merlin (above) can transport between 12 and 20, it says.

[buglerbilly]

Troops lives risked by MoD's 'cycle of failure' in kit spending

Soldiers’ lives are being put at risk because the Ministry of Defence is trapped in a “cycle of failure” on spending which has resulted in long delays and billions wasted on equipment.

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent 7:10AM GMT 22 Feb 2011

In a damning report MPs have condemned the department's continued inability to control expenditure that has seen £8 billion “written off…simply for reasons of delay” to equipment projects.

Despite last October’s defence review, the department has failed to “spell out” that it has spending under control, the parliamentary spening watchdog found.

Cancellation and destruction of the Nimrod and Sentinel surveillance aircraft would jeopardise troops’ live with “increased operational risks” and a £5 billion bill to the taxpayer, the Public Accounts Committee report said.

“The MOD does recognise that it must finally tackle the problems which have affected defence procurement for decades. If it does not, the cycle of failure will continue, with badly needed military capabilities suffering delay or being crowded out of the equipment programme.”

It urged the MoD to “demonstrate the same discipline in its defence procurement that our forces demonstrate in the field”.

Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, will in a speech today, outline major reforms to MoD purchasing that it is hoped will cure bungled spending.

The defence equipment programme is currently unaffordable with commitments exceeding forecast budgets over a ten year period by £38 billion.

The budget for the next financial year, know as PR11, has yet to be agreed as there is still a shortfall of more than £1 billion. It has been speculated that a large swathe of the RAF’s 134 Tornado fleet will be axed along with an proposed order for 12 Chinook helicopters.

The situation has become so dire that it has been suggested that the Treasury might lend the cash to get the MoD through the year.

Nine Nimrod aircraft, that cost £3.6 billion, are in the process of being destroyed despite military chiefs warning it would create a “massive security gap” in a letter to The Daily Telegraph last month.

Similarly the MoD will scrap its new Sentinel surveillance planes that provide long range radar coverage for troops on the ground in Afghanistan but will go in 2015.

“The scale of the budget shortfall has pressurised the MOD into taking the difficult decision to cancel important military capabilities like Nimrod and Sentinel, thereby increasing operational risks and writing off nearly £5 billion,” said Margaret Hodge, chairman of the PAC.

The committee will further examine the decision to scrap Nimrod when it was months away from becoming operational.

The report said: “Any good progress being made on many individual defence equipment projects has again been overshadowed by the MoD’s continuing failure on important major projects.”

Decisions made to delay projects in order to come in on budget every financial years was causing “appalling” repercussions and last year added £3 billion to the bill on major projects.

The report also condemned the “new benchmark in poor corporate decision making” when delays to the new aircraft carriers increased costs by £1.6 billion.

The report also highlighted a “poor decision” in 2004 that removed funding for the most advanced form of Eurofighter Typhoon, known as Tranche 3, which resulted in the MoD haveing to commit an extra £2.7 billion in 2009-10 to honour contractual commitments.

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Can Fox Outfox U.K. Procurement Problems?

Posted by Robert Wall at 2/22/2011 6:06 AM CST

U.K. defense secretary Liam Fox today is presenting a range of measures he hopes will help cure some of the defense procurement ills that have plagued the defense ministry.

Among the steps on the agenda are:

-- reviewing the top defense programs on a quarterly basis.

-- issuing a list of "projects of concern" (which sounds similar to what Australia is already doing).

-- making full funding a requirement before a program can launch (to include development, procurement and deployment funding).

All these sound like logical steps, but are they enough?

The British parliament's public accounts committee believes program management also could be tweaked. Rather than having personnel oversee several large projects, they should have a narrower focus to assure problems get the required attention.

What is more, those responsible should not be rotated as often as they now are, the legislators suggest.

An issue that is getting less attention is how the MOD will strengthen oversight on cooperative projects. For instance, on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, London is only a junior partner and, given acquisition plans, even a very junior partner. On other efforts, such as the A400M, it also is only one voice, and not the loudest when given France and Germany are buying more airlifters.

But that issue is going to be of increasing importance given the U.K. -- as a result of declining budgets and other measures (such as its defense treaty with France) -- will see the number of cooperative endeavors likely increase.

[buglerbilly]

Dr Fox: Achieving Value for Money in Defence

(Source: U.K Ministry of Defence; issued February 22, 2011)

Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox has delivered a speech about 'Value for Money at the MOD' today in which he set out how the Department must fundamentally change the way it does business.

In the speech, delivered at the Institute for the Study of Civil Society (CIVITAS), Dr Fox said the MOD needs to develop mechanisms to ensure value for money is achieved in the Department.

He set out the following as crucial to bringing about the necessary changes:

-- ending the so called 'conspiracy of optimism' in the Department's future defence programme planning, through which risks and costs in new projects are underestimated

-- future programmes should not be included unless there is a clear budgetary line for development, procurement and deployment

-- Permanent Secretary Ursula Brennan and the Chief of Defence Materiel, Bernard Gray, have been asked to examine the future programmes we currently have to ensure risks and costs are well understood and that they remain affordable

-- real-time cost control of project budgets should be improved by giving project managers the right resources and authority to deliver, retaining them in post long enough to deliver

-- a Major Projects Review Board will be set up and chaired by the Defence Secretary that will receive quarterly updates on the MOD's major programmes to ensure that they are on time and within budget. This will begin with the 20 biggest projects by value and will expand to the 50 biggest projects

-- rebalancing our relationship with industry so that we achieve maximum value for money, remembering that the primary purpose of the procurement process is to give our Armed Forces what they need when they need it, at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer

-- establishment of the new Defence Exports Support Group to ensure that the MOD, alongside UKTI (UK Trade & Investment), is focusing its efforts in support of defence exports

-- following the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) a period of intense negotiation with industry has been entered into with a number of major industrial suppliers. This is already looking at 130 contracts relating to SDSR decisions to ensure they are both necessary and give greater value for money to the taxpayer. This number will soon be expanded to around 500 contracts.

Click here for the full text of the speech, on the UK MoD website.

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/People/Speeches/SofS/20110222ValueForMoneyAtTheMod.htm

(ends)

Liam Fox Speech: UK Defence Industry Comment

(Source: ADS; issued Feb. 22, 2011)

A|D|S today (Tuesday) responded to the speech given by the Secretary of State for Defence, the Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP, at the Civitas think tank on achieving value for money at the Ministry of Defence.

Ian Godden, Chairman of A|D|S, said:

"Measures to be introduced by the MoD to help improve the efficiency of the Ministry's defence procurement system are welcomed by the defence industry. Ensuring that future programmes have a clear budgetary line for development, procurement and deployment is a common sense development and we welcome it. We also understand the need to review major contracts, most of which it should be noted are on time and on budget, to ensure that even greater value for money is delivered, as well as the 'Projects of Concern' review to support this aim. Industry is convinced that, with reform of the MoD procurement process and through partnership with Government, significant improvements can be delivered.

"A|D|S represents over 500 UK-based defence companies, large and small, from this country, elsewhere in Europe and from the US and we look forward to engaging with the Secretary of State via his new Defence Suppliers Forum. It is for the Government to decide how it interacts with industry in a practical and constructive manner and we will fully support that process.

“The 300,000 people who work in the UK defence industry across the whole country are proud of the world-leading equipment that they provide to our armed forces as well as the economic contribution - over £35 billion per year - that they make to our national well-being. The industry is committed to continuing to provide for our troops at best value to the taxpayer in partnership with the MoD to maintain our national security.

"We welcome the ongoing commitment by the Government to defence exports. Industry is hopeful that, with this recognition of the support that exports provide to equipping UK troops at best value, the support for research and technology that underpins the nation's future success will be forthcoming.”

A|D|S is the trade organisation advancing UK Aerospace, Defence, Security and Space industries with Farnborough International Limited as a wholly-owned subsidiary. A|D|S also encompasses the British Aviation Group (BAG). It was formed from the merger of the Association of Police and Public Security Suppliers (APPSS), the Defence Manufacturers Association (DMA) and the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) in October 2009.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Liam Fox: Libya will send strategic shock waves through Arab world

Dr Liam Fox has pledged to strengthen Britain's Special Forces in response to the turmoil sweeping through the Arab world.


Defending the nation: Defence Secretary Liam Fox argues that the deficit left by Labour is a danger to Britain Photo: OLI SCARFF

By Melissa Kite, Deputy Political Editor 10:10PM GMT 26 Feb 2011

The Defence Secretary said the situation in Libya demonstrated that the Government was right to radically restructure the Armed Forces, making them more adaptable to new security threats.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Dr Fox warned that the implications of the turmoil in Libya and other countries in North Africa and the Middle East would be far-reaching and could resonate for many years. They also raised the question of how best British forces could respond to such incidents.

"The events over recent days may produce a strategic shock and change in how we view the world," he said.

"The speed of events in North Africa has shown how quickly circumstances can change and how quickly the UK can be drawn in.

"An island nation like Britain, with so many interests in so many parts of the world, including around 10 per cent of our citizens living abroad, is inevitably affected by global instability."

Dr Fox disclosed that as part of the defence reshaping, additional resources will include an expansion in Special Forces. He insisted that the forces would be capable of a "one-off intervention" once they have been restructured.

"If required we could field a force of 30,000, including maritime and air assets for a one-off intervention. Although I cannot go into detail, our internationally respected and battle-tested Special Forces will receive significantly enhanced capabilities."

It is understood that Dr Fox will step up the Strategic Defence and Security Review process in two weeks when an "implementation group" reports on restructuring to take place this summer.

In a defiant message, he urged critics of the review to accept that “radical” change was more necessary than ever. He has already made clear that he is determined to press ahead with controversial cuts and reordering of equipment and priorities.

The Defence Secretary is said to be frustrated by internal Ministry of Defence resistance to changes which will see the Harrier jump jet and Nimrod reconnaissance planes scrapped, the Ark Royal decommissioned, 5,000 Navy personnel lost along with 7,000 army personnel and 25,000 MoD civilian staff.

Instead there will be a new fleet of Astute-class nuclear-powered submarines, updated Typhoons, Type-45 destroyers and Type-26 Global Combat Ships. Queen Elizabeth carriers will host fast jets and helicopters. The Army will be remodelled into five multi-role brigades, with more powers devolved to the force’s chiefs.

Angered by the slow pace of change in Whitehall, Dr Fox has handed the business of seeing through the reforms to the implementation group. It will report in the next fortnight.

In his article, Dr Fox writes: “The events of 9/11 produced a strategic shock which immediately changed how we view the world. The events in North Africa over recent days may also produce a strategic shock and change in how we view the world.”

[buglerbilly]

Liam Fox: Libya crisis shows why we're right on defence reform

Liam Fox, the defence secretary, sets out in The Sunday Telegraph why he believes the Coalition is right to radically reform UK defences.


Liam Fox, defence secretary Photo: AP

Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence 10:00PM GMT 26 Feb 2011

The speed of events in North Africa has shown how quickly circumstances can change and how quickly the UK can be drawn in. At a time when endless negativity is rampant, it is easy to forget that Britain remains the world's fifth biggest economy with the world's fourth biggest defence budget.

As William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, has said, Britain is "richly endowed with the attributes for success". We are a powerful and leading voice inside the UN, Nato, EU, the Commonwealth, the G8 and G20. We are part of a complex, interdependent global economy that brings the unavoidable importation of strategic risk.

An island nation like Britain, with so many interests in so many parts of the world – 92 per cent of trade moving by sea, around 10 per cent of our citizens living abroad – is inevitably going to be affected by global instability.

In most circumstances we handle these changes in the global strategic picture along with our allies, but occasionally have to deal with problems on our own as we did in the Falklands and Sierra Leone. It is because we face such a wide range of security challenges that the Government has spent a great deal of effort on creating a multilayered approach to defence and diplomacy.

This presents challenges because we were hugely weakened by the economic incompetence of the last Labour government. Next year, as a result of Gordon Brown's profligacy, we will be paying more in debt interest than we spend on the defence budget, the foreign office budget and the international aid budget put together. Put simply, the level of our debt is a national security liability.

It is against this very adverse financial position that we carried out our Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).

The first task was to determine the direction for our national security. We could have chosen a fortress Britain policy, where we effectively reduced our global engagement and concentrated on protecting our borders. This would have ignored the reality of Britain's global interests.

We could have assumed a much greater future involvement in asymmetric and non-state warfare similar to the type we face today in Afghanistan. But such a committed posture would have fallen into the trap of assuming that all future wars would look like the wars of today.

Instead, the National Security Council decided on an adaptive posture which would allow greater flexibility and agility in our Armed Forces enabling them to adapt to the changing nature of threats.

The vision we've set out – Future Force 2020 – ensures that by the end of the decade we have coherent, efficient and cutting-edge Armed Forces prepared for the challenges of the future. It's important we continue down the path so we can react to the challenges of today.

As we have seen in Libya in the past 96 hours the UK still has the military capability to protect British interests. At a time when the commercial sector was unable or unwilling to fly, the Government used a range of military assets, including Royal Navy warships each with a detachment of Royal Marines and C-130 Hercules aircraft to evacuate hundreds of Britons and citizens from a dozen other countries. In fact, British Armed Forces have been leading the way with HMS Cumberland being the first military asset from any country to enter and evacuate citizens from the Libyan city of Benghazi.

Future Force 2020 is an ambitious programme and as David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has said, it will require real-terms year-on-year increases in the defence budget in the second half of the decade. But I am certain that it is achievable.

I take a different view from those critical of the SDSR and believe Britain will still be able to play a role in the world.

Future Force 2020 means that Britain will continue with its minimum credible nuclear deterrent to protect against nuclear blackmail in a world where, as North Korea and Iran have shown, nuclear proliferation is increasing. We cannot afford to take a chance on the security of future generations and that is why we will invest to replace Trident. The end of the decade will also see Britain with Type-45 destroyers, the new Type-26 Global Combat Ship and new carrier capability operating the fifth-generation Joint Strike Fighter.

The Navy's new Queen Elizabeth class carriers will have the ability to combine fast jet, helicopter, unmanned aerial vehicles and amphibious capabilities – a floating piece of sovereign British territory which we can use as a base worldwide whenever our needs require it.

We will also have seven of the new Astute class submarines at the cutting edge of global submarine technology.

The Royal Marines will continue to provide a key element of our high-readiness response force. We will be able to put 1,800 marines on to shore with all the required helicopters, protective vehicles, logistics and command and control support in a similar way as we did in Sierra Leone in 2000.

In addition to the Joint Strike Fighter, our air force will have updated Eurofighter Typhoons and renewed investment in transport aircraft with the Airbus A400M replacing our ageing Hercules fleet, supplemented by combat-tested Boeing C-17s.

The Army will be remodelled into five new multi-role brigades, plus the parachute and air-assault capability provided by 16th Air Assault Brigade. This will be supported by a range of additional assets and personnel and will mean that, if required, we could field a force of 30,000 including maritime and air assets for a one-off intervention.

Though I cannot go into detail, our internationally respected and battle-tested Special Forces will receive significantly enhanced capabilities too.

Far too much attention has been given to the older equipment which is being taken out of service and far too little to the investments we are making for the future. This is why, for example, we are investing £650 million in cyber security.

In addition to reshaping our military capabilities to face the future challenges, we must also radically restructure the MoD and Armed Forces. This is why the work of the Defence Reform Unit is so important. We also need to improve our ability to prevent conflicts through the promotion of prosperity and a peaceful resolution of disputes.

Andrew Mitchell, the Development Secretary, is readjusting our international aid programme so we are able to create a stable environment in which the eradication of poverty becomes a realistic goal.

The events of 9/11 produced a strategic shock which changed how we view the world. The events in North Africa over recent days may also come to change how we view the world. Instead of happening immediately, it is likely to be protracted.

Where all of this will end up is still to be determined, but what we do know is that providing a sound defence and foreign policy designed for adaptability is the surest way to keep our country and its people safe. This is something we are determined to deliver.

[buglerbilly]

Liam Fox: armed forces job losses will be a painful process

Defence Secretary Liam Fox defended the decision to make 11,000 redundancies in the armed forces, insisting that personnel who have recently returned from Afghanistan will not be sacked.

His Labour counterpart Jim Murphy summoned Dr Fox to the Commons to make a statement on the redundancies, after the RAF yesterday became the first service to give detailed plans.

Mr Murphy said it was ''disgraceful'' that some forces serving overseas would be ''welcomed home as heroes by the public and sacked by their Government''.

But Dr Fox accused Labour of ''sad and cynical opportunism'', adding: ''I have repeatedly made it clear that within the armed forces, we have compulsory redundancy schemes because we need to maintain the rank structure and the skills base required.

''When compulsory redundancies are announced, they will not affect those in receipt of the operational allowance, those within six months of deploying or those on post-operational tour leave as I have repeatedly made clear in the House.''

David Cameron has conceded that axing around 5,000 personnel from the army, 3,300 from the Navy and 2,700 from the RAF will be ''difficult'' for those affected.

Last autumn's Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) set out plans for reducing the size of the armed forces by 17,000 in total.

Some of that number will be met by not replacing people who were retiring or leaving for other reasons.

But defence officials said 11,000 personnel still face being redundant on a compulsory or voluntary basis.

The RAF announced that 1,020 personnel will go in the first tranche in September, including up to 170 trainee pilots - but no qualified pilots.

Mr Murphy said yesterday's written ministerial statement on the redundancies had contained a ''fraction'' of what was briefed to the media.

''Some will think that that's because on the day they were discussing a no-fly zone over Libya, the Government didn't want to defend in the Commons the 2,700 redundancies in the RAF,'' he said.

He asked Dr Fox how many people who have served in Afghanistan would be made redundant.

''Will you repeat your guarantee that no-one currently serving in Afghanistan will be sacked upon their return?

''Unless you can answer those questions and give that guarantee, I have to say it's disgraceful that some of our forces taking on the Taliban today will be welcomed home as heroes by the public and sacked by their Government.''

Dr Fox said that following the RAF's announcement, the army and Navy would announce their programmes on April 4.

The army and RAF will give redundancy notices to personnel on September 1, followed by the Navy on September 30.

"Afghanistan is the Government's defence main effort," he said.

"Decisions in the SDSR were therefore weighted towards the protection of capability for the mission in Afghanistan which, as the Prime Minister has said, will see a transition to full Afghan lead in 2014.

"Redundancy is never a painless process, whether in the armed forces or elsewhere, and it is sad to see committed and patriotic men and women lose their jobs."

Dr Fox said it was essential that service personnel were made "fully aware of the options available and the timescales involved".

"That means that a timetable needs to be adhered to for the sake of themselves and their families," he said.

"It would simply be wrong to alter that timetable for the convenience of the Government.

"Personnel were expecting the announcement this week. To delay that for political expediency would have been to betray their trust.

"And difficult though it may be, in this Government political convenience will not be the final arbiter of our decisions."

[buglerbilly]

Union challenges Liam Fox over 25,000 civilian job losses at MoD

Defence secretary to meet union leaders, who say cuts agenda is ideological and shortsighted

Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 March 2011 17.34 GMT


Dr Liam Fox plans to make 25,000 civilian workers in the MoD redundant. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

Liam Fox will be challenged to rethink plans to axe up to 25,000 civilian staff at the Ministry of Defence.

The defence secretary is to meet leaders from the Prospect union on Friday . They say their alternative proposals could spare thousands of jobs.

The union says it has been told that the redundancy programme will save the MoD £650m a year but argues this could be achieved with savings and cuts in other areas.

Union officials say Fox has an ideological agenda to slash civil service numbers in the department by one-third, even though in the long term it might cost the MoD more than it saves.

"We have been told that there is a political imperative to cut jobs regardless of whether this makes any sense," said Steve Jary, the national secretary of Prospect, which represents 7,000 people in the MoD.

"If this is ideological it is shortsighted. There doesn't seem to be any sort of plan at the moment. If you cut any organisation by one-third it will have an impact, yet no decisions have [been] taken on what capabilities will change."

The union is still smarting from the way the announcement was handled last October in the strategic defence and security review.

"Three weeks before the SDSR came out we were called in and told how many civilian jobs would be lost. We were sworn to secrecy. But the day the SDSR was published it had totally different numbers. Civilian redundancies had gone up by 25%, while the number of jobs being lost in the military side had gone down by about the same amount."

Prospect will tell Fox that he could achieve the same savings by thinning out the number of senior military figures who have been given meaningless desk jobs, and by radically reducing the number of expensive external consultants hired to give advice about procurements that used to be done in-house.

"The military is hugely top-heavy," said Jary. "They also have significant on-costs: housing, drivers, assistants. Cutting their numbers would make a significant difference. The MoD is also using independent consultants, or military people, to provide advice on procurement. It's very expensive and military people are not always the best people to deal with these things. The MoD is essentially run by the military. The bad [procurement] decisions have been military decisions, not decisions taken by civil servants."

The union wants Fox to be flexible on redundancy numbers and to be open to new ideas about how to cut costs before the ministry loses thousands of staff at a critical time.

"We have warned many times that MoD is already down to the bare bones as far as its civilian expertise is concerned," said Graham Stewart, spokesman for the union. "The department is in grave danger of losing its intelligent customer role, a vital function that links the defence industry and the frontline to the department."

The MoD has said it is still in consultation over civilian staff cuts and is seeking voluntary redundancies. "We are in consultation with the unions and we will listen to what they have to say," said a spokesperson.

[buglerbilly]

Will Dr Liam Fox reopen the box?

There is a growing clamour for the Defence Review to be revisited. But Pandora’s Box contains yet more savage cuts, says James Kirkup.

One of the macabre pleasures that certain government ministers enjoy is listing which of their colleagues has the worst job. Watching Liam Fox this week scrambling to defend the imminent sacking of 11,000 Armed Forces personnel – some of them now in Afghanistan – it is easy to see why the Defence Secretary is always near the top of that bleak list.

Sacking Servicemen and women is tough enough at the best of times, and these are far from the best of times. Barely hours after David Cameron said he was considering imposing a no-fly zone over Libya, the Ministry of Defence began its redundancy programme with 1,000 Royal Air Force personnel, including 170 trainee pilots.

It gets worse. Next Friday, as Mr Cameron arrives in Brussels to discuss the European Union’s response to the Libyan crisis, HMS Ark Royal, Britain’s flagship and last remaining aircraft carrier, will be formally decommissioned, two years ahead of schedule.

That sad ceremony, like the redundancy programme, is the bitter fruit of last year’s Strategic Defence and Security Review. To call the SDSR controversial would be a grotesque understatement. Field Marshal Lord Bramall; Major General Julian Thompson; Admiral Sir Jeremy Black; Lord Ashdown – the roll call of those who have criticised the SDSR is heavy with military honours.

Yesterday, Sir Laurence Martin, a former head of the Chatham House think tank, said the review amounted to “panicked asset-stripping”. Jim Murphy, the Labour shadow defence secretary, joined the chorus, calling for a “wider reassessment of the assumptions on which defence policy has been based”.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The SDSR was supposed to prepare Britain and its Armed Forces for an unpredictable world, anticipating crises and equipping us to respond.

The bedrock on which British defence stands is British foreign policy. Soldiers, ships and planes all exist to promote and defend our interests around the globe. So what is our foreign policy?

If we’d had a working aircraft carrier, would it really be steaming towards the North African coast, ready to project British power and values into sovereign Libyan territory? Are we still that sort of country?

Some of the public reaction to the Libyan crisis suggests that many people believe the answer should be yes. Mr Cameron’s vacillations suggest his answer is: not sure yet.

The SDSR was also supposed to make the big decisions about the Services, their structure, size and mission. In fact, it deferred many major questions, launching a small armada of reviews, commissions and studies. One was a study of “force generation” ratios, the way the Services produce deployable units. Today, an Army of 100,000 can sustain a frontline force of around 10,000 in Afghanistan. Improve the force generation ratio and you need a smaller standing Army, an outcome as financially attractive as it is politically toxic. Likewise the deferred decisions about which military bases around Britain will close: announcements are due later this year.

A further review is considering the allowances paid to members of the Armed Forces, for everything from children’s school fees to living overseas. Yet another is working on thinning out the top-heavy upper ranks of the three services, sacking the brigadiers, commodores and air commodores whose numbers have grown even as the Armed Forces have shrunk.

The role and task of the Territorial Army and the other reserve forces are also being scrutinised. The TA has around 36,000 members but barely half are fit for frontline service. A much smaller, more deployable reserve could emerge, but only after another painful political backlash from the TA and its supporters.

Financially, the entire SDSR rests on the assumption that the Ministry of Defence can deliver “efficiency savings” of £4.3 billion over four years. Each year, the MoD has to try to reconcile its annual income with its annual expenditure. Under Labour, almost every annual planning round ended with a decision to run an overdraft, overspending by eating into future years’ budgets. The cumulative result was the £38 billion “black hole” in the budget that Dr Fox inherited.

The current planning round, PR11, is coming to an end, with more cuts likely: an order for 12 new Chinook helicopters looks highly vulnerable. People involved in PR11 describe the process as “hideous”, predicting that the annual budget will effectively mean another round of cuts across the board. “Unless we get more money from the Treasury, a second SDSR is going to be necessary,” says one senior source. “But it won’t be a review that reinstates cuts, it will be a review that makes more cuts. The fact is this: we cannot afford the SDSR, so we will have to do another mini SDSR to make more cuts.”

Some officials believe Mr Cameron is politically squeamish about military personnel. Will he back more contentious cuts, or blink and order the Treasury to raid its reserve? And amid the gruesome budgetary pressure on the MoD and the Libyan crisis, is there any hope that the Ark Royal will sail again?

Bernard Jenkin, a former Conservative shadow defence secretary, is among those who have suggested that there should at least be a “contingency plan” for her restoration during the long wait for her successor, HMS Queen Elizabeth, due to enter service in 2020. Yet the chances of resurrection are almost nil. Already stripped of many vital systems, Ark Royal’s engines will soon be removed. The MoD is already actively considering outright disposal, with sale to a foreign government the first option.

One alternative might be to convert HMS Illustrious, now a helicopter carrier, to support fixed-wing aircraft. But even if that were possible – and the MoD says it is not – what would fly from her decks? The SDSR, after all, scrapped the Harrier jump jets that used to fly from our carriers.

An exasperated Dr Fox dismisses the focus on carriers in the Libyan crisis as a “red herring”. He told The Daily Telegraph that air bases in Cyprus, Italy and Malta are far more relevant to any British response. “We will cover the gap until the new Queen Elizabeth class carriers are built by the use of basing and over-flight rights around the world,” he said. “If there is a requirement for fast jets in the Libya crisis, we would use our regional basing rights. No other country has seen fit to send an aircraft carrier to the region.”

But, like almost every one of his predecessors, Dr Fox is learning that the Armed Forces are at least as good at Whitehall warfare as the real thing. Each of the three Services has fought ferociously to defend its interests, often at the expense of the others: the venom of inter-Service feuds and vendettas can make civilian politicking seem tame.

One of the last decisions the review made was on the Navy’s Harriers. Dr Fox said the aircraft were deleted instead of the RAF’s Tornadoes because the Tornado offered “greater capability” in Afghanistan. It was “a very difficult decision”, he conceded.

Yet some insiders are convinced the Harriers were sacrificed simply to keep the RAF happy and ensure that pain was evenly distributed across the Services. One of those involved in the review said: “It was depressingly simple really: because the Navy got their new aircraft carriers, they had to lose something else.”

That is precisely the sort of salami-slicing that Dr Fox promised to avoid, yet it kept a fragile peace between the Services. Formally reopening the SDSR, or even quietly revisiting some of its decisions, could inflame inter-service tensions.

Friends say Dr Fox must tread carefully because, politically, the chiefs are nuclear-armed. The top brass make little secret of their continuing unease; criticism from retired officers is often sanctioned by serving chiefs. The political impact of public criticism from a serving chief would be immense; a resignation would be catastrophic. The Armed Forces and their leaders have immense public sympathy. No matter what private exasperations ministers may have about the chiefs, none would risk his own position in a public confrontation.

Mr Cameron knows that rows with the top brass destroyed Labour on defence. Under fire, would he back his Defence Secretary against the military? The question must haunt Dr Fox.

Yet elsewhere in Whitehall, there is less sympathy. One senior government figure is scathing about Dr Fox’s management of his warring military tribes: “He’s just got to get a grip on the chiefs, bang their heads and keep banging until they start pulling together and shut up about the SDSR. So far, that just hasn’t happened.”

In his office on the fifth floor of the MoD, Dr Fox keeps the in-tray from hell: a monumental overdraft and an unsympathetic Treasury; powerful, squabbling military commanders; a department famous for its lumbering bureaucracy; a boss desperate to stay on the right side of fickle short-term public opinion; and lingering question marks over Britain’s strategy and role in the world.

And in the world outside his office, is that chorus of voices, louder every day, demanding he reopen the Pandora’s Box that is the SDSR. It would take a heart of stone not to sympathise. But then, no one ever promised that being Defence Secretary was going to be easy.

[buglerbilly]

Forces facing new wave of 'hideous cuts'

The Armed Forces face a new wave of "hideous" cuts because the Ministry of Defence cannot balance its budget this year, defence sources have revealed.


The SDSR made a range of controversial cuts, scrapping HMS Ark Royal and leaving Britain without a working aircraft carrier until 2020 Photo: PA

By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent 8:30AM GMT 04 Mar 2011

Senior figures at the MoD have warned that even the current programme of cuts will not be enough to balance the department's budget for 2011-12. Only if the Treasury is prepared to raid its reserves and spend more on defence will the extra cuts be avoided, they have said.

The warning came as ministers faced fresh calls to revisit last year's controversial Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) in the light of the recent crisis in Libya and the Middle East.

The SDSR made a range of controversial cuts, scrapping HMS Ark Royal and Harrier jets and leaving Britain without a working aircraft carrier until 2020. Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, has insisted that those cuts were necessary and will not be reversed. However, former military commanders have questioned the decisions made in the SDSR, calling for its conclusions to be reviewed.

Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, said recent events have called the entire SDSR exercise into question.

"The country wants to know what the impact of government cuts will be on our defence capabilities and our ability to respond to crises," he told the Royal United Services Institute. "The events of recent weeks demand a wider reassessment of the assumptions on which defence policy has been based."

Publicly, both the MoD and Downing Street have insisted the SDSR will not be revisited. But insiders said changes will almost certainly have to be made to the SDSR package because the MoD's 2011-12 budget allocation is around £1 billion short of the department's commitments.

"We've spent four months trying to make it all add up, but it still doesn't work. We're looking at a list of hideous new cuts and even if we make all of them, it still won't be enough," said one senior source.

Another said the fundamental problem with the SDSR was it was drawn up on the assumption that the defence budget would be cut by 4 per cent over the 2011-15 spending round. In fact, the budget will fall by almost 8 per cent.

The source said: "At the end of the day, it is up to the Treasury and the Prime Minister. Unless they are prepared to find more money for defence, there are going to be more cuts and more bad headlines."

Dr Fox said last night: "Labour criticises our SDSR, but refused to carry out their own one for 12 years, leaving us with a £38 billion deficit at the MoD. Jim Murphy should apologise for the financial mess they left behind and come up with their own list of costed cuts."

[buglerbilly]

U.K. May Slash Hawk Advanced Trainers By One-Third

By ANDREW CHUTER

Published: 4 Mar 2011 12:25

LONDON - Britain may cut its fleet of Hawk T2 advanced training aircraft by nearly one-third following last year's government decision to slash the number of combat jets flown by the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy.

Eight, maybe more, of the new BAE Systems jets could be disposed of without ever having been used for training pilots, industry executives here said.

"The requirement is for about 20 aircraft, but we are looking at how we might keep other T2s occupied by offering training to foreign governments as part of the Military Flying Training System program," one executive here said.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said he could provide no details on possible T2 cuts as the department continues to explore a number of options. He dismissed suggestions the aircraft could be used to update the Red Arrows aerobatic team from the current T1 Hawk.

The previous government ordered 28 of the Hawk Advanced Jet Trainers, known as the T2 in RAF service, in a controversial 450 million-pound ($733.5 million) deal with BAE, in part to keep the aircraft in production.

Now, with deliveries of the new glass cockpit version of the Hawk almost complete, focus is switching to exactly how many trainer jets and pilots will be needed after the Strategic Defense and Security Review last year axed the Harrier GR9 fleet and heavily reduced Tornado GR4 numbers.

Further cuts to the Tornado fleet are possible as the MoD attempts to nail down spending plans for fiscal 2011, which will require another round of heavy capability and program reductions to bring the department's budget into balance.

One MoD insider said the number of fast-jet pilots emerging from the training pipeline next year could be between 30 percent and 40 percent lower than the usual output.

Just how serious the pilot cuts are was illustrated last week when Defence Secretary Liam Fox announced that 170 of the 514 pilots already in the training pipeline would be dropped. The bulk of the reductions are expected to fall in the fast-jet pilot sector.

The cuts were part of a redundancy program that will see RAF personnel numbers fall by 5,000 over the next four years to about 33,500.

Army and Navy cuts are due to be detailed early next month. Some 17,000 military personnel are expected to be made redundant.

[buglerbilly]

Armed Forces face further cuts

The Armed Forces are facing fresh cuts of £500 million on top of drastic measures already announced.

Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Mar 2011

The Army, Navy and Royal Air Force's chiefs will be told within the month exactly how much of the burden each service will have to shoulder and will then have to decide how to make the savings.

The cuts are necessary because of a massive gap between the MoD's financial commitments for the financial year which begins in April and its allocated budget.

Defence sources said the department's planning for 2011-12 had identified a significant gap of "several hundreds of millions of pounds".

It is understood that defence chiefs have not ruled making more troops redundant, including some serving in Afghanistan, above the 17,000 already identified in the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).

One senior source said the cuts would be "messy" and added that there would be "blood on the walls".

They blamed the previous government's financial management, saying this was the Coalition's first full financial year in control.

"The first year was always going to be a nightmare," the source said.

The savings will form part of the Planning Round 2011 (PR11) and will be above and beyond the cuts already imposed on the military under the SDSR.

High-profile cuts under the SDSR included axing the Navy's Harrier fighters, decommissioning the flagship HMS Ark Royal and taking the Nimrod spy plane fleet out of service – as well as the large-scale redundancy programme.

But there is still a shortfall in the "planning round" which will have to be met as defence secretary Liam Fox has refused to allow spending to simply be deferred into the future, running up an overdraft.

The MoD source said: "In the past, planning rounds cuts have been fudged and costs would be pushed back – the MoD became quite good at fudging. But this is not going to happen under Liam Fox."

Following the announcement of the armed forces redundancy programme in the House of Commons last week, Liam Fox, the defence secretary admitted that more cuts were inevitable and said: "Of course the budgetary pressures continue."

The financial penalties imposed by PR11 will also mean that some existing defence programmes will be axed or delayed and senior sources have not ruled out the possibility that more aircraft or surface ships could be phased out of service.

But sources close to the defence secretary said it would be for each arm of the forces to decide on how to make the cuts.

"He is very keen that the single service chiefs run the services," the source said.

Giving responsibility for deciding on cuts to each service chief will be a major change of MoD policy, which had previously centralised decision making.

Those close to Dr Fox have laughingly described the attempt to change the decision-making process as a "Maoist revolution".

While the Navy suffered the worst cuts out of all three Services in SDSR it could face losing another Type 23 frigate, a Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker or supply ship.

Operations in Afghanistan could come under threat if the fleet of Reaper and Predator unmanned drones that spy and attack insurgents are chopped. The move would save an estimated £100 million.

Another candidate for cuts is the new armoured reconnaissance vehicle to replace the ageing Scimitar light tanks. An estimated £100 million this year and £500 million in four years would be saved if the MoD cancelled the Future Rapid Effects System Scout project.

The disclosure of the cuts could not have come at a worse time for the MoD given the volatile state of the Middle East and with the prospect of military action against Libya remaining on the agenda.

The government was humiliated last week when it was forced to announce that 17,000 troops faced being made redundant just days after the prime minister raised the prospect that Britain might be forced to take military action against Libya in order to enforce a "no-fly zone".

The RAF set out the first details of its personnel cuts, saying 1,020 would be made redundant in September, 24 hours after the Prime Minister suggested the military could help enforce a no-fly zone in Libya.

Those affected included 170 newly-qualified and trainee pilots, as well as weapons officers and ground crew. Two Tornado squadrons have also been disbanded and their personnel reassigned. In total, the RAF will sack 2,700 personnel over the next three years. The MoD said no trained pilots would be made redundant.

The Army will make 5,000 redundancies, and the Navy will sack 3,300 personnel.

Patrick Mercer, the former Army commander and MP for Newark said: " The situation has changed so rapidly in the Middle East that this has got to be factored into whatever reconfiguration that is being considered for the UK's defences. We can't go on hacking away, especially at our maritime and aerial capabilities when it is clear that we are struggling to defend our citizens abroad."

An MoD spokesman: The MoD is undertaking its annual Planning Round. This is used routinely to ensure the department's commitments are in line with available resources. We keep a range of options under consideration at all times regarding future capabilities and premature speculation is not helpful to that process, to our Armed Forces or to industry."

[buglerbilly]

MoD In Talks to Avoid £1bn New Cuts

(Source: The Daily Telegraph; published March 9, 2011)

Dr Liam Fox has revealed that he is in talks with the Treasury to avoid £1  billion worth of new cuts to the defence budget

The Defence Secretary told MPs that there is “quite a variance” between his budget for 2011-12 and the cost of his department’s planned programmes. Unless the gap can be bridged, the MoD and the Armed Forces face more cuts, with insiders warning that military personnel may be made redundant.

Last year’s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) outlined deep cuts in the Armed Forces, including the loss of 17,000 military posts. But officials said the MoD’s annual budget for 2011-12 is still significantly short of the department’s commitments for the year.

Speaking to the Commons defence committee, Dr Fox was asked what cuts he will have to make to cover the shortfall. He replied: “That is dependent on the resources that we are discussing at the moment with the Treasury.”

Dr Fox said that part of the MoD’s problem was that its budget was based on the assumption that it would raise more than £500 million by selling Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Qatar. Talks on the sale began in 2008, and a deal was expected to be concluded during David Cameron’s visit to Oman last month. However, no sale has yet been agreed, even though the MoD has already “banked” the proceeds.

Asked if the shortfall in the budget was as much as £1 billion, Dr Fox replied: “That depends on the finance that is available on the other side. If you look at the variance between the missing receipts, the increased costs we’ve had due to fuel [prices] and currency movements, there is quite a variance. That is something which we’ll talk through with the Treasury in the next two weeks.”

Officials said the talks were unlikely to lead to more money being injected into the defence budget because George Osborne, the Chancellor, is determined to make the MoD “live within its means”.

The process has raised fears of more military job cuts. Around 11,000 of the 17,000 job cuts already announced will come through redundancy programmes.

Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, challenged ministers to rule out more cuts. He said: “The defence review has been rushed and botched. More rushed cuts to capability at this time of great global unrest would be wrong. Ministers must stop and think again.”

Click here for video webcast of the Defence Committee hearings (also including Foreign Secretary William Hague) on the UK Parliament website.

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=7892

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Fox defends SDSR

March 11, 2011

The UK needs to ensure that when it procures military equipment there is also a ‘real budgetary line’ and consider unfunded projects as ‘simply a wish list’, defence secretary Liam Fox told the House of Commons Defence Committee on 9 March.

Fox said the government is looking to pull out of projects in the future that it thinks will not come to fruition if there is no money to pay for them.

Four MPs gave evidence to the committee on the National Security Strategy (NSS), the new National Security Council and the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) that was released in October.

The SDSR process is looking to clarify what the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is committed to and define how much of its budget is an aspiration and how much is already committed.

‘We do need to have land, sea and air assets that are widely deployable,’ Fox said.

When making decisions with regards to assets, Fox said, the MoD used a model by which it asked how quickly and cheaply a capability can be regenerated if necessary after it had been removed.

When questioned about defence budget commitments and the forecast £38 billion ‘black hole’ that resides over the UK’s defence budget, Fox estimated that about £8 to £9 billion was already contractually committed to procurement projects. He said that 90% of this year’s budget is already allocated.

Fox was probed on whether the MoD needed to find an extra £1 billion per year in order to fund these commitments but he said that until ‘missing receipts’ from the Eurofighter Typhoon contract are available, he did not know.

Fox also agreed that the UK should move towards a more balanced capability model, akin to the one the US seems to be adopting. The defence secretary argued the ‘adaptive posture’ the SDSR took did not lean too heavily towards anything in particular in his view, and therefore it was balanced.

He added that while he did not want to see a reduced budget, changes must be brought in and were ‘not optional’.

In a move to appear ‘more transparent’, the MoD will carry out annual reports of its major projects and Fox said he would deliver them to parliament himself.

The MPs giving evidence affirmed that the removal of capabilities listed in the SDSR would not affect the UK’s international influence.

However, committee chairman James Arbuthnot argued that the ‘denial of a shrinkage of influence’ was ‘a little unrealistic’, given the lower number of capabilities.

William Hague, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, responded: ‘Influence doesn’t just depend on the resources you are devoting, it depends on how you are using them.’

Shephard staff

[amtp10f]

Fox defends SDSR

When making decisions with regards to assets, Fox said, the MoD used a model by which it asked how quickly and cheaply a capability can be regenerated if necessary after it had been removed.



Bullsh*t! After discussions with various MoD people, I can say there is no real model for any of this.They might have nice Powerpoint slides and glossy brochures and snake oil salesmen, but in reality the ADF is years ahead in this sort of thing and we can't do it with great confidence. What the Poms are doing is nothing more than a blind panic fire sale.




The MPs giving evidence affirmed that the removal of capabilities listed in the SDSR would not affect the UK’s international influence.


Again I call bullsh*t. A person would have to be dumber than a Green voter to believe that.

[buglerbilly]

Couldn't agree more, this is a Fire Sale led by Accountants NOT a STRATEGIC review, nothing that is being done here takes into account short, medium or long-term strategic needs.........


A person would have to be dumber than a Green voter to believe that.

:abovelol :abovelol :abovelol

[ADMk2]

The R1 Nimrod is the perfect example. Nah, we don't need a Signals intelligence aircraft. Axe it. Save a few bucks here. We are buying RC-135's afterall for our longer term needs.

Er hate to be the devils advocate here, but just what if an operation comes up in the meantime? Afterall we won't get the RC-135's until 2013/14.

Hmm. Maybe we should delay axing them until June 2011. Just to be safe.

Great. What if....

NEXT! No more what ifs. We absolutely cannot take real world considerations into the Ostrich approach we have chosen for our "Strategic Review".

[buglerbilly]

Liam Fox says defence jobs may be spared if savings are found elsewhere

'No political imperative' to lose 25,000 MoD posts and union leaders are confident cost-cutting can keep many staff in work

Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 March 2011 19.00 GMT Article history


Liam Fox, the defence secretary, is considering how best to cut costs in his department. Photograph: Isopix/Rex Features

Liam Fox, the defence secretary, has told unions that if they can find convincing ways of cutting the Ministry of Defence's budget then thousands of threatened civilian jobs might be saved.

Union leaders say they were told there was no "political imperative" to lose 25,000 ministry jobs, the figure set out in last year's strategic defence and security review, and that ministers would look seriously at any fresh proposals to reduce the number of compulsory redundancies. A meeting between the two sides has been scheduled for next week to discuss ideas.

Steve Jary, national secretary of the union Prospect, which represents 7,000 MoD staff, said it should be possible to save up to a third of the jobs in danger. Prospect has suspended the threat of industrial action pending further talks.

"We were pleased with the meeting because the defence secretary accepted that the 25,000 figure is not sacrosanct," Jary said. "Previously we had been told there was a political imperative to cut civilian jobs, but that seems to have changed.

"We have argued that the figure was arbitrary and he seemed to accept the point. Now we have to give them our proposals, but we are making good progress."

Though the apparent softening of the MoD's position will encourage civil servants, it may come as a surprise to armed forces chiefs who are having to draw up their own redundancy programmes for the army, RAF and Royal Navy.

The budget squeeze at the MoD has affected all three services with the strategic review demanding the loss of up to 17,000 jobs from the military within four years.

The RAF has already given details of its compulsory redundancy programme, while the navy and the army will report early next month.

Union leaders, though, are convinced that they have found other ways of cutting the budget.

Using documents obtained from freedom of information requests, they have discovered a huge increase in the amount paid by the MoD to outside consultants for procurement advice – a job formerly done in-house.

"Some of this spending is just obscene," said Jary. "The increase is one of the consequences of previous cuts in civilian staff at the department, and now these consultants are being used in an ad hoc way and it is very expensive.

"The MoD is now paying a whole range of companies to provide assistance for technical support because it has lost the expertise to do this from within."

He said one external computer consultant appeared to have earned £180,000 for 80 days' work.

The union says this is the main area where savings could be made – the MoD is looking to save £650m from the civilian redundancy programme, and Prospect says half of that could be covered by using existing MoD staff rather than outsiders.

Another saving could be found in reducing the number of highest ranking officers, who are being given civilian jobs because no other posts for them can be found.

Sources close to Fox said the unions would need very credible ideas if they wanted to argue the cuts could be made in a different way.

"We are having to tackle a £38bn overspend. That is the position we are in at the moment. It wasn't an ideological measure to make 25,000 people redundant, we just have to reduce costs.

"That hasn't changed. He was sympathetic to their case and made it very clear that if there were other ways [of making cuts] he would look at them."

An MoD spokesman added: "In the current economic climate, we have to make savings and we have to balance the MoD budget."

[buglerbilly]

The Effect of the Strategic Defence and Security Review On Our Overstretched Armed Forces

(Source: UK National Defence Association; issued March 18, 2011)

SDSR & THE ROYAL NAVY:

HMS Ark Royal, the Navy’s only strike carrier was hastily withdrawn from service in Dec 2010, at least three years earlier than planned. Only HMS Illustrious (currently in refit) will remain until 2014 and only carry helicopters. 60+ Harrier aircraft were withdrawn from service in Jan 2011 thus leaving the Fleet Air Arm without any fast jets.

Naval aviation expertise will be lost and very difficult to recreate. The fixed wing Fleet Air Arm has, for the next seven or more years, effectively ceased to exist. The first of two new large carriers will not be operational until at least 2018/19 or later – thus leaving the Royal Navy without fixed wing air cover for the next seven or eight years, and possibly much longer.

All four of the Navy’s Type 22 Frigates are being withdrawn now (years earlier than planned) from service. There will thus be only ever being 19 (or fewer) destroyers and frigates remaining when SDSR 1998 called for an absolute minimum of 32. (At the time of the Falklands War the RN had more than 70 frigates and destroyers.

The expected “Type 26” Future Service Combatant (planned to replace our aging Type 23 frigates) cannot be expected to even begin to come into service before 2020 at the very earliest. The result is that, from now on, at any one time the maximum number of frigates or destroyers the RN will be able to have operational at sea will be about ten! The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (the Navy’s fleet replenishment ships – fuel, stores, ammunition) will be reduced by three ships, leaving only five.

It is expected that the Royal Navy will be reduced by 5,000 personnel to a total of barely 29,000, lower than it has ever been in the last 100 years. For an island dependent entirely on the sea for our very existence, we are severely weakening our first line of defence.

SDSR & THE ARMY:

Once the Army completes its mission in Afghanistan its manpower may well be cut by 7,000 or more. The long-delayed FRES programme (replacing and modernising the Army’s combat and support vehicles) has, in effect, been dropped. The Army’s force of c.500 Challenger II tanks may be reduced to a token force of about 50.

The effects of the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) will alter the UK Army finally and irrevocably. The expeditionary armed forces are to be effectively mothballed and the equipment types needed to fight a high scale conventional war will be reduced to what is really only a training cadre with no operational capability - at least independently. Commensurate with the reduction of equipment types the overall size of the army will reduce by several thousand.

But the real cut which looms is to the terms and conditions of the service men and women, in particular the officer corps. Cuts to allowances, including the continuation of education allowance, will see large numbers of middle ranking and more senior officers vote with their feet to find stability and more financially rewarding employment in the civil sector; it is this that the civil service and politicians do not understand.

There has long existed, from both the civil service and politicians of the left, a culture of jealousy towards the Armed Forces, their status in society and their approval by the public. The civil service, it could be argued, fail to appreciate the sacrifice of the armed forces overseas, seeing only the internal politics of life within the Ministry of Defence, which they regard as their territory.

Politicians of the left have long hated the regimental system and the Armed forces ethos which they do not understand and have consistently failed to penetrate, much less control. The watering down of the regimental system under the last administration did huge damage to the method by which this nation raises and sustains its armies and has reduced the old regional affiliations to a mere thread. That was the intent, no money was saved and the exercise was a net cost to the taxpayer.

Removing the incentive of stable schooling and even the reimbursement of reasonable expenses will drive out the talented thirty-somethings who were making it work - just. These moves, intentionally or otherwise, point towards a future army that will no longer be capable of maintaining itself administratively and will therefore need to rely increasingly on civil servants. Just as the NHS is increasingly in the grip of administrators with no medical background, so will HM Armed Forces be administered by civilian staff lacking a deep understanding of our serving personnel, their tasks and their needs.

ROYAL AIR FORCE:

The strength of the RAF has been severely reduced, with much operational capability lost. The nine state-of-the-art Nimrod Mk 4 maritime surveillance aircraft were all scrapped without ever taking to the air, with £3.9 billion pounds being completely wasted and the country left with no long range maritime surveillance aircraft. Despite its success in Afghanistan, the new ASTOR intelligence aircraft system is to be withdrawn in 2015 – some 20 years early, and the recent order for 12 extra Chinook helicopters is in imminent danger of being cancelled.

The fast jet force is also in disarray. The entire RAF/RN Harrier Force has been withdrawn and all the aircraft are now ‘in store’ pending possible sale (at a knock down price). All that will remain are just enough Tornado Squadrons for the Afghanistan commitment and a reduced number of the new Typhoon Eurofighter, some of which are already being offered for sale to Indonesia.

The RAF will lose up to 5,000 personnel and in total drop below 33,000. Flying training has already been reduced severely, and over 170 student pilots/aircrew have been withdrawn from training because of the cuts. Loss of capabilities and expertise will take years to regenerate - if ever - all because of mismanagement and vast expenditure on other cherished vote-winners.

OVERALL:

It is at this point one must ask what do we have armed forces for? If we are to take the path selected by many European nations towards a ‘token military’ then we are on the right path – indeed we are already travelling fast down that path. If, however, we are to maintain a military capable of acting independently and effectively whenever needed, then we are badly off course and heading for the rocks.

There is thus a crucial need to review the political direction of SDSR 2010 and revise it – and, by doing so, choose one course or the other. The personnel strength of the Armed Forces will fall from 188,000 to c.170,000 or less. Redundancies are already being announced and implemented. Even now the Government are trying to ‘save’ even more money and so more equipment and personnel cuts are to be expected.

The coalition government seems to have turned its face away from ‘hard power’ in favour of a policy of placating potential enemies with ‘soft power’ – i.e. currying favour and ‘friends’ with large sums of money that, we submit, would be much better and effectively spent on Defence.

We advocate” Speak softly, but carry a big stick” – not, as seems to be the current philosophy, “Shout loudly, but carry a small twig!”

The UK National Defence Association (UKNDA) was formed in 2007 to campaign for sufficient, appropriate and fully funded Armed Forces that the Nation needs to defend effectively its people, their security and vital interests wherever they may be.

The UKNDA contends that ‘defence’ is too low in the Nation’s list of priorities and therefore the Armed Forces are under resourced (under-funded) for the tasks they are set.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Royal Navy and Army release redundancy scheme details

A Defence Policy and Business news article

4 Apr 11

The Royal Navy and the Army today released the details of their redundancy programmes to their personnel.

The specific trades and branches of each Service affected by the first tranche of their redundancy programmes, along with the numbers being sought from each area, have also been announced.

In October, following the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), the MOD announced that it would be reducing the number of military personnel by 17,000 across all three Services; 7,000 from the Army, 5,000 from the Royal Navy and 5,000 from the RAF. While some of these reductions will be achieved through a decrease in recruiting and not replacing those who leave, there will still need to be around 11,000 redundancies.

Each Service will run a number of redundancy tranches over the next four years with reductions planned to be fully achieved by April 2015. Although this is a compulsory programme, volunteers will be sought.

The Army has identified 150 redundancy fields by looking at where the Army is in surplus now and where it will still be in surplus in 2015. For this first tranche, there will be approximately 1,000 redundancies, half of which are expected to be volunteers. About 25 per cent of those being made redundant in this tranche will be officers, but no-one with less than eight years' experience will be made redundant.

The first tranche of redundancies for the Royal Navy will result in a total of around 1,600 redundancies from across a variety of the Naval Service's specialisations and branches, and will include ratings and officers up to the rank of captain. Those selected will be officers from the engineering, medical, warfare and logistics branches as well as junior ratings and senior ratings from a variety of branches.

Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey said:


"We have to ensure that our Armed Forces are best structured for the challenges they face both now and in the future. That said, we would of course prefer not to have to make any of our personnel redundant, but unfortunately we inherited a huge deficit in the Defence Budget from our predecessors in government.

"On the dates redundancy notices are issued, no personnel preparing for, deployed on, or returning from combat operations and on post-tour leave will be made compulsorily redundant."

Royal Navy and Army personnel will be informed through their chain of command if they are to be made redundant in this first tranche in September 2011.

Volunteers will then serve six months' notice before leaving the Armed Forces while non-volunteers will serve 12 months' notice.

All non-volunteers for redundancy will have the opportunity to apply for a transfer to an area of any Service that has shortages. These shortage categories will be published ahead of the redundancy announcements in September, along with the application process and selection criteria. Given that we are reducing the size of our Armed Forces these opportunities will, of course, be limited.

The UK is committed to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan and current operations in Libya, and changes made in response to the SDSR will have no impact on current operations. No-one who is preparing for combat operations, deployed on operations or on post-operational tour leave on the day redundancy notices are issued will be made redundant unless they have volunteered.

Personnel being made redundant will, as all other Service leavers do, receive help from the MOD to assist them in their transition back into civilian life. This includes a range of advice covering housing and finance as well as helping them to understand the civilian jobs market and how transferable their military skills are. The MOD will ensure that personnel are fully prepared and supported for their transition, with thanks for the service they have given to our country.

[buglerbilly]

Defence cuts should be reversed, military adviser says

The Libyan crisis has raised doubts about the Coalition’s defence review and could force ministers to reverse cuts including the scrapping of Britain’s Harrier jump jets, a senior military adviser has said.

By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent

11:00PM BST 06 Apr 2011

Andrew Dorman of the Ministry of Defence’s Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham said ministers should be “brave” and revisit some controversial defence cuts.

Dr Dorman, who lectures military officers about to take up senior posts, said that ministers could restore the Royal Navy’s Harriers and reverse “embarrassing” cuts the RAF’s Tornado fleet.

Growing numbers of military figures and experts are calling on David Cameron to reopen last year’s Strategic Defence and Security Review.

The SDSR’s “unprecedented” cuts were based on an “assumption of conflict avoidance” that would keep Britain out of fresh military operations for a decade, Dr Dorman wrote in a magazine article.

But by committing British forces to action in Libya, the Government has gone against its own thinking on defence, he said.

“The government seems to have forgotten its own working assumptions with David Cameron leading calls for a no-fly zone and subsequently committing British forces to support the no-fly zone and engage in attacks on Libyan ground forces,” he said.

“Whether the coalition government wants to acknowledge that the Libyan crisis has raised questions about the conclusions of the SDSR remains in doubt.”

RAF Tornadoes are in action over Libya, but the SDSR set out plans to cut the number of Tornado squadrons later this year.

“It was embarrassing for the government to have announced a further reduction in the Tornado fleet from seven to five squadrons just ahead of the crisis,” said Dr Dorman, who has also advised the US government on defence.

However, it would be “relatively straightforward” to restore one or two of the lost squadrons, he said.

Perhaps the most controversial defence cut was the scrapping of HMS Ark Royal, Britain’s last aircraft carrier, and the Harriers that flew from it.

If the Royal Navy still had its Harrier ground-attack aircraft, it “would have been able to provide a more reactive response to the situation on the ground,” Dr Dorman said.

Dr Dorman noted that the Harriers have been withdrawn from service but not been physically scrapped. “There is therefore the potential to return these aircraft to service,” he said.

It would also be “beneficial” to reverse plans to scrap RAF Sentinel surveillance aircraft and the Navy’s Type 22 frigates, he wrote.

With little prospect of ministers finding more money for defence, Dr Dorman warned that reversing some SDSR cuts could mean deeper reductions elsewhere. That could mean extra cuts in Army numbers and big reductions in the number of senior officers across the Armed Forces, he said.

Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, said the Government stands by the SDSR’s decisions.

"As we are proving in Libya, Britain’s Armed Forces has the capability to project air power abroad and protect our nation’s interests at very short notice,” he said.

"The SDSR was developed to give an adaptive posture which would allow greater flexibility and agility enabling us to adapt to the changing nature of threats and react to the challenges of today."

[buglerbilly]

Libya forces David Cameron to rethink defence cuts

David Cameron is reconsidering the Coalition’s defence cuts in the light of the conflict in Libya, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent

9:50PM BST 07 Apr 2011

The Prime Minister is “actively engaged” in a reassessment of Britain’s military capabilities and planned reductions in equipment and manpower, sources have disclosed.

The rethink has raised hopes that some of the cuts to military aircraft and ships in the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) could be postponed or even reversed. Insiders said it was not too late for a change of mind on the decision to cut the number of RAF Tornados and scrap surveillance planes. Some Royal Navy frigates could also be spared, or have their retirement delayed.

In the first sign of compromise on defence cuts, Mr Cameron has ordered the Treasury to give the Ministry of Defence a reprieve on its overspent 2011-12 budget. The £800 million climbdown will spare the Armed Forces further cuts this year. Senior government figures admitted that the Libyan conflict has raised questions about the wisdom of cuts that will leave Britain facing a “dip” in its military capabilities for several years.

“The debate is live. The Prime Minister is very much part of it. There’s a lot of objective thinking going on,” said a senior defence source.

Ministers remain adamant that there is no scope for a formal reopening of the defence review. Its fundamental analysis of Britain’s place in the world and the threats the nation faces is not being questioned.

The Government is already facing accusations of a reversal over its flagship health reforms, and ministers are keen to avoid any suggestion of another retreat. Mr Cameron and his team are said to be looking at whether the SDSR’s cuts went too far and left Britain inadequately equipped for today’s international security situation.

The defence source said: “The vision for 2020 is not bad but the question is, can we take the risk of the dip to get there? The uncertain world we envisaged [at the end of the decade] is here now.”

This week Nick Harvey, a defence minister, admitted that operations in Libya and Afghanistan had left the Armed Forces “at full stretch”. Britain would “struggle” to cope with further military emergencies, he said. There remains little chance of HMS Ark Royal, Britain’s last aircraft carrier, being saved. Restoring the Royal Navy’s Harrier jump jets is also ruled out as prohibitively expensive.

Any reassessment of Britain’s defence requirements would be warmly welcomed by Conservative MPs and military campaigners, who have strongly criticised the cuts.

But with the defence budget already overspent, any reprieve for planes or ships could mean bigger cuts elsewhere in defence, with Army numbers potentially vulnerable. Mr Cameron told MPs last month that he was prepared to look again at the SDSR and its conclusions amid the Libyan crisis and turmoil across the Middle East.

“We will look very closely at all the lessons we should learn from what we are engaged in: diplomatically; politically; and in terms of both foreign policy and military equipment,” he said.

“We think that we did anticipate the sorts of things we are doing now, but if there are further lessons to learn, of course we should learn them.”

A senior government source confirmed that the SDSR cuts were the subject of ongoing reassessment. “You don’t just have a review and leave it at that,” he said. “You are always checking you have got what you need.” Mr Cameron has been stung by the political backlash from the SDSR and cuts to the Armed Forces, such as this week’s announcement that thousands of soldiers and seamen will be sacked in September.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, has said the defence review was “the most difficult thing” the Coalition has done since taking office. Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, has spoken openly of his personal dismay at making cuts to the Armed Forces.

Downing Street worries about public anger have helped the MoD win a Whitehall battle with the Treasury over its budget this year. Officials had identified a shortfall of almost £1 billion, meaning a “gruesome” new round of defence cuts had to be drawn up. But in a significant concession, the MoD will be able to avoid most of those cuts. Under a compromise deal, the MoD can spend more money from the Treasury’s special reserve to fund costs associated with Libya and Afghanistan.

The MoD will also be allowed to spend up to £500 million this year, which it expects to raise by selling Eurofighter jets to Oman. It will also be able to spend money which it has promised to recoup by renegotiating procurement contracts. Whitehall sources said the Treasury’s new “flexibility” would fill up to three-quarters of the shortfall. The remaining gap – around £200  million – will be filled through unprecedented new cost controls imposed on the MoD by the Treasury. Those restrictions could mean new Chinook helicopters promised to the Army are delayed by several years.

Despite the deal on this year’s spending, insiders remain worried that the defence budget could come under strain again later in the current four-year spending round. Mr Cameron has already promised the Armed Forces that they will get real increases in spending in the next round, starting in 2015. But it is understood that military chiefs have told the Prime Minister that they may need more money during the current round if they are avoid even deeper cuts.

One defence industry executive said the Treasury’s ''flexibility’’ meant the MoD was living on the “same old voodoo budgets” that marked Labour’s years in office, where future liabilities were understated and delayed, pushing up eventual costs.

[buglerbilly]

David Cameron brokers deal to fill £800m black hole in defence budget

Prime minister reluctant to reopen strategic review but saves Liam Fox from political embarrassment

Patrick Wintour, political editor

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 April 2011 21.29 BST


David Cameron and Liam Fox who averted defence job and programme cuts Photograph: Toby Melville/AFP/Getty Images

The Treasury and the Ministry of Defence have struck a deal to fill a politically embarrassing £800m black hole in this year's defence budget, averting further disastrous job and programme cuts at a time when Britain is involved in two major military conflicts.

The deal, brokered by Downing Street, comes as speculation increased that senior military figures are pressing David Cameron to reopen the strategic defence and security review (SDSR) less than six months after it was completed. Cameron is reluctant to do so.

The defence secretary, Liam Fox, would have been wounded politically if he had been forced to impose fresh cuts.

But there is some scepticism that the deal agreed by the Treasury and the MoD will produce the savings the two sides claim.

The MoD said the deal for the 2011 budget meant there would be no additional cuts this year to armed forces manpower, equipment or capabilities over and above SDSR decisions.

As part of the deal finalised on Wednesday, the MoD has saved £100m by renegotiating the terms of as many as 500 contracts. The deal will also probably require the MoD to delay the purchase of equipment including some helicopters.

It has also agreed to removing 80% of defence equipment and support marketing, reductions in civilian expenses, a 50% reduction in media and PR costs, a cut in the number of photographers, and the sale of some parts of the MoD's broadband spectrum.

Fox is also imposing a new cost control regime on the MoD in a bid to get its escalating costs under control. However there is scepticism that this package will lead to sufficient savings given the MoD's past failures to control its budget.

The Treasury has given ground by saying it will not claw back the savings the MoD makes as a result of the decommissioning of equipment.

The chancellor George Osborne has also agreed that the operational allowance, the top-up paid to soldiers on active duty worth £29.02 a day, will be fully funded by the Treasury. Previously the MoD had to pay half the cost.

Details will be given to the Commons when MPs return after the Easter break.

The MoD insists there will be no reopening of the strategic defence review, even though some senior military figures insist the status of the review is a live discussion. One senior figure disclosed: "There's a lot of objective thinking going on. The uncertain world we envisaged coming down the track is here now".

Cameron is keen not be seen to be inflexible about the SDSR, but would not want a full scale reopening of its assumptions and decisions.

The SDSR was designed to tackle a £38bn defence shortfall and an equipment programme that was over committed and unsustainable after 13 years without a defence review.

Defence sources maintain that the UK has enough Tornado strike aircraft, and the abolition of two squadrons will not see an overall reduction in the number of planes. The Tornado is needed in both Afghanistan and the no-fly zone in Libya.

The strategic defence review is due to last five years, and some defence ministers argue there is no point revisiting the exercise unless there is a prospect that the funding will also increase.

The defence minister Nick Harvey said this week on BBC Daily Politics: "If we have the same envelope of cash, if we went back to reviewing the defence equation I think we would come to the same conclusions. Nothing that has happened since has led us fundamentally to question the decisions we made at the time."

[buglerbilly]

12-Month Moratorium on U.K. Defense Spending

By ANDREW CHUTER

Published: 8 Apr 2011 10:37

LONDON - The British defense sector is facing a 12-month spending moratorium by the Ministry of Defence as part of an agreement on funding for the financial year that started earlier this week.


The British Ministry of Defense's spending freeze might delay the purchase of Chinook helicopters like the U.S. Army Chinooks seen here in Afghanistan. (Peter Parks / AFP via Getty Images)

Officially, the MoD is calling the measure the Comprehensive Commitment Control regime (3CR). Unofficially, department insiders say it amounts to a moratorium on all but critical areas of spending, such as equipment for Afghanistan or the Libyan campaign.

That was confirmed by an MoD spokesperson.

"Spending will be focused on operational requirements and issues like health and safety. 3CR will apply to the equipment program," they said.

Executives here said the moratorium comes as no surprise. In fact, they said, MoD program spending has been in a de facto moratorium for several years.

The freeze is part of a series of measures approved by the Conservative-led coalition government here to secure approval of the Planning Round 2011 deliberations - the annual MoD budget review that tries to match resources to commitments.

The MoD budget for this year has been set at 33.8 billion pounds ($55.1 billion) The government is already cutting defense spending by 7.5 percent over the next four years, but the armed services and others were tasked with making a further 1 billion pounds in cuts to match an overspend for the current year.

The military has secured a reprieve from its share of additional cuts for now as political and public pressure grows to rethink last year's strategic defense and security review as the Afghan and Libyan deployments stretch resources to the limits.

Delaying or even postponing programs will help balance the books, although analysts here say the move just stores up more problems for later.

One defense executive said that by taking the current stance, the MoD was "putting off the evil day and making a decision about defense cuts to PR2012."

The MoD had said it had already started work on the planning round for next year, even though it is still 12 months away from implementation.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox has already admitted that the planning rounds for 2012 and 2013 were going to be even tougher than PR2011, and that's before this new funding fudge was known about.

Allowing the MoD to retain the cash it saves in negotiations over programs canceled as part of last year's defense review, and Treasury approval to fund more operational spending for overseas deployments are among other measures approved by the government to close the 1 billion pound gap.

The possible impact on the equipment program is unclear, but the Financial Times said today that the purchase of Boeing Chinook helicopters and a big Warrior infantry fighting vehicle update will be delayed.

It's not just equipment that is in the firing line. Training, spare parts and other spending requirements are also expected to be curtailed.

In a statement, the MoD said it would provide more details once Parliament returns after the Easter recess.

Contract details on Chinook have been under discussion for months with the original intention to deliver the bulk of the rotorcraft by 2013. Sources here today said the delays would see the delivery of 14 Chinooks - 12 additional helicopters plus the replacement of two machines written off in Afghanistan - start in 2012 and be completed in 2014.

"The plan is to deliver three helicopters in each of the financial years starting 2012 but with the final eight Chinooks not arriving until 2014," he said.

British forces are scheduled to have largely withdrawn from Afghanistan by 2015.

On the Warrior vehicle, the MoD has been in contract negotiations with Lockheed Martin UK for several months on a much-needed update program that includes a new turret and gun, provision of an electronic architecture, armor improvements and other upgrades.

The initial operating capability was targeted for around 2014 but that could be pushed back several years. A spokesperson for Lockheed Martin here said they had no knowledge of a delay to the program.

MoD research and technology may also be in the firing line for cuts.

Industry executives here have been saying for weeks that they expect to see the much-reduced budget cut still further in 2011 with the money possibly being restored toward the end of the planning cycle in 2014.

The review and the associated cuts aimed at reducing MoD spending by 7.5 percent over the four years up to 2014 has seen hefty reductions to fast jet fleets, surveillance aircraft, warships and other capabilities. The 1 billion pound overspend would have required even deeper cuts to capabilities.

The MoD has also been attempting to cut a 38 billion pound overspend over the next 10 years left by the previous Labour administration.

Fox recently told businessmen at a conference that the MoD had found 16 billion pounds of those cuts so far, leaving 22 billion pounds of spending still to be axed.

[buglerbilly]

Defence spending cuts: Parachute Regiment leaders in Afghanistan face the sack

Three Parachute Regiment commanders fighting in Afghanistan and one of Britain’s most senior Special Forces officers have been told they could be sacked within months.


Hundreds of personnel currently on the front line are eligible for redundancy Photo: PA

By Thomas Harding and James Kirkup10:00PM BST 08 Apr 2011

Some stupid stuff going on when you're getting rid of such highly experienced COMBAT Officers.............

The commanding officers of all three Para battalions received letters telling them they were “in the zone for possible redundancy”. One officer heard the news only hours after returning from a patrol fighting the Taliban.

A similar letter was sent to the officer in line to become the next head of Britain’s Special Forces. He fought with the SAS in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The three Para commanders are completing six-month tours in Afghanistan, where one has been shot by insurgents. Another is likely to be decorated for leadership in combat.

The prospect of sacking the Army’s most experienced combat commanders led to warnings that military morale would suffer and intensified the Coalition’s political embarrassment over defence cuts.

More than 3,500 Armed Forces personnel will be made redundant in September. Ministers had promised that no one serving in Afghanistan at the time would be sacked, but hundreds of personnel currently on the front line are eligible for redundancy.

A senior RAF officer warned that the defence cuts could leave Britain unable to repeat a military operation such as the one under way in Libya.

“I’m not sure we’re going to end up in a balanced place,” said Air Chief Marshal Sir Simon Bryant.

In Libya, “the ability to go and see and hear what the enemy are doing” was vital and that may not be possible with an “unbalanced set of Armed Forces”, he said.

David Cameron had signalled that he was reconsidering some cuts suggested in the Strategic Defence and Security Review and Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, confirmed yesterday that “adjustments” would be made.

“Where necessary, we will make adjustments to ensure that the brave servicemen and servicewomen who are defending us in Afghanistan and elsewhere are always properly supported, but everyone is having to make savings and that includes the Ministry of Defence,” he said.

Ministers insisted that the review’s fundamental conclusions would not be altered, meaning at least 17,000 Armed Forces posts would be lost.

The MoD announced on Monday that 5,000 soldiers would receive letters asking for voluntary redundancies. A total of 1,000 will be sacked, voluntarily or otherwise, on Sept 1. At least 250 of thosesacked would be officers, raising fears for the Army’s future leadership.

Lt Col Andrew Harrison, of 2nd Bn, was among the Para commanders who could be included. He was expected to be decorated after he took on a group of Taliban planting bombs. He was shot in the chest, although his body armour prevented serious injury, and suffered shrapnel wounds from a rocket-propelled grenade.

Lt Col James Coates, the CO of 3rd Bn, was likely to be recognised with the highest award for combat leadership after he led his men in a successful series of battles against the Taliban in one of the toughest areas of Helmand.

The commander of 1st Bn could not be named as his men formed the backbone of the Special Forces Support Group deployed alongside the SBS and SAS. He also regularly led his men in combat.

Parachute Regiment sources said the potential sackings undermined morale. “When you are out fighting Taliban this is quite a kick in the guts,” said one. “This process seems counter-intuitive when the world is clearly not getting a safer place.”

A serving officer said: “People are really, really surprised that commanding officers of parachute battalions on operations are being informed that they are eligible for redundancy. That’s not what they want to hear after all they’ve been through.”

An MoD source said it was “highly unlikely” that personnel with “immense operational experience” were going to be lost. “The Army will want to keep those with valuable experience for operational reasons,” said the source.

Andrew Robathan, the Veterans Minister, said the selection process would “take full account of the operational needs of the Army”.

[buglerbilly]

Shake-up at U.K. Procurement and Support Arm

By ANDREW CHUTER

Published: 20 Apr 2011 15:45

LONDON - The chief operating officer at the U.K. Defence Ministry's procurement and support arm is leaving the post and returning to the private sector as part of a shake-up in the top levels of the organization.

The Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) organization said in a statement April 20 that Andrew Tyler would exit the Ministry of Defence after a three-year stint in the post. Tyler's departure was first disclosed by Defense News.com at the start of the month.

In place of a chief operating officer, DE&S will share top-level responsibility for the delivery of equipment across the existing single service chiefs of materiel and a new civilian post - what DE&S is calling a Chief of Materiel (Joint Enablers).

Several other posts involving general resources and finance are also to be shuffled.

In addition to Tyler leaving, the MoD has announced it is doing away with the post of director general defense commercial, with the current incumbent, Andrew Manly, moving to take over the recently formed Defence Infrastructure Organization.

Businessman and former journalist Bernard Gray, appointed as the chief of Defence Materiel (CDM), takes over the commercial role previously filled by Manly at the center of Ministry of Defence operations.

The director general defense commercial was responsible for all aspects of the MoD's commercial management. The role was introduced under reforms implemented by Lord Drayson, the then-Labour government defense procurement minister.

Defense analyst Alex Ashbourne-Walmsley of Ashbourne Strategic Consulting said moving the commercial role from the center "cements the power of Bernard Gray and along with it, the authority of DE&S in the acquisition process."

Britain's defense procurement system has been plagued with cost and time overruns for years. DE&S and its predecessors have borne the brunt of the blame for those problems - sometimes unfairly.

Gray himself wrote a stinging critique of the performance of the procurement system in a report commissioned by the then-Labour government.

Tyler and Manly were both interviewed as potential CDMs before Gray accepted the position of running the organization responsible for Britain's annual 14 billion pound ($22.8 billion) defense procurement and support budget.

Reforming the top levels of DE&S is the first major reorganization move since Gray's appointment in December. Wider reforms of the MoD are expected to be unveiled in the next few months, when a government-appointed committee led by 1980s defense procurement boss Lord Levene is due to recommend structural changes across the department.

In a separate development unconnected with his role as the new procurement and support department boss, Gray was named in The Times newspaper April 20 as the recipient of a court injunction to prevent details of his private life from being disclosed.

The Times said Gray had been granted the injunction in October to "prevent disclosure of private information by a woman."

Gray was named along with numerous sportsmen, actors and others who had over the last 12 months resorted to the growing trend here of using a court injunction to protect their privacy.

A spokesperson for the MoD was unable to confirm the Times information in the time available before this story went to press.

[buglerbilly]

Armed Forces face billions of pounds of further cuts in additional MoD cost review

The Armed Forces face another wave of cuts in the next financial year as the Ministry of Defence seeks to make billions of pounds in further savings.

7:51AM BST 16 May 2011



A three-month study, reporting in July, will consider how more personnel and equipment programmes could be axed.

It follows October's controversial Strategic Defenceand Security Review (SDSR) which outlined measures to slash thousands of personnel, scrap the Harrier fleet and Nimrod spy planes and retire the HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier.

Potential targets reportedly include HMS Illustrious, Britain's last surviving aircraft carrier, which is due back from a refit next year.

A £2billion plan for a new fleet of armoured vehicles could also be singled out for the axe as well as a £16billion plan to buy a new generation of jets.

The Ministry of Defence insisted it was not reopening the SDSR but said it was looking at balancing "defence priorities and the budget over the long-term".

"The three-month study is part of that work to ensure we match our assumptions with our spending settlement," a spokesman said.

"We have made it clear that while the SDSR had made substantial inroads into the £38billionn funding deficit, there is still more to be done."

Armed Forces heads have warned that resources are already stretched with conflicts being fought in Afghanistan and Libya. The Army is likely to bear the brunt of further cuts after the Navy and RAF saw the largest squeeze in the initial SDSR. The war in Libya has demanded the use of naval and and air assets while the death of Osama bin Laden has left the Armed Forces looking exposed.

A defence industry source told The Times: “[The cuts are] going to be a bloodbath. The black hole is still there and billions more need to be cut. The Army has got to be where it comes from but that is political dynamite.”

The deep cuts unveiled last year set out the future shape and size of Britain's armed forces.

Under the proposals, the defence budget is to fall by 8 per cent over the next four years. The MoD is to cut its civilian personnel by 25,000 by 2015; Army numbers will be reduced by 7,000 to 95,500; Navy manpower will be cut by 5,000 to 30,000; RAF forces will be reduced by 5,000 to 33,000 and tanks and heavy artillery numbers will be reduced by 40 per cent.

However, the MoD now wants to make further savings for the financial year ending in March 2012.

The review comes as Defence Secretary Liam Fox prepares to unveil the new military covenant which promises extra help for the armed forces and will enshrine their rights in law.

Dr Fox is expected to set out a number of enhanced services for the military, such as doubling the rate of council tax relief to 50 per cent for those serving overseas, a £3 million boost for schools with high numbers of children from forces family and making it easier for seriously injured service personnel and veterans to access cut-price public transport.

Despite current planned cuts, in addition to efficiency savings and planned reforms the MoD is facing a shortfall of more than £3billion over the next three years. The figure is expected to be considerably higher in the nine years to 2020. The government must decide whether to increase defence spending in 2014 or continue to push through budget cuts.

[buglerbilly]

Fresh Wave of Defence Cuts On Way

(Source: British Forces Broadcasting Service; published May 16, 2011)

The armed forces face a further wave of cuts in the next financial year as the Ministry of Defence seeks to make more savings. A three-month study, reporting in July, will consider how more personnel and equipment programmes could be axed.

It follows October's controversial Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) which outlined measures to slash thousands of personnel, scrap the Harrier fleet and Nimrod spy planes and retire the HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier.

The Ministry of Defence insisted it was not reopening the SDSR but said it was looking at balancing "defence priorities and the budget over the long-term".

"The three-month study is part of that work to ensure we match our assumptions with our spending settlement," a spokesman said.

"We have made it clear that while the SDSR had made substantial inroads into the £38bn funding deficit, there is still more to be done."

The deep cuts unveiled last year set out the future shape and size of Britain's armed forces.

Under the proposals, the defence budget is to fall by 8% over the next four years. The MoD is to cut its civilian personnel by 25,000 by 2015; Army numbers will be reduced by 7,000 to 95,500; Navy manpower will be cut by 5,000 to 30,000; RAF forces will be reduced by 5,000 to 33,000 and tanks and heavy artillery numbers will be reduced by 40%.

However, the MoD now wants to make further savings for the financial year ending in March 2012.

Potential targets reportedly include HMS Illustrious, Britain's last surviving aircraft carrier, which is due back from a refit next year.

It is also reported that plans for a new fleet of armoured vehicles could also be singled out for the axe.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Liam Fox attacks David Cameron over pledge to raise aid budget

Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, has opposed plans to sharply increase Britain's aid budget, in a direct challenge to David Cameron's authority.


Liam Fox answers questions in front of the Defence Select Committee on operations in Libya Photo: PA

By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent6:45AM BST 17 May 2011

In a leaked letter to the Prime Minister, Dr Fox said he could not accept plans to increase the development budget to 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product.

The aid pledge, made in the Conservative election manifesto last year, was at the heart of Mr Cameron's attempts to change his party's image.

It has gained opponents among Right–wing Tories, many of whom voted for Dr Fox when he fought Mr Cameron for the party leadership in 2005.

"I cannot support the proposal in its current form," Dr Fox told the Prime Minister.

Dr Fox suggested that development funding should be diverted to the defence budget, writing that reneging on the aid pledge would release more public money to be spent on "other activities or programmes rather than aid".

The letter is the second significant private message from Dr Fox to Mr Cameron that has leaked. Last year, The Daily Telegraph obtained a letter in which the Defence Secretary warned the Prime Minister that "draconian" cuts in the defence budget could cripple the Armed Forces.

Dr Fox's rejection of the aid commitment and the leaking of his letter will fuel suspicion among Mr Cameron's allies that the Defence Secretary is trying to undermine the Prime Minister and may one day seek the Conservative leadership again. He finished third in the 2005 contest, behind Mr Cameron and David Davis.

The letter will also reignite the political debate over the aid pledge.

With the Department of Health, the Department for International Development is one of only two Whitehall departments whose budgets will grow between 2011–12 and 2014–15.

Overall aid spending will rise from £7.8billion this year to £11.5billion, a 34 per cent real–terms increase.

Are British Gorvernments ferked in the head? You increase Overseas Aid for what purpose? To look good, to increase the bank accounts of thousands of corrupt local officials........??? Wrong priorities people, wrong priorities.............. :jerkit

The Ministry of Defence faces an 8 per cent cut in its budget. More than 15,000 Armed Forces positions will be cut, and the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal and the Harrier jump jet fleet have been scrapped.

The Coalition has promised to pass a law that would commit the Government to providing annual increases in aid spending until the 0.7 per cent goal, set by the United Nations, is met.

Dr Fox told Mr Cameron that the plan could expose the Government to the risk of a legal challenge.

He wrote: "I believe that creating a statutory requirement to spend 0.7 per cent carries more risk in terms of potential future legal challenges than, as we have had for the covenant, putting into statute recognition of the target and a commitment to an annual report against it."

Downing Street declined to comment on the leaked letter last night.

A source close to Dr Fox said: "The Defence Secretary fully supports the principle of a 0.7 per cent target on international aid. The issue is simply how best to reflect this in law."

[buglerbilly]

David Cameron rebukes Armed Forces chiefs

David Cameron has rebuked the heads of the Armed Forces on defence cuts, saying they “always want more”.


Both Mr Cameron and US President Barack Obama are both pushing for an early end to the Afghan mission Photo: PA

By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent

7:03PM BST 17 May 2011

The Prime Minister also admitted to having “robust” arguments with the Service chiefs over military spending and strategy.

In evidence to a Commons committee, Mr Cameron flatly contradicted the heads of the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force about the consequences of cuts in defence spending.

Last week, the three Service chiefs told MPs that cuts in the defence budget meant that Britain will no longer be a “full spectrum” power, able to carry out all types of military operation.

Speaking to the Liaison Committee on Tuesday, Mr Cameron said the chiefs were wrong.

Asked if he believed the UK was a full spectrum defence power, he replied: "I would answer Yes."

He listed the military programmes that will survive the cuts, including the Navy’s hunter-killer and nuclear submarines, the RAF’s Typhoon jets, Britain’s “superb” Special Forces and a £900 million budget for cyber-warfare.

“That describes a pretty full spectrum capability,” Mr Cameron said. “I’d say we still have a very strong set of defence capabilities.”

The Prime Minister conceded that commanders are unhappy with the resources being devoted to the Armed Forces, but insisted that final decisions on spending had to be made by politicians.

"The defence chiefs will always want more,” he said. “I think the relationship between a PM and the defence chiefs should be a robust one.”

He added: “We won’t always give the same answers in public, which is why I’m not frightened to give a different answer.”

Mr Cameron also admitted to differences with General Sir David Richards, the Chief of the Defence Staff.

“I like the fact that David Richards and I can have good proper arguments and discussions,” he said.

The Daily Telegraph revealed last week that Mr Cameron had ordered reluctant defence chiefs to start withdrawing British troops from Afghanistan this year, an order that led to plans for 450 troops to come home.

Confirming that report, Mr Cameron said that there will be “about 400, perhaps slightly more, coming out of Afghanistan”.

The forces withdrawn will include members of the RAF regiment and the Rapid Reaction Force, he said.

American military commanders are alarmed by the prospect of an early British withdrawal, but Mr Cameron insisted that he had always been clear that UK force levels would start to fall this year.

“I am sure the Americans understand that,” he said.

Mr Cameron also defended the Coalition’s economic plans, but appeared to concede that Britain is unlikely to recover quickly from the recent recession, blaming Labour’s legacy.

Relative to other advanced countries, this Government inherited “the most over-indebted banks, the most over-leveraged households, the most over-borrowed government, the most out-of-control inflation, the fastest increases in government spending,” he said.

Challenged over recent figures showing that Britain’s economy is growing much more slowly than France and Germany, Mr Cameron insisted that the UK is performing better than other European countries, naming Spain and Portugal as examples.

[buglerbilly]

Liam Fox believes cabinet colleague leaked letter on aid

Defence secretary is said by a source to be convinced that someone on the national security council is out to damage him

Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent

The Guardian, Wednesday 18 May 2011


Liam Fox arrives in Downing Street for a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Liam Fox believes that a fellow cabinet minister on the national security council tried to damage him by leaking a private letter to David Cameron in which he appeared to challenge the Tories' pledge to meet a UN target on overseas aid.

As William Hague expressed irritation with the defence secretary after the leaking of a second private letter to the prime minister, one senior Whitehall source said that Fox is convinced that a cabinet minister sanctioned the leaking in a deliberate act of sabotage. Fox found himself under pressure when a private letter, in which he raised questions about plans to place Britain's commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on aid by 2013 on a statutory footing, appeared in the Times.

The defence secretary does not believe that the foreign secretary or Downing Street was behind the leak. But he does believe that another minister on the national security council is seeking to damage him.

"That letter was distributed to the national security council which means that every cabinet minister with a seat on the NSC saw it," the Whitehall source said. "There are departments which have form."

Fox's decision to point the finger at a fellow cabinet minister shows the bad blood among senior Tory cabinet ministers. Ministers are involved in policy clashes but there is also jostling for position in the Tory party amid speculation that Fox could be demoted at the next cabinet reshuffle.

Cameron accepts Fox's explanation that he did not leak the letter. But the prime minister showed his irritation at the second leak in less than a year of private correspondence with Fox when he told MPs on the Commons liaison select committee: "There are quite a lot of them [leaked letters]."

In the letter Fox wrote: "I believe that creating a statutory requirement to spend 0.7 per cent ODA carries more risk in terms of potential future legal challenges than, as we have for the [military] covenant, putting into statute recognition of the target and a commitment to an annual report against it."

Hague shares the irritation in No 10 that Fox is developing a habit of writing letters to the prime minister which please the Tory right when they appear in the public domain. Downing Street was furious during last year's Labour conference when a letter, in which Fox warned that the planned defence cuts would have "grave political consequences", was leaked to the Daily Telegraph.

Fox is upset that the leaked letter gives the impression that he opposes the UN target. His letter was designed to revive a plan floated in opposition to ensure that Official Development Assistance (ODA) can be used by the military to rebuild roads in Afghanistan to make them safer from improvised explosive devices. This has met with resistance on the UN national security council.

"When the US Marines went into Haiti that was paid for out of US ODA funds, so it is a bit bizarre that we are meeting resistance to do a similar thing in Afghanistan," one Whitehall source said.

[buglerbilly]

Liam Fox signals determination to press on with defence cuts

Defence secretary says tough decisions must be taken on a regular basis in order to sustain the 'strict cost-control regime' he has put in place

Nick Hopkins

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 May 2011 14.42 BST


Liam Fox delivers his Chatham House speech. Photograph: Rex Features

Liam Fox warned the armed forces to brace themselves for more pain as he launched a robust defence of the cuts forced upon the military by last year's strategic defence and security review (SDSR).

The defence secretary also took a swipe at former members of the forces who have led criticism of the review, which set out plans to make thousands of personnel compulsory redundant and for the decommissioning of warships and aircraft.

"Those who argue for a fundamental reassessment of the SDSR are really arguing for increased defence spending," Fox told an audience at the Chatham House thinktank.

"But they fail to spell out the inevitable result – more borrowing, more tax rises or more cuts elsewhere. There are no easy answers, there are no silver bullets. Only tough decisions, hard work and perseverance. To pretend otherwise is to fail to learn the lessons of history."

Fox said the US looked poised to start a similar round of cuts in its military, and that Capitol Hill was closely monitoring the UK government's strategy.

But he said he shared the concerns of the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, about the attitude of other European countries and their unwillingness to share the defence burden in straitened times.

"There is concern about European partners, where the level of defence expenditure is low already and falling," Fox said.

"And even where it is not that low, the willingness to deploy is maybe far less than the US would want to see. This is the area where the debate needs to be focused at the Nato summit in a couple of weeks."

Fox has endured a tough few months as the chorus of disapproval about the SDSR has been followed by concerns over tactics in Libya and the UK's long-term commitment to Afghanistan.

Earlier this week, the media was leaked a letter he had written to David Cameron, in which he criticised the coalition government's policy to overseas aid.

In his speech, Fox reiterated why the SDSR had been necessary and insisted it had left a framework that would ensure the UK remained in the "premier league of military powers".

"I didn't come into politics to cut the defence budget, but neither did I come into politics to be fiscally irresponsible," he said. "Because the consequences of that are written deep into historical record. To be a hawk on defence, you need to be a hawk on the deficit and the national debt too."

Fox spoke about the three-month review that is currently being undertaken within the MoD to ensure the department is living within its means.

"Staying the course will require sustaining the strict cost-control regime I have put in place. This will inevitably require that tough decisions are taken on a regular basis to keep the budget on track," he said.

He added that there were a number of "complicated second order consequences" in the pipeline.

On Wednesday, the former chief of the defence staff Lord Stirrup told a committee of MPs that the UK had lost strategic capability as a result of the SDSR, contradicting ministers who have claimed otherwise.

In the most strongly-worded criticism of the review, former General Sir Rupert Smith said he thought the document was "incoherent nonsense".

[buglerbilly]

Canceled Vehicle Programs Cost U.K. $1.6B

By ANDREW CHUTER

Published: 19 May 2011 19:00

LONDON - More than 320 million pounds ($1.62 billion) has been spent on armored vehicle programs subsequently abandoned by the British Ministry of Defence since 1998, the National Audit Office (NAO) has reported.


The U.K. National Audit Office reported that more than $1.6 billion has been spent on armored vehicle programs subsequently abandoned by the Ministry of Defence since 1998. The report said the Warrior will not be operational until 2017. (U.K Ministry of Defence)

The government spending watchdog says the impact of programs either canceled or delayed means the British Army is facing a "significant shortage in the principal armored vehicles they require until at least 2024-25."

Armored vehicle acquisition has been the victim of repeated government savings measures in response to financial instability in the MoD's budget.

The NAO said savings of 5.6 billion pounds had been taken from armored vehicle projects in the period 2005-2010, with another estimated 1.8 billion pounds savings expected as a result of decisions made in last year's government strategic defense and security review.

The watchdog said that in "absolute terms, this means the armoured vehicle sector has had the largest amount of funding removed of any individual sector in the five planning rounds conducted between 2005 and 2010."

The report into the cost-effective delivery of armored vehicle capability here said that in addition to the 321 million pounds wasted on abandoned or suspended programs like Tracer, the Multi-Role Armoured Vehicle and the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) utility vehicle, a further 397 million pounds has been invested in projects now delayed. The NAO named the FRES Specialist Vehicle being developed by General Dynamics UK, BAE's Terrier engineer vehicle and the Warrior capability sustainment program as all being delayed.

The upgraded Warrior and the specialist vehicle would not be in service until 2017 with Terrier being ready in 2013, 11 years after the project commenced, said the NAO.

Of the eight programs listed by the NAO, only the Viking all-terrain vehicles and the Titan and Trojan heavy engineer vehicle were in service.

Spending on canceled, delayed or in-service armored vehicles since 1998 totaled 1.12 billion pounds, said the report. An additional 9.1 billion pounds remains to be spent on the delayed Warrior and specialist vehicles programs, said the NAO. Those figures will likely change, though, as the MoD takes further actions to balance its books in the face of ongoing defense spending problems.

Failure of the procurement process to adapt to requirement changes driven by operational experience, unstable budgets and continual changes to financial plans by the MoD lay behind the cancellations and delays.

To meet projected vehicle equipment shortfalls for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the British have spent 2.8 billion pounds since 2003 on urgent operational requirements. Some of those UOR vehicles will likely be taken into the core fleet, but the MoD admits they do not offer a long-term solution to its armored vehicle needs.

[buglerbilly]

Auditor attacks chaos in equipping British troops

Key upgrades to armoured vehicles and equipment not coming until 2025 at the earliest, says National Audit Office report

Richard Norton-Taylor

The Guardian, Friday 20 May 2011


The Snatch Land Rovers sent to Iraq and Afghanistan with British troops despite their light armour. Photograph: Essam al-Sudani/AFP/Getty Images

More than a decade of expensive delays and cancellations have deprived Britain's armed forces of the armoured vehicles and equipment they need. And they will not get them until 2025 at the earliest, according to a withering report released by parliament's independent watchdog.

More than £1bn has been spent since 1998 on different armoured vehicle projects, but to date none has been delivered, the National Audit Office says.

At the same time, the Ministry of Defence has had to go to cap in hand to the Treasury for urgent operational requirements (UORs) to get vehicles to protect British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan against mines and explosive devices.

Some £2.8bn has been spent on UORs since 2003, the year of the invasion of Iraq, the report says. Most of that has been spent on vehicles specifically designed for counter-insurgency operations and conditions in those two countries, and will not necessarily be suitable for military conflicts elsewhere, it adds.

What absolute crapola! Of course they are suitable elsewhere, perfectly suitable for MOST scenarios, emminently suitable for a repeat of the last two even if its elesewhere in the Middle East...............these statements are like a denigration of armoured equipment that is too region-specific when it is not, it is role-suitable in a very large number of other potential combat scenarios................NOTHING is suitable EVERYWHERE, neither tracked nor wheeled armour!

Cumbersome decision-making in the MoD meant that thinly armoured Snatch Land Rovers, designed for Northern Ireland, were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan for years even though they were clearly inadequate, according to army commanders and soldiers.

The report says the response to appeals for help in Afghanistan has left British troops with 22 different kinds of "protected patrol vehicles".

A new family of armoured vehicles for the infantry, called the Future Rapid Effects System (Fres), was supposed to have entered service in 2008 but will not be ready until 2022 at the earliest.

Abandoning, deferring and rejigging projects because of perennial crises facing the defence budget "creates incoherence, uncertainty and delays", adding to long-term costs, says the report. One of the problems is that military officials have tended to wait for "tomorrow's jam", according to Ross Campbell, director of the NAO study.

Amyas Morse, NAO head, said: "While some of the lessons learned from the successful use of the urgent operational requirements process can be applied to core projects in the future, a long-term solution is likely to need significant further investment, realistic plans and stable budgets sustained over time."

Richard Bacon, a member of the Commons public accounts committee, said it was "an eloquent comment on the poor state of MoD procurement that the most coherent acquisition process is the emergency one. When the right equipment …can only been obtained in a crisis, something has gone badly wrong."

Peter Luff, the defence minister, said the report recognised that the UOR process had delivered "world-class equipment to the battlefield". He added: "However, the NAO once again highlights serious flaws in the wider procurement process under the previous government based on chronic over-optimism by both ministers and industry, and a fundamentally unaffordable defence programme."

[buglerbilly]

Prolonged Libya effort unsustainable, warns Navy chief

First Sea Lord says that if crisis continues beyond 90-day extension, government will have to examine priorities

Nick Hopkins

guardian.co.uk, Monday 13 June 2011 18.28 BST


First Sea Lord Sir Mark Stanhope has warned of a lack of resources to cope with a prolonged Libya conflict. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

The head of the Royal Navy has warned that the fleet will not be able to continue the current scale of operations around Libya beyond the summer unless ministers take tough decisions about what they want to prioritise.

Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, the First Sea Lord, said the navy had planned for a six-month commitment but that the government would have to make "challenging decisions" about what it wanted to do thereafter.

Stanhope also conceded that if the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and its Harrier jump jets had not been mothballed last year, they would have been deployed to the Mediterranean.

This would have been cheaper – and made operations more reactive – than flying planes from the Italian base at Gioia del Colle, he said.

But he insisted the constant jibes about the loss of the ship and the aircraft were having a "corrosive" effect on navy morale. "There is far too much about what could have been," he said.

Stanhope's remarks come amid growing concern within the Ministry of Defence (MoD) about the prolonged nature of the Libya effort and its cost. They also come just days after the US defence secretary Robert Gates mocked some allies for already running out of ammunition.

In a briefing at Admiralty House, Stanhope said: "How long can we go on as we are in Libya? Certainly – in terms of Nato's current time limit that has been extended to 90 days – we are comfortable with that.

"Beyond that we might have to request the government to make some challenging decisions about priorities.

"There are different ways of doing this. It's not simply about giving up standing commitments, we will have to rebalance."

Stanhope denied this would involve a review of the cuts set out in last year's Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). Afghanistan remains the MoD's top priority, and officials are adamant that the effort there will not be compromised for the Libyan campaign.

But Stanhope made it clear that he did not have enough ships to continue the relatively small operation in Libya without something else having to give.

"If we do it longer than six months we will have to reprioritise forces," he said. "That is being addressed now. It could be from around home waters. I will not prejudge what that decision will be."

The navy currently has one destroyer, HMS Liverpool, the mine clearance vessel HMS Bangor, a Trafalgar class submarine and the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean off the coast of Libya. At the start of the conflict the navy diverted HMS Cumberland to the Mediterranean as it was returning to the UK to be scrapped.

Stanhope also admitted that the navy was having to buy more Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US to replace the ones it had already fired.

Stanhope has been frustrated in recent months by ongoing criticism around the decision to axe Ark Royal – a replacement carrier, the Prince of Wales, will not be ready for service until 2020.

But he said it was time to move on from the debate. Even though there is a study under way within the MoD about the cost of axeing the Harriers and what it would take to bring them back into service, Stanhope said he did not believe the aircraft would fly again.

"If we had Ark Royal and Harriers in February, I feel relatively assured that we would have deployed that capability off Libya to conduct the ground [operations], not the air defence piece which the Harrier was not capable of achieving.

"The pros would have been a much more reactive force. Rather than deploying from Gioia del Colle, we would deploy within 20 minutes as opposed to an hour and a half, so obviously there are some advantages there.

"It's cheaper to fly an aircraft from an aircraft carrier than from the shore.

"Do I feel bitter? No. It's a reality of where we are. I keep saying this. We have to look forward and go for what is in the pipeline which I have already indicated is challenging enough. There is far too much about what could have been as opposed to what is."

The navy and RAF suffered disproportionately from the SDSR, having to cut 5,000 jobs each, as well as losing ships and aircraft. The head of the RAF, Air Chief Marshall Sir Stephen Dalton told the Guardian there would have to be a significant uplift in spending after 2015 if the service is to meet its commitments in the future. Stanhope reiterated this and said the government had acknowledged more spending was necessary.

Liam Fox, the defence secretary, said: "Operations in Libya are showing how capable we are post-SDSR as a leading military power with the fourth largest defence budget in the world. We continue to have the resources necessary to carry out the operations we are undertaking and have spare capacity with the Royal Navy taskforce which is currently on exercise in the Gulf.

"The SDSR is not being re-opened. The Harrier has served with great distinction over a long period and in a number of theatres, but we are not bringing them back into service. Our planning assumptions remain valid and we have been able to effectively conduct missions over Libya. We are now progressing with the disposal of the Harrier force."

[buglerbilly]

The UK’s RUSI think tank and Cranfield University publish their joint paper [PDF] on reform of the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Proposed changes outlined in The Defence Reform Agenda include military reorganization away from single service orientation and organizational change to stimulate greater financial accountability.

An educated approach to both Budget and Organisation unlike most Government efforts so far:

http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/201106_DRU_Briefing_Paper.pdf

[buglerbilly]

£10bn 'black hole' means new defence cuts loom

More British Service personnel, aircraft and warships could be cut because of a new multi-billion pound black hole uncovered in the defence budget.


An RAF Eurofighter EF-2000 Typhoon jet lands at the Gioia del Colle Nato Airbase in southern Italy Photo: REUTERS

By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent

10:00PM BST 24 Jun 2011

The Daily Telegraph has learned that Ministry of Defence officials have calculated that the department is at least £10 billion short of what it will need in the coming years.

The financial “mismatch” is larger than all the defence cuts announced in last year’s Spending Review, and has raised fears of another round of painful reductions in the Armed Forces.

The MoD’s budget, £33.8 billion this year, is being cut by 8 per cent over four years.

The department has concluded that those cuts will still not be enough to balance the budget, meaning that unless the Treasury increases defence spending to fill the gap, more cuts will be required.

The shortfall concerns the MoD’s budget from 2015, but sources said that without a promise of more money now, ministers will soon have to start cutting and cancelling programmes due to be delivered later.

“We are quite close to the point where this will force us to make new cuts,” said a senior defence source.

The huge shortfall has emerged from an internal review of the MoD's financial liabilities over the next decade.

The “three month study” is due to conclude next week, but the precise level of the MoD’s shortfall is still the subject of intense haggling between Whitehall departments.

James Arbuthnot, the chairman of the Commons defence committee this week suggested that the MoD was now seeking savings of £8 billion.

But MoD insiders said the new black hole is actually higher than that and likely to be “in the teens of billions”.

Several billion pounds of the new deficit comes from a reassessment of the potential for cost over-runs on new equipment, risks that were under-stated in the SDSR.

Bernard Gray, the MoD’s head of procurement, is understood to have examined major equipment programmes and argued that more money must be set aside to cover the risk that they will end up costing more than planned.

The rising costs of public sector pensions are also threatening to increase the MoD’s liabilities significantly.

Liam Fox held crisis talks with Downing Street and the Treasury about the financial shortfall on Wednesday.

The Treasury is said to be taking a hard line on the defence budget, arguing that Dr Fox should meet his deficit by cutting his costs, not by being “bailed out” with more money.

One Treasury source said: “It’s the same old story. These are the people who created this mess, now they have to be made to sort it out.”

Senior figures involved in the talks suspect that Dr Fox has tacitly approved recent warnings about cuts from Service chiefs to put pressure on the Prime Minister, a suggestion Mr Fox’s allies reject.

The decisive factor in agreeing the size of the deficit will be the level of the defence budget in the next spending round, starting in 2015.

Mr Cameron has said defence should get real-terms increases in its budget after 2015, but no hard figures have been built into Whitehall’s financial plans.

A defence source said that Mr Cameron must either deliver on his promise of more money, or accept more defence cuts.

“The Prime Minister doesn’t like it when defence cuts are all over the front pages, but he doesn’t resolve this, he’s going to get a lot more of that,” the source said.

An MoD source said the budget deficit was part of the “legacy” left by the previous government.

“The financial mess Labour created in the MoD was never going to be solved overnight -- the legacy was always going to take more than one spending round to solve,” the source said.

“The current Government is tackling the issues Labour ignored and refused to face up to. Unless we deal with the historic problems of a mismatch between the defence programme and the budget, defence will never be on a stable footing.”

[buglerbilly]

Liam Fox backs plan to cut swath through armed forces' top ranks

Defence secretary to reveal Lord Levene's blueprint for tightening highest levels of services and cutting ministerial posts

Nick Hopkins

The Guardian, Monday 27 June 2011


General Sir David Richards, left, would be the *representative for the army, navy and air force on the slimmed-down defence board under the plans backed by Liam Fox, right. Photograph: ANDY RAIN/EPA

Britain's armed forces will be radically overhauled in plans that will cut the number of senior officers and could also lead to ministerial posts being axed.

Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) have approved the reforms recommended by Lord Levene, and the proposals will be published on Monday.

In a speech, the defence secretary, Liam Fox, will say Levene's blueprint sets out "a vision of transformation on a scale not seen in defence for a generation". The long-awaited overhaul of one of Whitehall's most complex and dysfunctional ministries will lead to each of the three services thinning ranks at the highest level. As the Guardian revealed last month, the army, navy and air force will each be run by a single chief.

At the moment, the services have two commanders, one in charge of strategy, the second in charge of day-to-day operations. The reforms would see operational control pushed down the chain of command.

The three service chiefs will be removed from the defence board, a powerful committee the defence secretary chairs. The overall head of the military, the chief of the defence staff, currently General Sir David Richards, will represent them.

Fox said on Sky News: "We've always wanted to see a tighter defence board. In opposition I made very clear the MoD had to have much better management, much tighter management."

The post of deputy chief of the defence staff will be retained initially, but is expected to become redundant when the current holder of the job, General Sir Nicholas Houghton, moves on.

A committee chaired by an independent non-executive director, chosen by the defence secretary, will be in charge of appointments to the services' top ranks.

Levene argued that the services were top-heavy – a finding that chimed with Fox's belief that the number of elite officers should be trimmed to reflect cuts further down the ranks. The department is seeking to make 17,000 service personnel redundant over the next three years.

Levene also said the boundaries between the department's ministerial posts were blurred, and that it may be time to scrap one of the junior positions.

Some minor boards set up to oversee individual projects will be scrapped too. "These reforms should lead to major savings," said a Whitehall source.

By scrapping subcommittees set up to oversee procurement projects, the MoD hopes to speed up the process and make individuals responsible for costs.

Fox will say in his speech: "Lord Levene is clear in his critique. [The MoD is] a department with overly bureaucratic management structures, dominated by committees that led to indecisiveness and a lack of responsibility."

The MoD is expected to axe up to 8,000 civil servants in the next year. The Treasury has given the department the money to start the cuts, but some in Whitehall fear it will be difficult to implement Levene's plans with so many staff leaving.

There has been a gradual erosion of the powers of the individual service chiefs over the years and Levene's proposals will see another shift of power away from them.

However, they are being mollified by plans which would give them more overall control of their budgets and internal appointments.

The Levene reforms are regarded as an important first step in the complete overhaul of the way the armed forces are managed.

Next month they will be followed by details of how the MoD intends to meet the £1bn overspend in the budget for last year, as well as an assessment of what is really affordable between 2015 and 2020.

The government has set out plans for the size and structure of the armed forces by 2020, but has recognised that the changes can only be achieved if defence spending increases significantly after 2015.

The chancellor, George Osborne, has yet to commit any new money, but the MoD is negotiating with Treasury officials and the Cabinet Office because it needs to take some long-term procurement decisions now.

A three-month study into what might be affordable is due to conclude at the end of this month.

[buglerbilly]

Sweeping Reforms Proposed at U.K. MoD

By ANDREW CHUTER

Published: 27 Jun 2011 16:11

LONDON - Service chiefs are going to be given control of their own budgets and a new Joint Forces Command is to be formed as part of a series of radical changes to the way the British Ministry of Defence is managed and run, if proposals in a report presented June 27 in Parliament are adopted.


British Defence Secretary Liam Fox, above, ordered the review last year. (File photo / Agence France-Presse)

The report, put together by a team of senior private-sector executives led by former defense procurement chief Lord Levene, has come up with 53 recommendations aimed at improving the way the MoD is run and managed.

The review was established by Defence Secretary Liam Fox in 2010.

During a speech at the Reform think tank in London just hours before the proposals were unveiled in Parliament, Fox described the recommendations as transformation on a scale not seen for a generation. Fox said he agrees with most of the recommendations, although he hasn't yet detailed the proposals he won't try to implement.

In his speech, Fox heavily criticized the current high-level structure of the MoD, accusing the Defence Board of being "bloated ... without ministerial membership, allowing strategic decisions to drift and unable to reconcile ambition with resources."

Earlier in the speech, Fox described the MoD as having "overly bureaucratic management structures, dominated by committees leading to indecisiveness and a lack of responsibility."

Levene's committee identified a handful of recommendations it said were not new and had troubled similar reviews going back 100 years.

Key recommendations include:

■ The three service chiefs should be given control of their own budgets, covering items like equipment, training and manpower, giving them the freedom to flex where they spend money. Their role in departmental strategy and resource allocation should be reduced. The post of four-star commander in chief should be removed.

■ Service chiefs should be removed from the Defence Board. Instead, the secretary of state will join a much smaller board on which the military is only represented by the chief of the Defence Staff. Its role should be providing strategic direction to the department and holding it to account.

■ A four-star-led Joint Forces Command should be created to strengthen the focus on joint enablers and on joint warfare development and other issues. The Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) should become part of the command and a number of other unidentified military organizations should come under its control. PJHQ should become responsible for all military operations. The proposals say the MoD should review whether joint or potentially joint capabilities and functions could be rationalized.

■ Senior military and civilian personnel should stay in posts for up to four to five years.

■ The MoD's head office in central London should be more strategic in its role and much reduced in size. This applies to the top level management positions as well as other positions, according to the report.

■ Defense ministers shouldn't be immune from the cuts either. The report states the number and responsibilities of ministers should be reviewed.

■ Financial and performance management throughout the MoD should be strengthened to ensure plans are affordable and personnel accountable.

Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy said the opposition Labour Party broadly welcomes the proposed changes.

Analysts here said the issue now for the government is to get the recommendations implemented.

Britain's civil service has a track record of suffocating defense change initiatives attempted by governments. These defense reform proposals are the first of a series of wide-ranging changes planned by the Conservative-led coalition government aimed at improving the accountability and efficiency of Britain's cash-strapped defense department.

The driver for the Levene review lays in efforts to fix Britain's over-extended defense program.

The Conservatives, upon entering office in May 2010, said the MoD had 38 billion pounds ($60.6 billion) in unfunded liabilities over the next 10 years. The government since then also has ordered an 8 percent cut in defense budgets to help Britain repair its government finances.

The report states that its recommendations were designed to "help prevent the Department from getting into such a poor financial position in the future."

The next few months should see a raft of proposals and reviews by the MoD looking at the size and shape of key elements of the British armed forces.

A three-month review of capabilities and budgets following the strategic defense and security review is due to be complete in the next few days. That could lead to new program and capability cuts as the MoD struggles to make the huge savings required to balance its books.

Acquisition process change, a Royal Air Force basing review, the future structure of the reserves and a new defense industrial policy are all expected between now and the autumn.

[buglerbilly]

U.K.'s Fox: RAF Will Not Merge With Other Services

By ANDREW CHUTER

Published: 13 Jul 2011 07:22

One of the more assinine ideas to come out of recent UK Defence Reviews..............there IS however, a case for amalgimating ALL UK helo forces under the Army as the PRIME user apart from the Merlin force already agreed to go to the RM/RN. The RAF should be a Fixed Wing force apart from Search and Rescue, and Training for that should be led by the RN.

British Defence Secretary Liam Fox has ended speculation that the Royal Air Force could be merged with the other armed services.

In a speech to military and industry leaders in London on July 13, Fox said he has rejected advice urging him to merge air operations fully into other services.

"I am clear that the RAF makes a definable and unique contribution to Britain's defense - a contribution that it would be wrong dispense with," Fox said at the Royal United Services Institute Air Power Conference.

The defense secretary said Britain could not afford to lose the doctrinal understanding of air power and its effects, which is burned deep into collective fiber of the force.

"The value of the RAF is not confined to history - far from it," he said.

The Ministry of Defence recently rolled out a series of proposed structural reforms that stopped short of merging the armed services but said that it intended to create a joint forces command led by a four-star general.

That command will likely pull together some joint assets such as intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR).

Fox said that joint operations are in the "very DNA" of the force.

Doug Barrie, senior air analyst at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, said Fox had taken the right decision. "The use of air power is both served through sustaining an independent organization geared to operating often in a joint environment. Merger would have ill-served the U.K.'s military capability," Barrie said.

Fox went on to praise the role of the Typhoon fighter in the air campaign against Moammar Gadhafi's regime in Libya and said the aircraft's performance was impressing potential export customers, including India, where the jet is in a head-to-head competition with France's Rafale for a multibillion-pound deal.

[buglerbilly]

Ministry of Defence to axe 7,000 more civilian jobs

Cash-strapped department to make further redundancies in effort to bring soaring budget under control

Nick Hopkins

The Guardian, Friday 29 July 2011


Defence secretary Liam Fox has already outlined plans to cut 7,000 military jobs from the army between 2015 and 2020. Photograph: Mauro Scrobogna/AP

The Ministry of Defence is to axe a further 7,000 civilian jobs as part of the department's desperate efforts to bring its soaring budget under control, the Guardian has learned.

A letter signed by the permanent secretary, Ursula Brennan, will be sent to all staff explaining that cuts are necessary and conceding that the move "will raise questions which cannot be answered immediately".

The decision has infuriated union leaders and defence officials who say they were not consulted. They accused the department of acting in a cavalier fashion without thinking through the consequences.

The move means the defence civil service, which is responsible for scrutinising contracts to ensure they do not run over budget, will have been cut by a third within nine years.

Last week, the defence secretary, Liam Fox, outlined proposals to cut a further 7,000 military jobs from the army between 2015 and 2020. His statement to the Commons made no reference to civilian posts at the MoD, which are already being cut as part of last year's strategic defence and security review (SDSR).

The review outlined plans to get rid of 25,000 civil servants between now and 2015, and the fresh announcement, which could come on Friday, will add a further 7,000 to that total by 2020.

The letter from Brennan, which is being circulated around Whitehall, says that the department needs to "bear down further on non-frontline costs".

"In the SDSR we planned for … a 25% reduction in the cost of civilian personnel by 2015, bringing the size of the MoD civil service down to a total of some 60,000 civilian posts," the letter says.

"As part of the package announced last week we need to make further reductions in … civilian manpower. For civilians, we will be extending the earlier planned reductions, coming down to a total of 53,000 civilians by 2020."

Brennan says she hopes that many of the job losses will be "achieved by natural wastage" and that "compulsory redundancy will only be used as a last resort".

However, the letter concludes: "We recognise that news of further staff reductions … will raise questions which cannot be answered immediately. We will let you have more news on this … over the coming months."

Union leaders said the announcement reflected "what the MoD can afford, not what it needs". They believe the cuts could backfire with poor quality equipment being commissioned that could put the armed forces at greater risk.

Steve Jary, national secretary of Prospect, the union which represents MoD civil servants, said: "A defence civil service of just 53,000 will be just half the size it was in 2005. The further cuts in civilian numbers were not mentioned in Liam Fox's statement last week and have not been the subject of any consultation."

He added: "The MoD has consistently avoided open and detailed consultation on the changes since the SDSR was published. This is leading to a breakdown in trust; 53,000 is a totally arbitrary figure."

The saga over the MoD's runaway budget has become one of the most difficult and enduring issues facing the coalition government.

Despite all the cost cutting announced in the SDSR, there was still a substantial overspend in last year's defence budget – estimated at more than £1bn.

Officials at the MoD blamed this on the speed in which the review was undertaken, and also privately raised concerns that the government had not properly funded the reforms it wanted to make to the armed forces between now and 2020.

This led to demands from the Treasury for further cost cutting. Last week Fox said the army will shrink from its present size of about 101,000 to 82,000 by 2020.

The SDSR had already cut the army by 7,000 by 2015 – when troops will no longer have a combat role in Afghanistan. In return, the Treasury has promised that the armed forces will get a 1% real terms budget increase from 2015 to 2020 to help pay for the reforms.

However, the Guardian has been told that this is far short of what the MoD believes it needs if it is to build the promised hi-tech Future Force 2020 (see link below).

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/resource-library/strategic-defence-and-security-review-securing-britain-age-uncertainty

[buglerbilly]

Cross-party committee attacks defence cuts

Defence select committee warns Britain's influence will decline unless the armed forces get adequate resources

Richard Norton-Taylor

The Guardian, Wednesday 3 August 2011


A report by MPs says future military operations are being put into doubt by the government's defence cuts. Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

Spending cuts will prevent the armed forces from carrying out military operations and lead to a decline in Britain's influence and role in the world, a hard-hitting report by a cross-party group of MPs warns.

Concluding that the armed services cannot do what ministers want them to without adequate resources, the report questions whether the government's rhetoric and ambitions are realistic.

In a stinging attack, MPs say that by deploying British forces to Libya while cutting the defence budget "we can only conclude that the government has postponed the sensible aspiration of bringing commitments and resources into line."

They point to a government promise to "confront the legacy of overstretch", with British troops never again having to undertake such a breadth of operations simultaneously. "The government should indicate if this is the case," say the MPs, making clear they are not convinced the government has learned lessons from campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The report, by the Commons defence select committee, undermines repeated claims by ministers that cuts will have no effect on what the armed forces can do. "We are not convinced, given the financial climate and the drawdown of capabilities arising form the SDSR [strategic defence and security review] that from 2015 the armed forces will maintain the capability to undertake all that is being asked of them," warns the report.

Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, said on Tuesday night: "As the report makes clear, and as Labour has repeatedly said, events have exposed the mismatch between policy ambition and the resources provided by ministers."

However, the defence secretary, Liam Fox, defended the government's policy, saying cuts were not just a problem for the armed forces in the UK.

He said: "As we have seen in the US, no country is immune to the global financial problems and even the world's biggest military power is now grappling with how to make defence cuts and reform for the future."

In the report MPs refer to mounting concern that Britain's armed forces will not be able to continue performing tasks they are undertaking now, let alone those they may face after 2015, and question the forces' ability to carry out specified tasks – called "defence assumptions" – after 2020.

According to last October's defence review, British forces should then be able to conduct a series of simultaneous smaller operations or a single operation deploying about 30,000 troops – about two-thirds of the force used in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

To achieve even this the defence budget would have to rise in real terms – over and above the rate of inflation – after 2015. Fox recently announced a 1% real terms increase every year between 2015 and 2021 in the defence equipment budget. The report says: "We are concerned that this increase is simply a reallocation of resources and does not represent the real terms increase in funding required to deliver Future Force 2020."

The report also refers to personal backing for real-terms defence budget increases from both Fox and David Cameron, adding: "[Such support] is meaningless without a concrete commitment that these increases will be delivered … If the ambition of a real-term funding increase is not realised, we will have failed our armed forces."

The promised increases in the defence budget will coincide with the withdrawal of all British forces from a combat role in Afghanistan. "[We] anticipate that the UK public, whilst being passionate in their support for the armed forces, will question this decision," says the report.

Attacking Cameron's claim at a recent meeting with senior backbenchers that Britain's armed forces could fight on all fronts, it adds: "We dispute the prime minister's assertion that the UK has a full spectrum defence capability."

The prime minister's claim also contradicts evidence given to the committee by the heads of the navy, army, and air force.

MPs conclude that a shrinking of Britain's influence is inevitable. In response to the report, the chief of the defence staff, General Sir David Richards, said: "We will remain a formidable fighting force on the world stage."

The report voices considerable concern that this will not be the case. It states: "We note the declared aspiration of the [National Security Council] NSC that Britain's national interest requires the rejection of any notion of the shrinkage of UK influence. We acknowledge that influence should not only be measured in military hardware or even military capability.

"However, given the government's declared priority of deficit reduction we conclude that a period of strategic shrinkage is inevitable. The government appears to believe that the UK can maintain its influence while reducing spending, not just in the area of defence but also at the Foreign Office. We do not agree.

"There is a clear contradiction in the short to medium term between the NSC's statement 'that Britain's national interest requires the rejection of any notion of the shrinkage of UK influence in the world' and the government's overriding strategic aim of reducing the UK's budget deficit.

"Strategies must have as their starting point a policy baseline that is a realistic understanding of the world and the UK's role and status in it."

[buglerbilly]

Dr Liam Fox responds to Defence Committee report on SDSR

A Defence Policy and Business news article

3 Aug 11

Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox and Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir David Richards have responded to today's publication of the House of Commons Defence Committee's report into the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) and the National Security Strategy (NSS).

Since January, the House of Commons Defence Committee (HCDC) has been reviewing the SDSR and the NSS. It has taken oral evidence from sources including the Defence Secretary, the Armed Forces Minister, the Single Service Chiefs, the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, the Chief of Defence Materiel, the Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (Personnel), and Lord Stirrup (Chief of the Defence Staff when the SDSR was published). The Department has also provided extensive written evidence.

The HCDC says the report seeks to establish whether the new National Security Council has led to a more coherent and well-defined security policy in terms of the NSS and the SDSR.

In its report, the HCDC agrees with the logic underpinning the SDSR, including the prioritisation of operational requirements for Afghanistan, the adaptable posture, the validity of Future Force 2020, and the strategic priority and national security imperative of dealing with the budget deficit.

However, the HCDC also says that it is not convinced that, given the current financial climate and the drawdown of capabilities arising from the SDSR, UK Armed Forces will be able do what is asked of them after 2015.

Chair of the Committee, the Right Honourable James Arbuthnot MP, said:


"The Government appears to believe that the UK can maintain its influence while reducing spending in Defence and at the Foreign Office. We do not agree."

The report also expresses concerns over the realisation of what is called 'Future Force 2020' - the Government's intended shape of the Armed Forces from 2020.

Mr Arbuthnot said:


"Decisions for post-2015 funding will have to be made in the very near future to ensure progress towards Future Force 2020. If the ambition of a real-terms funding increase is not realised, we will have failed our Armed Forces."

In response, Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox said:


"A Defence Review had not been conducted for 12 years, resulting in an equipment programme that was woefully unaffordable. A multi-billion pound deficit was plaguing Defence, and tough, but necessary, decisions had to be taken. As the Committee rightly acknowledges, dealing with the deficit was a national security imperative.

"The Committee is also right to say that Future Force 2020 is only achievable with extra funding. That is why I announced two weeks ago that the military equipment budget will rise in real terms by over £3bn between 2015 and 2020, with new helicopters being ordered, new money for our armoured vehicles, the carrier programme, and guaranteed spending on the Joint Strike Fighter. Our future equipment programme is no longer an unfunded aspiration, but one that provides real money for real equipment.

"We continue to have the fourth largest military budget in the world and the SDSR has put Defence back on a stable footing with highly capable Armed Forces and certainty for our personnel and their families.

"I am pushing through radical reforms to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated.

"As we have seen in the US, no country is immune to the global financial problems, and even the world's biggest military power is now grappling with how to make defence cuts and reform for the future."

General Sir David Richards, Chief of the Defence Staff, said:


"The SDSR was based on an assessment of the threats we face now and in the future. We have had to take some tough decisions, but as we move towards Future Force 2020 we will remain a formidable fighting force on the world stage.

"We will remain capable of sustaining our operations in Afghanistan and Libya before rebalancing will give us the flexibility to maintain our ability to project power across our spheres of interest.

"We are continually working with our international allies to share operational requirements, including utilising basing and overflight rights for Libya - measures we rightly assessed in the SDSR could be relied upon to mitigate capability gaps."

The MOD will respond formally to the Defence Committee regarding today's report in the autumn.

[JimWH]

Broadly speaking, I think Fox makes a reasonable case in his answer:
1). The situation they inherited was untenable
1). A). There was no way that the force structure that they inherited and the equipment program was going to reach fruition without very major additional spending which was going to be deeply unpalatable to the nation.
2). Decisions had to be made that nobody wanted to make
3). The threat assessment should inform the force structure
4). The force structure described in SDSR was only achievable with increased funding
5). At least some additional funding is being factored into the forward estimates

It's not a ideal outcome in a lot of ways, but the process of Fox et al over the past 18 months is actually hard to fault. And whilst one can disagree with the outcome, at least it does look like it might be achievable.

[buglerbilly]

Defence cuts: Gurkhas and RAF take brunt

Air force personnel serving in Libya to be told they will lose their jobs as three services aim to cut 17,000 posts by 2015

Nick Hopkins, defence editor

The Guardian, Thursday 1 September 2011


The RAF will be badly hit as the first round of redundancies is announced. Some personnel serving in Libya are likely to lose their jobs. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

Almost 500 RAF personnel will be told on Thursday that they are to be forced out of their jobs when the Ministry of Defence sets out the first details of its controversial redundancy programme aimed at reshaping Britain's armed forces.

The Gurkhas have also been hit hard, with infantrymen from the historic Nepalese brigade making up most of those in the army who will be told that they have been selected for compulsory redundancy.

The announcement is likely to reopen bitter arguments about cuts to the defence budget that are being pushed through even though the UK is committed to fighting the insurgency in Afghanistan and has been asked to play a lead role in Libya.

It will also spur on those who have demanded the government reconsiders the main conclusions of last year's strategic defence and security review (SDSR) – calls that the defence secretary, Liam Fox, has dismissed outright.

All three armed services announced redundancy programmes earlier this year after they were set an initial target of 17,000 job losses by 2015. Now the army and the RAF will set out the first round of redundancies, with the Royal Navy following later this month.

The Guardian understands that 930 RAF staff will be told they have been selected for redundancy in the first wave. Of those, more than half – 490 – are compulsory redundancies. The other 440 redundancies will be voluntary.

Although no fully trained pilots face the axe, the RAF admits that it will lose trainee pilots, weapons systems operators and some officers up to the rank of air commodore.

Some of those who will be approached are thought to be support staff currently working at Gioia del Colle, the Italian base from where the RAF's Panavia Tornado and Eurofighter Typhoon jets have been flying sorties over Libya since military intervention began in March.

The army will notify 920 people that they are being made redundant. It is believed that 660 people applied to leave, and 260 are compulsory job cuts. Gurkha soldiers account for 140 of the enforced losses. No Gurkhas put in for voluntary redundancy, so the losses may prove to be especially provocative.

However, the MoD will argue that the disproportionate number of Gurkhas reflects the fact that the brigade is 800 over strength because its infantrymen now serve for longer.

The admission suggests the Gurkhas could be hit hard again in future redundancy rounds, especially now the army has been told to slim down to 82,000 by 2020 – one fifth below its current strength.

"The Gurkhas have managed to cut back some of their numbers since the changes to their terms and conditions, but there is still a large overstaffing because of over-recruitment," said one Whitehall source.

"There are some gaps in other infantry regiments so it is possible some Gurkhas could be found jobs in other regiments."

The Labour party has renewed its calls for the government to rethink its defence strategy, with the shadow defence secretary, Jim Murphy, saying that the timing of the redundancy announcements could not be worse.

"Just as many RAF personnel will be thinking about returning home having performed heroics in Libya, ministers are drawing up their P45s," Murphy said.

"People will be shocked and will wonder whether the government have got their priorities straight. This underlines the scale of the government's cuts in manpower. The frontline cannot be protected from cuts this deep.

"Savings must be made but, in a world of uncertainty to many, this will seem a worrying loss of important capability."

Former RAF wing commander and Tornado navigator Paul Smyth said the cuts now being made to the air force should be accompanied by clarity on what the service will be expected to do in the future.

"When I joined in 1980, the RAF had about 90,000 staff. When I left in 2006, it was down to 45,000, and now it will be reduced again to about 30,000. My question is, how small can an organisation get before it becomes impossible for it to perform what it is supposed to?"

He said some of the criticism from former officers would not help the RAF in the long run.

"A lot of retired military people will be unhappy about the cuts, but they didn't sort out problems that began on their watch," he said.

"Some of these people need to let go. But the government has to be clear about what it wants its armed forces for."

Retired rear admiral Chris Parry told the Guardian there was a "serious mismatch" between the aims of the defence review and the ways and means of achieving it.

"There remains an incoherence. Liam Fox was sold a pup with the SDSR. He didn't get the cash he needed."

Fox has insisted the redundancies are necessary so the UK can "restructure our forces to ensure that they are sufficiently flexible and adaptable to meet the demands of an uncertain future.

"We would prefer not to have to make these reductions, but the government conducted the SDSR against the background of a dire fiscal situation in the economy and a £38bn black hole."

Contributors to Arrse, the army rumour service blog, cautioned those who were seeking to leave the services. "Stay in as long as you can," said one. "It's a bit crap out here these days."

[buglerbilly]

War in Whitehall and an uncertain future for armed forces

Ministry of Defence warned 'the pain is just beginning' in process to cut thousands of staff from all three services

Nick Hopkins, defence editor

The Guardian, Thursday 1 September 2011


Defence secretary Liam Fox's irritation at MoD budget cuts is apparent in two leaked letters to David Cameron. Photograph: Sean Dempsey/PA

The transformation of Britain's armed forces will begin on Thursday with a series of face-to-face meetings at military bases in the UK and abroad. In conversations that are likely be awkward at best, army and RAF commanders will summon those who have been selected for the first wave of a redundancy process that will continue for another nine years.

By the end of it, the army will have been cut by one-fifth to 82,000. The RAF and the Royal Navy will have shrunk too, with each service seeking 5,000 job cuts between now and 2015, and no guarantee of no further losses before 2020. And that does not take into account the 32,000 civilians jobs that are being axed.

In truth, the reforms have been so chaotic that nobody at the MoD has a clear idea exactly what the armed forces will look like when the music finally stops.

"The pain is just starting," said Professor Malcolm Chalmers, senior analyst at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank. "Aside from the redundancy programmes, the details of what other things might need to be cut still hasn't been done."

Even critics would admit that the defence secretary, Liam Fox, has been dealt a rum hand, and the decisions the government has taken over the past 12 months, sometimes against his advice, have set the prime minister, and more acutely the chancellor, George Osborne, in direct conflict with service chiefs at a time when the country is fighting in Afghanistan and contributing to the military effort in Libya.



In public, Fox has doggedly insisted that last year's strategic defence and security review (SDSR) could achieve two apparently contradictory goals – streamlining and modernising the armed forces, while not reducing the country's military "reach".

But even he has had to concede that the principal driving force behind the SDSR is the need to cut costs which, he says, ran out of control under Labour. And his irritation at the MoD budget being cut by 8% – twice what the Treasury had initially asked for – can be judged by two private letters he sent to Cameron.

Both were leaked. In the most recent, he criticised the money the government was committing to overseas aid.

The first, published shortly before the SDSR was announced last September, was more devastating. In it, he spelled out the damage that would be done if "we … continue to push for such draconian cuts at a time when we are at war". He said this would have "grave political consequences for us, destroying much of the reputation and capital you, and we, have built up in recent years. Party, media, military and the international reaction will be brutal."

In Whitehall, the friction between the MoD and Downing Street since then has been an open secret, with neither side trusting the other, and murmurings that the only reason Fox has not been shunted out of the department is that Cameron wants to keep an eye on his ambitious colleague. All this has added further layers of complexity to an already difficult situation.

"We thought Dr Fox might go in a reshuffle in the spring," said one MoD insider. "But who'd want to take on this mess? I think Liam has become a useful lightning rod for all the flak surrounding the SDSR."

That incoming fire has been relentless for almost 12 months. Former members of the military have lobbied ministers, written to the media, and given evidence to parliamentary committees. Nearly all of them have offered criticism, some of it constructive, some visceral. Asked what he thought of the SDSR, General Rupert Smith, head of UN and Nato forces in Bosnia and a respected military strategist, snorted: "Incoherent nonsense."

Labour has called for the SDSR to be reopened, with Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, making hay as the MoD has floundered in the attempt to balance its books.

Murphy argues that the SDSR is already out of date and that operations in Libya have shown its conclusions were ill-judged.

"The evacuation of UK citizens [from Libya] was reliant on a frigate which was due to be scrapped," he said.

"The government was forced to extend the life of two Nimrods despite assurances that such surveillance was unnecessary. Operations have involved Tornado jets, whose fleet is set to be reduced. The decision to scrap Ark Royal … means Britain does not have aircraft carrier. France has a carrier off the coast of Libya, ours is on sale online."

In July, Fox managed to commit the Treasury to above-inflation spending increases on defence between 2015 and 2020. But even this was a fudge. The MoD wanted inflation plus 3%.

"They got a 1% increase, but only for equipment, which accounts for 40% of the MoD's budget," said Chalmers. It means the cuts announced so far are almost certainly not at an end.

"The UK could go to Afghanistan again, but with fewer people, and over a shorter period of time. The military will have to get used to doing less."

[buglerbilly]

Army and RAF personnel notified of redundancies

A Defence Policy and Business news article

1 Sep 11

Army and RAF personnel will today be notified if they have been selected for redundancy in the first tranche of the Armed Forces Redundancy Programme.


Soldiers parade through Dewsbury
[Picture: Mark Owens, Crown Copyright/MOD 2011]

All notifications will be made either face-to-face, or by telephone.

For some, this will be as a result of their own choice to apply for consideration to be made redundant, but for many others will be unwelcome news. All those who are made redundant face significant changes to not only their own lives but also to those of their families.

Those personnel who will be returning to civilian life through redundancy will receive full support from their chain of command and the comprehensive resettlement package to make this transition.

Applicants will serve up to six months' notice before leaving the Armed Forces, while non-applicants will serve up to 12 months' notice; anyone wanting to leave earlier can ask their Service.

Those selected for redundancy, and who meet the selection criteria, will have the opportunity to apply to shortage area categories.

Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir David Richards, has issued the following statement to all Service personnel:

"The changes to the structure of the Armed Forces require adjustments throughout the Services and each Service will be adapting accordingly, including in the balance between Regular and Reserve Forces.

"The reduction in our Regular Forces, in addition to the usual manning control measures, is being managed through the Armed Forces Redundancy Programme.

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank those who will be leaving the Services for their substantial contribution to our Armed Forces and the nation's security.

"While for some redundancy may be seen as an opportunity, for others it will understandably represent a significant challenge for both the individual and their families. Your chain of command and our comprehensive resettlement package will give you support to ensure your successful transition, whether to shortage areas within the Armed Forces or to civilian life.

"I am aware that this continues to be an unsettling time and that this only represents the first tranche of redundancy. Throughout this period we need to remain focused on operations and maintaining the quality that makes our Armed Forces, person for person, the finest in the world."

The Army are notifying approximately 920 personnel they are to be made redundant, of whom approximately 660 are applicants and 260 non-applicants.

The RAF are notifying approximately 930 personnel they are to be made redundant, of whom approximately 440 are applicants and 490 non-applicants. This includes those students withdrawn from the Flying Training Pipeline and Weapon System Officer training who have not transferred to other branches or otherwise have left the RAF.

The Royal Navy will notify their first tranche of redundancy selections on 30 September 2011; up to three more tranches will follow for each Service to enable the overall manpower reductions required.

[buglerbilly]

Gurkha campaigners prepare to fight more redundancies

Supporters say cuts risk undermining 200-year history between Britain and Nepal

Nick Hopkins, defence editor

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 September 2011 18.37 BST


The Ministry of Defence said it was too early to say whether further redundancies would come from within the Gurkha brigade. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

Campaigners who forced the government to give Gurkha soldiers better rights two years ago are regrouping to defend the brigade from being aggressively targeted in further redundancy rounds.

Peter Carroll, a founding member of the Gurkha Justice Campaign championed by the actor Joanna Lumley, said the Gurkhas were particularly vulnerable because they had never had a senior officer arguing on their behalf within the highest echelons of the Ministry of Defence.

"I worry that some people still seem to regard the Gurkhas as outsiders, not part of the military establishment. But everyone knows that Gurkha soldiers are brave and loyal. I fear they do not have people at the highest level who are defending their interests," he said.

Carroll, who was an officer in the RAF, said he had been expecting the Gurkhas to bear the brunt of the compulsory redundancies announced on Thursday. He said a senior Gurkha officer had written to him in May and told him that the brigade needed to play its "part in the restructuring that the army requires of us".

The letter, which has been seen by the Guardian, said that "the brigade is currently carrying a large excess of manpower and we are seriously out of manning balance … it is now necessary to move to redundancy".

It continued: "Any lobbying for special treatment for our regiments at this time might prove to be unhelpfully divisive and even corrosive to our relationship with the wider army … our strong national support is actually the envy of other elements in the army."

Carroll said he took this as a warning not to highlight the concerns of Gurkhas during the redundancy process, but that Thursday's announcement had justified his anxiety.

As a first step, he has set up a Facebook campaign to save the Gurkha brigade. He said the overmanning within units had partly happened because the Gurkhas had secured equal rights and were staying in service longer – and that they should be not penalised because of this.

"[The cuts] risk undermining the 200-year history between Britain and Nepal. The whole thing should be resisted."

Tikendra Dewan, a major in the Gurkhas who served for 31 years before leaving the brigade in 2002, said the Gurkha soldiers were often "the cream of young men in Nepal".

He said: "When the army needs them they are there. When they don't need them, they seem to get kicked out."

Gurkha soldiers are on operations in Afghanistan and are playing a pivotal role in the training of the Afghan police force. Their ability to get on with Afghans has been a huge asset; many recruits warm to them more easily than to officers from other Nato countries.

The Ministry of Defence insisted that no decisions had yet been taken about the second tranche of redundancies and that it was far too early to say whether more redundancies would come from within the Gurkha brigade.

However, a spokesman said the change in the Gurkhas' terms and conditions had created an overmanning issue that had not been resolved. Defence officials also denied there were any plans to scrap the 3,500-strong Gurkha brigade.

[buglerbilly]

Government must not betray its moral duty to troops, says Bishops

Bishops are to warn ministers that plans to care for the armed forces do not go far enough.


The Ministry of Defence would be solely responsible for governing the level of care given to troops Photo: Lance Cpl. Jeremy Fasci

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent

9:15AM BST 04 Sep 2011

The Church of England is to make a rare direct political intervention in the House of Lords this week over legislation to enshrine the "military covenant" in law.

The proposals will guarantee soldiers that their sacrifice is honoured by provisions including council tax rebates for those on operations, extra NHS help for the injured and free bus travel for those who have been wounded.

But senior bishops, who are backed by former chief of the army staff General the Lord Dannatt, say that the scheme needs to go further.

Under the current plans, the Military Covenant will be made law, but the Ministry of Defence would be solely responsible for governing the level of care given to troops.

They will say that it should not be up to ministers to decide how to meet the "covenant" - the acceptance that the state owes a duty of care to the people it puts in the line of fire.

The Rt Rev Stephen Platten, the Bishop of Wakefield, will move an amendment to the Armed Forces Bill in the House of Lords on Tuesday, arguing for the Government to set up an independent review of the welfare needs of serving armed forces personnel.

The bishop, who is the Church of England's spokesman on international security, said it wanted to see independent scrutiny of the level of care.

"It isn't appropriate for the Government to be responsible for judging on the health of the covenant as it is extremely difficult for the secretary of defence to exercise an entirely objective role," he said.

The Church's intervention is being backed by a number of peers, including General Lord Dannatt, who backs the Military Covenant being made law, but fears it will be undermined if it is overseen by the Government.

"It would work better if there's a degree of independence that could hold the Government to task," said the former head of the army.

David Cameron bowed to pressure earlier this year to enshrine the covenant in law, ensuring that a range of measures will be introduced to ensure the sacrifice of military personnel is honoured.

These will include free bus passes for seriously wounded veterans, extra teachers or tutors for schools with a large number of children from service families, troops on operations will get a 50 per cent rebate on council tax and a "Veterans' Card" will be given to all serving and former military personnel giving a discount at shops and sports events.

[buglerbilly]

Defence procurement minister Peter Luff

05 September 2011 | By Ellie Zolfagharifard

With defence cuts looming, the armed forces depend more than ever on technology, says MoD minister Peter Luff.

Balancing the country’s defence budget is a constant struggle. Whenever the British armed forces are mobilised, so too are opposition politicians and the media, wielding damning reports against the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for providing the wrong equipment to troops at the wrong time.

Some of the more high-profile cases are hard to ignore. The Nimrod crash that killed 14 service personnel in 2006 was blamed on cost cutting. In 2009, a report by former MoD aide Bernard Gray criticised the government for squandering £2.5bn a year on the wrong equipment. More recently, the Public Accounts Committee warned that front-line troops in Afghanistan could be hit by shortages of equipment within 30 days because their supply chain was at ’critical risk of failure’.


Source: MoD Crown Copyright
Firing line: Luff controls 40 per cent of the UK’s defence budget

Peter Luff, minister for defence equipment, support and technology at the MoD, admits that serious errors have been made in the past but insists that lessons have been learned. ’Sometimes things have gone spectacularly wrong,’ he said. ’Generally they’ve gone wrong because the budget hasn’t balanced and we’ve delayed decisions and programmes as a result. For instance, the Nimrod upgrade, in my view, is a project that should never even have begun. It was always going to end in tears.’


“The Nimrod project should never have even begun. It was always going to end in tears”

Luff was appointed to the MoD last year, taking over from Labour’s Quentin Davies. He is the first minister for defence procurement to have ’technology’ included in his title an area he claims he has always been passionate about. In fact, he believes he should have been an engineer but a wrong turn in 1973 led him to study economics at university instead.


Source: Sergeant Alison Baskerville RLC

’I went to an ordinary state grammar school and I remember having to choose between two courses very clearly,’ he said. ’In the end economics won, but I regret that decision now because I believe engineering is a rather more useful subject. I’ve always had a great affinity for technology and the interaction I’ve had through my job with engineers has been inspiring. I’m in awe of the things they are achieving for us in defence.’

With around 40 per cent of the country’s defence budget in his control, Luff is keen to demonstrate that investing in the right technologies will help make significant savings elsewhere. One area where he believes there is a wealth of untapped potential is Britain’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

’In the old days the prime contractors used to buy up the small companies and incorporate them into their larger operations,’ said Luff. ’This was mainly to stop competitors getting their hands on them and I get the impression they are doing this less and less.’ Because of this, SMEs are able to innovate far more creatively than was previously possible. Examples highlighted by Luff include Staines-based Intelligent Textiles, which makes use of electronic circuits woven into fabric to reduce soldiers’ dependency on batteries, and Cambridge Design Partnership, which has developed a portable oxygen generator.


High flyer: Luff is proud of the UK’s equipment in Afghanistan

But even with a passion for technology and willingness to bring SMEs onboard, Luff’s economic background has had to take precedence during the coalition’s austerity drive. This has led to some uncomfortable decisions such as taking the Harrier jump jets out of service early. ’It’s the one decision I’ve been the most unhappy about personally, but it was the right thing to do,’ he said. ’We need to take informed risks. It’s not ideal, but when the country is on the verge of bankruptcy you have to make decisions that are less than ideal.’


“When the country is on the verge of bankruptcy you must make decisions that are less than ideal”

Another controversial decision was delaying the replacement of Britain’s Trident nuclear missile submarines following the Strategic Defence and Security Review. Luff, however, is keen to stress that work hasn’t stopped on its replacement and that the MoD has already taken steps with three key suppliers BAE Systems, Babcock and Rolls-Royce to develop the submarine enterprise performance programme. The government hopes that this will help retain skills in the UK and save costs by sharing resources.


Source: Sergeant Alison Baskerville RLC
Well equipped: the majority of troops are said to be content with their equipment

Despite all the difficulties of the job, there have been some successes and Luff believes the government hasn’t been given enough credit for the things it has got right. One of these, he claims, is the level of satisfaction troops in Afghanistan now have with their equipment.

’The majority of our troops are happy with their equipment, but only 20 per cent of the public believe they have the equipment they need,’ said Luff. ’They are wrong about that. I know why they are wrong. There is a legacy. There is a history. They have been told for a long time about the problems, but actually we should be very proud of the equipment we have in Afghanistan.’

Ultimately it is engineers that should be thanked for the government’s successes in defence,’ he says. ’Often they are the result of very significant engineering achievement.’

Q&A
On the defensive

Who is your hero?

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, without a doubt. He was everything. He was a brilliant engineer and a brilliant businessman as well. He led life so intensely and he changed the world. Not many people change the world. Brunel’s Billiard Table is one of the most remarkable pieces of engineering the world will ever see and then to go on and build ships as well. The audacity of the man!

Do you believe the title ’engineer’ should have protected status?

Yes, I’m passionate about engineering as a profession and I loathe the way that the words ’mechanic’ and ’engineer’ have become interchangeable. A mechanic is a wonderful thing to be, it is a very honourable profession, but it is very different from being an engineer. A guy who comes to mend the dishwasher is not an engineer, he’s a mechanic.

I was very cross at a crossword at the weekend a Telegraph crossword. The clue was mechanic and the answer was engineer. I was going to write to the paper and complain. It was appalling.

What are your priorities going forward?

Balancing the budget is still number one. I’d like to ensure we have the research and development going on in our country to make sure we have the cutting edge going in defence. Encouraging SMEs is very important, because there is real innovation there we need to tap into. Making sure that we export our stuff responsibly of course is important. Another issue is working closely with the French sharing skills as we can’t afford to sustain our sovereign capabilities.

How different is it working under a coalition government?

Surprisingly not very. You’ll expect me to say this because I’m a politician, but it’s actually true the coalition is remarkably coherent. There are issues that we disagree on such as nuclear deterrents. We have agreed to differ on those things and it’s a mature relationship. All my colleagues across government say that on a practical level it works extremely well.

I won’t say too much, but I was in one meeting recently and a very senior member of the coalition, a Liberal Democrat, said: ’It’s terribly worrying. We’ve opposed you throughout the last five years thinking we disagree profoundly. I now believe all that time we were actually in profound agree-ment’. Sometimes in politics you allow your prejudices to colour your interpretation of other people’s position. But there is less dividing us than you imagine.

Peter Luff
Biography


Minister for defence equipment, support and technology, MoD

Education

1973 Windsor Grammar School
1977 MA, Economics at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Career

1977 Worked for Lord Walker, the then MP for Worcester
1992 Elected as MP for Worcester
1997 Appointed chairman of the Commons Agriculture Committee
2000 Joined the front bench as an opposition whip
2002 Served as chief whip for the Conservatives
2005 Became chairman of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee

Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/in-depth/interviews/defence-procurement-minister-peter-luff/1009824.article#ixzz1XGoamn1z

[buglerbilly]

Morale in armed forces plunges to new low

Morale among officers in Britain's armed forces has plunged, according to an official Ministry of Defence survey.


Lieutenant General Bill Rollo says the armed forces have gone through "challenging times" Photo: LEFTERIS PITARAKIS/AFP/Getty Images

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent

9:00PM BST 10 Sep 2011

Morale is low? Gee I wonder why................

More than half of all officers and 43 per cent of other ranks, believe the armed forces is suffering from low morale following a year of pay freezes, cuts and redundancies.

Satisfaction with life in the services has fallen, along with levels of pride and feelings of being valued.

In the RAF, only two per cent of officers – many of whom are taking part in operations in Afghanistan and over Libya – believe morale is high and 70 per cent state it is low.

The figures are the worst since the Armed Forces Continuous Attitudes Survey began four years ago.

Satisfaction with basic pay, pension and allowances has fallen and many feel it is not safe to challenge the way things are done in their service or within the MoD.

In the foreword to the report, Lieutenant General Bill Rollo, deputy chief of defence staff (personnel and training) says the armed forces have gone through "challenging times" in 2011 with operations in Afghanistan and Libya while having to contend with a large-scale redundancy programme.

Both officers and other ranks felt dissatisfied with pay, allowances, feeling valued and with the impact service life was having on their families.

In the Army, 48 per cent of officers claim morale is low and 13 per cent state it is high. In the Royal Navy, which is due to announce up to 1,600 redundancies at the end of September, 59 per cent of Naval and 14 per cent of Royal Marine officers complained of poor morale.

The annual report looks at all aspects of military life from pay and allowances, to accommodation, personal life, leave, deployments, separation, fairness and leadership.

Just under 27,000 surveys were distributed to the armed services between February and May this year. Of those, 12,600 were returned completed, providing a response rate of 45 per cent.

The report stated that there was "prevalent dissatisfaction" with the effect of service life on spouses and partners, with 47 per cent dissatisfied and the effect of service life on children's education which had a finding 35 per cent dissatisfied.

There was also "prevailing dissatisfaction" with the amount of separation from family and friends, with 26 per cent satisfied and 37 per cent dissatisfied, a not unsurprising condition given that the armed services have been on continuous operations for the past eight years, three years longer that the Second World War.

But of all the findings contained within the 300 page report, it will be the poor levels of morale amongst both officer and men which will worry senior commanders.

Maintenance of morale is one of the key principles of war and is vital for unit cohesion and operational effectiveness. History has shown that armies where poor morale is endemic do not win wars.

Two weeks ago the Army and RAF made more than 2,000 personnel redundant but he recently announced cuts are just the first in a series of redundancies which will see the armed forces reduced by 22,000 personnel by 2015, the year in which Britain is due to withdraw the majority of its troops from Afghanistan.

Following the withdrawal, the Army will be reduced by a further 10,000 troops giving it a strength of around 84,000 soldiers.

Brigadier Richard Nugee, the Army's head of planning, revealed earlier this month that there were "significantly more" applications for redundancy from lieutenant colonels, Colonels and brigadiers, than had been expected.

Morale in the Army is also expected to fall even further, especially within fighting units, when senior officer announce the names of those infantry units which are expected to be axed as part of the cuts in the coming months.

One senior officer said: "I have never seen morale so low. I doubt that there is a unit, regiment or battalion that can honestly say that the majority of its troops have high morale.

"The real crisis is with officers at captain level. They are the future and they are leaving in their droves. It's like working for a company which has cut pay, allowances and jobs – why should you stay.

"But in the case of the armed forces you are expected to fight and die."

The Ministry of Defence said: "This survey was taken at a time when our Armed Forces are deployed in two operational theatres.

"While morale on operations remains high, the financial situation in the UK requires tough decisions to be made to get the defence budget back into balance while reducing the national deficit.

"These major financial and structural changes have had an impact on morale. We are far from complacent about the concerns of our service personnel and will use this information to identify and address the issues they have raised."

[buglerbilly]

MoD comes under fire after scrapping barracks upgrade

Defence Secretary Liam Fox has been accused of undermining the military covenant after scrapping a £1.5bn programme to upgrade decaying barracks.


Defence Secretary Liam Fox has been accused of undermining the military covenant after scrapping a £1.5bn programme to upgrade decaying barracks.

By Josie Ensor

4:35PM BST 11 Sep 2011

Another morale booster!

A much-needed refurbishment of up to 49,000 sub-standard quarters is being drastically cut back as part of the Government’s cuts.

The repair of up to 4,000 married quarters for families and several thousand barrack rooms for single soldiers will no longer go ahead, leaving frontline soldiers to come home to the same leaking roofs and peeling wallpaper.

Many of the homes have not undergone extensive renovation or repairs for 15 to 20 years, with some described as being in “disgusting condition”.

At the same time some senior officers enjoy grace-and-favour homes that cost up to £100,000 a year in upkeep and are staffed by a “household regiment” of servants.

Ministers will face charges of hypocrisy over the about-turn in improving the soldiers’ homes. The Conservative Party had previously promised to enshrine the military covenant - the informal agreement between the nation and its armed forces - in legislation.

The Ministry of Defence promised earlier this year that annual reports on the covenant - dismissed by the Royal British Legion as inadequate - would include "progress on healthcare, housing and education."

Military charities and former commanders have hit out at the decision.

Julie McCarthy, chief executive of the Army Families Federation, said: “The feedback we are getting is one of resigned disappointment. The upgrades that are being cancelled involve a total rebuild of houses - new roofs, windows, carpets, kitchens and bathrooms. We expect our soldiers to live in grade one accommodation.”

Christina Schmid, whose husband Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, a bomb disposal expert, was killed on his final day at the front in Afghanistan, told the Sunday Times: “Army accommodation is such a lottery. I have had some dire quarters and some that are half-decent. They shouldn’t be furnished out in bling but they should have a good standard of accommodation which is uniform across the board.”

She added: “I feel strongly that if we can’t afford our army and we can’t look after them, then we need to stop being in conflict.”

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: “In order to address the financial black hole at the MoD, uncomfortable decisions have had to be taken to plug the gap and protect frontline operation. Major improvements to service accommodation will be placed on hold for three years from April 2013.”

He added that since 2006, more than 4,300 properties had been upgraded with more than £264m spent on improvements. Another £100m would be spent between now and April 2013.

[buglerbilly]

DSEi: New U.K. Army Scout Vehicle Under Threat

By ANDREW CHUTER

Published: 14 Sep 2011 18:12

I foresee a cut in the Scout numbers and extension of the time-frame for manufacture. Whether this means the Utility Wheeled vehcile is allowed to proceed again is another matter...............

LONDON - The key British Army requirement for a new scout armored vehicle contract is in danger of being canceled due to continuing defense financial constraints, according to General Dynamics UK boss Sandy Wilson.

Speaking to reporters at a briefing on the sidelines of the Defence System Equipment International exhibition here, Wilson said that while a delay to the program was the most likely outcome, cancellation remains a possibility.

General Dynamics UK signed a 500 million pound ($791.4 million) deal in July 2010 with the government to design and demonstrate a family of medium weight specialist vehicles based on its ASCOD platform for the Army. The focus of the initial work is the development of a scout vehicle with a 40mm gun.

Under the government's original agreement, it was due to make a decision to enter a production phase in 2013 with first deliveries starting in 2016. At the least, that timescale is now under threat.

The Army is looking at various options to retain the program while reprofiling spending to take account of the continuing pressure on Army budgets in the wake of a recent three-month review of capabilities and budgets.

Wilson said one possible outcome aside from a delay was a reduction in numbers.

The specialist vehicles program is aimed at equipping the Army with a range of vehicle types using the ASCOD as the common platform.

General Dynamics has already been the victim of a change of government mind on armored vehicles. In 2008, the then-Labour government canceled a deal for the company to supply its Piranha V utility vehicle as part of the Future Rapid Effects Vehicle.

The specialist vehicle requirement is the British Army's top vehicle program along with a project to update the Warrior infantry fighting vehicle. Lockheed Martin is negotiating with the Ministry of Defence to secure that deal.

Timing and numbers are being discussed, but the Army is trying to alter the spending profile to be able to afford both key programs.

Wilson said the vehicle had already gained strong interest from four potential export customers and the company was looking at options to use different caliber weapons from the 40mm CTAI supplied cannon for overseas customers. The CTAI has been mandated by the British government for the scout SV vehicle.

[buglerbilly]

Labour concedes it failed to rein in overspending on defence projects

Shadow defence secretary to unveil radical proposals in policy review, including purchase and maintenance of equipment in UK

Nick Hopkins

The Guardian, Thursday 22 September 2011


Nimrod spy planes were one example of a project that came in well over budget. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA

Labour will concede on Thursday that it was not able to stop acute overspending within the military during its last period in power, as the party considers wholesale changes to its defence strategy.

Recognising that Labour needs to learn lessons to move on, the shadow defence secretary, Jim Murphy, will admit that ministers could not stop some projects going over budget due to flaws that have bedevilled governments for decades.

He will unveil radical proposals from a review commissioned by the party, which could set the agenda for Labour on defence as it renews core policies in time for the next general election.

Among key recommendations is the demand to buy British where possible, when it comes to important procurements, and any equipment bought "off the shelf" in the market should be upgraded and maintained in the UK rather than abroad.

The report says: "There should be very few occasions where the UK does not develop and maintain the capacity to upgrade and modify its key military equipment and systems. Therefore, all 'off-the-shelf' purchases should be subject to a UK control test that states that there must be UK-based upgrade capability in the UK."

The coalition, which is due to publish its own white paper on defence, has stated that it will "use open competition in the global market, to buy off-the-shelf" wherever feasible.

The link between industry and the military, and where the real power lies between them, is one of the most controversial areas of defence. Tens of thousands of workers rely on the industry for jobs and it is a key driver for the British economy.

The report took almost a year to compile and was written for Labour by a former first sea lord, Lord West, and two defence industry figures – Bill Thomas, former general manager of Hewlett-Packard, and Tony Roulstone, former managing director of Rolls-Royce Nuclear.

The party must now decide whether to adopt their 37 recommendations and is using the review to accept that the party did made mistakes while in government. In a foreword to the review, Murphy, and Michael Dugher, the shadow minister for defence equipment, support and technology, say that in "13 years in government Labour lost some of its momentum on reform".

They say that Labour's defence record was strong but "despite all the investment and improvements … some of the problems in acquisition, which have plagued all governments, regrettably continued".

They write: "In beginning to develop future policy we have to be honest about the past … This study analyses further some of the shortcomings in equipment programme planning, management and delivery systems."

In the last 20 years there have been numerous procurement disasters, with big projects, such as the navy's two new aircraft carriers, the Typhoon fast jets, Nimrod spy planes, helicopters and rifles, all coming in massively over budget.

Liam Fox, the defence secretary, has repeatedly criticised Labour for leaving a £38bn funding "black hole" in defence, which, he says, has been at least partially to blame for the sweeping cuts that have hit all three services.

Thursday's report explains why procurement has been so lamentable, and argues that "the problematic issues … are systemic and widespread, and have become so over decades". Most came in at least 10% over budget. The review calls for the UK to have its own weapons engineering service, which would be part of "a defence industrial strategy" that supports businesses in the UK, stopping job losses and contracts going abroad.

It also suggests that the defence budget should be planned over 10 years.

"We want our armed forces to have the equipment they need when they need it," says Murphy. "Efficient procurement must underpin a credible defence policy which provides for the frontline whilst protecting the bottom line."

[buglerbilly]

The full statement by this prick...............

Let’s get a tighter grip on defence spending

Britain’s performance on defence procurement is poor – it’s time to make those responsible face the consequences.


Equipped to do the job: British armoured forces in action in Afghanistan Photo: PA

By Michael Dugher

8:12PM BST 21 Sep 2011

The history of defence procurement is not a happy one. Ensuring that our Armed Forces get the best possible equipment they need, when they need it, is easier said than done. Today, Labour will publish the findings of a comprehensive 10-month study into defence acquisition policy that will inform a wholesale review of party policy launched by Ed Miliband last year. There are few benefits of being in opposition, but being able to take a step back and reflect is one.

Labour can be proud of the fact that we increased the defence budget by 10 per cent in real terms during our years in power. Defence procurement was reformed and equipment, from drones to personal kit, was transformed – so much so that, by 2009, the last chief of the defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, remarked that our troops had never been so well equipped. The welfare of our forces, and crucially that of their families, was also improved.

But defence procurement is a complex and challenging activity. The lead times are enormous and technology changes rapidly, as do our requirements, with the enemy having a say in all of this. And despite all the investment and improvements, we made mistakes. The problems of defence procurement have plagued all governments, but the huge delays and massive cost overruns continued on our watch.

That is why Labour in government commissioned the Gray Report in 2009 to identify the serious failures in acquisition. The current Government liked the report so much that it hired the author, Bernard Gray, to head up defence equipment and support at the Ministry of Defence.

The fact is Britain’s record is poor. Over the period for which there is consistent data (2003-2010), major projects costing the taxpayer in excess of £200 million, and those that were planned to take four to five years between “Main Gate” decision and entry into service, exceeded their most likely out-turn estimate of costs by more than 10 per cent on average – with extremes of up to 40 per cent. These programmes also slipped by 40-50 per cent – some by as much as 250 per cent – from their expected schedule.

So what is to be done? It is often said that there is a “conspiracy of optimism” in defence procurement. At best, there is a tendency to muddle through in the hope that both the customer and supplier “get there in the end”. At worst, defence procurement has been based on unrealistic assumptions and over-ambitious plans that balloon beyond all recognition, along with the costs. This conspiracy of optimism has to be replaced by a culture of consequences.

This must apply to the defence industry. In the past, the taxpayer has been left carrying the can for some of its lamentable failings, with some suppliers seeing the UK government as little more than a cash cow. Too many times, once a company or consortia has been awarded a contract, the price begins to ramp up.

First, we need firmer and fairer contracts that incentivise good performance, with industry asked to provide higher warranties for performance. There should be far greater penalties for those that fail to deliver on time and on cost, and the MoD should not be afraid of taking companies back to the initial approval stage, or indeed calling time on contracts that are simply not working. Experience should triumph over hope.

Second, in the case of de facto and actual monopoly suppliers to the MoD, there should be what is known as “open book” contracting once a contract is let. This means far greater transparency of costs and profits in a long-term partnering approach. Within such an approach, there should be not just an agreed price but an agreed target level of profit, too. If the MoD’s requirements change due to operational imperatives – where, say, our Armed Forces need something extra on top of the original specifications – industry must not be allowed to cash in and make super-normal profits on the change in price.

And third, we need shorter, less complex projects with streamlined processes and decision-making. In defence procurement, time is money.

But we also need that same culture of consequences inside the MoD. In the commercial world, promotion and bonuses are based on performance. But in the MoD, there is little sense that poorer performing individuals in very senior roles are ever held accountable. The people leading Integrated Project Teams (IPTs), who manage major procurement programmes, should have the authority, accountability and responsibility for project execution. Currently, they are given as little as four or five days’ training and tend to come from either the Civil Service or from the military – this does not always make them best able to manage hugely challenging commercial contracts.

These problems are compounded by the frequent changes in project managers. The norm in the MoD is to move jobs every two years. This leads to constant changes of strategy and emphasis, which are not helpful and avoid the need for managers to live with the consequences of their actions.

This autumn, the Government will publish its White Paper on the defence industry, but all the signs are that it will have little to say except – as is the case with the Bombardier contract for new trains – that we should give up at home and simply “buy off the shelf” from abroad. Today, Labour will present a host of ideas to reform defence procurement. But in beginning to shape policy for the future, all parties need to be honest about the past and learn from their mistakes.

Michael Dugher MP is shadow minister for defence equipment

[buglerbilly]

Scores of sailors from Libya campaign to be axed

Hundreds of sailors including scores who risked their lives during the Libyan campaign are to be sacked this week, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.


Members of HMS Cumberland's crew, which is set to lose several dozen out of her 250 sailors Photo: ALAMY

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent

10:53PM BST 26 Sep 2011

Several dozen out of the 250 sailors from the frigate Cumberland which helped evacuate British citizens and played a key role early in the operation will be told on Friday that they no longer have jobs in the Royal Navy.

Crew from eight of the 10 other warships that took part in the campaign will also be in line to be sacked, it can be disclosed.

It is understood that the Government will issue compulsory redundancy notices for up to 400 Navy officers and ratings out of its first tranche of 1,100 Navy personnel to be axed.

Cumberland, a Type 23 frigate, was the first warship to be on station enforcing the blockade on Libya.

In a further blow to the Navy, a number of Royal Marines coming to an end of their six month tour in Helmand also face the sack when the second tranche of redundancies is announced next March as the Navy reduces by 5,000 to just 30,000 personnel.

Under the Ministry of Defence ruling only those who are within six months of deploying for an operation are safe from redundancy.

This means that sailors from warships that at times came under fire from Col Gaddafi’s shore batteries will be chopped.

Serving Navy officers have called the move a “kick in the teeth for those who put their lives on the line to support of the government’s goals”.

A serving Navy commander said the redundancies come at a time when more than two thirds cent of the Navy is operationally deployed.

“We are approaching an untenable situation,” he told The Telegraph, “We have too few ships, too many commitment and too little money.

“The Royal Navy still has an enviable reputation but at present that reputation is fragile.”

Friday’s announcement is part of a wave of redundancies in the Armed Forces following last year's Strategic Defence and Security Review with 22,000 military posts eliminated, most by 2015.

The Navy losses come after more than 2,000 soldiers and 1,000 airmen were sacked earlier this month.

Vice Admrial Sir Jeremy Blackham, a former Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, said:

“This will go down very badly with the crews who already feel let down by the defence cuts.

“We have a Secretary of State who on the one hand says the world is getting more dangerous than it’s ever been and on the other hand is determined to run the forces down willy-nilly.

He added that morale was being further damaged by politicians’ “constant denigration” of service chiefs.

There is also bitterness towards politicians after David Cameron, who praised both the RAF and Navy for their brave efforts in Libya, pledged that the Military Covenant was “what the country offers you in return for what you offer us”.

A MoD spokesman said: “The decisions we are making are not easy but they will help to defend the UK, protect our interests overseas and enable us to work effectively with allies to deliver greater security in the wider world.”

[buglerbilly]

U.K. Sees Light at End of Budget Black Hole

By ANDREW CHUTER

Published: 27 Sep 2011 15:22

LONDON - Britain's Ministry of Defence appears to have greatly reduced or eliminated the huge black hole in spending plans up to 2020, according to a report by a leading military think tank.

But the report, by the Royal United Services Institute's (RUSI's) analyst Malcolm Chalmers, warns that while the "books appear to be balanced on paper, the detailed work required in order to keep them that way while still meeting the government's force requirements for 2020 and beyond has only just started."

Equipment programs, pay levels, service accommodation, boarding school allowances and regimental identities were among the issues that could still trip up the Conservative-led coalition government.

"Hard battles remain to be fought in order to achieve projected levels of savings," the report states.

The report estimates that a government requirement for an 8 percent reduction in the defense budget over four years and a black hole in unbudgeted liabilities built up by the previous Labour government meant the MoD had a 74 billion pound ($114.7 billion) funding gap it had to close over a 10 year period to balance its books.

The new black hole figures provided by Chalmers includes 8 billion pounds for early funding on the successor submarine fleet and 5.5 billion pounds in contingency funding added by the Conservative-led coalition government following a recosting of its major programs.

"Out of a projected ten-year funding gap of £74 billion, almost two-thirds [£47 billion] is a result of cuts in the projected MoD budget, including a real terms cut of 8.6 percent between 2010/11 and 2014/15. The remainder [£27 billion] is a result of inherited commitments that were unaffordable even if the core budget had continued the rate of growth that it had enjoyed since 1999," the RUSI paper states.

The total defense budget for this year stands at £33.8 billion.

The report was published the same day the Financial Times reported that Defence Secretary Liam Fox will tell the Conservative Party conference next week that the black hole has been eliminated.

On the equipment front, Chalmers says that failure to control the cost of the successor Trident nuclear deterrent replacement, the purchase of Joint Strike Fighters and the Type-26 frigate programs could blow the spending plans off course.

"Any one of these could pose substantial financial risks to the MoD. The costs of major projects remain a major source of potential instability, with particular concerns over the looming costs of Trident," he said.

Chalmers points up a further danger for keeping budgets on track - the impact of technology-driven inflation.

"It has been assumed that costs can be contained at levels anticipated in government plans, which in turn assume that unit procurement costs are roughly comparable, on average, to those of previous generations of comparable systems," he says.

To do that would require a radical revision of the view of most academics that the real unit-cost increases of major defense equipment items are continuing to escalate at rates of between 3 and 6 percent, according to Chalmers.

Continuance of historical trends, though, would make it "impossible to afford current equipment plans for the 2020s without politically implausible levels of real spending increases," Chalmers warns.

Although the books appeared to be on their way to being balanced, the RUSI expert said a number of decisions on equipment programs and possibly personnel cuts would be announced over the coming months.

"The defense secretary has made it clear that there will be further cuts in a range of minor equipment programs, as well as further substantial efficiency savings in support, estate spending and IT provision," Chalmers says.

The warning of further cuts comes as BAE Systems has announced 3,000 defense job losses in its U.K. military aviation and other business areas.

ADS, the defense and aerospace trade organization, warned Britain could lose a further 20,000 to 30,000 jobs in the sector as budget cuts and other government policy changes affecting the domestic industry kick in.

[buglerbilly]

Boost UK defence spending or lose the Falklands, warn military grandees

Report by ex-armed forces chiefs call for 50% rise in military spending to offset potential threats

Nick Hopkins, defence and security correspondent

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 September 2011 14.15 BST


The HMS Sheffield after it was hit by an Argentine Exocet missile during the Falklands conflict. Defence chiefs argued today that the islands would be vulnerable if cuts continue. Photograph: Martin Cleaver/PA

The UK needs to pour billions more into defence spending to counter future threats if the country is to avoid "expensive and possibly catastrophic mistakes" caused by under-funding, a report warns.

One of the report's authors said the Falkland Islands are a "plum ripe for the picking" should Argentina, with the support of its ally China, choose to contest British claims to sovereignty.

The study, by the United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA), calls for the government to increase defence spending so that it accounts for 3% of GDP – currently it is at 2%.

The UK is already on "thin ice" militarily, and in a weak position to defend its interests around the globe, it says.

The report will hold weight because it has been compiled by five grandees of defence, including Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon, a former chief of the air staff, and General Sir Michael Rose, who was commander of UN forces in Bosnia in the early 1990s.

They call for an immediate reprioritisation within government to bolster defence, and set out potential threats from different regions.

The authors argue that the success of the Libya operation has to be put in context, and not used as a reason to justify the cuts announced in last year's Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).

The review was muddled and incoherent, and the national security strategy had failed to predict the Arab Spring, they claim.

And while British forces had performed well in Libya, Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham, a former captain of the Ark Royal, said they had faced a "trivial enemy". Even then, the campaign had only been successful because the US had played a more significant role than is generally understood.

"The inconvenient truth is that [Libya] was only feasible [because] US forces first destroyed Libya air defences and then provided 75% of all air support missions," the report adds.

Blackburn said the US was extremely concerned about UK defence cuts and how they had diminished the country's capabilities.

"There is plenty of evidence in the US that they are disparaging of our efforts in a number of areas," said Blackburn. "The US is well aware that our abilities are much less than we would like to claim."

The defence of the Falkland Islands was cited as one area of vulnerability.

Air Commodore Andrew Lambert said the "British public is not aware of how thin the ice is … or how bad things could get."

The Falkland Islands were, he said, "ripe for the picking", and that Argentina's current peaceful approach to the sovereignty issue may not hold. "Intent can change overnight," he added.

The report argues that it is illogical to cut defence spending just because future threats are hard to predict.

Lambert said that unless the UK invested more on defence, historians might look back and say: "Oh my God, how did these people not appreciate how bad things are going to be."

North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia and China might all provide a threat in the future, the report says.

Liam Fox, the defence secretary, has stated repeatedly that defence has to share the burden of cuts forced upon the government by the global downturn, and blamed Labour for mismanaging the defence budget.

He has also argued that by 2020, the UK's armed forces will be leaner and better equipped to face any threats.

China, it says, has "considerable ambition" and has cornered the market in some essential minerals.

Allan Sykes, vice-president of the UKNDA, said Britain could easily spend more money on defence: "To pretend a further 1% is not affordable is absurd."

The report concludes: "It is now quite clear that the vital twin pillars of Britain's security for the past 50 years, the special relationship with the US and the continuation of an effective Nato, can no longer be guaranteed unless Britain increases its defence capabilities substantially and soon.

"The government must acknowledge these extreme threats to Britain's collectively provided security and address them forcefully as the highest priority."

Defence secretary Dr Liam Fox said: "For the first time in a decade we have brought the MoD's future plans and budget broadly into balance following tough decisions that had to be taken in the SDSR and a 1% increase in the equipment budget from 2015 to fill the MoD's multibillion pound black hole. This now allows around £150bn to be invested in new equipment over the next decade.

"RUSI concluded this week that claims our longer-term capability have been damaged are exaggerated and their independent report also made clear that the UK will remain one of the world's top military powers. As events in Libya clearly prove, our armed forces have the capability to project power around the world at short notice."

[buglerbilly]

Defence minister: 'MoD dug itself a hole it couldn't climb out of'

Liam Fox says Labour weren't just to blame for the problems, but a department leadership that became a laughing stock

Nick Hopkins

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 September 2011 21.30 BST


Liam Fox: ‘It has been tough to be a hawk on both defence and the deficit’ Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian

It is nearly 8.30am at RAF Coningsby, a vast base on the featureless plains of Lincolnshire which is home to some of the Typhoon fast jets that were sent to, and have now returned from, Libya.

Liam Fox is here to talk to some of the commanders and pilots involved in the campaign and to hear about their experiences over the past six months. It is one of the defence secretary's stories, though, that has grabbed the attention of the officers around the table.

Fox outs himself as a "wing-walker" – a stunt that involves being strapped to the outside of a plane during flight. He says he was dared to do this for charity a decade ago, and that when it rained, it felt like he was being showered with glass beads being fired at more than 120mph.

This was an experience that even his critics would concede prepared him well for the past 12 months in charge of the Ministry of Defence. No other member of the coalition cabinet has done as much, or taken as much flak for it.

In less than a year he has signed off on cuts that will eventually lead to up to 60,000 defence jobs being axed, scrapped some of the military's most treasured items of equipment, and been hounded by more armchair generals than there has been space for on the comment pages of the Daily Telegraph. He has had Libya to contend with, and Afghanistan too.

Although he seems chipper enough, he concedes with admirable understatement that it has been "tough to be a hawk on deficit and a hawk on defence at the same time".

And he says the hardest decisions have always been those involving redundancies – on Friday, 1,100 navy jobs will be axed as part of an ongoing programme.

"It is the toughest thing, and you know the impact that it will have on them and their families. That has always made me feel very angry because these decisions have been being forced upon us by previous management.

"Morale for our own people has taken a knock, and they have had to make huge adjustments to get us back on an even keel. I know it's very hard for them, but I think they know that it had to be done."

Fox doesn't just blame Labour for the problems, but also those whose leadership of the MoD – military and civilian – led it to becoming a laughing stock around Whitehall – an almost bankrupt one at that.

Budgets were never kept and timetables became meaningless, he says. The place was "dysfunctional" on many levels.

"I think there had been a loss [of trust], and in the latter part of the Brown government there was an almost complete breakdown between the MoD and the Treasury, and the MoD and No 10.

"I think the MoD consistently dug a hole for itself that it eventually found that it could not climb out of."

Fox says the situation was out of control and undermined his negotiations with the Treasury before last year's comprehensive spending review, which demanded a 7% cut in the defence budget.

"I was never convinced in those early months that the department actually knew what the cost of things were. And costs would continually change. Around Whitehall and especially the Treasury, I think there was a view, 'here we go again'."

Fox is hopeful that the MoD will, in time, come off the naughty step and show George Osborne that it can be trusted with money once more. He says that when the MoD has "stopped threatening the exchequer", he'll be in a better position to argue for more cash in future.

Has it been galling to be criticised by so many military grandees?

"If you don't have thick skin and broad shoulders you shouldn't be in politics," says Fox. "But yes, it is irritating to hear some of those who helped create the problem criticising us when we try to bring in a solution. It's not a perfect world out there."

The decision to scrap the navy's sole aircraft carrier, Ark Royal, and the remainder of the Harrier fleet, have been roundly mocked, especially since the start of the Libya campaign when it appeared they might be needed.

Fox allows himself a chuckle and says the critics have been proved entirely wrong. "I notice how some of them have been strangely muted in recent months.

"Harrier could not have carried the weapons we have used to such great effect. They are too heavy. Harriers would have been no help to us at all. The critics have been silenced."

It's not just former members of the armed forces who have been on his back, the current crop of military commanders have been surreptitiously dragging their feet, particularly over reform.

Fox is diplomatic about them. He won't say if there was internal resistance from chiefs (there was) but prefers to characterise them as being initially "sceptical" about his plans for change and unconvinced they would ever come to anything.

"The experience of the military in the MoD was that change was never implemented," he says. "The secretary of state would move on to something else."

Now he has devolved responsibility for some of the major projects to the heads of the three services, and they know that they will be sacked if they let things get out of control again.

It's no secret in Westminster that Fox was deeply unhappy that the MoD did not receive more protection from last year's budget squeeze – one letter to David Cameron, leaked to the press – made that abundantly clear. But he insists he has never thought of quitting.

"To walk away and let something unacceptable happen isn't very brave. I would have stayed and argued the case. We had some pretty rigorous discussions during the latter part of the Strategic Defence and Security Review, but if you are a serious politician then you have got to be willing to stay and make your case, hard."

Fox says he hopes the recent report into the Chinook crash on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994, which exonerated pilots who had been blamed for the crash by an official MoD inquiry, shows he will support members of the military in any future battles.

"That was very important in terms of sending a message that we will stand up for our ordinary service men and women if we feel they have been wronged. And that was a cultural message.

"Of all the things we have done since we came into office, I have had more letters from the public about the Mull of Kintyre than any other subject."

But the future remains uncertain. There will be a steady withdrawal from Libya in the coming weeks, but Afghanistan is still his most pressing concern. The latest diplomatic assessments from Kabul are bleak; though the military campaign has claimed some successes, they could be rendered meaningless without political progress, which at the moment is lacking.

Fox says the west should not be surprised. He saves some of his fruitiest language for those with unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved before the end of 2014, when Nato gives up combat operations.

By then, British forces will be supporting – not leading – the Afghan national security forces, and there are no contingency plans to turn that position around.

"The fact that Afghanistan is likely to have political instability should not come as a shock to anybody. This is a country with no democratic tradition.

"It always amazes me that we should expect people with no history of democracy, to create a Jeffersonian democracy within a decade.

"So political development will come with highs and lows, that is inevitable. It would be helpful for us to occasionally have the humility to remember that we had 150 years between Adam Smith and universal suffrage in the UK. The fact that they have political teething problems should not come as a surprise."

Fox's supporters in Westminster hope he has gone through the worst of it now. His stock within Downing Street and the Treasury was undoubtedly low, particularly after the leaked letter, but David Cameron was a guest at his 50th birthday party last weekend.

So perhaps, his fortunes are changing. And nobody should ever doubt he is ambitious. A right-winger, a Thatcherite, it is sometimes forgotten that he challenged for the leadership when Cameron won.

For now, he's happy in the MoD, even if it is regarded as government's poisoned chalice. "I suppose it depends how you look at life," he says. "People say, given what you've inherited, you must have the worst job in Whitehall.

"True, we inherited a grim picture, true we had to do a lot of things that we didn't want to have to do ... however I do get a chance to work with some of the best people. In my view I have the best job in Whitehall."

He doesn't flinch when he says it either – so he might just mean it.

[buglerbilly]

Liam Fox says MoD has to accept share of blame for depth of cuts

Defence secretary reveals there had been a 'complete breakdown of trust' between the military and the rest of Whitehall

Nick Hopkins

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 September 2011 21.30 BST


Liam Fox has said that military chiefs should take some of the blame for ballooning costs. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian

The Ministry of Defence has to accept a share of the blame for the depth of cuts to the military budget that have led to thousands of redundancies, the defence secretary, Liam Fox, has said.

In his first interview this year, Fox revealed that there had been a "complete breakdown of trust" between the military and the rest of Whitehall over ballooning costs, and that this had hampered his efforts to protect the defence budget.

Fox told the Guardian that military chiefs working within the Ministry of Defence at the time have to take some of the blame for allowing the situation to get so out of control. "I think the MoD consistently dug a hole for itself that it eventually found that it could not climb out of," he said. "It is irritating to hear some of those who helped create the problem criticising us when we try to bring in a solution."

The crisis reached its peak at the end of Gordon Brown's time as prime minister, he said. "I think there had been a loss [of trust] and in the latter part of the Brown government there was an almost complete breakdown between the MoD and the Treasury and the MoD and No 10."

His combative remarks are bound to provoke a fresh row over the government's cuts to the armed forces, though Fox made it clear the MoD had been its own worst enemy at times.

Speaking as the navy was poised to tell 1,100 sailors and support staff they are being made redundant – one third will be compulsory – Fox said he wanted the armed forces to "take the pain early" so the military can balance its books and regain lost credibility. Morale within the forces had "taken a knock" but most people understood that reform "had to be done".

Fox also said he believed critics of the military campaign in Libya had been "silenced" and proved wrong.

He said he hoped there would be no more job losses beyond those already announced and that the Royal Navy might need to "increase in size towards the second half of the decade". There might yet be recruitment in other areas.

Asked if would sack military or civilian commanders if costs ran out of control again, Fox said: "Yes. And I'd cancel projects that look like they are not coming to fruition."

He made it clear that he had never considered quitting, nor would he, whatever the pressures upon him. "To walk away and let something unacceptable happen isn't very brave," he explained.

Fox said the problems at the MoD had been building for some time and that when he took over he had no confidence that the figures he was being given were accurate, which made negotiating with a sceptical Treasury very difficult.

The attitude towards the MoD was "here we go again", he said. "I was never convinced in early months that the department actually knew what the cost of things were."

He renewed his attack on Labour for letting matters spiral out of control, saying: "How anyone would allow a department of that size to operate without controls on its spending is literally beyond me."

Fox said he believed that trust was being repaired, but at a high price. The MoD has had to make sweeping cuts to personnel and equipment to come within budget, changes that have been undertaken against a backdrop of near relentless criticism from former members of the services.

He admitted the decision to approve job cuts was the most painful he had had to make, but that he believed the worst was now over. "Debt is a strategic issue. Countries that cannot produce economic wellbeing cannot defend themselves properly in the long term. None of us knows what will happen in the economy in the next decade. But we are setting as good a course as possible without knowing what the weather will be. I am as confident as you can be that the big decisions have been taken."

Fox did not rule out that defence spending might rise again, above and beyond the 1% increase for equipment that was announced earlier this summer.

"As the economy recovers, we will all go into the usual negotiations with the Treasury. We will all be fighting our own corner. I do think there has been a shift in Whitehall dynamic. And the MoD is held in better esteem now."

On Libya, Fox defended the cautious approach of Nato's military campaign, and said that he believed that this may have helped to heal some of the wounds inflicted in the region by the Iraq war.

"We stuck like glue to our initial belief that minimising civilian casualties would not only give us the high moral ground over Gaddafi, but that in the post-Gaddafi environment we have different values. And in many ways that was laying to rest some of the views in the Arab world that came out post-Iraq."He described Labour's recent proposals for reforms to defence as "a pointless exercise … a grotesquely crude instrument which suggests they have learned little from their appalling mismanagement of the MoD."

[buglerbilly]

UK Defence Budget: Looking into the Black Hole

(Source: Royal United Services Institute; issued Oct. 4, 2011)

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) appears to have balanced the £74 billion* ten-year 'funding gap', but key equipment programmes, such as Trident renewal and Joint Strike Fighter, are still a major source of potential instability to defence budget, highlights a recent paper from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Looking into the Black Hole: Is the UK Defence Budget Crisis Really Over? by Professor Malcolm Chalmers, outlines that while the MoD's books may be balanced on paper, the work needed to turn assumptions on how to close the funding gap into detailed plans has only started.

'The decision to reduce the size of the regular army, made more palatable by increased investment in reserve forces, has restored some credibility to the commitment to a balanced posture. While the MoD's books may be balanced on paper, the work needed to turn assumptions into detailed plans has only just begun.'

'In areas as diverse as equipment programmes, pay levels, service accommodation, boarding school allowances and regimental identities, hard battles remain to be fought in order to achieve projected levels of saving,' writes Chalmers.

'While the government is now planning for a 1 per cent annual real growth in the equipment budget after 2014/15, it cannot guarantee what its successor will decide in the 2015 Spending Review. The drawdown from Afghanistan could weaken the MoD's bargaining position, especially if current efforts to reduce the nation's fiscal deficit have not yet fully succeeded.'

The paper also warns that there continues to be a risk that the MoD's plans could be 'blown off course' if the cost of major programmes increases more sharply than planned.

'Three key projects, any one of which could pose substantial financial risks to the MoD, will be particularly important in this regard. These are the successor nuclear deterrent, the Joint Strike Fighter, and the Type-26 frigate. Of those projects still in the pre-Main Gate stage (i.e. without production contracts having been signed), these are the three with the largest projected budgets over the next decade.'

'The costs of major projects remain a major source of potential instability, with particular concerns over the looming costs of Trident renewal. Pressures to bear down on unit costs will continue to be difficult to reconcile with a diminishing number of front-line capabilities, each of which involves significant overhead expenditure.'

* Out of a projected £74 billion MoD 'funding gap' - the difference between actual budget and expenditure including maintenance of personnel and force levels - almost two-thirds (£47 billion) is a result of cuts in the MoD budget, including a real terms cut of 8.6 per cent between 2010/11 and 2014/15. The remainder (£27 billion) is a result of inherited commitments that were unaffordable even if the core budget had continued the rate of growth that it had enjoyed since 1999.

Click here for the full report (20 pages in PDF format) on the RUSI website.

http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/RUSIBriefingPaperSept2011.pdf

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

A|D|S chief: “the U.K. is heading in the wrong direction on Defense”


Ian Godden, Chairman A|D|S. Photo: A|D|S

Ian Godden, Chairman of the ADS Group promoting UK defense and aerospace industries, expressed his concern about further job losses that would follow the cuts recently announced due to both historical and recent cutbacks in defense spending. Godden warned that further layoffs of 20,000 – 30,000 skilled employees are at risk across the defense industry, jeopardizing the ability of the British industry to recoup and sustain its rank of the world’s second largest defense producer and exporter of £9.5 billion in 2010.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that the historic and current cuts to defense spending, which have been halved over 20 years from 10 per cent to 5 per cent, are beginning to take affect.” said Godden, “These cuts and their results are a matter of national interest and must be addressed before further impact is felt on our Armed Forces on the front line or the industrial base suffers further.” Despite the cuts made in past years, U.K. industries managed to expand in the global market, with the U.K maintaining its leading position as the largest defense manufacturer in Europe and second only to the U.S. in defense exports, with a 22 per cent market share. However, the recent cuts mandated by the Strategic Defense & Security Review (SDSR) are driving the larger industries to slow down and reduce costs, resulting in massive layoff. they also reduce subcontracting work outside the company, resulting in severe, if not lethal blows to many small and medium companies that provided the supply chain and expert skills for specific capabilities. Some of these specialists are lost for good. The loss of these skills, gained through years of hard work and investment, means that the U.K. will not be able to recover certain fields of activity once the economy improves. ”Rebalancing the economy towards high technology and advanced manufacturing with strong exports and support for SMES is a Government priority” Godden warned, “We are heading in the wrong direction on Defense – an industry which is 10 per cent of the UK’s manufacturing and engineering base, and is a world leading export-led industry with 3,000 SMEs – more than France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Norway together.”

“The 10 per cent cut in Government spending on Defense is already affecting an industry that supports 300,000 jobs – these cuts are estimated to lead to further losses of between 20 and 30,000 highly skilled UK jobs. These jobs are not focused in just one area, but are spread across the whole of the UK, frequently in areas where deprivation is already above the national average.” said Godden.

“It is possible that these jobs will be picked up in other growth sectors, such as aerospace that is sector which has demonstrated growth during the recession. In terms of exports aerospace is the most successful of UK’s manufacturing sectors, and presents the opportunity to create wealth and long term opportunities for an engineering workforce. This should not detract from the need to reinvest in defense that contributes considerably to the economy and equips our Armed Forces.”

ADS Group Limited (A|D|S) is the trade organisation advancing UK AeroSpace, Defense and Security industries, with Farnborough International Limited as a wholly-owned subsidiary. A|D|S also encompasses the British Aviation Group (BAG). It has been formed through the merger of the Association of Police and Public Security Suppliers (APPSS), the Defence Manufacturers Association (DMA) and the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC).

[Unicorn]

Idiot, he doesn't seem to want to understand that UK PLC is near bankrupt.

He is arguing for HM Government to continue to spend money it hasn't got to prop up the bloated defence industrial's.

Their inability to deliver on time and on budget has contributed to this mess, now they have to share the pain.

.

[buglerbilly]

I met him briefly a number of years ago............not a very memorable meeting.

[buglerbilly]

U.K. Report: Rewrite Single-Source Rulebook

By ANDREW CHUTER

Published: 10 Oct 2011 13:00

Britain's Ministry of Defence should scrap most of its existing single-source contracting rules and bring in a more incentivized system of delivering military capabilities, according to a report published by coalition government.


A conceptualization of the Queen Elizabeth-class carrier. The program was purchased as a single-source contract. (U.K. Ministry of Defence)

A rethink into the terms and conditions for the non-competitive deals struck between the MoD and industry that continue to dominate British defense procurement was ordered last year by the Conservative-led coalition, which said the rules were out of date and inefficient.

A lengthy list of recommendations have emerged from a team led by Lord Currie, the ex-chairman of U.K. media regulator Ofcom which sweep aside most of the regulations, may of which date back more than 40 years.

Included in the changes, the Currie report says, should be a program incentivizing efficiency, open book accounting, uniform reporting arrangements across projects and companies, a new system for overhead reporting and monitoring, and a better approach to the treatment of risk and return.

The report said that incentivizing efficiency was at the center of the review.

"Contractors need to be rewarded for driving down costs," the report said. "There needs to be sufficient financial reward for industry to deliver a good deal for the taxpayers."

Open book accounting and standardized reporting on contracts was vital if the MoD was to become an intelligent customer over time. Without such data, the report said, the aim would be beyond the department's grasp.

Not all current regulations should be scrapped. The report says it does not recommend moving away from the rule that requires the MoD to bear the cost of redundancies and restructuring resulting from program curtailment of cancellation.

Overall, though, the review said that radical change was needed to tackle the problems of the current regulations, known as the Yellow Book.

Included in these, the report says, is a "fundamental recasting of the Yellow Book regulations and arrangements to ensure that the necessary data is available to senior MoD decision-makers in a usable form; changes in MoD procurement processes; and a new mechanism replacing the existing Review Board for external assurance of compliances with the single source [regulation office] procurement regime that we propose."

The report calls for a radical overhaul of what it says was an inefficient system that had on occasions led to industry making inappropriate profits by the exploitation of the rules.

By contrast, the review says the MoD had over time reduced its ability to police the system by reducing financial analysis skills and often ignoring the advice of its in-house experts on single-source deals.

"The upshot of our analysis is that there have undoubtedly been inefficiencies in single-source MoD spending," the report says. "Part of that has arisen from inefficiencies on the side of industry and from skilful deployment of Yellow Book regulations to secure returns that, although within the regulations, have not been appropriate."

"Just as important have been the inefficiencies in the MoD procurement processes," the report says.

Single-source deals annually consume on average 40 percent, or 8.7 billion pounds ($13.6 billion), of the military's equipment and support expenditure.

Programs like the Type 45 destroyer and the CVF aircraft carrier program were purchased as single-source contracts.

An upcoming defense industrial policy white paper in the next few weeks is expected to outline Government moves to reduce the MoD's reliance on single-source contracts and move to a more competitive off-the-shelf procurement system.

Review of single-sourcing is part of sweeping changes to the acquisition process and the wider MoD structure proposed by the government in the face of heavy cuts to defense spending.

Peter Luff, the defence procurement minister, said it was clear the current arrangements, which are now more than 40 years old, were no longer fit for purpose.

"I welcome the report and its recommendations to deliver better value for money to the armed forces and the taxpayer … to examine the savings potential and the implementation of these recommendations I am launching an extensive consultation across industry and government," said Luff.

The defence minister reckoned the recommendations could eventually deliver savings of 200 million pounds a year.

The Currie report doesn't offer a view of potential savings but did say it could take up to 20 years to rid the MoD of its commitments under the current regulations.

The report sparked immediate criticism from industry.

One industry source, who asked not to be named, said that the Yellow Book arrangements already gave the MoD full visibility of contractor pricing and overhead rates prior to contract award on the principle of no agreed price no contract.

"What additional benefit MoD will gain from the so called Open Book arrangement or indeed what additional information contractors will be able to give MoD price investigators over and above that already made available to them during the pricing of contracts prior to award [is not clear]. Open Book is used as a project management tool post contract award and its benefit in setting prices prior to contract award is currently unclear," he said.

The executive said under Yellow Book the profit rate is set to give contractors a return equal to the average earned by companies registered in the UK.

"Transfer of responsibility for setting the profit rate, and determining the mechanism by which it is set, from the Review Board to the Single Source Regulation Office will create many uncertainties for industry. This is likely to take some time to establish and agree, and investment may suffer until a clear picture emerges," he said.

"Whatever mechanism is used to set the profit rate, it must provide contractors with a return that motivates them to remain as suppliers to MoD. Failure to do so may result in ministry losing access to key components and processes as suppliers quit the market for more profitable areas.

"The view of most in industry is that the best incentive is a fixed price and that target cost incentive fee (TCIF) arrangements often disincentives performance. The proposed changes to TCIF arrangements are welcomed, although this may be tempered by the detail of the new arrangements, which remain to be published."

[buglerbilly]

Army to pay civilian firm £1bn to recruit new soldiers

The Army is to pay a civilian firm £1 billion to recruit soldiers at the same time as it is making 20,000 troops redundant, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.


The Army is axing 12,000 soldiers in the next three years followed by a further 8,000 in 2020 Photo: REUTERS

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent

6:30AM BST 11 Oct 2011

Next year civilians will take over Army recruiting at a cost of £14,000 per soldier headhunted, equivalent to the salary of the most junior rank.

The decision has been described as “perverse” by serving officers who have been forced to sack 1,000 soldiers already this year.

The Ministry of Defence has put out a tender for civilian human resources and recruitment companies to bid for the contract.

Under the Recruiting Partnering Project, the contractor will receive £1 billion over the next decade in order to recruit 7,500 officers and men every year.

Officials at Army Land Command in Wiltshire claim that the deal will save the Service £250 million overall over a decade by removing well-paid senior NCOs and officers from backroom work “inputting data into computers”.

But one senior officer said the plan was “fraught with quite a few risks” as the Army is axing 12,000 soldiers in the next three years followed by a further 8,000 in 2020.

“I can see why people will see this as perverse when this amount is going into recruitment [at a time] when we are significantly reducing the Army,” said Col Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan.

He said the most effective recruiters were young soldiers who had served on operations.

“It would be a big mistake if that was ignored,” he said.

When civilians had been employed in recruiting in the past “it has not been a great success”, he added, although he admitted that the Army’s own recruitment programme was “not exactly a roaring success either”.

About 17,000 recruits a year go through training but, on average, only 9,000 pass out as fully trained soldiers.

The MoD believes that civilians will help it improve the quality of recruits, reducing the “wastage” of those dropping out during training.

It will also release soldiers involved in administrative tasks for frontline duties. There are several hundred officers and men recruiting in offices across the country.

The Army insists that uniformed soldiers will remain at the forefront of recruiting.

“Despite the redundancies we still have to recruit,” an Army source said.

“We just need to make recruitment more effective. At the moment we are recruiting the people we can recruit rather than the ones we want to recruit.”

It is understood that the RAF and Navy are making similar plans.

Air Commodore Andrew Lambert, of the UK National Defence Association, suggested that servicemen currently being made redundant would be taken on by the civilian firm for less money.

“I would also question whether this actually saves you money because, as with every other PFI, when the full costs are added up it doesn’t save you anything at all,” he said.

An Army spokesman said: “The project is an initiative to both meet the numbers we need, reduce the fallout rate in training and improve retention.

"The contract will modernise army recruiting and deliver savings in excess of £250 million over 10 years.”

[buglerbilly]

U.K. Defense Minister Resigns in 'Best Man' Scandal

By DANNY KEMP, Agence France-Presse

Published: 14 Oct 2011 18:14

Stupid is what stupid does..............no sympathy from me.........

LONDON - British Defence Secretary Liam Fox resigned Oct. 14 amid a spiraling scandal over his links to the best man at his wedding, becoming the first Conservative minister to quit the coalition government.


Defence Secretary Liam Fox arrives at the Ministry of Defence building Oct. 13 in London. Fox resigned Oct. 14 amid an inquiry into his close friend's access to the ministry's buildings and meetings. (Dan Kitwood / Getty Images)

Fox, who played a key role in Britain's military campaigns in Libya and Afghanistan, stepped down after it emerged that his friend Adam Werritty posed as a government adviser and took a string of foreign trips with the minister.

In his resignation letter to Prime Minister David Cameron, Fox admitted he had "mistakenly allowed the distinction between my personal interest and my government activities to become blurred".

"The consequences of this have become clearer in recent days," he said, adding: "I am very sorry for this."

Philip Hammond, the low-key Conservative former transport minister, was named as Fox's replacement.

Cameron said Fox had helped prevent Libyans being "massacred" by Moammar Gadhafi's forces and had done a "superb job" since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition came to power after last year's general election.

With rumors swirling about the nature of Fox's relationship with his 34-year-old former flatmate, Fox apologized to parliament this week and admitted Werritty had accompanied him on 18 foreign trips since he became minister, including a high-profile visit to Sri Lanka.

Werritty also visited Fox 22 times at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in London and carried business cards describing himself as Fox's adviser despite having no official government role.

But the killer blow came Oct. 14 with reports that financial backers linked to Israel and a private security firm had funded Werritty's first-class travel and hotel stays during his time with the minister.

Werritty was interviewed for a second time Oct. 14 by civil servants as part of an inquiry ordered by Cameron last week into whether Fox broke the ministerial code of conduct, a government source told AFP.

The results of the inquiry are expected next week.

Fox said in his letter to Cameron he had "repeatedly said that the national interest must always come before personal interest. I now have to hold myself to my own standard".

Cameron thanked Fox - Britain's sixth defense minister in ten years - for overseeing "fundamental changes" at the bloated MoD and in modernizing the armed forces as part of wider government cost-cutting.

"I understand your reasons for deciding to resign as defense secretary, although I am very sorry to see you go," the premier wrote.

"On Libya, you played a key role in the campaign to stop people being massacred by the Gadhafi regime and instead win their freedom."

But the main opposition Labour party said there were still questions to be answered.

"Throughout these events I haven't called for Liam Fox's resignation but just the full truth," said Labour's defense spokesman Jim Murphy.

"Governments must have rules and ministers must have standards. Liam Fox fell foul of the standards and he broke the rules."

Fox, who rose from humble beginnings on a Scottish social housing estate to become a doctor before entering politics, was one of the Conservative party's last heirs of hardline former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

He lost to Cameron in the 2005 party leadership election, but remained a strong voice for its eurosceptic, American-leaning right and the prime minister had apparently been loath to kick him out too soon.

Fox married his wife, Jesme Baird, the same year and Werritty was best man.

Pictures of the grinning pair in matching outfits have been splashed over the press.

Fox is the first Conservative minister to resign from the government and the second cabinet minister, following Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws.

Laws quit days after the election over claims that he fiddled his expenses.

The Guardian newspaper first raised questions about Fox's ties to Werritty in August and the scandal erupted earlier this week with fresh revelations about their travels together.

Then on Friday the Times reported that donors funneled £147,000 ($231,000, 167,000 euros) into a not-for-profit company set up by Werritty, called Pargav, to pay for his first class flights and upscale hotels.

Later Oct. 14 a venture capitalist, Jon Moulton, said Fox had personally approached him to donate to Pargav.

[buglerbilly]

New U.K. Defense Minister Has Tough Task

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Published: 14 Oct 2011 15:36

LONDON - Philip Hammond was named Britain's new defense minister Oct. 14 following the resignation of Liam Fox, officials said, taking on the challenge of two overseas conflicts and major budget cuts.


Secretary of State for Transport Philip Hammond, seen here at a Conservative Party Conference earlier this month, is the U.K's next defense minister. Former Defence Minister Liam Fox resigned Oct. 14. (Andrew Yates / AFP)

The 55-year-old Conservative lawmaker was appointed transport minister when the coalition government took office in May 2010, but has now been catapulted into one of the toughest cabinet jobs.

Downing Street confirmed his appointment at the Ministry of Defence, saying his position at the department of transport would be filled by Justine Greening, a junior finance minister.

Hammond comes from a business background and has not covered defense before, despite serving in numerous departments during the Conservative party's 13 years of opposition, which began as he entered the House of Commons in 1997.

The Oxford-educated father-of-three becomes Britain's seventh defense secretary in 10 years following Fox's resignation over his relationship with close friend Adam Werritty.

He takes over at an extremely sensitive time.

Britain has about 9,500 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led operation against the Taliban, although they are due to be withdrawn by 2015.

A further 2,000 British personnel are involved in the international mission in Libya designed to protect civilians from Moammar Gadhafi's forces.

"There are few more important jobs than secretary of state for defense, particularly when we've got our troops engaged on active service in two difficult campaigns," junior defence minister Peter Luff told the BBC earlier.

"Libya looks like it's winding down, thank heavens, after the actions there. But Afghanistan is still a very lively important theater where our very brave servicemen and women are risking everything still for queen and country."

Hammond now also has the job of implementing cuts to the defense budget of about 8 percent in real terms over the next four years, as part of the government's program of deficit reduction.

Fox fought hard to ensure the cuts were less than many other government departments, but he also displayed a determination to confront military top brass about years of mismanagement and overspending.

He had also begun a major reform of how defense is structured and managed that needs now to be pushed through, including shrinking the defense board that takes major decisions and creating a new joint forces command.

"Fundamentally you want a very good solid person in there, who is prepared to roll his sleeves up and get on with the detail," said Conservative lawmaker Bob Stewart, a former colonel in the British army.

Hammond was brought up in Essex, outside London, and attended a local school before studying philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.

He worked in a variety of business environments, including manufacturing, property and construction and oil and gas, before becoming an MP in 1997.

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

New U.K. Defense Secretary: Good or Bad News for U.K. Defense?

Posted by Robert Wall at 10/17/2011 8:56 AM CDT

The scandal-driven departure of Liam Fox as the U.K.'s defense secretary may have been all-but inevitable when it finally occurred late last week, but that will not make it any easier to take over the role for Philip Hammond, the new U.K. SecDef.

Hammond transfers from having run the Transport Department, where he has done little to impress when it comes to bold decision making, formulating an aviation policy, or devising an industrial policy. The latter, in particular, could be of concern to the U.K. defense and aerospace industry, as it waits for the Ministry of Defense to issue its industrial policy (the document was due before year-end prior to Fox's departure).

Hammond brings with him what could be political advantage over Fox. His predecessor was not particularly close to Prime Minister David Cameron, while Hammond is. The question is, will that be an asset or a drawback? Fox, at times, was willing to do battle with the Treasury to avoid MOD suffering even larger budget cuts than those already imposed. Whether Hammond will feel inclined to do the same or whether his loyalty resides entirely with the PM remains to be seen. The test case will likely be the PR12 planning round unfolding through April, where further budget cuts may loom.

Fox, for all his failings in keeping his private friendship and professional duties separated, was heavily invested in the far- reaching reform effort being put in place now within the MOD. Whether Hammond shares that conviction also is still undetermined.

MOD may be best served if Hammond tries to deviate as little as possible from what Fox has put in motion — letting the Peter Levene reform effort set in and letting Bernard Grey fix defense materiel management. But whether he will feel capable of doing so remains to be seen.

[buglerbilly]

Analysis: the UK MoD's revolving door

By Guy Anderson, Editor, Nicholas de Larrinaga and Matthew Bell, Jane's Defence Industry Reporters

10/18/2011

The resignation of Liam Fox and the immediate selection of transport minister Philip Hammond on 14 October as UK defence secretary marks the sixth change at the helm of the ministry since 2005.

The past five incumbents have averaged just under 16 months in office, with Fox's tenure of 18 months by no means unusual.

The revolving-door approach taken to the leadership of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been replicated across the UK government. Hammond's departure from the Department for Transport marks the seventh change in leadership over the same period, while the Department of Work and Pensions and the Scotland Office have notched up six and seven incumbents respectively.

The question facing the UK defence sector is whether the replacement of Fox will mark a change of direction for the MoD. Earlier indications are that the reforms commenced by Fox - underpinned by the October 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) - will continue their course. This is not least because many of the hard decisions have already been taken and driven through by Fox and the margin for change has been drastically reduced by fiscal constraints.

Equipment and platform programmes valued at GBP20 billion (USD30.5 billion) have already been culled or drastically truncated: 17,000 service personnel and 25,000 ministry civilians have been earmarked for redundancy and overall defence spending is heading to a reduction of at least 8 per cent from 2010-14. Furthermore, the MoD has made it clear that off-the-shelf procurement will be a "default position".

There are, in short, few options for substantial deviation from this course.

263 of 882 words

[buglerbilly]

Philip Hammond warned that military is 'critically ill'

The Armed Forces remain “critically ill” and recent proposals amount to “little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic”, an adviser to the Ministry of Defence has warned.


The Army is losing 12,000 of its 102,000 posts Photo: PA

By Robert Winnett, Political Editor

9:00PM GMT 31 Oct 2011

Philip Hammond, the newly appointed Defence Secretary, was urged to reopen last year’s Strategic Defence Review.

The recommendations were made in an open letter from Prof Andrew Dorman, who lectures at the Joint Services Command. Professor Dorman, who also holds a senior post at Nato, advised Mr Hammond to use the “political capital” he has in his new post to push for reforms.

He wrote: “The financial position of the department has not been resolved. For example, for all the promises of culling senior officer numbers your predecessor merely announced the appointment of a further four-star post, the new Joint Force Commander, but has failed to implement any of the suggested reductions.

“If you chose to leave things as they stand then you merely get to oversee a series of bloody annual spending rounds in which you will have to make unpopular choices and be blamed for them.”

He said the minister’s second choice was “to accept that the defence patient remains critically ill and the treatment so far administered has been remedial but not sufficient”.

Last year, the Government conducted a major review of defence spending, which will save billions of pounds. HMS Ark Royal and Harrier jets will be scrapped and Britain will be left without a working aircraft carrier until 2020.

The Army is currently in the process of shedding 12,000 of its 102,000 posts and experts believe that as many as eight battalions could cease to exist.

However, even these widespread cuts are not thought to go far enough and further annual reductions are expected to tackle a multi-billion pound black-hole in the defence budget.

Several senior Tory MPs and the Labour Party have said the Strategic Defence and Security Review should be revisited in the light of events in the Middle East.

Prof Dorman said that the Libyan campaign, which Nato yesterday announced was finished, should be used as “camouflage” by Mr Hammond to reopen the defence review.

Prof Dorman added: “The key with all this is to make the decisions early because time is not on your side.”

Prof Dorman, writing in a personal capacity, made 10 recommendations including using the international aid budget to pay for more defence projects and “declaring” military support for the Olympics in London next year as a way of receiving additional funding.

He also outlined detailed proposals to cut the number of senior officers and called for a reduction in the number of defence ministers.

Mr Hammond, the former transport secretary, was appointed last month to replace Liam Fox who resigned amid a scandal over his unofficial adviser.

Mr Hammond, a former shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, may be sympathetic to calls for further cuts and is likely to increase pressure on the MoD to reduce waste and bureaucracy.

Publicly, both the MoD and Downing Street have insisted the review will not be reopened. But some insiders have insisted that changes will almost certainly have to be made because the MoD’s 2011-12 budget allocation is about £1 billion short of the department’s commitments.

The Ministry of Defence has scrapped nearly £1 billion of spare equipment. The Royal Navy alone disposed of £570 million worth of material, Peter Luff, the defence minister, has disclosed in response to a written parliamentary question.

[buglerbilly]

UK's National Security Policy 'Mismatched' with New Threats

(Source: British Forces Broadcasting Service; posted Nov. 3, 2011)

Defence and security experts believe Britain's national security policy is mismatched with the new threats being faced.

The survey by the Royal United Services Institute of 1,543 people, found 59% judged that it was not "appropriate to the geopolitical challenges the country faces".

It also suggested a large majority (68%) believed the decision to axe Britain's aircraft carriers looked increasingly wrong and just 12% agreed that the NATO-led intervention in Libya "validated" cuts in the Strategic Defence and Security Review.

David Cameron recently attacked "armchair generals" who wrongly warned the Libya campaign could not be mounted without sea-borne jets.

Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy described the findings as a "devastating assessment of the Government's record on defence.

"Events have exposed the flaws of a rushed review. Experts have little confidence in the Government's ability to tackle today's challenges," he said.

But a Ministry of Defence spokesman said Libya had shown the UK remained able to "project air power around the world with great effect and at very short notice.

"Difficult decisions had to be taken to deal with the MOD's financial blackhole but we are moving towards an enhanced future carrier strike capability with the new Joint Strike Fighter arriving at the same time as the next generation of aircraft carriers.

"This is part of £150 billion that will be invested in new equipment over the next decade."

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

UK troops to withdraw from Germany by end of decade under MoD plans

Under proposals accelerated by defence cuts, troops will return to the UK 15 years earlier than first planned

Nick Hopkins

The Guardian, Thursday 10 November 2011


UK troops rehearse for a parade in Paderborn, Germany. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA Archive/Press Association Ima

The UK military's long march out of Germany begins on Thursday when the Ministry of Defence announces details of a pullout that will eventually cover all 20,000 British troops there.

Under the plans, 1,800 will leave by next January, and then there will be a steady return home of another 8,200 by 2015. The rest will be back in the UK before the end of the decade – 15 years earlier than first proposed.

The pullout has been accelerated as part of the cuts announced in last year's Strategic Defence and Security Review, which was an attempt to streamline the armed forces at a time when billions were being taken out of the defence budget.

The British bases in Germany still represent the biggest deployment of UK forces overseas. With civilians, families and children, the British contingent in the country stands at more than 43,000.

The plans are likely to provoke fresh concern – here and in Germany – about the consequences.

A Whitehall source said: "This is the start of a process that will lead to all British troops leaving Germany by 2020. It is the end of an era that began at the end of second world war and lasted through the cold war."

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, of the Royal United Services Institute thinktank, said: "It has been 30 years since the end of the cold war, and it is arguable that there has been no real role for our forces in Germany since then, although there was uncertainty about what would happen in the years thereafter. This is symbolic. We will be returning to a time when all our armed forces are based in the UK. It may make us appear rather separate from our European allies. That is something we need to look out for."

As part of a major strategic announcement, the MoD will also announce what will happen to the main UK bases in Germany. The Trenchard Barracks in Celle and Münster station will be handed back to the German authorities, and Rheindahlen Military Complex will be closed. Some army units in Cyprus will also be brought back to the UK. The Waterbeach Barracks in Cambridgeshire will be sold.

A restructuring of the hierarchy of the army's regional brigades and divisions will also be outlined, including the closure of regional headquarters in Edinburgh, Shrewsbury and Aldershot – to be replaced by a new HQ in Aldershot, which will be operational by January next year. It will mean civilian and military job losses, but defence officials say this will also save £19m from the budget.

Chalmers said that the pullout in Germany might not have been possible without the decision by Liam Fox, the former defence secretary, to further reduce the overall size of the army to 82,000 from more than 100,000.

"The MoD didn't have the money to bring them back and find places for them to go to. But now that army numbers have been cut further, they will be able to relocate people from Germany at a time when overall numbers are being cut. We weren't able to do this before because of the extra capital costs, but that has changed."

While the case for keeping the bases in Germany was receding all the time, Chalmers said that the pullout would put extra pressure on military families.

Two former RAF bases have been refurbished for the regiments returning to the UK: RAF Cottesmore in Rutland, and RAF Kinloss on the Moray Firth.

In the first tranche of the pullout, the 620 strong 2nd Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment will go to Cottesmore next year, where they will be joined by 7 Regiment the Royal Logistic Corps, which is currently based in Bielefeld, in north-west Germany.

The withdrawal of British forces has disappointed locals in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, where British forces are said to contribute an estimated €1.3bn (£1.1bn) to the economy.

Earlier this year, Rainer Prokop, the mayor of Bergen, a town near the Bergen-Hohne training area, told The Local website: "This is the most severe upheaval for us since the second world war. The British live among us, they are a part of everything here."

He also estimated the town's population would drop by a third once the UK troops left and that between 20% and 40% of local business could go bust.

MoD to announce withdrawal of the following units

43 Close Support Squadron RLC will move from Gütersloh, Germany, to Abingdon, Oxfordshire to collocate with its parent Regiment (12 Logistic Support Regiment) by the end of January 2012.

7 Regiment Royal Logistic Corps (RLC) will move from Bielefeld in Germany to RAF Cottesmore by summer 2013.

2nd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment (2 R ANGLIAN) to move from Cyprus to RAF Cottesmore in Rutland in July 2012.

2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment (2 YORKS) to move from Cyprus to Elizabeth Barracks, Pirbright in July 2013.

39 Engineer Regiment (Air Support) will move from Waterbeach near Cambridge to Kinloss in the summer of 2012,

HQ 12 (Air Support) Engineer Group will move from Waterbeach to RAF Wittering in the summer of 2013.

[buglerbilly]

The official announcement on this................

First tranche of Army unit moves confirmed

A Defence Policy and Business news article

10 Nov 11

As part of the first tranche of Army unit moves confirmed by the MOD today as part of the Defence Rebasing Programme, 1,800 troops based in Germany will from January 2012 be brought back to the UK.

In addition, Army units will move from Cyprus while others will move location within the UK earlier than planned. This includes troops moving into former RAF bases at Cottesmore and Kinloss.

This rebasing follows the Ministry of Defence announcement in October 2010, as part of the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), of its aim to return half of its personnel currently based in Germany to the UK by 2015 and the remainder by 2020.

Today's announcement also sets out how the Army is restructuring its regional divisions and brigades.

It is estimated that the rebasing of troops from Germany will save the MOD £250m a year - the additional cost of having the Army in Germany.

Bringing the forces currently based in Germany back to the UK will contribute around £650m per year to the UK economy, as wages are spent in the UK instead of in Germany.

These basing decisions followed on from the SDSR and were announced in July 2011 as part of the MOD's transformation programme. The Army regiments moving location over the next few years are:

- 2nd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment (2 R ANGLIAN) to move from Cyprus to Cottesmore in Rutland in July 2012.

- 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment (2 YORKS) to move from Cyprus to Elizabeth Barracks, Pirbright, in July 2013.

- 7 Regiment Royal Logistic Corps (RLC) will move from Bielefeld in Germany to Cottesmore by Summer 2013.

- 39 Engineer Regiment (Air Support) will move from Waterbeach near Cambridge to Kinloss in the summer of 2012, and HQ 12 (Air Support) Engineer Group will move from Waterbeach to RAF Wittering in the summer of 2013.

- 43 Close Support Squadron RLC will move from Gütersloh in Germany to Abingdon in Oxfordshire to colocate with its parent regiment (12 Logistic Support Regiment) by the end of January 2012.

These moves mean Waterbeach Barracks will be sold and Trenchard Barracks (Celle) and Münster Station will be handed back to the German authorities, enabling the closure of Rheindahlen Military Complex.

Troop numbers in Cyprus will remain unchanged as 2 R ANGLIAN and 2 YORKS are being replaced by other infantry battalions.

Further reductions will result from a full basing estimate presently being conducted by the Army into its future force structures.

The moves will see the Army take over Kinloss earlier than the intended date of 2014/15 and will see the number of Service personnel in Scotland maintained.

The Army has also confirmed today that it is restructuring its regional divisions and brigades. Under Project Avanti, the Army is replacing its three UK divisional headquarters in Edinburgh, Shrewsbury and Aldershot with a single Headquarters Support Command in Aldershot.

The decision was taken as part of the Strategic Defence and Security Review announced in October 2010.

The new HQ Support Command in Aldershot will begin operation in January 2012 when HQ 4th Division in Aldershot will disband.

HQ 2nd Division in Edinburgh and HQ 5th Division in Shrewsbury will both disband by April 2012, although some tasks will continue until at least August 2012 when HQ Support Command should be fully operational.

Despite the closure of HQ 2nd Division in Edinburgh, the Army will retain a General Officer Commanding (GOC) Scotland with the minimum of staff, which maintains the level of senior representation in Scotland to oversee the rebasing changes.

In addition, the Army intends to relocate HQ 1 (UK) Armoured Division, currently based in Germany, to Scotland by 2020, which would take over the GOC Scotland role.

General Sir Peter Wall, Chief of the General Staff, said:

"Following direction delivered in the 2010 SDSR and the three-month exercise, the Army is making significant progress in meeting its obligations.

"The new basing arrangements being announced today allow the Army to reinforce vital links with local communities in the UK, as well as continuing to provide a high level of support to our soldiers and their families.

"This will include working closely with our counterparts in the RAF to maintain the links they have established as we replace them in some locations.

"The establishment of a UK Support Command via the restructuring of the Army's regional footprint provides an excellent opportunity to deliver efficiencies whilst sustaining the Army's support to the civil authorities, and maintaining current front line and operational commitments.

"This is but one step in a series of changes to modernise the Army, as there will be more announcements of this sort to come."

Minister for the Armed Forces, Nick Harvey, said:

"The Defence Transformation announcement in July 2011 identified a number of key objectives, including the long-term plan to bring the Army back from Germany, a basing laydown for the RAF and the Royal Navy, the sale of sites no longer required, and the plan to place Army units in Kinloss by 2014/15.

"These announcements demonstrate the Government and Army is taking forward this programme for change.

"This programme will ensure that fit-for-purpose infrastructure is in place to support both military operations and Service personnel and their families. These preliminary moves will also ensure any gap in occupation of the sites at Kinloss and Cottesmore is kept to a minimum.

"The strategic objective remains to deliver a coherent and affordable Defence capacity in 2020 and beyond."

Background

The Army basing moves in full are:

- 2 R ANGLIAN to move from Cyprus to Cottesmore in Rutland in July 2012, rather than moving to Trenchard Barracks, Celle, as originally planned. This allows the closure of Trenchard Barracks which will be handed back to the German authorities. It will see the move of some 620 Service personnel and their families into Cottesmore.

- 2 YORKS will move from Cyprus to Elizabeth Barracks, Pirbright, in July 2013, rather than moving to Münster Station in Germany. This allows for the closure of Münster Station. This move will see around 620 Service personnel and their families move into Pirbright.

- 7 Regiment RLC will move from Bielefeld in Germany to Cottesmore. This enables the move of HQ British Forces Germany from Rheindahlen to Bielefeld, and the closure of Rheindahlen Military Complex from 2014/15. This move will see some 450 Service personnel and their families in Cottesmore by Summer 2013.

39 Engineer Regiment (Air Support) will move from Waterbeach near Cambridge to Kinloss in the summer of 2012, and HQ 12 (Air Support) Engineer Group will move from Waterbeach to RAF Wittering in the summer of 2013, enabling the closure of Waterbeach Barracks by December 2013. 25 Engineer Regiment, also based at Waterbeach, will be disbanded as a savings measure by no later than 31 May 2012. Two of its squadrons (34 Field Squadron and 53 Field Squadron) will become part of 39 Engineer Regiment and move to Kinloss. This sees the move of some 930 Service personnel and their families to Kinloss, and 44 Service personnel and their families to Wittering.

43 Close Support Squadron RLC will move from Gütersloh in Germany to Abingdon in Oxfordshire to colocate with its parent regiment (12 Logistic Support Regiment) by the end of January 2012. This will affect around 120 Service personnel and their families. This move enables the closure of Rheindahlen Military Complex.

The ten regional brigade headquarters and HQ London District will begin restructuring in January 2012 which will be completed by 31 March 2013. The Project Avanti restructuring proposals should save £19m in terms of military and civilian post reductions.

The Services are working with the Defence Infrastructure Organisation to develop the detailed plans needed to deliver these facilities and the MOD will be consulting with local planning authorities.

[buglerbilly]

MInisters clash with Labour over armed forces

Ministers have clashed with Labour over the armed forces in a series of rows which cast a shadow over Remembrance weekend.


The Sunday Telegraph has established that up to 2,000 British troops will remain in Afghanistan for at least 20 years helping to train the country's new army Photo: EPA

By Sean Rayment and Patrick Hennessy

9:00PM GMT 12 Nov 2011

Philip Hammond, the new Defence Secretary, used his first newspaper interview to tell The Sunday Telegraph that Labour had "failed" the military in Iraq and Afghanistan during its years in power.

In a highly political intervention on his first trip to Afghanistan he said Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's governments had not supplied proper equipment - whether helicopters or body armour - to forces on the front line.

Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, hit back by accusing ministers of bringing in a policy of "strategic shrinkage" of the armed forces as a memo outlining potentially even more army redundancies surfaced.

The row came as the country remember fallen soldiers, a weekend which is usually marked by political unity. Ministers had intended to highlight fresh efforts to honour the service of the Armed Forces with measures on housing for veterans.

Meanwhile, The Sunday Telegraph has established that up to 2,000 British troops will remain in Afghanistan for at least 20 years helping to train the country's new army.

The official pull-out date for all serving UK personnel remains 2014 - but troops will remain to train a generation of future Afghan commanders to British Army standards to help prevent the country falling back into the clutches of the Taliban.

The commitment is far more long-lasting and much larger than has ever been publicly discussed by ministers and will be made next month at a conference on the future of Afghanistan.

The development came as Mr Hammond said that Nato and the Afghans must negotiate with the Taliban to broker a peace deal, describing the insurgency as being "on the back foot".

He said Britain's commitment to Afghanistan would be long and enduring, adding: "We are very clear that the international community is not going to abandon Afghanistan."

But he made a significant political intervention with an attack on Labour's handling of the forces.

"It is clear there was a period of time when kit was available at a time when the country had the money to buy it, there was no question of financial crisis at that time, and yet the equipment and kit wasn't bought and that is extremely regrettable and the armed forces were let down by the Labour government," he said.

"There is an obligation, when you put people in harm's way, that as soon as you possibly can to get the right equipment helicopters, body armour and armoured vehicles, to them and Labour regrettably failed to do this.

"We asked our servicemen and women to take huge risks; we ask them to be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and the moral obligation in those circumstances is to provide them with the best kit available and which is fit for purpose for the job they are doing."

Ministers were forced on the back foot, however, by a leaked memo which suggested suggesting injured soldiers could lose their jobs as part of a major new unannounced round of cutbacks.

The document suggests 2,500 wounded personnel could go as part of 16,500 Army job losses by 2015 - up from 12,000.

The Ministry of Defence insisted the contents of the memo - written by a captain and circulated to fellow officers in Afghanistan - were not correct and that no more jobs were expected to be lost from the Army on top of the 12,000 already planned.

However, the officer in charge of planning the future force of the army said it was prepared by one of his team as part of efforts to work out how to meet the Government's requirement of slashing Army numbers.

However, Mr Murphy said the government's "strategic shrinkage" of the armed forces was "being done by stealth", saying that if wounded soldiers were made redundant it would be "the cruellest cut".

He added: "No-one should be sacked because they are seriously injured while defending our country. This weekend is about remembrance not argument.

"The government should be doing everything in its power to support people in to new roles in the forces, in the MoD or to a new career outside of defence."

The row came as Grant Shapps, the housing minister, confirmed plans to make sure service personnel are given top priority for council housing when they retire in a "positive discrimination" move.

Ministers have also struck a deal with Experian, the credit agency, to make it easier for soldiers to obtain home loans and are to invest £16million extra in a fund for injured retiring troops.

In yet another move to boost the military, Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, is to announce £1.5 additional funding to support the "successful integration" of retired Gurkha soldiers and their dependants.

The money - to be paid over two years - will help ease the exceptional pressures on Rushmoor Borough Council, Hampshire which has seen a large number of Gurkha ex-servicemen and their dependents arrive in Aldershot and Farnborough.

The plan for a large presence of British troops in Afghanistan after 2014 is part of a raft of proposals to be announced at the Bonn conference on Afghanistan next month when western governments will out-line proposals for the long-term future of the country.

Mr Hammond said in his interview: "I don't have a number of how many British troops will remain after 2014, that is a study that ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) is doing. Troop levels will be based on Afghan needs."

This newspaper has learned, however, that current estimates suggest that at least 1,000 instructors will be needed to run and administer the academy while another 1,000 troops will be involved in other training and mentoring roles.

The Defence Secretary said that the Academy would be run along the same lines as the world renowned Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and would be staffed by British troops.

Mr Hammond also said that it was vital that the west and the Afghan took a "mature approach" when negotiating with the Taliban.

However, he added: "Negotiating with the Taliban must be done from a position of strength. Negotiating from a position of weakness would be a disaster.

"Nobody must ever think of this as being a measure of failure or abandoning the sacrifices which have been made."

[buglerbilly]

Harrier fleet sold to US military

Fighter planes controversially scrapped last year reported to have been bought by United States marine corps

Nick Hopkins

The Guardian, Wednesday 16 November 2011


Harrier jump jets were scrapped under last year’s defence review. The United States military has bought the entire fleet. Photograph: Ministry Of Defence/PA

The UK's biggest military projects are more than £6bn over budget, and are suffering from further delays despite attempts to bring them under stricter control, according to the government spending watchdog.

The National Audit Office report also states that the UK faces a potential shortage of attack submarines because of cost-cutting decisions taken in last year's strategic defence and security review.

In a 70-page study, the NAO says the total cost of 15 equipment programmes has reached £59.6bn, and that – on average – they will be 30 months late into service. The watchdog says the MoD is still reeling from mistakes made more than a decade ago, but concedes that the department is slowly bringing things under control.

Margaret Hodge, the chair of the public accounts committee, described the overspend as "shocking", and said that "delaying projects and reducing what they deliver is not a sensible way to invest in defence".

The NAO sets out continuing attempts by the MoD to bring down spiralling costs on projects that include the construction of seven Royal Navy Astute class submarines, the RAF's Typhoon fast jets, and updates designed to breathe new life into older equipment.

The MoD had forecast the total overall costs for these projects would be £53.5bn, but that has now been revised to £59.6bn.

Though most of this increase could be blamed on delays and problems from before last year's strategic defence and security review (SDSR) , the costs still rose by almost £500m over the last 12 months.

The report says that if the MoD had not made efforts to bring its ballooning budget under control, the total overspend might have been closer to £20bn.

The chaotic Astute submarine programme is singled out in the NAO report. Initially, eight of the attack submarines were due to be built, but that was cut to seven because of costs, and the programme has now been delayed so that the last of the boats will not be in service until 2024 – almost three years late.

Slowing down the production of the submarines by 13 months has added almost £1bn to the cost of the programme, which would have paid for the eighth boat, the NAO report states. The delay will also affect operations, it adds.

"Building seven Astute boats and slowing down the build programme risks having insufficient submarines to undertake the number of tasks envisaged by defence plans," the report says.

"The [MoD] is currently reporting that the fleet will not meet the availability requirement for submarines over part of the next decade."

The department has not found a way of making up for the decision to scrap the disastrous Nimrod surveillance aircraft programme, which was eight years late and £800m over budget.

The watchdog says many of the current ideas have short-comings.

Other projects that have been delayed include a 12-month postponement of the Watchkeeper plane – a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), commonly known as a drone.

If all the delays on the 15 projects were added together, they would extend to more than 26 years, the study says.

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said the MoD had been "hampered by a legacy of poor planning and performance on some past projects, and the resulting cuts and delays are not value for money". "But it is welcome news that the MoD has finally accepted that the financial position it is in is serious and is actively working towards balancing its books in the longer term."

The defence secretary, Philip Hammond, said the MoD had made progress and was now "balancing its books".

"We have got a grip on the equipment programme through the difficult decisions taken in the SDSR. The trend of vast cost increases seen under the last government has been halted."

Hammond said that the NAO was wrong to state that the overspend could have paid for an eighth Astute submarine, but admitted the MoD still had much to do to give taxpayers value for money.

The MoD also disputes that the delay to the Astute programme will lead to a capability gap. Ministers believe they can synchronise the retirement of older submarines with the launch of the new ones.

Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, said the defence review "has left some serious holes in our military capability. Worryingly, the NAO says we will have insufficient numbers of submarines for operations.

"We need a new defence industrial strategy which builds equipment to fit requirements, has tough targets on time and cost for industry and ensures greater accountability and expertise within the MoD."

ANYBODY in the UK Labour Party should keep thier uneducated traps shut about Defence matters, the current mess is 90% their direct responsibility allied to the 10% the current lot have added to the mix with their precipitous, and misguided in many areas, Strategic Defence Review...............

[buglerbilly]

Defence secretary to warn armed forces of more pain in coming years

Philip Hammond's first major speech will tell military of plans to eliminate 'black hole' in defence budget

Nick Hopkins

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 December 2011 00.00 GMT


The defence secretary, Philip Hammond. Photograph: Sang Tan/AP

The defence secretary will on Thursday warn the military that there is likely to be more pain for the armed forces as the Ministry of Defence struggles to cut costs and reform itself over the coming years.

In his first major speech, Philip Hammond is expected to say that "eliminating the black hole in the defence budget is the only way to sustain military capability over the long term."

"If we don't reshape now we won't be in a position to order new equipment in the future," he will say. "Our challenge is to move from the fantasy budgets of the past to firm foundations for the future. This is a transition that is essential to the future of defence – but no-one should be under any illusion that it will be easy or pain-free."

Hammond will be speaking at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank seven weeks after he succeeded Liam Fox as defence secretary. He is not expected to change the course of radical reform set by Fox, who pushed through last year's Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) and endorsed a sweeping redundancy programme that will see up to 60,000 civilian and military posts being axed.

Like Fox, he will blame the previous government for the MoD's financial predicament. "Labour ministers were ordering equipment they had no money for and forced the military to live a hand to mouth existence. As the budget spiralled out of control, and as the room for manoeuvre on individual projects was constrained by contractual arrangements, decisions were increasingly taken on the basis of in-year cash management not on military priority."

Hammond will say he will not allow the MoD to "remove critical skills and capabilities that are irrecoverable … we will not carelessly throw away core competencies that may be essential to our defence in the future. But let's be under no illusions. Unpicking the SDSR piece by piece is simply not an option."

Hammond will claim that the final cost of the Libya operation will be £212m – less than Treasury estimates made earlier this year. Some experts have, however, cast doubt on the official sums. In his own study, the defence analyst Francis Tusa has claimed the government's figures are heroic underestimates.

Speaking at the defence select committee on Wednesday, Hammond said he was attempting to look in detail at all the major decisions made by Fox. He acknowledged that he hadn't had time to look at them all – including the costly decision to change the design of one of the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers to take the US-made Joint Strike Fighters.

He also stepped in to defuse a row between veterans of the second world war Arctic convoys and the junior defence minister Andrew Robathan.

Some of the veterans were enraged when Robathan seemed to dismiss their claims for a separate military medal recognising their services.

In a debate on Tuesday at Westminster Hall, Robathan appeared to say the UK didn't want to become like authoritarian regimes which "often throw medals around".

He said: "Medals in the UK mean something, and we pay tribute to the people in the public gallery who are showing the medals that they won through risk and rigour. Authoritarian regimes and dictators, such as Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, often throw medals around. North Korean generals are covered with medal ribbons. We have traditionally taken the view in this country … that medals will be awarded only for campaigns that show risk and rigour."

When he was challenged about the remarks, he apologised, but that did not stop some veterans calling for him to be sacked.

Hammond told the committee that he "deeply regretted" any offence that had been caused.

"I don't think he meant to cause offence. It was an unfortunate juxtaposition. These are people that performed with incredible bravery. If any offence has been caused then I deeply regret that. I am sure that the parliamentary under-secretary deeply regrets it as well."

[buglerbilly]

U.K. Defense Gear Boost Still on Track: Hammond

By ANDREW CHUTER

Published: 8 Dec 2011 11:31

LONDON - New British Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond says he has received assurances from the Treasury that a promised increase in equipment spending beyond 2015 will go ahead, despite the recent downturn in economic fortunes.

Hammond said the chief secretary of the Treasury had confirmed the government's commitment to increase the equipment budget by 1 percent a year in real terms between 2015 and 2020. This came in the wake of the chancellor's Nov. 29 announcement that Britain's financial austerity measures and poor growth were likely to continue longer than originally expected.

In an unusual step, the Treasury agreed midyear to raise equipment budgets by more than 3 billion pounds ($4.7 billion) even though budgets will not be allocated for other departments for several years.

The additional cash, if it survives any further government economic setbacks, will help the British restructure their military in a program known as Future Force 2020. No such commitment to increased spending has been given for other elements of a defense budget that continues to face huge pressure as a result of budget cuts.

In a Dec. 8 speech to the Royal United Services Institute here, Hammond also said it is unclear whether the Ministry of Defence would get caught up in a new round of public spending cuts going out two years further than planned, to 2017. The speech was Hammond's first major address since being appointed defense secretary following Liam Fox's resignation in late October.

The defense secretary said the allocation of cuts to individual government departments had not yet been decided, and that it is "premature to talk about what, if any, impact this will have on defense."

In his economic forecast to Parliament Nov. 29, known as the Autumn statement, Chancellor George Osborne said he would have to cut 15 billion more pounds than forecast from public spending by 2017.

Hammond also told the RUSI audience that a delayed government white paper on defense industrial policy would be published "very shortly."

The defense secretary wouldn't be drawn on whether that would be before the end of the year, but industry executives here said they had heard it could be as early as next week.

The policy would be a key part of the overall equation to bring the defense budget back into balance, Hammond said.

In part, he said, it is about retaining key competencies to secure national sovereignty, being able to regenerate capabilities in the future, if necessary, as well as enabling the government to retain a position at the military's top table as a serious partner.

"Equally clear, the purpose of the defense budget is not to provide an open-ended subsidy to British industry," Hammond said. "So it's about balance. We have made it clear that where we can buy things off the shelf, where critical issues of national sovereignty and operational advantage are not at stake, we will seek to procure in ways that are most efficient.

"Defense has to learn the concept of efficiency in the way other Whitehall departments have," he said. "There is a tendency in defense to assume that if you reduce the budget, you have to give something up. Other departments are learning what industry and commerce have understood for 20 years, that when budgets are reduced, you have to work harder to maintain the same output; that is called efficiency."

But with the government looking to balance the economy more toward manufacturing and away from the dominance of the finance sector, Hammond said the white paper would address the issue of cross-departmental support for the defense industry here.

While it was a legitimate charge on the defense budget to protect core capabilities and the essential freedom of operations, he said, there is a wider challenge relating to the support of U.K. industry.

"The white paper will set out our plans for more effective cross-government collaboration around this challenge involving the Business [Department], the MoD, Treasury and others," he said.

Hammond's speech also revealed that the cost of British military operations against the Libyan government of Col. Moammar Gadhafi totaled 212 million pounds.

The cost of replenishing weapons, primarily the Paveway IV and Dual Mode Brimstone, totaled 67 million pounds.

Hammond also announced the end of a Royal Navy rule that women cannot serve on submarines. He said that starting in late 2013, female officers would serve on Vanguard-class nuclear missile submarines, followed by rating in 2015.

[buglerbilly]

'Top Heavy' MOD to Cull Senior Officers

(Source: British Forces Broadcasting Corp.; posted Dec. 19, 2011)

Will anybody know the difference?

More than 700 jobs could be axed in the Ministry of Defence over the next three years, because the department has too many senior staff.

According to a report leaked in today's Guardian, Rear Admirals, Major Generals and Air Vice-Marshals are all at risk in a bid to reign in the department's budget.

The document is titled "Defence Reform - Liability Review" and has been written by the MOD's Director General of Transformation and Strategy Jonathan Slater.

According to the Guardian's, it states: "The perception, both within and beyond the department, that defence is bureaucratic and top heavy must be addressed. It undermines the confidence of our own staff, Parliament, the public and media, and has a detrimental impact on the delivery of front line and other defence outposts.

"Put simply, the size of the defence workforce has fallen over recent decades, but reductions in the numbers of leaders has not kept pace . . . the UK has a higher proportion of senior officers than the majority of our allies."

Royal Navy captains, Army colonels and RAF group captains are among the 3,620 midal-ranking civil servants and military officers facing a redcution down to 2,724 by 2020.

In a statement the MOD said: "The current redundancy programme will reduce the number of service personnel , both officers and junior ranks, to ensure the Armed Forces are structured to best meet current and emerging threats. The defence reform unit is conducting a review of senior officer posts to ensure the services are top top heavy."

-ends-

AND here is the article...............

Bonfire of the generals as 'top heavy' MoD cuts jobs

Exclusive: 700 top posts to be axed in next three years, confidential document shows

Read the leaked MoD document

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2011/dec/18/ministry-defence-reform-liability-review

Nick Hopkins

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 18 December 2011 19.09 GMT


The Royal Navy as well as the army and RAF will see cuts throughout its ranks, according to a confidential document leaked to the Guardian. Photograph: MoD/PA

The Ministry of Defence has become so "top heavy" with senior ranking officers and civil servants that it will have to axe more than 700 top posts in the next three years, and another 335 before 2020, according to a confidential document leaked to the Guardian.

The cull will include rear admirals, major generals and air vice-marshals, as well as scores of more junior officers, such as captains and colonels, and civilians of similar seniority.

The scale of the cuts needed to balance the budget is set out in a document prepared by Jonathan Slater, the director general of transformation and strategy within the MoD.

Slater sets out why the department has become so bloated in recent years and urges quick action to address the problem. The leaked document, titled Defence Reform – Liability Review, was sent to senior officials last month and is unusually blunt in tone.

"The simple truth is that the defence senior cadre is larger than we can afford, is judged to be out of proportion with a reducing manpower base and also with modern working practices and societal tolerances."

It adds: "The perception, both within and beyond the department, that defence is bureaucratic and top heavy must be addressed. It undermines the confidence of our own staff, parliament, the public and media, and has a detrimental impact on the delivery of frontline and other defence outputs.

"Put simply, the size of the defence workforce has fallen over recent decades, but reductions in the numbers of leaders has not kept pace … the UK has a higher proportion of senior officers than the majority of our allies."

The document says the size of the most senior cadre within the MoD – one star and above – has risen by a third since 1990, and states there are too many layers in the present structures. "There is an urgent need to reduce our manpower costs … reductions must be reflected at all levels of the hierarchy," it adds.

Slater sets out some of the ideas the army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force will have to adopt to get the numbers down – including a "presumption that the lowest possible rank should be used" for tasks – "commensurate with levels of risk".

The service chiefs have also been told to "identify which posts currently filled by the military might be delivered as effectively as a civilian … military posts should be limited to those requiring specific military skills and experience".

The number of support staff for senior ranking officers also needs to be thinned out, the document warns.

In a section headlined Indicative Reductions, Slater says he does not intend to set arbitrary targets for cuts – but then gives specific ones. He sets out in a table what he regards as the minimum requirement and indicates he will need a lot of convincing if the services disagree.

"The expectation is that the senior cadre would fall in accordance with the table … there may be reasons why this should not be the case, but these will need to be set out."

There are currently 3,620 middle-ranking civil servants and military officers – including Royal Navy captains, army colonels and RAF group captains. That number needs to have dropped to 3,011 by 2015, and to 2,724 by 2020.

This would mean axing 68 navy posts, 104 in the army and 86 in the airforce.

The next level up are the one and two star officers, and their civil service equivalents. Slater says the numbers holding the one star rank need to be cut from 550 to 461 by 2015, and to 423 by 2020.

For those holding two stars, including rear admirals, major generals and air vice-marshals, the totals need to be cut from 152 to 126, and then to 116.

Changes to the structure and responsibilities of the small number of the military's most senior officers – those with three and four star ranks – have been dealt with in separate reforms published earlier this year by Lord Levene.

This leaked document warns the service chiefs and civil service leaders that there can be no wriggling out of making tough decisions.

"I recognise that you will all be coming from different start points. However [the reforms] should be judged against two truths. There will be an expectation that our numbers of senior officers will drop in broad proportion with overall personnel reductions, and that our current ratio of senior cadre to personnel is too high."

The MoD has already announced plans that could see up to 60,000 military personnel and civil servants axed over the next seven years – it starts the second tranche of a redundancy programme in January.

But no details of what will happen in the higher ranks has been revealed until now. The sheer number of posts that need to go will provoke fresh consternation within the military – and among union leaders who believe the MoD is already suffering the effects of job cuts.

The MoD has been told it has until the spring to finalise its plans for job losses in the senior cadre, though it is unclear at this stage whether the loss of so many posts will inevitably lead to compulsory redundancies.

The MoD said it would not comment on figures in a leaked email.

A spokesperson added: "The current redundancy programme will reduce the number of service personnel, both officers and junior ranks, to ensure the armed forces are structured to best meet current and emerging threats.

"Following the Levene proposals the defence reform unit is conducing a review of senior officer posts to ensure the services are not top heavy."

[buglerbilly]

Weapons procurement could fall to private sector under new proposals

Ministers consider involving private sector in purchasing decisions to bring an end to overspending at Ministry of Defence

Press Association

guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 December 2011 13.05 GMT


A Nimrod MRA4 reconnaissance aircraft waiting to be scrapped at the BAE Systems factory in February. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Ministers are considering proposals under which the private sector could play a large role in the procurement of weapons and equipment for the armed forces.

The civil servant in charge of defence procurement, Bernard Gray, has submitted a report setting out options for bringing in private expertise, and a decision is expected in the New Year.

Defence officials stressed that no decision had yet been made, but the procurement minister, Peter Luff, said it was "unlikely" that he would stick with the status quo, under which multimillion-pound purchasing decisions are made by ministers and civil servants.

Ministry of Defence procurement has been the subject of damning reports for some years, after a series of projects came in late and over budget.

A report last year from the Commons public accounts committee blamed "organisational failings and a dangerous culture of optimism" at the MoD for purchasing decisions that led the department to overspend year after year.

The new report is part of a reform programme introduced under last year's Strategic Defence and Security Review to fill a £36bn black hole in MoD accounts, which meant the UK's aircraft carriers were left without jets and Nimrod surveillance planes were broken up for scrap.

Gray is understood to have identified three options for change, including the establishment of an independent body to run the £14bn procurement programme.

It would be run by outside contractors with the power to take purchasing decisions without prior ministerial approval and would be accountable to parliament but run as a semi-private operation, in a similar way to the Olympic Delivery Authority.

Other options include contractors running procurement on their own, under ministerial scrutiny, or a trading fund that would keep the budget within the MoD but allow private sector expertise to be brought in.

Gray and Luff will discuss the proposals on a BBC Radio 4 documentary called Buying Defence on 27 December.

Luff told the programme: "We will be as radical, as we need to be to achieve the changes we need to improve the performance of the organisation, and I think that will involve a greater involvement with the private sector in some way.

"I'm open-minded on the options. The only thing I'd say is that I think the status quo is unlikely to endure."

[buglerbilly]

One in eight Gurkhas to lose job in MoD cuts

One in eight Gurkhas will lose their job under Ministry of Defence plans to make 4,000 members of the Armed Forces redundant, ministers will announce today.


Nearly all Gurkhas chose to extend their contracts, which increased the number in the brigade Photo: Ian Nicholson/PA

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent

10:45PM GMT 16 Jan 2012

More than 400 Gurkhas, equivalent to almost an entire battalion, will be among 2,800 soldiers to lose their jobs, while the RAF is cutting 1,000 and the Navy 500.

The news will embarrass Andrew Mitchell, the International Development Secretary, who lands in Nepal today as part of a trip to demonstrate how Britain is helping Gurkha families.

The MoD has sent more than 14,000 notices to personnel in each of the three services offering them voluntary redundancy but it is expected some compulsory redundancies will have to be made. Soldiers serving in Afghanistan are among those to receive the notices, although they will be protected from compulsory redundancy.

The 3,400-member Brigade of Gurkhas has been more vulnerable to redundancies after their terms of service changed four years ago, allowing them to serve for 22 years rather than the previous 15 years.

Nearly all Gurkhas chose to extend their contracts, which increased the number in the brigade. The MoD says the changes made it more expensive to employ them, making them more vulnerable to cost-cutting redundancies.

RAF and Royal Navy commanders hope that this will be the final round of redundancies but the Army is likely to announce at least one more tranche of job losses.

A spokesman for the MoD said: “As nearly all the Gurkhas chose to serve longer, this has meant that the Brigade has grown over time and needs to be reduced to its proper size. Serving in the British Army continues to attract high quality Gurkha candidates reflecting the high status in Nepal of service in the Brigade across all of the communities.”

The Daily Telegraph has learned that the Army is also getting rid of hundreds of soldiers by not renewing contracts for people who have signed up for 12 years. It has also frozen recruitment, reducing the number of new soldiers entering the service from 7,000 to 5,000.

An Army planner said: “We could aim to squeeze the recruit inflow pipe and go for an old man’s Army. That would have a black hole in personnel but we have no money.”

The MoD will hope for the majority to take voluntary redundancy but it is thought there will be a higher number of compulsory job losses this time. Almost 3,000 were sacked last September, with 60 per cent volunteering.

[buglerbilly]

Ministry of Defence faces £2 billion more cuts

The cash-strapped Ministry of Defence is facing a further £2 billion of budget cuts over the next 12 months.


Some of the most controversial cuts were to the Royal Navy, which saw the Fleet Air Arm's entire Harrier force retired eight years early Photo: REX

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent

9:00PM GMT 21 Jan 2012

The new measures will come close to eradicating a £38 billion "black hole" in the MoD's finances blamed by ministers on massive over-spending under Labour.

It is also understood that Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, will announce next month that the MoD is finally back in budget after one of the most controversial periods of defence cutting in recent history.

The cuts will form part of "Planning Round 12" which will outline the department's spending proposals for the next 12 months.

One option being considered is the sacking of up to 9,000 additional MoD civil servants on top of the 40 per cent reduction already announced - a move which would reduce the department's civilian work force from around 80,000 to 45,000 by 2015.

Other options include further cuts to long term equipment projects such as the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES), which at one stage was meant to supply hundreds of air-portable armoured vehicles for the armed forces.

But sources have denied that there will be any further reductions to troop numbers, which are already being reduced by 32,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen across the three services.

Mr Hammond said: "We had to take tough decisions to tackle the £38bn blackhole left by Labour at the MoD, but we are now close to achieving a sustainable and balanced budget for the first time in decades.

"This will mean we can again start ordering new equipment for the Armed Forces.

"We are still refining individual equipment projects, assessing each case for contingency and risk but I am increasingly confident that the MoD is turning a corner and will soon have a clear and affordable programme.

"We'll be spending over £150 billion on equipment and equipment support over the next decade."

There is certainty that even with the Whitehall redundancies, the majority of the £2 billion savings will be achieved by a "ruthless approach" to renegotiating existing military contracts with the private sector.

As part of the MoD reforms the Director General Finance will become one of the department's main power brokers and will now sit on the Defence Board, which makes the key decisions about the future of the armed forces.

In a radical departure from previous administrations defence chiefs will no longer be able to spend money "they don't have", according to a senior source.

One senior defence source said: "The days of dieting followed by binge spending are over. The top brass will no longer be able to spend what they don't have."

Various "options" up for cutting were discussed at a Defence Board meeting held last Friday but it is unlikely that any new measures will be finalised and announced for several weeks.

The £38 billion overspend has been reduced by a 7.5per cent cut to the MoD's annual budget designed to save around £10 billion over four years, together with cuts to some of the military's manpower and equipment programme.

Some of the most controversial cuts were to the Royal Navy, which saw the Fleet Air Arm's entire Harrier force retired eight years early in a move which will save £1 bilion.

All but two of the aircraft have been sold in a £110 million deal to the US Marine Corps, where the Harrier is still in service and admired for its capabilities.

The Royal Navy also saw its strength fall by 5,000 personnel, losing four Type 22 Destroyers - a move which meant a saving of £235m - while as the Service's flagship, the carrier Ark Royal, was withdrawn, which alone will mean a cost saving of around £105m.

The RAF also saw its personnel fall to its lowest level since its formation in 1918 with the loss of 5,000 airmen and women either through redundancy or natural wastage.

It suffered a series of big cuts, most notably the cancellation of the £3.6 billion Nimrod MRA4 programme before the multi-million pound surveillance planes came into service.

One of the Harrier's former bases, RAF Cottesmore, will close at the end of March and the future of the other RAF Wittering remains in doubt.

The numbers of operational fighter aircraft - made up of the Tornado strike aircraft and the Typhoon - will also fall.

Two RAF bases in Scotland will also become Army barracks to house troops being withdrawn from Germany.

Cuts to the Army are still under discussion but its manpower will be reduced by almost 20,000 over the next eight years and for the first time since 1945 will be based solely in the United Kingdom with the complete closure of bases in Germany.

Dozens of tanks and artillery pieces could be scrapped or mothballed and up to six of the Army's 36 infantry battalions could also be axed.

But the cuts have left many in the military wondering whether the cuts have undermined Britain's fighting capability.

One senior defence source said: "Britain has an RAF and Royal Navy that has just lost 72 planes, a Navy with no dedicated air cover and an Army with a morale problem.

"We are not best placed to deal with another Falklands-like crisis."

[buglerbilly]

MPs: protecting civil service while troops are sacked is 'grotesque'

The forcible sacking of troops while civil servants at the Ministry of Defence have been shielded from redundancies is “grotesque”, an influential group of MPs has concluded.


More than 40 percent of troops were made compulsorily redundant in the last round of sackings Photo: Sgt Rupert Frere RLC/PA Wire

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent

7:01AM GMT 25 Jan 2012

While thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen have been made redundant not one civil servant has been forced to go despite 25,000 job losses, the Commons Defence Committee report disclosed.

It roundly criticised the MoD’s top civil servant for suggesting that only MoD civilians had the skills to do different jobs.

MPs were shocked that sacked service personnel could not be retrained for specialist posts. There are more than 2,000 “pinch point” trades positions available such as bomb disposal yet more than 40 percent of troops were made compulsorily redundant in the last round of sackings.

“For military redundancies to be compulsory yet for civilian redundancies to be compulsory in none is so grotesque that it requires an exceptionally persuasive reason,” the report said.

MPs questioned whether redundancy terms were “fair or appropriate” between the two branches of service in the MoD. Civil servants, unlike servicemen, are able to join trade unions.

The MPs were angered by Ursula Brennan, the MoD’s top civil servants, who suggested that civilians were “flexibly employable” whereas the military were not.

She told them: “A very large number of the Civil Service have flexible skills that enable them to work in a variety of places.”

The report said her view ran “contrary to the committee’s experience of the breadth of the military training and the skills shown by personnel as witnessed on operations.”

It added: “We were not convinced by the reasons given for this situation by the MoD—that civil servants had generic skills and could be more readily transferred.”

James Arbuthnot, the Tory MP and chairman of the committee, said: “The stark and shocking differences between redundancies in the MoD require an exceptionally persuasive explanation, which we are yet to hear.

“Look at the areas where the Armed Forces are undermanned.”

The Forces are short of more than 500 intelligence specialists, 120 Navy nuclear engineer and nearly 300 medical staff.

The Armed Forces redundancy programme is expected to deliver up to 11,000 redundancies across the three Services while civil servant redundancies are 15,000. The rest of the reduction in personnel will be through natural wastage or posts being removed.

The report recommend that sacked troops should be given the opportunity to retrain for trades needed in the Armed Forces, in particular, pinch point trades.

The MPs demanded that the MoD gave a detailed explanation of how it planned to address the shortfall in specialist posts.

[buglerbilly]

MPs Condemn 'Grotesque' Defence Cuts

(Source: British Forces Broadcasting; posted Jan. 25, 2012)

I'm "glad" to see that unremittted arrogance and class distinction is still alive and well in the MoD.................:eek3

MPs have attacked a "grotesque" defence cuts process that means armed forces personnel can be forced out of a job, while civil servants cannot.

40% of redundancies among armed forces personnel have been compulsory.

In a scathing report, the Commons defence committee questioned whether the terms on offer were "fair or appropriate" and dismissed Ministry of Defence explanations of the "shocking" difference.

Insufficient attention had been given to retraining soldiers, sailors and airmen for roles the military faced shortages in, it suggested.

Around two in five of 2,860 servicemen and women laid off late last year in the first phase of a huge reduction in manning levels were made compulsorily redundant.

In contrast, the first two tranches of redundancies in civilian staff - set to total 15,000 over several years - were all done on a voluntary basis, the committee heard.

The MoD's senior civil servant, permanent secretary Ursula Brennan, said that was partly because civil servants were more "flexible" while the armed forces tended to have "specific trades".

Defence minister Andrew Robathan pointed out in the Commons that the armed forces had been "less forthcoming" with applications for voluntary redundancy than civilian staff.

Both were condemned by the committee as inadequate explanations.

"The argument that civilians are flexibly employable whereas the military are not runs contrary to our experience of the breadth of the military training we have witnessed on operations," it said. "The MoD should set out what opportunities and encouragement it gives to those in the armed forces who face compulsory redundancy to retrain, especially into 'pinch point' trades."

Ms Brennan's argument also implied "a lack of strategic vision as to the direction to be taken by the civilian component of the MoD", the MPs said. "On the other hand the minister's assertion, that many civil servants but insufficient members of the armed forces have applied for redundancy, ignores the question of why that should be so.

"The MoD should consider whether the terms of redundancy offered to either the military or civilian staff are fair or appropriate in the light of the stark and shocking difference between the application of compulsion in redundancy to the two branches of service in the MoD.

"For military redundancies to be compulsory in 40% of cases, yet for civilian redundancies to be compulsory in none, is so grotesque that it requires an exceptionally persuasive reason.

"We are not persuaded by either of the two reasons we have been given."

The Tory MP who chairs the committee, James Arbuthnot, said: "Why cannot the MoD retrain service personnel, who face redundancy, to fill those many trades where there are shortages, such as combat medical technicians or intelligence gatherers?"

A second tranche of military redundancies were announced this month under the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) intended to help plug the £38 billion black hole in the defence budget.

Up to 2,900 members of the Army, 1,000 members of the Royal Air Force and 300 members of the Royal Navy, including military top brass, were told they were losing their jobs.

The committee also accused the MoD of impeding its job of scrutinising spending by "hiding behind security classifications" and declining to make secret documents available to MPs.

Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said: "There is a thin line between callousness and carelessness and Ministers need to start taking responsibility for their decisions.

"Thousands of service personnel are being unceremoniously sacked. It is essential that the painful impact of David Cameron's decisions is minimised wherever possible."

Mr Murphy added that more should be done to "provide opportunity and stability" to help with the transition between military and civilian life.

He added: "It is vital in the face of deep cuts to defence that they account for every penny and wipe out waste. It is staggering that £5.2 billion cannot be accounted for. Responsibility for financial management in one of the most important departments lies at the Prime Minister's door and he must deal with these worrying weaknesses.

"It is crucial that the Government is clearer on plans to lessen costs of withdrawal from Afghanistan, in particular whether we can retain and reintegrate equipment and hardware."

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said: "The select committee's report is simply wrong in what it says on military redundancies.

"Every opportunity is being given for military personnel to retrain either for alternative roles in the Armed Forces or in civilian life, but the simple fact is we have to tackle the massive deficit we inherited from Labour and the huge black hole in the defence budget.

"We have already announced the reduction in military and civilian manpower that we will have to make to get our Armed Forces on a stable basis for the future.

"Criticism from Labour rings equally hollow - they are the cause of the problems we are now resolving.

"I am determined to get the defence budget back into balance so our Armed Forces have certainty and clarity about the future."

The Ministry of Defence also insisted the overall civilian headcount reduction would be 25,000 by 2015. (ends)

Ministry of Defence Annual Report and Accounts 2010-11: Conclusions and Recommendations

(Source: UK House of Commons Defence Committee; issued Jan. 25, 2012)

MoD Resource Accounts 2010-11

1. While we recognise that compliance with the International Financial Reporting Issues Committee Interpretation 4 (IFRIC 4) and International Accounting Standard 17 on leases will be more onerous for the MoD than other departments, it is important for public transparency and proper conduct of Government business that all departments comply with Government accounting policy. In October 2011, we wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ask for his policy on Government Departments who fail to meet Treasury financial reporting requirements; we have still not received a reply despite reminders. We deplore this. The Treasury should either explain why it is not enforcing the standards which it has imposed and to which the MoD has, in common with all other departments, agreed or explain what it is going to do to change these standards for the MoD. (Paragraph 13)

2. The MoD should comply with the C&AG's recommendation that the MoD should identify contracts where the risk of inappropriate accounting treatment is highest and should target further efforts on higher value, higher risk contracts as soon as contract renegotiations resulting from the Strategic Defence and Security Review are completed. It should ensure that it applies IFRIC 4 to all new contracts immediately. In response to this Report, the MoD should provide a timetable for completion of this work and a reliable estimate for when it expects the C&AG to give the MoD a clear audit opinion. (Paragraph 14)

3. We remain concerned that, despite improvements in the audit trail for Bowman radios, the MoD cannot guarantee that it will be able to provide the NAO with adequate audit evidence about the radios for the 2011-12 Resource Accounts. This situation is unsatisfactory and is evidence of weaknesses in the MoD's financial management. We intend to pursue the issue of appropriate bar coding or other asset tracking technology in a future inquiry into defence procurement. The MoD should ensure that it complies with the C&AG's recommendations on improving the robustness of quarterly reconciliations and the quality of data input and on ensuring the accurate recording of all radios by serial number in future IT systems. (Paragraph 21)

4. Being able to identify and record the condition of inventory is critical for operational reasons to enable the repair, replenishment and disposal of items. It is also essential to provide reliable information to Parliament and the public in the form of the annual accounts. Problems with stock control are likely to continue until the introduction of new stock systems in March 2014 leaving the MoD with inadequate information for a further three years. We look forward to hearing further evidence of tangible progress in identifying and recording missing inventory between now and March 2014. As a minimum, the MoD should make strenuous efforts to ensure that the agreed timetable is met and does not slip further. (Paragraph 25)

5. We are concerned that, in having such a large underspend in 2010-11, MoD has demonstrated that it is poor at accounting for and estimating the size and timing of write-offs. (Paragraph 30)

6. We are concerned that the level of theft and fraud in the MoD appear generally to be increasing year on year, and that the level of value recovered from theft and fraud is low. We recommend that the MoD clarify the roles of the various police and security forces dealing with fraud and theft and provide further information on how the problems of prevention, detection and recovery are being managed within the MoD. We note that the MoD is reviewing its fraud risk management arrangements, and expect to be informed of the outcome of this review. We also ask for evidence to show the impact of the Defence Crime Board and the Defence Irregularity Reporting Cell. We expect the MoD to tackle this issue with a greater degree of vigour. (Paragraph 37)

Assessing the MoD's performance

7. We recognise that the changes the MoD has made to its reporting framework and the Annual Report and Accounts are in line with changes to government-wide reporting requirements. It is, however, apparent to us that, even when information against the input and impact indicators is reported in the Annual Report and Accounts and in the quarterly reports on the MoD Business Plan, we will be less well-informed than in the past. We recommend that the MoD review its performance reporting to identify further and more useful information which can be made available to Parliament and the public. The MoD should explain the nature of the indicators in the Annual Report and Accounts so that a reader can understand the indicators without reference to other documents. The MoD should also provide a commentary on their performance against these indicators. (Paragraph 42)

8. We are concerned that the MoD is hiding behind security classifications in order to deprive the Defence Committee of the information it needs to scrutinise the MoD. We do not accept that we should not see, in confidence, material classified higher than restricted. (Paragraph 44)

9. We fail to understand why the MoD does not wish to understand the costs of its current operations. While it is true that personnel would be paid, and equipment procured and used, largely for training purposes, even if the Armed Forces were not engaged in operations, their deployment brings with it costs in terms of training opportunities cancelled or deferred and the costs of extra wear and tear on equipment which will eventually have to be met. We fully realise that it can only claim additional costs from the Treasury but, surely as part of its lessons learned, it needs to know what its total costs were. (Paragraph 48)

10. We look forward to receiving the information from the MoD on the costs of the withdrawal from Iraq, in particular the costs of the equipment that was gifted, lost, destroyed, returned to the UK or sent to Afghanistan. We recognise that there is a balance to be struck between returning equipment from war zones and destroying or gifting it in situ. The MoD should provide us with its current outline plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan including the costs of equipment to be gifted, destroyed or returned to the UK. (Paragraph 51)

11. Due to the changes in the reporting of readiness levels, it will not be possible for us to identify trends in the performance of the MoD for some years. The statement in the Annual Report and Accounts that the readiness of the Armed Forces for contingent operations beyond Afghanistan was expected to continue to improve appears to have been contradicted by the PUS's statement that she did not know if more or less Force Elements would be reported as being at critical or serious weakness next year. We are concerned that the MoD is focusing its efforts on improving its readiness by 2020 which we believe is too far away. The MoD should make strenuous efforts to ensure that readiness levels do not deteriorate still further. (Paragraph 54)

12. We note that, under its current plans, the MoD asserts that it is on track to make the required savings demanded in the last Spending Review. We will return to this subject in future inquiries into the performance of the MoD. (Paragraph 56)

Armed Forces and civilian personnel

13. The Permanent Under Secretary's argument, that civilians are flexibly employable whereas the military are not, runs contrary to our experience of the breadth of the military training we have witnessed on operations. The MoD, in its response to this Report, should set out what opportunities and encouragement it gives to those in the Armed Forces who face compulsory redundancy to retrain, especially into pinch point trades. The PUS's argument also implies a lack of strategic vision as to the direction to be taken by the civilian component of the MoD. (Paragraph 65)

14. On the other hand the Minister's assertion, that many civil servants but insufficient members of the Armed Forces have applied for redundancy, ignores the question of why that should be so. The MoD should consider whether the terms of redundancy offered to either the military or civilian staff are fair or appropriate in the light of the stark and shocking difference between the application of compulsion in redundancy to the two branches of service in the MoD. For military redundancies to be compulsory in 40 per cent of cases, yet for civilian redundancies to be compulsory in none, is so grotesque that it requires an exceptionally persuasive reason. We are not persuaded by either of the two reasons we have been given. (Paragraph 66)

15. Addressing the issue of pinch point trades needs to be a priority for the MoD, particular in respect of certain trades such as IED operators, nuclear personnel, intelligence specialists and medical personnel. The MoD must ensure that sufficient personnel are not only recruited and trained effectively but also retained. It should also consider Armed Forces personnel subject to compulsory redundancy as a potential source of recruits to retrain in pinch point trades. In response to this Report, the MoD should tell us, in some detail, what its plans are to address shortages in the above trades. (Paragraph 70)

Conclusion

16. For the fifth successive year, the Comptroller and Auditor General qualified the Ministry of Defence (MoD) accounts for 2010-11 for non-compliance with international reporting standards on the treatment of some contracts. He also expressed concern that the MoD could not provide adequate audit evidence for over £5.2 billion worth of certain inventory and capital spares. These problems are likely to persist until, at the very earliest, 2014-15. We believe that the repeated qualification of the MoD accounts reflects badly on the MoD's financial management. The MoD needs a clear plan or a timetable as to how and when it will achieve a clear audit opinion from the C&AG. (Paragraph 71)

17. In its Annual Report and Accounts 2010-11, the MoD presented information on its performance in line with changes to government-wide reporting requirements. We found that we and the public were less well-informed than in previous years, partly because there was as yet no performance information for some indicators but also that the information provided was less useful. The MoD should review its performance reporting to identify further and more useful information which can be made available to Parliament and to the public. (Paragraph 72)

18. We are shocked that 40 per cent of the redundancies of Armed Forces personnel were compulsory whereas all those of civil servants have been voluntary. We were not convinced by the reasons given for this situation by the MoD—that civil servants had generic skills and could be more readily transferred. We recommend that all those members of the Armed Forces targeted for compulsory redundancy should be given the opportunity to retrain for trades needed in the Armed Forces, in particular, pinch point trades. (Paragraph 73)

Click here for the full report (70 pages in PDF format) on the House of Commons website.



-ends-

[buglerbilly]

RAF Northolt may be sold to raise defence funds

Ministry of Defence considering selling off all or parts of one of its oldest airfields, which could become Heathrow satellite

Nick Hopkins

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 January 2012 16.40 GMT


An RAF transport plane lands at RAF Northolt. Photograph: Dan Chung for the Guardian

Probably makes sense to sell it but one hopes for money than they have sold previously. I seem to remember that there is a lot of expensive property around there, they aren't going to be happy!

The Ministry of Defence is considering selling off one of its oldest and most internationally renowned airfields, RAF Northolt, as it seeks to raise money to help cope with swingeing budget cuts, the Guardian has learned.

All or parts of the site on the outskirts of north London could be sold for commercial development, and there have been high-level talks in Whitehall about whether the airfield could even become a satellite for nearby Heathrow.

This would enrage local residents but it has not been discounted by ministers, who are trying to reconcile the decision not to go ahead with a third runway at Heathrow with industry clamour for more capacity.

The future of Northolt, which occupies hundreds of acres in Hillingdon, is under scrutiny as part of a review of the defence estate, which is looking at whether MoD land could be sold to raise revenue at a time of a budget squeeze and redundancies.

The base is still used by visiting VIPs and is the home of the 32 (Royal) Squadron, but it is 50 years since it was the UK's busiest airfield, and dignitaries could be diverted to Heathrow four miles away.

This proximity has raised interest in Whitehall, and ministers are considering whether to include Northolt in a consultation about the future of UK air travel, which is due to be launched in March.

One industry source told the Guardian that the idea had been discussed in government. "It has its advocates because of its location close to the capital and to Heathrow, and there are some people who would welcome it," the source said.

"But it shares some of the drawbacks of extending Heathrow, including the increase in noise for communities in west London." Another source said: "In many ways it is less ridiculous than Boris Island."

BAA, which owns six UK airports including Heathrow, said "all options should be put on the table" when the review starts. "We would not want to rule out anything until there has been a proper comparative study that looks at the pros and cons of each option," a spokesman said.

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: "As the chancellor made clear in his autumn statement, we will explore all the options for maintaining the UK's aviation hub status with the exception of a third runway at Heathrow. The government will consult on an overarching sustainable framework for UK aviation this spring."

Northolt is one of the armed forces' most celebrated bases, and its loss would be deeply felt within the military. It was established in 1915, three years before the RAF was formed, and during its 96-year history it has played many roles. It is the RAF's oldest operational airfield.

In the second world war it was a home to British Hurricane and Spitfire squadrons that defended London during the Battle of Britain. When Heathrow was under construction, it was the briefly Europe's busiest civilian airport. The Queen takes most of her flights from Northolt, and it is where Air Force One lands during visits by the US president.

It has been the site of many emotional homecomings, including the return of Diana, Princess of Wales, in August 1997. Her body was repatriated to the UK from France on board an aircraft of the Royal Squadron. In footage shown across the world, the Prince of Wales and the princess's elder sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, accompanied the coffin, which was draped in the royal standard.

In recent years the base has been placed under the spotlight by campaigners investigating the UK's support of CIA rendition flights. Three years ago the former Guantánamo Bay prisoner Binyam Mohamed was flown back to Northolt after his release. RAF Typhoon fighters will be based at Northolt during this summer's Olympics.

Air Commodore Andrew Lambert said the RAF had already lost bases of historic importance because of defence cuts, and questioned whether it was necessary to add Northolt to the list.

"It would be a great shame to lose RAF Northolt. I am sure that the site would make lots of money because it is just off the M25 and is a prime bit of real estate, and it is the nearest airport to London. But I'd want to know if the MoD has done its sums properly," he said.

"The MoD is in a position where it is saying, 'we are running out of money, so let's sell something off to raise money'. We might be in a position where it doesn't make sense over the long term. It would have quite a big impact because Northolt is where all the very senior people and the royals fly from."

The MoD said no decisions had been taken. There are some in the military who will argue to retain an MoD "core" at Northolt, even if it becomes a commercial hub in the future.

A spokesman said: "We continue to scrutinise all defence expenditure to secure the best value for money. RAF Northolt is no exception. It already generates revenue through landing fees from private flights and sources of income generation are of course kept under review."

[buglerbilly]

3,000 more MoD civil servants to be axed to save cash

Thousands more Ministry of Defence civilian staff are to be sacked as the financial crisis in the department becomes more apparent, it can be disclosed.


Defence Secretary Philip Hammond Photo: PA

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent

10:32AM GMT 27 Jan 2012

In a desperate move to balance the books for the next financial year the MoD will be forced to let go another 3,000 civilian workers.

Despite a deep range of cuts that will already see 25,000 civilians sacked in addition to 30,000 service personnel accountants have found that the MoD will be at least £1 billion short for the next financial year unless it makes immediate savings.

The further cuts come as defence tries to fill the £38 billion black hole in finances caused by over-ordering of equipment and wastage by the last government.

But there will also be criticism of the MoD for reopening the defence review after it was forced to admit that the original figure of 25,000 will now increase to 28,000 civil servants..

Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, will be forced to announce the extra redundancies in what will prove an embarrassing admission that the MoD is still failing in its accounts.

The department has already been criticised by MPs earlier this week by for failing to properly account for spending after £5 billion of equipment went unaccounted.

In the same Commons Defence Committee report it was condemned as “grotesque” for forcibly sacking soldiers while no civil servants had suffered compulsory redundancy.

Mr Hammond has now asked all three Services to go through their contracts to ensure they have not also overspent for the next financial year.

It is understood that the department could still be overspending its £36 billion budget by up to £2 billion.

However MoD officials suggested that the next round of cuts would mean that by next year the overspending would have been curtailed to “hundreds of millions”.

11,000 of the Armed Forces job losses of 30,000 will be through redundancies rather than natural wastage while to date no civil servants have been forced out of their jobs.

“For military redundancies to be compulsory yet for civilian redundancies to be compulsory in none is so grotesque that it requires an exceptionally persuasive reason,” the MPs report said.

In response to the new redundancies a MoD spokesperson said: "Each year, we review our plans to take account of changes over the previous 12 months and to ensure that we have the right equipment and manning levels to meet the future needs of our Armed Forces.

“Final decisions have yet to be taken but this annual process rightly considers the status of all our key programmes to ensure the continued coherence and balance of the whole programme.”

[buglerbilly]

Armed Forces chiefs dodge redundancies

Armed Forces chiefs been accused of dodging redundancies after just seven lost their posts in cuts compared with 6,000 servicemen who have been sacked in the last five months.


Rory Stewart, the Tory MP and former Army officer, said there had been a 'massive inflation' in the number of senior officers in the last sixty years Photo: David Rose

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent

8:00AM GMT 04 Feb 2012

Figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph show that only one in 20 of the most senior officers in all three Services have lost their jobs. By comparison 20 per cent of more junior ranks will lose their jobs as 30,000 service personnel are axed.

The redundancies among generals, admirals and air marshals has been criticised as “inexcusable” and a failure to “show an example at the top”.

More than a year ago Liam Fox, the former Defence Secretary, promised that scores of generals, admirals and air marshals would be sacked to save money. “We cannot demand efficiency from the lower ranks while exempting those at the top,” he said.

But the new figures show that officers of two star rank, equivalent to a major general, and above have only gone down from 137 to 130 since the first redundancies began last year.

Rory Stewart, the Tory MP and former Army officer, said there had been a “massive inflation” in the number of senior officers in the last sixty years “at exactly the same time the Services have got smaller”.

“We have got to drive the numbers down because it doesn’t make sense in any management structure to have too many managers. It confuses chains of command and it’s expensive.”

The Army currently has ten times as many major generals as it does divisions. Traditionally a major general would command a division of approximately 10,000 men but now there are 40 major generals for just four divisions.

Defence analysts say that the US Marine Corps, which at 220,000 personnel is larger than all three Services, has just 80 officers of one star rank (brigadier) compared to Britain 460 officers in the category.

Lt Cdr Frank Ledwidge, a former Navy intelligence officer, said the overstaffed higher ranks resulted in a “dilution of responsibility and quality”.

The author of the critical “Losing Small Wars” added: “The top brass are similar to politicians in that they say we are all in this together but when push comes to shove the push will be for other people and clearly we are not in it all together.

He added that the argument that top ranks were needed to staff senior posts in Nato, the UN and Washington “just doesn’t wash”.

A senior Army officer suggested that the “most of the work of 130 two stars and above could probably be done by far fewer one star or God forbid by civilians”.

“I expect they will be able to justify their positions across the board but we have a significantly shrinking Armed Forces which surely does not justify it being top heavy,” he added.

A MoD spokesman said: “The Department is committed to making reductions in the number of senior military posts – including two star military officers – that are in proportion with the reductions across the Armed Force.

“The Department is currently conducting a review of all senior posts to determine where those reductions can be made.”

[buglerbilly]

MPs Publish Report on Operations in Libya

(Source: House of Commons Defence Committee; issued Feb. 8, 2012)

The Government will need to make some difficult decisions on prioritisation if it embarks on a future mission similar to the Libya operation now that the Strategic Defence and Security (SDSR) is taking effect, says the Defence Committee in its report into Operations in Libya, published today.

Although the UK was able to satisfy both operations in Libya and Afghanistan and its other standing tasks and commitments, the Libya operation was conducted before the implementation of many of the SDSR decisions on capability reductions.

Chair of the Committee, Rt Hon James Arbuthnot MP says:

"We consider that the Libya operation raises important questions as to the extent of the United Kingdom's national contingent capability. The Government needs to review our capacity to respond to concurrent threats. This work should be conducted as a matter of urgency before the next Strategic Defence and Security Review."

-- UK Armed Forces
The Committee commends UK Armed Forces for their significant contribution to the successful conclusion of the Libya operation. The report pays tribute to the UK Armed Forces and civilian personnel who contributed to the operation. They continue to impress with the courage, dedication and professionalism with which they undertook this operation which the Committee is convinced saved thousands of civilian lives.

-- UK contribution to the operation
The air component of the operation has been commended, both in its combat role and in the Non-combatant Evacuation Operations for UK and other civilians by Hercules. The report particularly notes that in its first operational role, Typhoon performed very reliably. Joint Helicopter Command was able to deploy Apache helicopters successfully to the Mediterranean Sea as well as maintain their numbers in Afghanistan. The service life of the Nimrod R1 signals intelligence aircraft was extended for the mission.

The Committee calls for the MoD to give a higher priority to the development of ISTAR capabilities in advance of the next SDSR and for the MoD to clarify the position on the future of the Sentinel aircraft and what impact retention would have on other budget areas.

The Committee commends the actions of the Royal Navy in the operation particularly in respect of the evacuation of civilians from Benghazi, the enforcement of the arms embargo and the early deployment of the first Response Force Task Group.

However, at times, the Royal Navy was not able to carry out important tasks such as the Fleet Ready Escort and counter drugs operations owing to meeting the Libya commitment. Given the high levels of standing maritime commitments it is likely that this type of risk taking will occur more frequently as the outcomes of the SDSR are implemented. This will be a significant challenge for the Royal Navy and the MoD and the Committee call on them to outline their plans to meet this challenge in response to their report.

-- SDSR
The report notes the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review aim that the UK would be more selective in its deployment of UK Armed Forces and would do so where there was a "clear strategic aim...and a viable exit strategy". There is, however, a disconnect between this assertion and the admission of the Minister for the Armed Forces that there is a limit to the number of engagements that can be undertaken where the exit strategy is known with complete clarity.

-- Implications for future operations
For the time being, there will continue to be a heavy reliance on US command and control functions for future NATO operations. Whilst accepting the current economic climate and its implications for defence capabilities, the Committee is also concerned that future NATO operations will not be possible if the US is not willing or able to provide capabilities such as unmanned aerial vehicles, intelligence and refuelling aircraft.

It should be a priority for NATO to examine this over-reliance on US capabilities and assets. This challenge will be heightened by the US stated intention to shift its military, geographic and strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific region.

Chair of the Committee, Rt Hon James Arbuthnot MP says,

"The mission in Libya was successful in discharging the UN mandate. The real test is whether the success of this mission was a one-off or whether the lessons it has highlighted mean that future such missions can be successfully undertaken, whilst maintaining the UK's capability to protect its interests elsewhere."

Click here for the report’s Volume 1 (Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence; 132 pages in PDF format);

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmdfence/950/950.pdf

Click here for Volume 2 (Additional written evidence; 78 PDF pages), both on the Parliamentary website.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmdfence/950/950vw.pdf

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

MPs Report on the Ministry of Defence: Major Projects Report 2011

(Source: House of Commons Public Accounts Committee; issued Feb. 10, 2012)



The Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, today said:

"The total cost of the 15 largest defence projects continued to rise in 2010-11, by almost £500 million.

Decisions to delay or cut programmes to save money in the short term continue to lead to increased costs in the longer term and do not represent good value for money.

We welcome the fact that there are signs of improvement. Projects approved since 2002 have shown significantly lower cost increases and, since 2008, technical issues have not driven up costs.

Cancelling the Nimrod aircraft at such a late stage has resulted in £3.4 billion of taxpayers’ money being wasted and delaying the Astute submarines has increased the cost to the taxpayer by almost £2 billion.

Much of the cost increase over the last decade has been down to the fact that the estimates for large programmes significantly underestimated the real cost.

Rather than the over-optimism which has held sway at the start of major projects, what is needed is realism: about the complexities of projects, the long-term costs of decisions taken today and the implications down the line of short-term budget cuts.

We are also concerned that the Department remains unable to set out openly the extent of the gap between its income and expenditure, and how and by when it will balance this year’s budget. The Department must publish that information urgently. Parliament is also still waiting for the Department’s promised 10-year Equipment Plan so that we can assess whether the Department will live within its means over time.

We think that it is unrealistic for the Department to plan its budget on the basis of a 1% increase in its equipment budget from 2015, in light of current economic conditions."

Margaret Hodge was speaking as the Committee published its 68th Report of this Session which, on the basis of evidence from the Ministry of Defence, examined its progress in delivering its major defence equipment projects.

The Ministry of Defence (the Department) continues to struggle with managing its equipment programme on an affordable basis, resulting in the cancellation or deferral of major projects and a damaging impact on value for money.

In 2010-11 the forecast costs to complete the 15 largest defence projects increased by £466 million. Since their original approvals the estimated costs of these 15 projects have increased by £6.1 billion and now stand at approximately £60 billion (an 11.4% increase). In aggregate these 15 projects are forecast to be completed 322 months later than originally planned.

We acknowledge that on more recently approved projects there have generally been lower cost increases and fewer technical problems. Projects approved since 2002 show significantly lower cost growth than those approved before this date. In particular we are encouraged by the recent improvements in reducing cost increases arising from project-specific technical issues. Technical issues have not led to increased costs on projects since 2008.

Having allowed its equipment programme to become unaffordable the Department faces unpalatable decisions. Decisions to cancel or slow projects and to reduce equipment numbers have added significant long-term costs to the whole defence programme and to unit costs within the programme. Capability has been affected and this has all resulted in poor value for money. The Department has made a number of decisions to save cash in the short term without a full understanding of long-term costs and the knock-on effect of increased costs in other areas of the defence budget.

Large defence equipment projects have contributed disproportionately to overall cost growth. In the past, the Department has repeatedly failed to challenge unrealistically low estimates for the largest and most complex equipment projects from suppliers. The Astute submarines have been delayed, leading to increased costs of £1.9 billion. Due to repeated delays, cancelling the Nimrod at this late stage has resulted in £3.4 billion being wasted with no new capability being added. In the case of the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers the forecast cost has so far risen by £2.8 billion since they were first approved in 2008.The taxpayer has had to pick up the bill when decisions on these projects were taken.

While we welcome the trajectory of improvement, the Department is still unable to set out openly the extent of the gap between income and expenditure it still faces, and how and by when any shortfall will be resolved. We are concerned that the assumptions the Department is making about its budget in the future may now prove unrealistic. Financial contingency planning by the Department to model the impact of further budget reductions may therefore be needed.

Last year we concluded that the turnover of the Senior Responsible Owners (SROs), who oversee individual projects, was often too great and recommended that SROs remain in post and responsible during key phases of a project's lifecycle. We were also concerned that some individuals were given the impossible task of being the SRO for too many multi-billion pound projects. We are disappointed that there is little evidence of progress in this area.

Click here for the full report (52 pages in PDF format) on the Parliament website.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmpubacc/1678/1678.pdf

(ends)

Cost of MOD's Biggest Projects 'Flawed'

(Source: British Forces News; posted Feb. 10, 2012)

Britain’s biggest defence projects have become unaffordable – that is the warning from the Commons Public Accounts Committee.

It says in the last financial year alone nearly half a billion pounds of extra costs were added to equipment programmes.

And the MPs warn that slowing down delivery to try to rein back costs is adding even more to an already massive bill.

The committee highlights the Nimrod surveillance aircraft - scrapped at a cost of almost three-and-a-half million pounds - and new aircraft carriers, where the cost has jumped nearly three billion pounds.

It also cites the example of the Astute nuclear attack submarines, a programme running two billion pounds over budget because the MOD significantly underestimated how much would be needed to buy complex new equipment.

And it warns that in the light of the continuing public spending squeeze, planned real terms increases in the equipment budget from 2015 may prove to be "unrealistic".

"It is unacceptable that the department still cannot identify the extent of the current gap between resources and expenditure," the committee said.

"The department is basing its current 10-year equipment plan on Treasury planning assumptions that are now likely to prove over-optimistic.

"The department was told at the time of the comprehensive spending review settlement that it could expect 1% real terms equipment budget increases from 2015.

"It is planning its budget on this basis, but in the light of current economic conditions that assumption may be unrealistic."

The committee said that despite signs of improvement in the equipment programme, the estimated cost of its 15 largest projects still rose by £466 million in 2010-11.

Since their original approvals, the total costs of the projects had risen by £6.1 billion to stand at £60 billion - an 11.4% increase - while total delays now stood at 26 years and 10 months.

Committee chairman Margaret Hodge said there was a need for greater realism within the MoD towards procurement process.

"Much of the cost increase over the last decade has been down to the fact that the estimates for large programmes significantly underestimated the real cost," she said.

"Rather than the over-optimism which has held sway at the start of major projects, what is needed is realism: about the complexities of projects, the long-term costs of decisions taken today and the implications down the line of short-term budget cuts."

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said that, as a result of the actions taken by the Government, it was now close to eliminating the "black hole" in the defence budget.

"Through a radical reform programme we have taken firm steps to grip the equipment programme and halt the trend of vast cost increases of the past.

"The overall increase this year was seven times lower than Labour's last year in office which saw a cost increase of over £3.3 billion," he said.

"Much has been achieved in clearing up the mess left by the last Government and we are now close to eliminating the black hole in the MoD's finances and will soon set out an affordable, deliverable programme."

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

U.K. Military Faces Potential Readiness Gap

Feb 24, 2012

By Robert Wall
London



Charitably, one might say that the U.K.’s Defense Ministry is in a no-win situation regarding defense programs—damned if it cuts more and damned if it doesn’t.

A less charitable interpretation posits that after almost two years of trying to fix its military equipment plan, the U.K. is still left with a huge mismatch between funding and capabilities, with risk increasing of even greater imbalances as the nation’s economy remains in a slump.

While neither is a cheery prospect, both views point to the central nugget of two recent parliamen*tary reports. One spotlights the financial mismatch still bedeviling the Defense Ministry’s books, with the indication that the situation may worsen; the other raises the prospect that Britain may not be able to repeat a Libya-style operation.

A crucial 10-year equipment plan is now being drafted by the Defense Ministry, but Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee warns that the financial framework may be flawed. The plan is based on the government’s promise that defense spending would increase 1% ahead of inflation after 2015; however, the panel notes that “in light of current economic conditions, that assumption may be unrealistic.” It therefore urged the government “to consider and assess the impact of a range of lower funding assumptions.” Not even reflected in the discussion is the fact that the real-term figure relies on consumer inflation figures, not the higher rate of inflation typically seen in the aerospace and defense sector.

Compounding the budgetary mismatch are other critiques that could result in additional spending requirements. “We consider that the Libya operation raises important questions as to the extent of the United Kingdom’s national contingent capability,” says Defense Committee Chairman James Arbuthnot. “The government needs to review our capacity to respond to concurrent threats. This work should be conducted as a matter of urgency before the next Strategic Defense and Security Review [SDSR],” due around 2015, he adds.

Airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) is one key area singled out by lawmakers. The Defense Committee’s report calls on the ministry “to give a higher priority to the development of Istar capabilities in advance of the next SDSR.” For example, there should be greater clarity on plans for Raytheon’s Sentinel R1 ground surveillance aircraft. The SDSR suggested that the aircraft be retired once the fleet is no longer needed in Afghanistan, but the panel now wants to know “whether consideration is being given to its retention and what impact [this] would have on other budget areas.”

Royal Air Force officials have often noted the important role played by the asset and indicated it may be retained.

Another issue under scrutiny is whether the U.K. has an adequate stock of precision weapons. The government had to ask MBDA to engage in a surge program to provide sufficient stock of Brimstone air-to-ground missiles. “U.K. armed forces require large enough stocks of ‘Warlike Materiel’ which can be quickly replenished. . . . This requires larger stocks of those items which are more difficult to procure or slower to produce,” the lawmakers note. They ask the government to “outline the contingency measures that are in place and whether it has any plans to review them.”

But retaining the Sentinel R1 fleet or maintaining a large stockpile would require more money. Nevertheless, worries about future spending mismatches did not stop the U.K. from placing an order for an eighth Boeing C-17 on Feb. 8. The £200 million ($316 million) deal is the latest step in a gradual fleet expansion that began with four leased airlifters. The aircraft is due off the Boeing production line next month, with delivery to the U.K. at mid-year.

Whereas the C-17 fleet is growing, Parliament notes that a decision to cut three Airbus Military A400Ms from the U.K.’s plans has resulted in a cost uptick of 46% per aircraft. While legislators acknowledge that program management appears to be improving, they lament that the past year saw another £466 million increase in the 15 largest programs. However, only £53 million was linked to design and contracting issues; the bulk was associated with delaying outlays (£124 million) and adding capability (£113 million), and the rest was related to economic factors.

[I]Photo: Douglas Barrie

[buglerbilly]

Britain 'may struggle to pay for new fighter jets'

Britain’s Armed Forces may be unable to afford all the new fighter jets they want as American defence cuts and European austerity measures push up the aircraft’s price.


F-35 jet is being built by American weapons giant Lockheed Martin Photo: REUTERS

By Raf Sanchez, in Washington

9:30PM GMT 26 Feb 2012

With the US military delaying purchase of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and Italy slashing its order by more than a third, the Ministry of Defence’s bill for each of the aircraft is set to rise sharply.

Experts warned that the higher prices are likely to mean Britain can afford fewer of the multi-role warplanes, which are due to replace the Harrier on the Navy’s new aircraft carrier by 2020.

The rising cost of the JSF will add to the controversy around Britain’s aircraft carrier capabilities. The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review retired the Navy’s existing carriers, leaving the UK without a working carrier for a decade.

The JSF, also known as the F-35, is being built by American weapons giant Lockheed Martin as part of an international programme led by the US but partly funded by Britain and seven other ’partner nations’.

The arrangement shares the enormous cost of developing the world’s most advanced aircraft but also leaves Britain dependent on large orders from other countries to keep price down.

Britain is due to place orders for one squadron, around 20 aircraft, next year but will settle on the final number of planes to be bought until in 2015.

Lockheed has admitted that the government is likely to pay even more than the $90 million (£57 million) currently projected as the cost of a single aircraft but could not give an exact figure.

As part of a drive to reduce America’s annual military budget, the Pentagon announced earlier this month that it was delaying purchasing 179 aircraft until after 2017, saving the US $15 billion (£10 billion) over the next five years.

The US was followed almost immediately by Italy, which said that under new austerity measures it could no longer afford the 131 jets it agreed to buy and was reducing its order to just 90. Both Australia and Canada have also signalled they may delay or cut their purchases.

Speaking before Italy announced its reduced order, Lockheed’s executive vice-president Tom Burbage said that the American delay would push up prices for all nations. “It will raise the overall average cost of the total procurement of all the aeroplanes bought,” he said.

Barry Pavel, a former Senior Director for Defence Policy at the White House’s National Security Council, told the Daily Telegraph that the rising costs would likely reduce the number of aircraft Britain eventually buys.

"Britain, along with some other European nations, has a constrained defence budget and as costs go up it seems likely it won’t be able to afford as many planes,” he said.

"It’s going to be really tough for Britain as economic projections remain negative. The government is going to have to cut public spending again and that will cause them to reassess not only the JSF but their broader defence programme.”

Next month the Canadian embassy in Washington will host a meeting of the eight partner nations, where defence attachés are expected to voice their respective governments’ growing alarm over the programme’s cost. A formal summit of all the countries involved will take place in Australia in mid-March.

A spokeswoman said the MoD would not comment on prices until it had confirmed its first order next year.

*"The MoD is taking delivery of our first Joint Strike Fighters for test and evaluation purposes this year and is committed to purchasing the carrier variant of the JSF. Our plans remain on track to have a new carrier strike capability from around 2020,” she said.

Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, met with his American counterpart Leon Panetta in Washington last month, where he raised concerns that the jets would be ready in time for a 2020 deployment on HMS Prince of Wales, Britain’s new aircraft carrier.

The Navy’s first order will be made next year and the aircraft are expected to be operational by 2016. British pilots will train jointly with the US Navy before being posted aboard the carrier.

[buglerbilly]

The Taliban is having second thoughts

For Philip Hammond, taking on the position of Defence Secretary has been a baptism of fire. One minute he was the Transport Secretary, immersed in planning the new high-speed rail route between London and the Midlands; the next he found himself parachuted into one of the most challenging ministries Whitehall has to offer.


Parachuted in from mundane world of Department for Transport, Philip Hammond has had baptism of fire as sixth Defence Secretary in six years

By Con Coughlin

10:00PM GMT 02 Mar 2012

Prior to his appointment - after Dr Liam Fox’s resignation last October - Mr Hammond was hardly renowned for his interest in national security issues. A successful businessman before entering politics, he was better known as one of the more bean-counterish figures in Westminster.

"I would regard myself as a very strong, pro-defence politician who believes that defence should be the number one priority of government,” he says. “If a threat comes along, the public rightly expects the Government to have the ability to defend itself.”

Until his appointment, Mr Hammond’s involvement in defence issues had been confined largely to his role as shadow chief secretary to the Treasury where, together with Oliver Letwin, he had worked on the Conservative’s master plan for reducing the budget deficit. “I had a pretty clear view of our defence needs because Liam had a very good idea on how we should project our power through the military in an age of austerity.”

But once he took up the post, Mr Hammond came face to face with the challenge of running one of the most testing – some would say dysfunctional – of government departments. Apart from having to eradicate the £38billion black hole from the Ministry of Defence budget, Mr Hammond suddenly had to immerse himself in a variety of highly complex issues, from the replacement of the Trident nuclear deterrent to the future of Britain’s military involvement in Afghanistan.

“I was on a very steep learning curve and spent the first two months with my heart in my mouth hoping that I did not make some terrible blunder,” he admits. But Mr Hammond is clearly a fast learner, and little more than four months after taking up his post he speaks with the confidence of a man who has mastered his brief.

Earlier this week I joined him in the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where he had the delicate job of seeking the assistance of two of the region’s more autocratic regimes in aiding with the removal of the vast military infrastructure Britain has assembled in neighbouring Afghanistan.

The highly challenging task of removing billions of pounds worth of British kit from Afghanistan means the MoD needs to explore all the available exit routes, particularly as the Pakistanis have closed the main border crossings into Afghanistan, through which most of the equipment arrived.

Mr Hammond estimates that, apart from removing 3,000 armoured vehicles, there are around 11,000 shipping containers of equipment that need removing as Britain begins scaling down its military commitment to Afghanistan, with combat operations due to cease at the end of 2014.

With other Nato nations undertaking similar operations - the Americans have 49,000 vehicles and 100,000 containers to bring home - Mr Hammond fears massive bottlenecks could develop as the main exit routes out of Afghanistan become clogged up with retreating soldiers.

“The pressure on the existing lines of communication is going to be very significant,” he explains. “That is why it is important for us to open a new line of communication through the north. Nothing would be worse than a disorderly withdrawal.” One possibility he is exploring is to transport much of the equipment by rail from northern Afghanistan on a 4,000-mile journey through Central Asia and Russia to the Baltic ports, from whence it will then be shipped back to England.

But he is clear in his mind that withdrawing British forces from Afghanistan is indisputably the right course of action.

“We are not some kind of 21st century missionary force,” he says. “You cannot win an insurgency by inserting foreign troops and expecting them to do the job to completion. Nato troops do the heavy lift while at the same time turning the Afghan army from an

ill-disciplined rag bag into a disciplined force. It was always our intention to hand over to the Afghans.”

But what about the Taliban? Surely, unless there is some form of political reconciliation, we risk seeing the Taliban regain power, and we’ll be back to square one, with al-Qaeda rebuilding its terror camps in southern Afghanistan?

“When the British leave there will be a continued insurgency which the Afghans will have to deal with themselves. But I also hope there will be a political reconciliation process in place.”

Mr Hammond believes that many Taliban fighters are having second thoughts about continuing with the insurgency, as Afghan security forces increasingly take the lead role in combat operations. “There is some evidence that, at the level of the ordinary Afghan fighters that signed up to fight the “foreign infidel”, they are now fighting against Afghan troops, which is not what they expected and has persuaded them to enter the reconciliation process.”

More encouraging is the suggestion that the Taliban might be prepared to ditch its long-standing alliance with al-Qaeda. “The Taliban are talking about issuing a public statement that would distance them from al-Qaeda,” he says.

Mr Hammond’s keen business sense is also excited by the potential peace dividend the Government will receive once the last combat troops have returned home.

“We will have a large peace dividend when we leave Afghanistan worth £3.5billion a year, which is what we are currently spending in Afghanistan.” Apart from supervising Britain’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan, Mr Hammond’s main priority is to instil a culture of financial discipline at the MoD while ensuring that Britain retains the military capabilities to maintain its status as a major world power.

“The big problem we have had in the past is what I call the conspiracy of optimism between the military, the MoD and the defence contractors,” he said. This meant that Dr Fox had to make some difficult decisions when he became defence secretary in 2010, including the cancellation of a number of key projects, such as the new Nimrod maritime surveillance aircraft, in order to balance the MoD’s books.

But Mr Hammond is confident that the worst is behind him, and that the MoD will soon be able to announce that it has dealt with the £38billion black hole in its budget and can start spending money again on new projects.

“I have no doubt that we are punching above our weight and that we are establishing ourselves as an important world power,” he insists, pointing to the Government’s energetic pursuit of new diplomatic ties, from Central Asia to Latin America. “Of course our Armed Forces are going to be smaller in the future, but you do not need large armies to project power. Sending a frigate is important, but doing so without intensive diplomatic engagement is a pretty hollow gesture.”

He is also grateful to Dr Fox for the ground work he did laying the foundations for the future structure of the Armed Forces. While Dr Fox concentrated on the “what”, Mr Hammond says his job is to do the “how”. “Liam will not have detected any sense of me changing the direction he had determined,” he says. “I stay in touch with Liam and he was very helpful in briefing me and bringing me up to date on the political issues relating to various projects.”

And what about his own political prospects? He is, after all, the sixth Defence Secretary during the past six years. “Fingers’ crossed,” he replies with a smile.

[buglerbilly]

Gurkha service in Britain's armed forces under threat from Nepal government bill

Almost two centuries of Gurkha service in Britain's armed forces is set to draw to a close after Nepal MPs backed a ban on recruitment when economic conditions are strong enough to generate alternative jobs.


British Army Gurkhas take positions during a patrol in an area known as Hamburger Hill in Helmand province, Afghanistan Photo: PA

By Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor

2:49PM GMT 19 Mar 2012

A parliamentary report setting the Himalayan state's foreign policy, said the recruitment of Gurkhas to fight in foreign armies should be ended.

Its authors complained that since Britain granted retired Gurkha troops the right to remain in the United Kingdom, the amount of income Nepal earns from the arrangement has declined.

Those who support a ban say the recruitment of poor young men to fight other country's wars hurts Nepal's national image.

A ban would break a bond which dates back to 1815 when the East India Company's officers defeated a Gurkha army in the Anglo-Nepal but admired their warrior skills and spirit.

Their heroics in battle with the British and British Indian Armies soon inspired fear around the world. When Hitler prepared for the second world war, he sought to sabotage Britain's Gurkha recruitment by offering lavish gifts to Nepal's Rana royal rulers.

They have since then fought in most of Britain's major conflicts, including Afghanistan where a number of Gurkha troops have lost their lives.

Today there are still 3,800 Gurkhas serving in British forces around the world, while more than 30,000 serve in the Indian Army. Singapore and Brunei have their own Gurkha forces.

Potential recruits are put through grueling physical endurance tests, in which they must be able to run up mountains carrying packs weighing 77 lbs.

Nepal's parliamentarians now want to end the relationship and use their talents at home.

Padam Lal Bishwakarma, chairman of Nepal's Parliamentary International Relations and Human Rights Committee, last night told the Daily Telegraph he wanted the recruitment to end but not until the country coluld offer the men alternative jobs which matched its pay.

"We should have that target that one day we should be able to employ all these youths. Then we will have to stop this recruitment," he said. "Our youths are compelled to go abroad because of our lack of opportunities in our own country," he added.

Nepal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday sought to allay fears of any imminent ruling on the issue and stressed the committee's report had simply been distributed throughout government.

"The government has not said anything about this. There is no need to panic," said spokesman A.B Thapar.

Britain's defence attaché in Kathmandu, Col Andrew Mills, who oversees Gurkha recruitment and welfare in the country, said the current arrangement contributes so much to the Nepal economy that he doubts there will be any change.

"We bring a lot of benefits without which the place would grind to a standstill. I pay directly into Nepal, not including remittances, £87 million a year and that is very closely matched by the Department for International Development. The net swag is eight per cent of Nepal's GDP.

No sane government would stop that, there are no jobs here," he said.

[buglerbilly]

Scrapping Trident nuclear missiles 'would save £83.5bn'

Savings could be spread over years until 2062 and jobs created on other defence projects, study finds

Guardian on Thursday 22 March 2012. It was last modified at 00.05 GMT on Thursday 22 March 2012.


A Vanguard class submarine carrying Trident nuclear missiles makes its way out of Faslane naval base in Scotland. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Scrapping the Trident nuclear missile system would save £83.5bn and many of the jobs at risk could be transferred to alternative defence projects, according to an authoritative study published on Wednesday.

An average annual saving of £1.86bn would be made until 2062, it says. The study, commissioned by senior figures from all three main parties, points out that the savings would not be available immediately because cancellation and decommissioning costs would have to be taken into account.

The report, by Professor Keith Hartley, a leading defence economist, is published by a commission set up by the British American Security Information Council. The Trident commission is jointly chaired by the former Conservative and Labour defence secretaries Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Lord Browne and the former Liberal Democrat leader and foreign and defence spokesman, Sir Menzies Campbell.

The option of arming a new fleet of Astute submarines with nuclear-armed cruise missiles – which is being considered by an internal Ministry of Defence study – might cost £56.5bn up to 2058, the report says.

Under the worst case scenario, scrapping Trident could lead to the loss of 31,000 jobs, it says. Jobs linked to the Trident nuclear missile project are concentrated at the BAE Systems shipyards at Barrow-in-Furness, Rolls Royce in Derby, the naval shipyard at Devonport near Plymouth, and the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire.

Job losses would happen over a long adjustment period during which Britain would be producing nuclear-powered but conventionally armed Astute class submarines.

"Care is needed to identify myths, emotions and special pleading," the report says. "For example, industry will often claim that a decision not to replace the [Trident submarine] Vanguard fleet would have a 'devastating and catastrophic impact' on the United Kingdom's submarine industrial base and its continued capability to design and build nuclear-powered submarines … Such claims, emotive language and special pleading need to be subject to critical analysis and evaluation of the supporting empirical evidence."

It adds: "The employment and skills impacts of a Trident replacement are not the main policy objectives of defence equipment procurement: such procurements are about the contributions of various equipment programmes to UK security, protection and peace."

The study emphasises that a decision on replacing the Trident system, due to be taken in 2016, should not be dominated by the impact on jobs or industry. "They are not central to a decision [on Trident replacement]" Hartley told the Guardian.

The report says: "Some of the high unemployment areas at risk have submarine work which will continue to about 2025. This means that there is a substantial adjustment period allowing government to decide on the future of the UK submarine industry and to introduce appropriate public policies to allow a smooth adjustment to cancellation."

Submarine manufacture was particularly capital-intensive, so more alternative jobs could be created with the same investment, it said.

The MoD study on alternatives to Trident is part of the coalition government's agreement, but it is unclear how much of it will be made public.

[buglerbilly]

U.K. Sets £160 Billion 10-Year Defense Equipment Plan

By Robert Wall wall@aviationweek.com

Source: AWIN First

May 14 , 2012



The U.K. will spend around £160 billion ($260 billion) on defense equipment and services in the next decade, which includes more than £4 billion set aside as a “contingency reserve,” Defense Secretary Philip Hammond told Parliament May 14.

The £160 billion covers almost £152 billion that has been allocated to specific budget lines, including more than £4 billion for the reserve. Another £8 billion is not allocated against specific accounts. The reserve and unallocated funds give the Defense Ministry some flexibility to deal with cost increases without affecting other projects.

The funding level is spelled out in PR12 (the latest program review), in which Hammond says the ministry has brought into balance equipment plans and actual available funding after years of mismatches between the two. Balancing the books has been a priority for Hammond, who says the National Audit Office will get to review the claim that the budget is stable, including by looking at commercially sensitive information.

Hammond says the sustainable equipment program “gives industry the confidence to invest.”

The funding being set aside includes an extra £4 billion for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance projects (such as the Solomon and Crowsnest efforts) and £7 billion for complex weapons. Eurofighter Typhoon upgrades are also to be funded, Hammond says, without giving details of which enhancements are due.

The budget will cover the planned acquisition of 14 Boeing CH-47 Chinooks and an eighth C-17, as well as three RC-135 Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft (called AirSeeker). The purchases of A400M military airlifters and Voyager air-to-air refuelers are also being backed.

On the helicopter front, Hammond says Wildcat buys are being funded, as are Merlin helicopter upgrades, studies to marinize the Merlin fleet, an Apache attack helicopter life extension to keep them going past 2025 and Puma upgrades.

Underpinning the road map is a plan to boost equipment spending from 2015 on by 1% in real terms. Research and technology support will not fall any further, Hammond vows.

Moreover, Hammond says he is looking for cultural acquisition changes and hopes to adopt some of the benefits of the urgent operational requirements process. The effort is being backed by plans to reform the Defense Equipment & Support organization, with an announcement due before the summer recess.

[buglerbilly]

U.K. Defense Achieves Rare Balanced Budget

May. 14, 2012 - 04:12PM

By ANDREW CHUTER

LONDON — Britain’s defense budget is in balance for the first time in decades following a two-year effort by the government to eliminate a 38 billion pound ($61.1 billion) black hole in funding, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond told Parliament here.

Hammond said the core committed equipment budget over the next 10 years runs just less than 152 billion pounds. Included in that is 4.5 billion pounds for armored vehicles and more than 4 billion pounds for investment in intelligence, surveillance, communications and reconnaissance assets.

On top of the 152 billion pounds, the MoD also has 8 billion pounds of funds available to allocate to projects not yet in the committed core program, Hammond said.

Part of the 152 billion pound figure includes, for the first time, 4 billion pounds the MoD has diverted into a centrally held contingency fund to offset the impact of any future equipment delays or technical problems.

Hammond told reporters the 8 billion pounds in uncommitted funds would be spent in accordance with the military’s assessment of priorities at the time.

“We will not commit to a project until it needs to be committed to ensure delivery on time,” he said. “We also won’t commit to any projects without a 10-year budget line to cover not just procurement, but support costs. This new financial discipline in the equipment plan will give the armed forces the confidence that once a project is in the program, it is real, funded and deliverable.”

The defense secretary announced the outcome of the Planning Round 2012 deliberation, saying it was the first time in a generation that the MoD had balanced its budget. The MoD’s core equipment program is fully funded, affordable and able to deliver the defense transformation plan known as Future Force 2020, he said.

The planned C4I investment includes the go-ahead or continuation of the Cipher crypto security management infrastructure program, the Solomon ground information dissemination project, the Crowsnest aircraft carrier-borne airborne early warning system, the defense core network service and the Falcon joint tactical trunk communications projects, the MoD said later in a statement.

Other programs set to continue under the 10-year, 160 billion pound equipment plan include a life extension of the Apache attack helicopter, the new Specialist Vehicle program being worked on by General Dynamics UK, continued investment in the Eurofighter Typhoon fast jet, continuation of an upgrade of the Puma helicopter, the outright purchase of three leased offshore patrol vessels and the Type 26 frigate program, Hammond said.

The defense secretary said the decision announced last week to switch from the F-35C conventional carrier version of the Joint Strike Fighter to the F-35B short-takeoff, vertical-landing variant had been the final piece of the spending jigsaw puzzle, allowing the MoD to go forward with its PR12 plans.

The MoD declined to list projects that had not made the cut and will either be abandoned or await being taken up as part of the 8 billion pounds in uncommitted funding.

The Conservative-led coalition government here has spent the last two years removing the 38 billion pound gap in unfunded liabilities left by the previous Labour administration, as well as imposing a near 8 percent cut in defense spending of its own over the period to 2015.

Capability, equipment programs and personnel have all taken big cuts in an effort to balance the books.

Hammond told reporters the cuts had brought with them confidence and morale challenges, but that “balancing the budget was a huge milestone; it breaks with practices of the past and starts to put some of the destabilization and uncertainty behind us as we move forward with the defense transformation plan.

“This department has seen its reputation tarnished in the past by failure of project management, poor decision-making and woeful budget discipline,” he said. “This marks the start of a new chapter of U.K. defense, and I’m confident that the dynamic will now be to look for opportunities to continually improve productivity, releasing additional savings that can be recycled into additional equipment purchases over and above the core program.

“There will be additional commitments in the future from the 8 billion pounds, releases from unused contingency, the reserve in the core budget and from savings made by delegated budget holders,” he said.

[buglerbilly]

MoD secures key helicopter projects

15 May 2012 - 9:39 by Tony Osborne in London



The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has secured several key helicopter programmes in its latest planning round (PR12) it has emerged.

Key procurements such as the purchase of the new AW159 Wildcat for the British Army and the Royal Navy, as well as 14 new Chinooks for the RAF, have been secured. Despite concerns echoed in the national press earlier this year that the Puma Life Extension Programme was facing the axe, PR12 documentation confirmed it was committed to the upgrade of 24 of the aircraft.

PR12 has 'guaranteed' funding for the planned Apache life-extension programme and what is described as an assessment phase for the marinisation of the Merlin Mk3 helicopter fleet which is due to be transferred to the Royal Navy to replace the Sea King helicopters of the Commando Helicopter Force.

The MoD also confirmed that project Crowsnest will form part of the 'core equipment programme'. Crowsnest will deliver the Royal Navy's future carrier-borne airborne early warning (AEW) capability probably using modified versions of the EH101 Merlin, particularly now that the government has decided on the F-35B STOVL version of the Joint Strike Fighter to provide carrier strike capability.

Apache life-extension is a particularly critical programme given the type's success in the Afghan and Libyan operational theatres which has pushed up the usage rates of the type. Meanwhile the cost of maintenance is expected to increase as suppliers begin to halt production of older components in favour of those being fitted to the Block III aircraft that are now coming off the production line in the US for a number of customers.

The government believes it has now wiped out a £38 billion defence budget deficit that the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition inherited when it took power in 2010.

The MoD said: 'for the first time, the MoD's core equipment programme is fully funded and affordable,' but it is not clear what programmes have been shelved or cancelled entirely.

Secretary of State for Defence Philip Hammond said: 'The Government is determined to get to grips with a legacy of poor project management, weak decision-making and financial indiscipline within the MOD.

'We have made a symbolic break with the failed practices of the past, and the vast black hole that blighted defence spending has gone.

'For the first time in decades we have delivered a credible and sustainable budget and we can now confidently pledge to deliver to our armed forces almost £160bn worth of equipment over the next decade that we know we can afford.

The committed core equipment programme amounts to just under £152 billion over ten years, against a total planned spend of almost £160 billion. That former includes, for the first time, a centrally-held contingency of over £4 billion. The programme also includes an additional £8 billion of funding over the next ten years which is unallocated, allowing the department to respond to emerging equipment requirements.

[buglerbilly]

UK MoD confirms commitment to Specialist Vehicle programme in Armoured Fighting Vehicle pipeline



The UK MoD has confirmed in its Planning Round 2012 (PR12) announcement today that funding for its future Armoured Fighting Vehicle (AFV) pipeline, which includes the Specialist Vehicle (SV) programme, is part of its core programme of committed funding, thus protecting the core component of Force 2020 for the British Army. General Dynamics UK will deliver the most modern medium-weight AFV fleet in the world today for the British Army, featuring the most advanced ISTAR capabilities and providing the best possible protection for the soldiers using it. The SV programme is a Modified-off-the-Shelf (MOTS) solution that brings huge economic and industrial benefit to the UK, and is expected to attract valuable export orders from overseas markets.

“We welcome the announcement by the Secretary of State for Defence confirming that the SV programme is secure in the MoD’s future AFV pipeline and core programme of committed funding,” commented Dr. Sandy Wilson, president and managing director of General Dynamics UK, the prime contractor on the programme. “This is great news for the soldiers who will use SV; it is great news for the UK supply chain involved in designing and manufacturing SV; and it is great news for General Dynamics UK in South Wales and validates General Dynamics’ continued investment in the United Kingdom.”

Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Peter Wall said, "I am delighted that £5.5bn is secured for the Armoured Fighting Vehicle (AFV) pipeline over the next decade. SV is a key programme in this mix: It will provide the mobility, flexibility and protection to provide our commanders with critical battlefield information in the most demanding of environments."

Benefits to the UK economy and industry

The SV programme is a tangible demonstration of how the modification in the UK of a European Offthe-
Shelf platform – a process called Modified Off the Shelf or MOTS – can deliver increased value for money to the British taxpayer, support British jobs throughout the supply chain, and deliver a solution with great export potential; making SV a key capital programme for the UK economy over its 30 year lifespan.

A recent audit study by Ernst & Young concluded that the SV programme would generate total economic output of over £9.8 billion, with a corresponding Gross Value Added (GVA) of £4.7 billion over the life of the programme. To this end, General Dynamics UK recently invested £12 million in state of the art facilities in Wales, establishing a Centre of Excellence for Land Systems, where the programme’s intellectual property and the UK’s sovereign AFV capability will reside.

General Dynamics UK has signed a major sub-contract with Lockheed Martin UK, based in the East of England, for the turret of the Scout variant. Thales UK in Scotland is also contracted to provide a full optronics suite including the gunners and commander’s sights on Scout, using their latest Orion technology, which are used for reconnaissance and targeting, and short-range sensors to provide local situational awareness in the vicinity of the vehicle. Contracts have also been signed with 12 other UK based suppliers, as well as a number of European suppliers. Further contracts will be signed as the programme progresses, bringing further economic benefits to regions around the UK.

A direct consequence of the SV programme’s robust UK content and supply chain is a stronger British supply chain, a continuing UK sovereign AFV capability and a British Army equipped with a fleet of modern, highly capable and easily deployable, armoured fighting vehicles.

Benefits to the British Army

The SV programme will deliver an initial family of four vehicle variants to the British Army - Scout for the manned reconnaissance role, a Protected Mobility Reconnaissance Support (PMRS) vehicle, plus Recovery and Repair variants, with possible future variants such as a light-tank with a 120mm direct fire gun and turret solution, a bridge layer, command and control post, ambulance and Overwatch missile defence system to name a few. Also, the combination of SV’s Common Base Platform (CBP) and General Dynamics UK’s proprietary electronic architecture (EA) means that the British Army will be able to develop and grow its core medium-weight AFV capability much more easily than in the past. The open nature of the electronic architecture designed by General Dynamics UK was a key reason why the MoD chose the General Dynamics solution in the first place. The electronic open architecture will allow for the easy addition of new capabilities to the platform when needed, resulting in a more cost effective upgrade path, whilst the common base platform across all variants will ensure that it will be less expensive and easier to manage logistics, supply and training requirements. General Dynamics UK’s solution reduces cost of repair and upkeep, reduces weight and increases available space inside AFVs while providing the required power and data architecture for the high power and high data demands of modern networked vehicles fighting in a digital age. Currently each different vehicle type used by the Army requires its own support lines, and by extension is less financially efficient.

Excellent progress on SV programme

Since signing the contract for SV in July 2010 the industry team has made excellent progress on the SV programme, meeting all milestones set by the MoD on budget and on schedule. Amongst the key achievements are:

• 24 contracts signed with suppliers to the programme across the UK and Europe;
• Testing of key components completed;
• First development turret for the Scout variant of SV built and tested;
• CT40 cannon system integrated into turret and successfully fired;
• Representative PT3 Scout SV prototype unveiled;
• New armour system tested against latest IED threats;
• Powertrain physically integrated in the Mobile Test Rig (MTR).

Excellent export potential

The recent Ernst & Young audit study conservatively estimated the potential export value of the SV programme to be approximately £1.3 billion or more in its first 16 years, based on expressions of interest from a number of countries. Many of these countries are understood to be considering upgrading to SV for it levels of capability and survivability. The UK Government’s announcement that the SV programme is secure in the AFV pipeline and in its core programme of committed funding will encourage these countries to more closely consider SV for their AFV needs as it offers the future growth and protection they will need to protect their troops.



Read more: http://www.asdnews.com/news-42751/UK_MoD_confirms_commitment_to_Specialist_Vehicle_p rogramme_in_Armoured_Fighting_Vehicle_pipeline.htm #ixzz1uwICOOKn

[buglerbilly]

U.K. May Use Olympic Model For Defense Acquisitions

May. 19, 2012 - 11:16AM

By ANDREW CHUTER

It's like watching a new edition of Dumb and Dumber watching UK Defence Procurement..........morons led by political donkeys........:aah

LONDON — The organization that delivered Britain’s Olympic construction effort on time and on budget is being touted as a possible role model in an upcoming radical reorganization of the Ministry of Defence’s procurement and support arm.

The government is restructuring its Defence Equipment & Support organization and has narrowed its options to two, according to Bernard Gray, the MoD’s chief of defense materiel. Both options involve putting contractors at the heart of the 14 billion pound ($22.3 billion) a year operation, either managing or advising DE&S.

The preferred management models are the Olympic Delivery Authority, what is known here as an executive nondepartmental public body, and a government-owned, contractor-operated setup along the lines of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Gray told the parliamentary defense committee May 15.

The Olympic Delivery Authority is a public body set up by an act of Parliament to develop and build the venues and infrastructure for the games scheduled to start here July 27.

The authority appointed a consortium involving the firms CH2M Hill, Laing O’Rourke and Mace to manage the effort.

Despite early problems, the organization completed the program on time and within the Olympics’ 9.3 billion pound budget.

Gray, who is the boss at DE&S, described the possible arrangement based on the Olympic Delivery Authority template as a public-private joint venture with the contractor essentially acting as adviser.

In contrast, the Atomic Weapons Establishment is directly run for the MoD by a consortium of Serco, Jacobs Engineering and Lockheed Martin under a deal running to 2025.

“The second model we are evaluating is like [the establishment]. It’s a government-owned company which a consortium company would run and manage on our behalf,” Gray said.

“The essential difference is that in the second case, they [the contractor] have management control of the entity, and their fee and profit is driven by what they do with the outcomes,” he said.

Jacobs, Serco, BAE Systems, Bechtel and others in recent weeks have discussed with the MoD how the new schemes might work.

A decision in favor of the Olympics approach could mean its implementation would be a marathon rather than a sprint. A public body must be set up by an act of Parliament, and it could be several years before the primary legislation is in place, a competition is completed and the operation is on track to deliver savings.

The government-owned company doesn’t necessarily require legislation, Gray said, although it might be helpful to clarify the powers of the consortium.

Procurement Minister Peter Luff, appearing alongside Gray at the committee hearings, said the issue of reform couldn’t wait, and an interim management structure to push through changes in behavior would be introduced for those elements of the restructuring not requiring legislation.

The proposed changes come at a time when DE&S faces thousands of job losses as part of a government effort to regain control of defense spending.

Gray favored the government-owned company approach when he wrote a searing report for the MoD in 2009 on the shortcomings of DE&S. He was an independent businessman at the time, but was later invited by the coalition government to sort out the problems that caused a legacy of late deliveries and cost overruns.

Equipment program cost overruns at DE&S have been responsible for a sizeable part of the problem in balancing the defense budget over the past few years. But many of the shortcomings stem as much from political interference and the armed forces’ propensity to change requirements as the abilities of the procurement and support operation.

Restructuring the management and operations of DE&S, along with other acquisition reforms, is a key hurdle in the Conservative-led government’s effort to keep a balanced defense budget on track.

A major restructuring of the MoD is underway with wide-ranging reforms to its structure, size, capabilities and management.

Gray’s testimony to the committee came just 24 hours after Defence Secretary Philip Hammond announced the defense budget had been brought under control after dealing with a 38 billion pound black hole in unfunded liabilities over 10 years left by the previous Labour administration, as well as a nearly 8 percent cut by the cash-strapped coalition itself.

Announcing the outcome of the Planning Round 2012 deliberation, which looks at spending this financial year and for the 10 years ahead, Hammond said it was the first time in a generation that the MoD had balanced its budget.

The announcement was good news for the government after facing mounting criticism over its competence in other policy areas.

Hammond declined to detail how the MoD had achieved the most recent round of cuts required to balance the books.