Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-159)
MINISTRY OF
DEFENCE
25 OCTOBER 2004
Q140 Mr Jenkins: And they should all
be fit for war fighting because at the end of the day that is
their job.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: In an ideal
world they will be fit for all environments at all times, but
obviously you cannot guarantee that because you do not know what
particular operation you may have to go into.
Q141 Mr Jenkins: We do not get that,
do we, because we have a flying platform, as you know, as the
Report highlights, and we have a pick and mix arrangement, where
we put different bits of kit on as in the different operations.
The bit that worries me more is this almost just in time solution,
when we buy stuff to fit on, and in the Report it mentions the
fact that sometimes pilots feel that they do not have sufficient
time, with a new bit of equipment bolted on, to get the training
requirement. Do you feel that we are getting the right balance?
Sir Kevin Tebbit: I think we are
getting the right balance, but you are quite right. We try to
procure things fit for purpose. However, of course, these platforms
have a very long life and so there are continuous upgrade programmes
as the threat environment changes. Lynx was procured originally
for the Cold War, temperate climates, North European plain. To
convert it for very different operating conditions meant that
we were doing upgrades as we went along—we were in the middle
of upgrades actually when this operation came along. Then the
third thing is that nearly always for particular operations you
need fine tuning, and that is where Urgent Operational Requirements
come in.
Q142 Mr Jenkins: It is not the upgrade
I am asking about, it is the fact that when you are going to go
into a certain area, a certain environment, you put another bit
of kit on to the platform and then when that job is completed
the kit might come off that platform and be fitted to another
platform. So we are using this stuff and moving it around from
helicopter to helicopter.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: Sometimes we
keep the equipment and sometimes we do not; it depends on affordability
as well as other considerations, and it does depend on, as you
say, configuring for different sorts of operations.
Air Vice Marshal Luker: May I
make a further point, again for clarification? One of the other
compromises we have to make is about the physical properties of
the aircraft—the more kit we put on it the less troops we
can carry and the less missiles we can carry. So it is always
a compromise in terms of the physical capacity of the aircraft.
Q143 Mr Jenkins: I am well of the fact
that some Forces—not ours—put so much kit on to a
platform that when the pilot tried to turn it it lost lift and
fell out of the sky. So we are aware of what platforms carry and
sometimes we do not get it quite right. I want to ask about the
training area, which I am quite interested in, because when we
started the Defence Helicopter Flying School, which was started
in 1996, you expected we would achieve savings of £86 million
on training costs.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: Yes.
Q144 Mr Jenkins: Yet now this has been
reduced to £10 million.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: Yes.
Q145 Mr Jenkins: Can you tell us why?
Sir Kevin Tebbit: We have made
various contract amendments as we have gone along and the throughput
of the helicopter school is now much greater than it was under
the original specification. I think the figure is something like
37% or 38% higher output required now than when we first planned
it. So it is not the same package. We have more instructors there
than we had originally, so obviously that has altered that cost
calculus.
Q146 Mr Jenkins: So what you are saying
now is that you are achieving better unit costs than you originally
envisaged? It is getting cheaper, better value?
Sir Kevin Tebbit: I think we are
getting better value but, again, at the expense of being criticised
by the Committee, I would agree that the original contract in
1996 was not as tightly drawn as it should have been in terms
of specifications, and they have had to be improved as we have
gone along.
Q147 Mr Jenkins: We are very used to
having contracts not tightly drawn and that is our biggest problem,
the fact that we do not feel that we have the expertise sometimes
in the Departments across Whitehall to do the job when they negotiate
and draw up contracts with the private sector. We are hopefully
improving all the time.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: I think so too
and we have just had a new agreement with the contractor to share
gains in third party usage, where we have times where there is
an unavoidable spare capacity and how that can be used to reduce
the cost to us as well as provide gains to him. So that is an
example of improvement.
Q148 Mr Jenkins: If you could turn to
page 21, 3.8, halfway down there it says, "The United States
Army hopes eventually to pass Chinook and `D' model Apache pilots
to the front-line in approximately 44 weeks and 53 weeks, respectively.
This compares to 110 weeks and 94 weeks, respectively, in the
United Kingdom." Could somebody explain to us why the difference
is so great, please?
Sir Kevin Tebbit: Even for the
United States this is at present still an un-funded aspiration.
When you are training pilots—and I am sure the Air Vice
Marshal will say more—you have to balance cost and time
issues, and if you train people purely on the particular type
and mark of aircraft they are going to use, and do not use more
cheaper basic trainers, then although you might be able to turn
them out as a pilot faster because they have had more experience
on the precise type they will use, the costs go up very considerably.
So there is always a need to balance cost and time on type and
that is basically what is shown in figure 10 here. But, as I understand
it, even the United States has not managed to achieve this because
of the funding issues. There is also the question of quality and
the standards we require of our pilots, and I do not want to get
into an issue which will only cause problems with the US embassy,
but we do regard the quality of our trained pilots as very high,
and that is a very important point. I do not know if the Air Vice
Marshal wants to add anything there?
Air Vice Marshal Luker: Just one
further point. I understand that the Americans also conduct more
training in squadron service than we would ourselves. We have
people going straight into squadron services straight onto operations.
We cannot afford that luxury.
Q149 Mr Jenkins: That is part of the
answer I want. The other part is we will be looking at this closely
to see if there are any lessons we can learn, for our own system.
If I can touch briefly on the Chinook issue because in the supplementary
memo you said that the fix to field option was the best value
for money as a solution to this problem. What other options did
you consider?
Sir Kevin Tebbit: I was going
to say provided it is demonstrated in this phase where we are
spending £13 million to make absolutely certain. I am not
certain yet. The other options are the base option, which is the
one that is reflected in the accounts, simply use this for spares,
which is clearly undesirable. Other options would be to sell them
to other countries who regard them as perfectly acceptable aircraft.
Q150 Mr Jenkins: Has anyone shown any
interest at the present time with regard to maybe they would like
them?
Sir Kevin Tebbit: We are focusing
on the fix to field option, but the answer is yes, but I am not
in a position to go into details.
Q151 Mr Jenkins: Because we are not going
to get a decision from you for some 15 months on which option
you are going to take, are we?
Sir Kevin Tebbit: You will get
a decision on which option to take, yes, you will, much quicker
than that. We also want to take it in the context of our future
Rotorcraft plans as a whole, which are in the timescale of now
to next Spring.
Q152 Mr Jenkins: I notice on page 31,
4.3, they said we are going to have shortfall on lift-off Naval
vessels and partly if the Sea Kings could not do it we would use
land based Chinooks, and I thought surely not these because these
are not capable of doing the job, are they?
Sir Kevin Tebbit: No, but there
is obviously the other Chinook Force as well.
Q153 Mr Jenkins: Yes, we are using the
old Chinooks?
Sir Kevin Tebbit: They are very
capable aircraft.
Q154 Mr Jenkins: One last question. Looking
at the Report—and I have no doubt that maybe we are achieving
a lot of what we set out to do—but do you think sometimes
we do get value for money in so far as some of the programmes
we see coming before us, but particularly the failures, do you
think as taxpayers we are getting value for money?
Sir Kevin Tebbit: I am sure you
do, but it does not mean to say that we should not try to do better
and must do better. But 70% of our projects come into time, cost
and quality. What comes before the Committee are some of the ones
that do not. Most of our problems, as you know, are connected
with four big legacy programmes. This is another one which is
unusual in the sense that time and cost were not the problem,
the problem was quality, and it has this rather unique difficulty
about the safety regulations. I am sure the Committee would not
want us to say that we are going to ease safety regulations just
in order to have this into service, because that is not what we
do.
Chairman: Thank you, very much. Mr Davidson.
Q155 Mr Davidson: Can I start off by
congratulating Mr Luker on the honesty of his CV when he comments
that his interests are increasingly sedentary and sporadic. Such
honesty is to be commended and I hope it will continue throughout
the rest of our discussion. Can I follow up the point that was
made earlier on, about the question of officer pilots only in
the Navy and the RAF? You will have seen the Report here where
it refers to the ability of non-commissioned officers apparently
to fly the complex Apache and the way in which the Germans and
the French are able to have non-officers flying helicopters. Do
you understand that this approach by the RAF and the Royal Navy
makes it look like snobbery and that it confirms a prejudice,
basically, that many of the Forces are just somewhere rotten with
snobbery, and that there is no real reason, apart from restrictive
practices of the sort that we got rid of in the shipyards years
ago, once the British industry had been got rid of, and that there
is no real defensible reason for it, it is just there because
it is there?
Air Vice Marshal Luker: Perhaps
I should have added one further thing to my CV, the fact that
I am the son of a career senior NCO. There is no prejudice on
my part at all about senior NCOs. I had them under command when
I was with the Army and I find them, provided that they are trained
and educated to the standard that we need, perfectly acceptable.
Q156 Mr Davidson: Were you a helicopter
pilot?
Air Vice Marshal Luker: I am a
helicopter pilot.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: Could I just
say that this is a Report that I commissioned in the light of
the Committee's own recommendations earlier and, frankly, I expected
there to be a change, but when I saw the value for money calculations
as to how beneficial it would be to change and increase NCOs and
bring them into the Navy and the Air Force, I found that under
the costings which have been done that it would only be about
£1.25 million more beneficial to use NCOs in those two Services,
partly because the pay differentials are not that great and flying
pay is on the basis of experience and not rank. Therefore, that
was not a great deal but again even that was outweighed by the
return on service issues. By and large you get slightly longer
from officers than NCOs—it is not a huge difference, but
it came out about cost neutral. Therefore, from the point of view
of the accounting officer, it was not really worth—and is
not really worth—seeking to impose what would be an upheaval
on to Services in terms of their structures for the sake of a
very small gain at best in terms of value for money. But in terms
of equality and in terms of best practice I think this is probably
something we may keep reviewing, and with the future Rotorcraft
plans, as we bring forward a new group, as it were, of helicopters
and see how that beds down in the Joint Helicopter Command, my
guess is that we will probably return to it. But as of now, with
so many other things going on—and I am just sorry that the
Committee has not looked at all the good things that are happening
in the whole of the helicopter Rotorcraft arena, which is what
the Report was basically about—I think this is not particularly
worth the candle at this stage to make any changes.
Q157 Mr Davidson: That is an interesting
point because these things are political as well as managerial,
and I am very interested to hear that this something that not
only would not have cost money but would have saved money, and
would have changed the image and reputation of the Services to
a great extent. I know that in constituencies such as mine there
is an automatic assumption that anyone joining the Services does
not have the upper ranks open to them, and that they only join
at the level of the ordinary person, as it were, and the highest
they can expect to reach is an NCO, which I think is a mistake.
And the fact that you are not willing to countenance changing
such a practice in order to give a greater impression that the
Forces are meritocratic rather than being based on prejudice and
snobbery is perhaps regrettable.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: May I say something?
Q158 Mr Davidson: That was a long answer
that you gave me and I would like to move on to another issue.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: I would just
like to make a comment about the—
Chairman: Carry on. You have given the
answers.
Q159 Mr Davidson: Can I ask you to look
at paragraph 3.15—and again it is coming back to this point
about the Defence Helicopter Flying School? As I understand it,
the expectation was that we would get to save £80 million
over 15 years. With half of the contract through, the maximum
saving is now 10 years. It is reasonable for us to expect if this
continues in the direction it has been moving, that by the end
of the 15 years it will actually have been more expensive to privatise
than to have continued to run it in-house. Is that a reasonable
way of looking at it?
Sir Kevin Tebbit: No, I do not
think it is.
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