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SND2 40
Memorandum from Devonport Management Limited
There is a highly specialised skill and knowledge base required to support and sustain the UK's nuclear-powered submarine capability across all stages of the platform life cycle. It also requires the use of large scale capital intensive physical infrastructure at Barrow, Faslane and Devonport. The skill base and the infrastructure each represent significant levels of fixed cost.
The UK now operates a relatively small number of nuclear-powered submarines compared to, say, the 1980's. The total number of platforms is moving towards a force level of seven SSNs and four SSBNs. At this level the retention of an affordable and viable programme requires careful consideration of all activities (design, build, operational support, deep maintenance) and how these programme elements affect manpower loading and utilisation in the key industrial facilities.
The overall composition of the submarine programme is determined by the design and build schedule for new submarines combined with the operational and support cycles of existing submarines. The precise programme composition has increasingly to take account of industrial base factors. This is because the relatively small number of submarines unavoidably leads to high variability in design, build and support workload over, say, any two to three year timescale. If this particular issue is not pro-actively managed then sustainability of the industrial base (and the affordability of the military capability that it generates) will be threatened.
Hence, if Government policy determines the requirement for a submarine-based strategic deterrent system beyond the effective life of the Vanguard class submarines, industrial base issues will have to be taken into account. These issues directly influence the UK's ability to design and manufacture new submarines, whilst in parallel keeping a viable and cost effective support capability for existing operational submarines
The need to generate balance in this highly specialised part of the defence industrial base is therefore an important influence on the optimum in-service date for the first and subsequent submarines of a new strategic deterrent system. This date in turn determines when work on the submarine needs to begin, given the lead time for the design and development of the platform and its systems. Other factors that influence this date are:
· any fundamental life limitations in major components or systems in the existing SSBNs · forecast reductions in reliability, availability or supportability of the existing SSBNs as their operational life extends · any unacceptable level of expected escalation in the total operating cost of the existing system.
As indicated in Written Evidence to the previous stage of this enquiry (Ev 141), the programme leading up to the entry of the Vanguard class into service is relevant in estimating the lead-time for a new SSBN. A review of this data indicates that preliminary work should begin imminently on a successor SSBN if the requirement is to achieve a planned operational availability for the first of class around 2025.
From the industrial base perspective this date will generate a design programme that is needed to sustain key front end design and development skills and, in the longer term, a sensible overlap with the final stages of an assumed seven boat Astute class build schedule.
This assumed schedule also generates a requirement for second, non-refuelling refits (LOPs), on a minimum of three of the existing Vanguard class submarines to sustain continuous availability of the deterrent over the transition period between systems. This provides a sustained, albeit highly variable, workload through the Devonport refit facility prior to the start of the Astute class LOPs.
There is merit in doing further analysis work to determine the optimum work content of these second Vanguard class LOPs, based on the known material condition of the submarines at their first refit and the planned length of their third commissions. This analysis work should also consider the possibility of an increased work content for these second LOPs, to give scope for extended operational lives of some of the existing SSBNs if the new SSBN in-service date is delayed beyond 2025 for any reason.
Adequate funding to ensure these various activities start at the pace required to meet the planned availability date for the new SSBN and to support the Vanguard-related risk mitigation work is essential. Otherwise the expenditure will be inefficient and holistic progress in sustaining continuous deterrence will be compromised from the outset.
LINKAGE BETWEEN THE DETERRENT DECISION & THE DEFENCE INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
A decision not to replace the deterrent would have a fundamental effect on the maritime element of the DIS through:
· a potential impact on the operational and support strategies for the existing deterrent system · knock-on effects into the planned Astute procurement programme (the SSN force is partly committed to supporting the SSBNs) · changed priorities in respect of build and support yards that are required to deliver the other elements(ie, non SSBN-related) of military capability in the naval sector.
Conversely, a decision to replace the current deterrent system would make the existing UK submarine-related engineering skill-base and infrastructure essential in maintaining availability of the current and future SSBNs and the SSNs that support their deployment.
A positive decision on a future submarine-based deterrent must, in turn, influence decisions about where and when other naval build and support work is carried out - a good example is Devonport where the availability of surface ship support work will be vital during the inevitable periods of low submarine throughput that the future upkeep programme contains, if submarine affordability is not to be seriously impaired.
There is also therefore a very important interaction with the current Naval Base Review where, for instance, the resultant surface ship base porting strategy will influence the availability of ship maintenance work in Fleet Time at Devonport.
Hence a positive decision to replace the current deterrent with a new submarine-based system will generate a "pivot point", centred on the UK's sovereign submarine build and support infrastructure, around which a wide range of other maritime industrial base issues should be determined if the affordability and availability of overall naval capability is to be optimised.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN UK CIVILIAN & MILITARY NUCLEAR CAPABILITY
The UK's military nuclear programmes have historically attracted and developed their own specialists. This situation has begun to change over recent years, particularly as the influence of the civilian regulator over the design and operation of military facilities has increased following the introduction of contractor management and privatisation.
This regulatory influence has led to the move of civilian expertise into the military domain, in part on the back of large scale facilities upgrade programmes, such as that carried out between 1997 and 2002 in Devonport. This trend also now operates in reverse, where "best practice expertise" is in some cases returning to the civilian sector as a result of the NDA requirements and other developing aspects of the civil nuclear programme.
Arguably, if and when the UK civil nuclear generating programme begins to ramp up, perhaps the most important point I would wish to make is that confidence in retaining a vibrant, stable and long term submarine programme will be fundamental to attracting and retaining the key technical resources that will be essential to the naval nuclear programme's success.
11 October 2006 |