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; and
— 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 AND
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); and
— 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 AND
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
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