Conclusions and Recommendations
1. There is no individual within the Department
with full responsibility for ensuring that the Bowman CIP project
meets its objectives.
In 2006, the Department belatedly appointed a senior officer to
act as Senior Responsible Owner. But he lacks the authority and
time to effectively discharge this onerous responsibility and
is only supported by a small staff. In applying the Senior Responsible
Owner concept, the Department should equip those appointed to
such challenging positions with the funding, authority and trust
to fully discharge their responsibilities in line with the guidance
issued by the Office of Government Commerce.
2. The Department took nine months to approve
the revised deal struck with General Dynamics UK in October 2005.
Time is money for the Department and its contractors, and delaying
delivery of a much needed capability could also cost lives. The
Department intends to action the relevant recommendations from
its Enabling Acquisition Change review to improve its in-house
approvals processes. The Department should also engage the Treasury
and other relevant government departments in developing a leaner,
more responsive approval process so that decisions can be made
in a more timely manner.
3. The Bowman CIP project timescale was clearly
unrealistic, and the inherent complexity and technological challenges
were under-estimated. The Department should
re-design its scrutiny processes and better align these and its
assurance processes so that they are fit to deal with the challenges
of modern defence acquisitions and to take into account the culture
of over-optimism endemic in much defence procurement.
4. The vehicle conversion challenge posed
by the unexpected variation in the land vehicle fleet could have
been predicted if the fleet had been properly surveyed before
contracts were placed. The problem was
compounded by the absence of good data on vehicle configurations,
and the practice, particularly in the army, of modifying vehicles
without managing and tracking the modifications. Until the Department
obtains adequate standing information on vehicle condition and
configuration, it should re-emphasise to Users the importance
of maintaining standard configurations wherever possible and should
survey representative samples of vehicles before commencing modification
work.
5. Complex new systems such as Bowman CIP
are more expensive to support and will require more on-going training
than their simpler predecessors. To encourage
more serious consideration of Through Life Management issues and
better inform future investment decisions, the Department should
validate the quality of the key data underpinning decisions on
the delivery of through life management capability including measures
of financial maturity, and clarity about the capability needed.
6. Bowman CIP was accepted in service in March
2004 with 27 major provisos that reflect the limited operational
capability of the initial system. The
Department should only accept that General Dynamics UK has cleared
the provisos on the basis of robust trials-based evidence and
should not pay any outstanding amounts until it is satisfied that
the Armed Services are getting the capability they asked for.
7. The Department has removed several important
capabilities from the existing Bowman CIP programme.
The Department has developed plans which it is confident will
now deliver the most vital aspects of capability without further
delay. The capabilities being delayed, such as the ability to
communicate with allies, remain important, not least to reduce
the risk of further friendly fire deaths. The Department is confident
that, to date, no lives have been lost due to this deferral. It
should, within the next year, develop a realistic forward plan
to ensure the Armed Forces do not have to forego these capabilities
for longer than is absolutely necessary.
8. In addition to the timescale slippage,
the Department has agreed to pay a further £121 million to
General Dynamics UK to deliver Bowman CIP, despite a much reduced
number of platforms to be converted, and some aspects of the requirement
being shuffled to another project. Securing
value for money in the long-term will require the Department and
General Dynamics UK to work together collaboratively to cost-effectively
deliver and sustain the capability required by the Armed Forces.
To support this objective, the Department and General Dynamics
should regularly assess the strength of their relationship.
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