Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
GENERAL SIR
KEVIN O'DONOGHUE
KCB CBE, DR ANDREW
TYLER AND
REAR ADMIRAL
PAUL LAMBERT
CB
25 NOVEMBER 2008
Q120 Mr Jenkins: I am in a bit of
difficulty now on two fronts: firstly, the principle front, I
thought the costs of operations were met by contingencies, and
the cost of damage to any equipment being part and parcel of the
operation would be funded out of the contingency. Secondly, exactly
on what timescale do you do your accounting? I should have thought,
having operations that have gone on for three months or four months,
yes, you would have difficulty in costing it out; but these operations
have gone on a little longer now. Are you telling me that the
cost of repairing and maintenance of operational equipment for
five or six years ago has yet to be allocated?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
No. In the first of your two points you make you are absolutely
correct. The costs of those operations are covered by the contingency
Reserve. The cost of repairing vehicles that are required to be
repaired, replacing and buying UORs, the cost of those operations
is covered by the contingency Reserve. That is on a continuous
basis, as Dr Tyler has said. What I thought we were talking about
was, if one of these operations ceases and then everything comes
out of theatre, if that were to happen, who then pays for the
cost of doing whatever needs to be done to it? Bear in mind, a
lot of it will have been brought up-to-date, brought up to the
most recently required specification anyway, and that is paid
for out of the contingency Reserve. We are talking about something
which is a bit of an unknown here, and that is our difficulty.
Q121 Chairman: Do you spend the money
before you know where it is coming from?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
No, because we are still in theatre. Everything that is being
repaired—everything that requires to be recuperated, if
you like, on an ongoing basis—is paid for by the Treasury.
I thought your question was about when something stops everything
comes out and is sitting there who pays for that to be recuperated?
That is quite a difficult debate to have until we know how much
has to be spent on doing what to it, and what the requirement
is.
Q122 Mr Borrow: Is essentially the
argument that if kit is brought back out of theatre if that kit
had been used in ordinary training exercises the funding of bringing
that up to scratch would come from your ordinary budget?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
Yes, correct.
Q123 Mr Borrow: But there will be
extra costs because it had been in theatre, and therefore there
will be a debate as to what proportion of that cost when it comes
out of theatre should be met from your ordinary budget, and what
proportion should be met from the contingency Reserve, and that
is the key issue which has not been resolved?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
Indeed.
Q124 Mr Jenkins: We did bring a lot
of equipment home from Iraq so that was repaired and maintained.
Who picked the bill up for that?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
The answer is that I do not know. I would have to come back to
you on that. I do not know I am afraid.
Q125 Chairman: We hear that the Harrier
Force is coming back from Afghanistan, to be replaced by Tornados.
Who will pay for the cost of recuperating those?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
The Harrier Force is in very good condition and the aircraft that
are out there do not need recuperating. The aircraft that are
there are fit to fight. They are at the standard for theatre entry
and they are good to go.
Q126 Chairman: So why are they coming
back?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
This is to give the Force a rest. It has been out there for five
years. This is very much the Chief of the Air Staff's business
to advise the Defence Board and Ministers on what should be deployed
where. This is not an equipment issue.
Q127 Chairman: We heard in a debate
in the House of Commons last week that £860 million has been
spent on fine-tuning the Harriers to get them operating as well
as they can in Afghanistan. Is that money that was Harrier-specific;
or is it money that could be applied to UORs or to equipment that,
like pods could be moved to perhaps the Tornados that are going
to take their place?
Rear Admiral Lambert: Most of
the urgent operational requirements for Harrier are Harrier-specific,
and another set of UORs are being staffed through before they
can be turned into a Tornado Force. The Harrier Force is being
brought back, not only to give the Force a rest but also to give
the Force the ability to be able to be deployed on other operations.
They have been in theatre now for five years and their tasking
has been very specific. The more general tasking that one would
want for aircraft has not been done. That wider training piece
and wider deployability piece is why Harrier is coming home. The
GR4s are being fitted with the new UORs at the moment.
Q128 Robert Key: General, DE&S
appears to be supporting the frontline very effectively. In January
last, when you appeared before the Committee, we asked you "what
keeps you awake at night" and you replied "current operations".
Is that still the case?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
Yes, it is. If anything were to keep me awake then it is support
of current operations. That is where it is so vital that what
we do we do accurately and effectively.
Q129 Robert Key: What are those specific
issues about current operations that concern you most?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
Do the Forces in theatre and the Forces in contact have the right
equipment? Is it the best equipment that we can give them? Is
it properly integrated? Do they have the right amount of combat
supplies, ammunition, food and so on? That is going well. I think
the answer is: yes, they do. To answer your specific question:
that is what I do worry about.
Q130 Robert Key: What would be top
of your wish list for supporting current operations?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
Things we have perhaps not quite got right yet, I think it would
be more strategic air. I think the great raft of other issues—and
I am skating round some of the technical issues here which I do
not want to talk about in public—I think we are doing alright
on. I am happy—and this comes from the commanders in the
field—that our Forces are the best equipped that they can
be. I do not know if you saw Andy McNab over the weekend, if I
can quote him, saying that the American infantry are looking to
use the British infantry's equipment. That is an interesting comment.
Q131 Robert Key: It is a great compliment.
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
I think that is where I would come from.
Q132 Mr Crausby: We have an elderly
transport aircraft fleet, so to what extent is that affecting
your ability to support current operations? Do you have a fallback
position if, for example, TRISTAR was unavailable and needed maintenance?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
Can I answer in two parts. First of all, the air bridge is successful.
Something like 80% of aircraft leave Brize Norton within four
hours of the time that they said they would, and that is not bad
bearing in mind the challenges they meet at the other end. The
plan to deal with aircraft on the ground is a hub and spoke method—it
is spare aircraft and so on—that works. What we do about
delays to incoming aircraft, aircraft that we are procuring (A400M
is a good example) is a secondary issue, and I am very happy to
talk about that if you wish. I am satisfied that the air bridge
is workable. I think it is fragile and that, in answer to Mr Key,
is my biggest concern at the moment.
Q133 Mr Holloway: Is there a crunch
looming in terms of the air transport fleet in 2012 or 2014?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
We have got a number of alternatives. We have got the C130Js which
are fine; we have got the Ks which should be going out of service—we
could extend them at a cost, that is one option; we could try
to bring forward the A330s from the future strategic tanker aircraft—that
is another option we are exploring; we could buy more C17s—that
is another possibility. There are a number of options sitting
on the table. There are also some commercial options as well—we
could hire aircraft. There are a number of options sitting on
the table. The key here is to find out what the schedule for delivery
of the A400M is, and that is the challenge at the moment.
Chairman: We will come on to that, as
you no doubt could have predicted, later on!
Q134 Mr Crausby: What about transport
assets in general: are you content with other assets, or other
non-aircraft assets, such as ships, land vehicles and helicopters?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
Yes. Ro-Ros are good—they work well; and shipping we can
take up from trade fairly easily to get the sea line of communication
out to Karachi or out to Iraq. I am happy with that. Helicopters—you
can always use more helicopters. We can increase the flying hours—over
35% in theatre—and there are more aircraft on the way. Yes,
I am satisfied. As I say, one of my highest risks is the strategic
air as far as transport is concerned.
Q135 Mr Borrow: From what the Committee
have seen and heard the Urgent Operational Requirements process
has been a success. Is that still working effectively? How effective
is that process currently? Are there aspects of the process that
you would wish to see improve further and, if so, what are they?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
Yes, it is working successfully. It is continuing to work successfully.
You can always make improvements, but I am satisfied that the
UOR process is working well. Let me just ask Dr Tyler under whose
remit it falls for some more details.
Dr Tyler: This is practically
our top focus in ensuring the delivering of UORs. Earlier this
year we established a UOR programme office whose specific remit
was to look across all of our areas of UOR activity, and make
sure that we were continuously trying to improve delivery. Indeed,
the numbers for this year so far have improved on last year's
numbers. Last year we were delivering 67% of our projects at their
50% forecast; and 86% at their 90%; and this year we have improved—79%
of them being delivered at their 50% forecast; and 89% at their
90% forecast, so we are on an improving trend. One of the things
that is an increasing challenge for us is the technical complexity
and scale of some of the UORs, the sophistication of them. Some
of the pieces of equipment we are putting in under UORs previously
would have been small core, programme projects in their own right;
but of course what we are having to do is get them into theatre
very, very quickly. That is certainly putting pressure on our
resources and the time and effort we have to spend on prosecuting
the UORs. Currently there is something of the order of 700-750
of our staff engaged in the UOR activity, and we are making sure
that across our organisation we are balancing our resources across
the whole of our current projects and support to ensure that the
UORs are getting the priority. Overall we are certainly on an
improving trajectory on what was originally a good position in
the first place.
Q136 Mr Borrow: In February 2006
Lord Drayson, who was then at the MoD, appeared before the Committee,
and he said that he wanted to see the best aspects of the UOR
process applied to longer term projects. I would be interested
to learn what has happened since then in terms of applying the
best part of the UOR process in ordinary procurement processes;
in particular the extent to which there are aspects that could
actually speed up the ordinary process of procurement of major
projects?
Dr Tyler: I think this is something
we have thought a lot about, and there are some areas like, for
example, the way we are using our resources more flexibly, which
is a lesson we can pull over. I would approach this one with some
caution though, because the UORs are very different in their nature
from the longer-term core projects. We do tend to trade quite
rapidly between performance, cost and time, because time is obviously
a very, very critical variable with these projects. Certainly
hitherto we have not paid a huge amount of attention to enduring
support solutions, because they are designed to be short-term
requirements. That is now changing; and one of the things that
is increasing our UOR activity is the need to have a more enduring
support solution to go along with some of these UORs. The other
thing is that, generally speaking, they are not implemented within
an integrated framework of defence capability; they are put in
as individual measures. Although we do our very best to try and
ensure that they are integrated as best as possible within the
wider infrastructure, the speed at which these are being implemented
means that they are often coming in as single item, almost stand-alone
equipment with minimal integration. When we are looking at the
longer term strategic programmes those are areas which we would
have to think very carefully about if we were going to compromise.
What that means is that when we are looking at the lessons we
can pull through, we have to look quite carefully. I think one
of the positives, and we are challenging this, is the speed at
which we perhaps make decisions, and some of the administration
that goes along with the projects. Those are areas which you could
argue, up to a point, are non-value-adding activities in the acquisition
process. Obviously we are demonstrating that we can short-cut
those through the UOR process. Bear in mind that some of those
short-cuts in themselves are compromising the absolute degree
of scrutiny that is going on on some of these projects, because
the urgency of the requirement overrides that.
Q137 Mr Borrow: Are you really saying
that the optimism that seemed to be there two and a half years
ago has not actually been fully justified?
Dr Tyler: I think we are doing
what we can, but we also very conscious of the law of unintended
consequences here. If you start applying this sort of process
too liberally to what is a strategic core programme, I think our
view is that you would find a lot of unintended consequences coming
out as a result of that.
Q138 Chairman: Has this UOR approach
meant that, for example, the vehicle fleet is now much less cohesive
and coherent than it previously was?
Dr Tyler: Yes, I think that is
the case.
Rear Admiral Lambert: With trading
almost in every area other than time you will end up with non-integrated
systems. It is the criticism of UORs now that we have not integrated
well enough, and that is because we have tried to get them to
theatre as fast as we can. It is a criticism we accept, and we
are now going back to see how we can integrate some of these systems
together to get a more cohesive Force.
Q139 Mr Jenkins: I was very interested
in Dr Tyler's answer, because it is not about the piece of equipment
Lord Drayson was talking about, I think he was talking about the
process and the culture. It is this culture of "let's make
sure everything is nailed down, screwed and painted three times"
that takes up so much time and so much money there is nothing
left for the actual project. Unintended consequences are in all
walks of life, so do not try and make this a reason why it is
not done; but let us make sure we can streamline the process.
I can get you legacy projects that would make your hair curl in
the MoD. They are an absolute national disgrace because, as a
client, you were not that clever: a contract was taken for a ride
for years. Are you, through UORs, becoming a cleverer, more intelligent
client; and can the process be speeded up so it does not become
a long-term legacy project, but can deliver for the amount of
people we need to deliver to—the ones at the frontline?
That is all we are asking. Has the culture changed?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
I think the answer is, yes, it has. We are much better now at
accepting that it is very much more effective to have an 80% solution
tomorrow, than a 100% solution in 10 years. That is one area.
I think we are much better at the scrutiny and assurance process.
We still need to scrutinise and assure these projects to make
sure they are value for public money but we are much slicker at
it; we are much better at it. Yes, there are a lot of things that
we are doing very much better; but we do need to remember a UOR
is going into theatre for perhaps six months, perhaps nine months,
at which point life will have moved on—either the threat
has changed or the requirement has changed and we need something
else. Something out of the equipment programme is probably there
for 15, 20, or perhaps 30 or 40 years. We just need to draw this
balance between rushing in for a UOR which is fine for the circumstances
of today, and not rushing in and doing that for something that
will have to be adjusted. This is all to do with open architecture
and incremental improvement as we go through its life; but the
base vehicle has to be thought through so that it is upgradeable
as circumstances change.
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