Examination of Witnesses (Questions 81-114)
MR VICTOR
CHAVEZ, MR
PETER EBERLE
AND MR
JOEL GRUNDY
20 OCTOBER 2009
Q81 Chairman: Good morning. Welcome
to our evidence session on the contribution of ISTAR to operations.
There are two parts to this evidence session and the first is
from industry, and you are most welcome. I wonder if you could
introduce yourselves, please.
Mr Grundy: Thank
you, Chairman. My name is Joel Grundy; I am Head of Defence and
Security for Intellect, which is the UK trade association for
the technology industry.
Mr Chavez: Victor Chavez, Deputy
Chief Executive, Thales UK.
Mr Eberle: Peter Eberle, Business
Development Director for UK business within General Dynamics UK
Limited.
Q82 Chairman: Thank you all very
much for coming to give evidence to us, some for the second time.
This being an inquiry into ISTAR I think it would be only polite
to everybody to say, tell us what ISTAR is?
Mr Chavez: I think it is very
important that actually we look at that in simple terms. We have
been working with Intellect and MoD to actually clarify the use
of language around some of this technology; because it is an area,
I am sure you would agree, which has a tendency to disappear into
acronyms and so on. ISTAR in clear layman's terms would be the
function by which we can collect intelligence, by which we analyse
that intelligence and by which we share that intelligence with
the potential users using communications mechanisms. Even though
we talk about ISTAR—and the strict definition of the word
is intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance—inherent
in that is actually very clearly a very strong need to communicate
that information around the battle space. I think we all need
to work very hard at actually clarifying this and communicating
the benefits that accrue from having this very important capability.
Q83 Chairman: The last report we
did on this was on unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, and I came
to the conclusion while we were doing that inquiry that we were
doing an inquiry into the wrong thing, namely, simply the platform;
and actually the most important thing is to look at the entire
system as a whole. I wonder if you could answer this question:
do you think the Ministry of Defence pays enough attention to
the direction and the processing and the dissemination of these
intelligence issues, rather than to the platforms themselves;
or do they make the same mistake that I think we made?
Mr Grundy: Chairman, as you know
from both our submission last year and the evidence we gave to
that inquiry and this year, it is a longstanding concern of industry
to make sure that there is balance across the sense, the understand,
the share and the decide functions within the wider information
security envelop. What I would say is, since that last inquiry
last year, and as a result of some of the relationships we have
had with the MoD this year and clarity around the programme and
strategies, the MoD has very much recognised and put in place
a number of things in the forward programme specifically to boost
capability in the DPD environment. However, the caveat to that
from industry's point of view is that whilst they are currently
in the programme, in the future capability space, up until there
is a point where they are commissioned, signed off and funded
I think industry will retain some element of scepticism, if you
like, until we actually reach the point of delivery for reasons
you are very familiar with.
Q84 Chairman: We will be coming on
to funding issues in a moment or two.
Mr Eberle: I think I would like
to add a little bit more on the wider system and the use of the
human in the whole process. ISTAR is not a stand-alone activity,
it is something that actually supports every operation that is
carried out; and of course there is a need for appropriate personnel
and skills to ensure that the system runs well. That is a significant
element of the capability.
Q85 Chairman: Is it possible to answer
this question: what would be the best balance of resources between
the collecting platforms and all the other aspects of ISTAR; or
is that a meaningless question? You are allowed to say it is a
meaningless question!
Mr Grundy: I think it is a very
difficult question to answer without more context, Chairman.
Q86 Chairman: What a polite way of
putting it!
Mr Grundy: The differences in
terms of operational scenario or use case or the type of ISTAR
that one would use in a maritime capability is going to have a
very different balance from that on current operations, say, because
of density and all sorts of things.
Mr Chavez: I think current operations
certainly make you re-evaluate the mix potentially. If you look
at the current completes, the shift to asymmetric warfare has
created a huge increase in the burden, the requirement and the
challenge of ISTAR; because you have moved from an environment
where in conventional warfare you are talking about identifying
an enemy tank, or identifying an enemy platoon of soldiers; the
ISTAR challenge of Afghanistan and Iraq is about identifying the
terrorist, the terrorist in the crowd at the market, the terrorist
with an AK47. These things are much more difficult to identify.
Therefore, the ISTAR challenge and the capability that is required
in Afghanistan and Iraq is significantly different, in my opinion,
to that required for conventional warfare.
Mr Eberle: In a former life I
was in the Royal Navy and I was a predecessor of Air Commodore
Gordon in the Ministry of Defence and balance of investment studies
were a fundamental element of what we were doing at the time to
try and determine what the correct balance was. I can agree with
Mr Chavez that it was difficult enough looking back at that stage
when we were at just the end of the Cold War going into the new
paradigm; and, I have to say, with current operations and this
asymmetric threat, that is a very significant change which needs
to be evaluated and is being evaluated by the MoD at the moment.
Q87 Mr Crausby: Mr Chavez, Thales
in its memorandum says that "commercial sensitivity acts
as a barrier to interoperability", and we picked up here
other issues in the United States. What are the main barriers
to ISTAR interoperability?
Mr Chavez: I think this again
is a growing problem that is brought about by the need for ever-increasing
levels of integration between different ISTAR systems. In the
past collectors operated in their own domain and there was not
actually the communications and intelligence mechanisms to share
that information in a sensible way; now that opportunity is open
to us and MoD and most of the governments have moved forward by
standardisation. With UAV systems there is a NATO-agreed standard
for the imagery intelligence format that needs to be produced;
and then you can share that between different nations. Ultimately,
there is the prospect of integration. All of that intelligence
comes down and is shared across, and that is what programmes like
DABINETT are there for really, to take different information share
it and make one and one equal three, for example. The issue around
the commercial sensitivity is the fact that, because these things
have operated previously in independent stovepipes, industry has
been able to just define their own specifications for interfaces
and so on. Really the commercial sensitivities are as much about
the ownership of programme interfaces as anything else. Going
forward, therefore, one of the key evolutions that MoD is in the
process of making is moving to an overall system architecture;
and an overall system architecture in which it, MoD, owns the
interfaces. It is really about extending that standardisation
process down to the point that if Thales makes the system it has
an MoD interface—an MoD-owned interface in terms of the
intellectual property around that interface—so MoD can give
that interface to any other company that it wishes to integrate
its systems with. There is a transition towards an overall systems
architecture and a much more open systems approach to definition
of integration.
Q88 Mr Crausby: How effective has
the MoD been in achieving interoperability across all of the ISTAR
platforms? What more could they do? What more could industry do?
Mr Chavez: I think the MoD evidence
on this is quite good in that we are getting to the point where
we have compatibility; so UAVs produce information in the same
format and that information exists within those systems. The next
step is to actually put the cross-cutting projects in place that
allow that information not just to exist in that individual stovepipe,
but to be shared around the place. They are the set of projects
that are now being delivered I think under urgent operational
requirement and through the DABINETT programme. The importance
of DABINETT, the centrality of DABINETT to actually making the
most of all the information that has been gathered, cannot be
understated.
Q89 Mr Crausby: Can you tell us generally,
how important is the issue of data standardisation?
Mr Eberle: If I may, Mr Crausby,
the UK plays a very major role in the standardisation in NATO,
something that Air Commodore Gordon mentioned when he gave evidence;
and part of that activity is trying to establish—and successfully
in the past, although it sometimes take a little while—those
key definitions which are going to be used for the exchange of
data and for interoperability purposes. Clearly when the UK is
operating a coalition of many, many nations, not all of which
are in NATO, it is still NATO standards that build the bedrock
on which everybody will interact. As I say, it does sometimes
take time, but by and large the UK and the US work very closely
together to make sure that evolving technological standards are
actually introduced into the standardisation process as soon as
possible so they actually lead into an evolutionary approach to
interoperability.
Q90 Linda Gilroy: Apart from the
discussion you just had with Mr Crausby about interoperability,
to what extent is the equipment deployed capable of doing more
than it currently does; is it held back by cumbersome procedures
and lack of training or awareness; or is the greatest restriction
in fact technological?
Mr Eberle: I think that many of
the systems we talk about—whether in ISTAR or in a more
general sense—have the ability to do multiple jobs: especially
fast jets, fast fixed-wing aircraft, have the ability to do a
number of missions, including a certain element of reconnaissance
which feeds into the ISTAR domain. Many of these systems have
other capabilities which emerge when they are actually used that
are not necessarily part of the requirement when they are designed;
and subsequently the ability to use them to better effect and
experimentation, which the MoD is taking ahead in a very meaningful
way, is part of the way to actually make sure that you can find
out these capabilities that you might not have necessarily foreseen,
especially when you bring together multiple capabilities and achieve
a better effect overall. Within industry, within GD for instance,
innovation (and we have an innovation centre called the EDGE)
is part of actually trying to make sure that those evolving capabilities
actually end up in operational use.
Q91 Linda Gilroy: That sounds very
much like the human interface is just as important as the technological
interfaces you were talking about. Can you give us some sense
of the balance in what may be a barrier to us getting the most
out of what we currently have deployed?
Mr Eberle: As far as the first
part of the question is concerned, human factors and human interface
is absolutely vital, because if the human interface is overly
complex then you have to make up for that in extended training
and education; and therefore clearly it is in the best interests
of everybody to make sure that interface is as reasonable as can
be to minimise the training burden. In doing so there is an interaction
required between the Ministry of Defence in its requirement setting
and also industry, where we have quite a considerable capability
across industry and human factors to make sure that we actually
converse in a proactive way to make sure that we actually take
that interface in the right direction.
Q92 Linda Gilroy: Mr Chavez, I do
not know if you want to comment? Is that human interface as much
about awareness of where the technology is going as anything else?
Mr Chavez: I think the technological
dimension is still there and will develop. If we look at some
of the most challenging threats in theatre at this point in time,
IEDs for example, we do not have a 100 per cent reliable mechanism
sensor system for detecting and identifying IEDs. It is very,
very difficult in terms of the physics of the challenge and so
on, and work is in train to look at—and Thales and various
other companies are looking at—new sensor types and so on
and new processing to help in that area. At some point there will
be technological uplifts to platforms at our own theatres, I would
hope. The human dimension—again, I come back to the point
I made about the huge upsurge in ISTAR requirement—we are
generating more ISTAR imagery than ever before. I think the UK
is now the third largest user of UAV systems in the world. Our
system, HERMES 450, has flown 25,000 hours; Reapers are probably
about a fifth of that. There is a massive amount of data there.
What we have seen is MoD managing a very significant upskilling
in terms of numbers of people and the skills that are required
to actually do the imagery analysis on that. Industry has played
a part in that: for example, on the Hermes 450 we fielded that
as a service initially so that we could actually get it to theatre
and have it flying in service in a very short time; so we actually
had trained pilots provided by Thales. As we have gone on, 32
Regiment of the Royal Artillery have picked up that burden and
so on; and the numbers of people going through and learning are
continuing to grow on a regular basis, so that as we look towards
WATCHKEEPER we will have additional capability there. The challenges
of delivering these capabilities on a day-to-day basis are absolutely
as much about having the skills and the humans trained to do the
job as they are about the technology dimension, certainly.
Q93 Linda Gilroy: In the questions
between Mr Crausby and myself have we identified where the focus
needs to be in getting the most out of what we have deployed,
or are there other things that we should be looking at?
Mr Chavez: I think in general
terms MoD recognise the skills and the skills gap. There is a
skills gap and I think MoD believe that it is a skills gap today
and an anticipated skills gap in the future. I think recognition
of that need is at the heart of making good progress. I think
there has to be continued effort on the human and skills dimension
before we can say that the job is 100 per cent done. The challenge
is of course that these are not stable situations. As we move
forward, we look to ever more increasing levels of ISTAR production:
the recent additional tasking line for Hermes 450, for example,
has been requested. There is a desire for increasing amounts of
ISTAR, and with that comes a sliding scale of challenge as well.
Q94 Mrs Moon: I am always intrigued
with technology about how fit for purpose it is by the time it
is actually in the marketplace. You said that some of the equipment
we now have has ability to have other capabilities that were emerging
as it is actually in theatre. How much are we in danger of always
going for new kit rather than actually developing and exploiting
the potential of what we have got; and how much of what we have
got is out-of-date the minute it arrives? I am interested in that
boundary.
Mr Eberle: Let us take ASTOR for
an example. It is a system that has been in development for some
considerable time and is now out there in theatre and, by all
accounts, seems to be operating extremely well. That was a system
that was originally designed, of course, quite some considerable
time ago for conducting operations against the mass armour of
the Warsaw Pact, and actually it is showing today that it is very,
very relevant for today's operations: however it has come about
that way, that is indeed the case. Its ability to detect moving
targets through its radar system, which is its main sensor, is
absolutely vital because operations are taking place now in very
extended areas, and where—certainly in Afghanistan—there
is not the same amount of movement, for instance, as you would
expect normally within the UK. Therefore the ability—and
this is this queuing thing again—to say, "Actually
I see a vehicle moving along there that's not what I'd normally
expect this time of day; don't normally see that over there, and
actually there are two or three of them. Let's get some more eyes
on the case"; and because the sensor systems have their own
strengths and weaknesses—with radar you can see something
moving but you cannot necessarily identify it—so then you
want to get a video sensor on there, a full motion video, so you
can actually see what is going on and identify it and work out
whether it is of interest or whether it is an appropriate target,
for instance, for an operation. Actually those systems that have
taken some time in gestation—the Sea King Mk 7, the mission
system produced by Thales, which has many of the same attributes—are
also contributing significantly, I understand. Actually serendipitous
or not, the actual systems that have been introduced recently
are providing meaningful capability.
Mr Grundy: If I may add two points,
Chairman. One in terms of legacy and obsolescence and upgrades,
again from an Intellect point of view we would very much come
back to the earlier point about architectures; about the ability
to incrementally uplift to bring in non-traditional ISTAR assets
and so on and upgrade those capabilities within a common framework
which, by and large, is intended to be cheap and easy and faster.
The second point is certainly about the initial requirement-setting
process, which is something industry, as I am sure you know, has
been reasonably vexed about over a period of time. To report some
positivity there specifically over the last year in this communications
and intelligence arena, we have had a number of projects brought
to industry at very early stages for consultation on an open basis
about requirements, about concepts and about end use cases which,
hopefully, has helped flush out some of these issues a little
sooner.
Mr Chavez: I think we have all,
as MoD and industry, got better at actually designing much more
modular solutions than in the past. Things like Hermes 450 and
WATCHKEEPER, the ability to plug and play with different payloads
is very important; and the ability to bring on new sensor types
as those sensors are developed without having to dramatically
change the systems architecture, we are all getting much better
at that. We can all draw lessons going forward from the introduction
of some of those early capabilities, such as Hermes 450 into WATCHKEEPER.
That modular design means that we can field a low risk off-the-shelf
sensor today and then incrementally improve that performance at
a later date without taking the capability out of service and
so on. That modularity of design is really important. I think
the other aspect is really around having the UK sovereignty over
those technologies. Peter made reference to the Sea King Mk 7
which is a helicopter with a radar on board, and that system was
designed to provide indigenous radar surveillance for an aircraft
carrier; so not really designed for the purpose that it is being
used in Afghanistan at all; and that has only been made possible
by the fact that Thales as the designer of that radar has the
ability to change the radar parameters to actually suit the purpose
of use in Afghanistan. That is a key sovereign capability in terms
of having that intellect in the UK and having that intellectual
property; that has allowed us to do that quickly without recourse
to any other offshore company, without recourse to ITAR and those
sorts of issues. Having the ability to modify and tweak and tune
ISTAR assets is really important; because it is that tweaking
and tuning that allows you to achieve interoperability; it is
that tweaking and tuning that allows you to increase the probability
of detecting specific threats that are threats to you today; so
that is a very important point.
Q95 Mr Havard: I get to one of the
sort of university questions here which is, and we saw this in
America: technology deployed in theatre is more capable than is
apparent from many current outputs. Discuss. In the discussion
what it came down to was, how much of this is a problem in relation
to the technology; and how much of it is about procedural awareness
and training issues and the human exploitation of the information?
We have started to do some of the human stuff, can I just go back
to a couple of the techie questions about the technology. My understanding
is the increasingly scarce and expensive commodity bandwidth is
a problem behind a lot of technology exploitation; but there is
also the question about standardisation, or lack of standardisation
in relation to data, and data transfer and so on. The question
about mandated standards from the MoD, and whether those mandated
standards are the same for Europe, USA, whatever coalition environment
and your problem about intellectual, all of this is wrapped in
this general discussion. Is the barrier really technology, or
are there some smart boys and girls at various universities who
are going to solve that relatively quickly; or is it really about—and
the place we should concentrate our fire is on the other part
of it—the exploitation awareness training and so on; which
is it?
Mr Eberle: Chairman, it sounds
like a standard answer but it is very, very complex; and each
of these elements clearly plays a role.
Q96 Mr Havard: I am a simple boy
from the Valley so explain it simply!
Mr Eberle: The data standardisation
is important, without any doubt whatsoever; because that actually
is fundamental when you want to share data with other people.
The position we find ourselves now in coalition operations requires
us to plan to share data, and therefore puts an extra emphasis
on the interoperability issue. When I spoke about NATO before,
that currently—I think from an industry perspective certainly—provides
the most cohesive standardisation activity on a multinational
basis. As far as European interoperability is concerned, I do
not think the MoD's view on this has changed; because they would
wish to use NATO standards wherever possible, rather than introduce
some new European standard. The major focus for the UK and the
US is to introduce standards for data, standards for data transfer,
and standards for communications which are dealing with the emerging
technologies that are coming out of the ISTAR domain. I think
from that perspective, data standards are absolutely crucial.
Going back to Victor's comments earlier, it is also absolutely
crucial to have a blueprint to allow you to understand where the
various systems are going to interface to each other; and therefore
you need to standardise those interfaces so that you understand
how you actually connect to it, and then those data standards
will allow you to exchange information. You need something else,
which is called a data model, which allows you to interpret the
data, which is not self-evident; because even linguistic differences
between ourselves and our US allies lead to misunderstandings
if you are not careful; which takes us into the human dimension.
There is very little point in trying to achieve technical interoperability
if you do not actually have standard concepts of operation, and
understand what your allies are going to do with the data that
you provide them with, because that is all part of the trust and
confidence that the Coalition enjoys. The final element of this
is security. Many of the systems in the Cold War age were designed
not to share information, and security that was put into the system
and around the system was put there exactly to make sure that
did not happen. Now, of course, security—national security—is
still an issue; sensitivities—especially if you go into
some areas of intelligence—are even greater; human intelligence,
for instance. Therefore, you have to understand how you are going
to put the security architecture in place which will allow you
to exchange the data you want to exchange, and prevent the data
you do not want to exchange from getting out of your own system.
It is a mixture of all those things, and they have all got to
be tuned to provide a package which actually provides operational
capability.
Q97 Richard Younger-Ross: On standards,
standards can be a barrier to quality; do we have a robust review
process of those standards, or should we be concerned about that?
Mr Eberle: I think it is true
to say that there is a review process but there are always tensions
there. Industry is always interested in working out what it can
actually supply, and therefore is interested in actually executing
those and putting them into implementation. The MoD takes a policy-oriented
view to this much of the time.
Q98 Mr Havard: Could I just have
an answer to my question, because what I want to know is: do we
spend more money on the technology; or have we got a lot of technology
that we are not using well enough now and we should exploit it
better first?
Mr Chavez: In answer to your question,
the missing link in terms of exploitation is the DABINET-like
capability, which is the need for an integration application to
bring everything together. There is always an issue around bandwidth,
but having ISTAR is highly addictive: the more you have the more
you want more, and there will always be challenges in that. Industry
is doing a lot to make sure very smart algorithms are used to
compress data, for example, to make the most of the bandwidth;
but bandwidth is limited by the laws of physics.
Q99 Mr Borrow: I have listened with
interest about the way in which we could improve interoperability
and no mention has been made of the MoD initiative to establish
a key systems adviser initiative. Have I missed something? I would
be interested in industry's views as to whether that initiative
has been effective; whether it has made a difference to development
of the C4ISTAR, and just the Network Enabled Capability in general;
and, if it has not, what does it need to do to become more effective?
Mr Grundy: From an across industry
point of view I think the first thing to say obviously is that
industry is very heavily involved in the KSA, bearing in mind
that most of the people in it are industry secondees and were
involved in the set-up of it. Industry as a whole is extremely
supportive of the aims of the KSA programme as we understand it
in terms of governance, coherence and interoperability. I think
probably part of the reason we have not mentioned it as yet is
that much of the work that the KSA does, as we understand it,
is not directly industry facing; it is working within the MoD
to aid them in going about their business rather than performing
a discrete function which then interfaces with industry. Looking
across the piece, one of the things that is quite encouraging
for industry is that we have long said, and we said to the Committee
last year, that the nature of the MoD's role as a customer across
ISTAR, across communications intelligence, is changing because
the boundary between industry as a supplier of big blocks of capability
and the MoD as an overall architect is different than it has been
historically. Because of that, industry has said a number of times,
including to yourselves, that the skill set of that customer needs
to change. The encouraging piece about the key systems adviser
and some of the similar initiatives that are going on is that
actually that represents an explicit or an implicit recognition
for new skills to be brought in for a different type of function
to be played by the MoD; which is a positive thing from industry's
point of view, rather than continuing in the same vein that may
not suit the changing pace of technology, and may not suit the
greater need for integration and use of intelligence.
Q100 Mr Jenkins: I think Mr Chavez
mentioned the word "DABINETT" which I have heard now
and again but I do not really understand what it is. I know it
is a wide-ranging programme. Is it likely to result in significant
improvements in UK ISTAR capability, do you think?
Mr Chavez: DABINETT is effectively
the creation of the software application that will allow intelligence
that has been gathered from a whole range of different sources
to be viewed, integrated and shared as a single whole. You will
be able to look at imagery that has come off a Hermes 450 or a
WATCHKEEPER, imagery off an ASTOR, human intelligence that has
been put into the system and various other things so that you
can actually start to look at the same problem from lots of different
perspectives. As we get into these really hard ISTAR problems—and,
as I say, detecting the terrorist in the marketplace or the IED—there
is a high likelihood that it is not going to be solved by one
single sensor. You will actually have to pull together the threads
of information from different sensors, at different times, to
actually generate a picture to say there is probably something
here that we are interested in.
Q101 Mr Jenkins: It sounds like a
major programme. Who runs it? Who is in charge of it?
Mr Chavez: It is the responsibility
of Air Vice-Marshal Carl Dixon who was giving you evidence the
other day.
Q102 Mr Jenkins: How often do your
companies meet—the people who are putting this programme
together?
Mr Chavez: That programme is at
the early stages of competition. No company has been appointed
to deliver that capability at this point in time; so it is pre-competition.
Q103 Mr Jenkins: The input into the
development of this wide-ranging programme which is so vital for
us has no input from industry?
Mr Chavez: There have been pre-competition
initial activities, but that was run by a company, yes, that took
input from a variety of industrial players.
Q104 Mr Jenkins: Because when they
are developing this sort of programme, the people who are on the
programme surely they must be seeking advice from the industry
as to what is possible to put in the programme before they actually
carry on developing the concept?
Mr Chavez: Absolutely.
Mr Grundy: Absolutely, and this
is something I would very much come back to again, not necessarily
on the DABINETT programme per se but on a number of important
programmes, including future core networks. For example, over
the last year we have seen the MoD coming out to industry as a
whole, as well as to discrete bilaterals with individual companies
to get a sense of: what is the market's capacity to deliver the
programme as currently constituted; what are the extra capabilities
or technologies in the market that need to be integrated. It is
by no means common across the entire estate but the fact that
we have started to see that in certain areas, particularly in
the networks area, we think is a big step forward for industry's
ability to do some of the risk mitigation, to have a better understanding
as a market earlier in the programme.
Q105 Mr Jenkins: Firstly, there are
two elements to this programme: the first is the direct, process
and disseminate element; and, secondly, the collection element
focussed on "deep and persistent" surveillance. You
mentioned Air Commodore Gordon who said that the direct, process
and disseminate element was currently still very much at a "concept
phase" and "should be moving to initial operating capability
in 2012". As someone who comes from the motor trade, I remember
concept cars; I never expected us ever to produce a concept car—and
there might be one or two bits are dropped into production models—so
why should I believe that a concept was ever going to meet production?
Do you actually believe that in 2012 DABINETT will be up and running?
Mr Eberle: In fact, following
on from what Victor was saying, there is actually a competition
just about to be initiated or being initiated at the moment in
the MoD acquisition approach. They will be going into an assessment
phase. An assessment phase of the first part of DABINETT is due
to start at the beginning of next year; and, as the Air Commodore
said, as a result of that they hope to be in a position to contract
industry to provide initial capability for 2012. That is a demanding
timescale but they are moving along in accordance with their plans.
Q106 Mr Jenkins: That is not only
a demanding timescale, history will show that we have never had
a programme yet which allowed the complicated nature of the programme
to develop and make money for its suppliers. If you want to put
your reputation on it—that it will be delivered by 2012—good
luck; but I do not think you are going to do it, do you, honestly?
Mr Eberle: What they have done
in this particular case is to actually chop the requirement up
into fairly small highly defined elements, and the one I just
mentioned, which is called "improved ISTAR management",
that is actually going to deal with one specific element of DPD;
so it is actually very much focussed on one element of it; not
on trying to boil the ocean, as it were.
Q107 Mr Jenkins: You do not think
the programme might be subject to budget constraints or cuts anywhere
between now and 2012?
Mr Grundy: This is the great uncertainty
which all of our members are facing as an industry for everything
which is not on contract.
Q108 Mr Jenkins: Life is difficult,
is it not!
Mr Grundy: Certainly with the
prospect of a defence review coming up next year of whatever colour
and type, we would certainly be looking for programmes like DABINETT
to fare as well as possible out of that review, given the importance
we think they have to the overall system. If the nervous system
is not there big fists are.
Q109 Mr Jenkins: We can agree that
in 2012 the concept phase may still be a concept phase rather
than an actual production capacity.
Mr Eberle: They will certainly
have finished the concept phase within about nine months of starting,
so that should be well finished by then I think.
Q110 Mr Jenkins: The other deep and
persistent surveillance element—could I move on to project
cost increases and budget cuts, Chairman? One of the things I
have noticed now is that we have got these trimmings and cutting
off around the periphery of some of the programmes and projects,
like Soothsayer, which as you know is a ground-based system; and
we have spent £84 million to date and we are going to abandon
it because we are going to save some money. Not only have we got
Soothsayer, how about Project Eagle or the Reaper? I have heard
the Reaper programme might not be made permanent; and Project
Eagle looks like it has gone. Our deep and persistent surveillance
with our Nimrod programme falling behind, do you think we are
going to be capable of producing this information to the DABINETT
programme which is at this concept phase by now and capable of
making the impact we want on the battlefield? Where do you think
we are going to be in two or three years' time?
Mr Grundy: Obviously from our
point of view that is partly a question for the MoD because we
are not necessarily in charge of sorting out the programme and
what should be in it. We have been lucky enough to have some sight
of that programme going forward; and, again, industry is somewhat
cheered by the recognition we have seen in that programme going
forward of the need to plug some of these gaps. Our question as
ever—to harp back to the previous point—is about,
at the point where those programmes come to be delivered, will
there be the necessary cross-departmental, cross-service commitment
to them in the face of what is likely to be a fairly challenging
funding requirement; and that is not something, unfortunately,
that industry is able to drive.
Q111 Mr Jenkins: Let me get this
right: the ISTAR programme that we could envisage, or did envisage
at one time, is now no longer possible; what the programme will
produce and deliver is it, like, 90 per cent or 80 per cent?
Mr Grundy: I am sorry, the ISTAR
programme we envisaged is no longer possible.
Q112 Mr Jenkins: Yes, I think we
can all agree we are going to cut back on our costs of information
collection and processing; and I do not think your concept is
going to be in place in time.
Mr Chavez: In terms of the overall
programme, the industry and the sector really, as any industry
would be, is concerned about the potential for future cuts to
the sector—that is clear. Part of the reason why we are
concerned, as much as anything, is because, with ISTAR communications
etc., you do not have any platform to hang onto; it is not a tank;
it is not a ship; it is not necessarily an aircraft. In the environment
of a future strategic defence review there is no obvious champion
for C4ISTAR and yet we believe it is absolutely critical to getting
the most out of your Armed Forces in the round, and so we face
uncertainty. I think in terms of the deep and persistent collection,
it is quite clear that technologically it is feasible. Reaper
is a perfectly good platform if the MoD chose to go that way.
The MoD has yet to really raise the requirement, find the funding
and get endorsement of that. There is no doubt that a deep and
persistent capability is technologically achievable, and there
is a whole raft of different platforms that would meet that need.
Q113 Mr Jenkins: If I produce something
that is 90 per cent capable it costs £100,000, but for every
one per cent I need to improve the technology from then it doubles;
so if I get to 100 per cent it is going to cost me £12 million.
Do you not think your industry has done the £12 million job
a few many times too often? Do you not think we really should
be settling for the 90 per cent and having a much more robust
system?
Mr Chavez: I think there is a
strong push from industry to actually reuse existing capabilities.
If you look at things like WATCHKEEPER, the UAV is not a brand
new UAV design; it is an off-the-shelf UAV which is absolutely
essential in terms of proving airframe airworthiness and so on;
so it is really quite important at times to meet the timeline
of bringing these things into service to use military off-the-shelf
sub-systems and so on. The clever part about that is actually
the integration. It is about the sensors; it is about the integration
and so on. We have that exact same issue arising again. As we
look forward, there is an array of technologies that can meet
some of these longer-term requirements. The technologies and systems
thinking are mature. It is really a case of affordability and
scheduling in when these things are wanted in the programme.
Q114 Chairman: I have one final question
for you, and it may be best directed at you, Mr Eberle. Would
the ISTAR sector of defence capability be a particularly strong
reason for suggesting to the Americans that the sooner they agree
the UK/US Arms Trade Treaty the better it would be for the interoperability
of the effort that Forces between our two countries make? You
may answer yes to that!
Mr Eberle: Chairman, I will just
be a little bit longer than that. Yes, it would make a contribution.
I do not necessarily in my view think it is going to change the
exchange of information for interoperability. What it will make
easier is the time which it takes to get the agreements in place
to transfer the technology itself. So it will definitely make
that easier. I do not think it will affect the actual information
itself.
Chairman: May I thank all three of you
very much indeed for a most helpful start to our evidence session
today, it is much appreciated.
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