Defence Industrial Stupidity

Our defence procurement system is bankrupt. There's a £36 Billion black hole in the MoD sums, according to the National Audit Office.  Too much money has been hosed away on substandard kit that’ll arrive far too late.

Those whose perennial cry has been “spend more on defence!” need to accept some uncomfortable truths; after a decade of Gordon Brown, there’s no more to spend. Second, hosing more money on defence without changing the way that we spend the money isn’t going to get us enough kit. With or without extra £ Billions, the current Defence Industrial Strategy is not delivering. 

Take just one example; we spending £1.9 Billion buying 62 Future Lynx Wildcat helicopters.   Yet reducing the number bought from 80 to 62 has bumped up the cost per helicopter to over £30 Million each. 

Put it another way; they managed a 12 percent cost reduction on the back of a 23 percent reduction in the number of helicopters to be produced.  Homer Simpson could have done a better job.

It is impossible to obtain good value from the Defence Industrial Strategy, since it is a protectionist racket intended to serve the producer, not the customer.  It will always place corporate margins over the needs of our armed forces.

Many of the supposed defence "experts" in SW1 simply do not posses the clarity of thought to see the problem, let alone know how to deal with it.

Posted on 15 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell

Comments

There is more to be spent on Defence, if the government stops wasting money and carrying on with pointless spending elsewhere in its budget. Your own 'The Plan' shows how this could be done. Confining central governemnt to national areas like, or especially, defence, and localising and / or privatising a shed load of other stuff and closing 1000's of quango's would release a wall of money to both sort out the borrowing requirement and reduce the national debt.

Posted on 16 December 2009 11:55 by Lola

What really needs to happen is a proper 'drains up' efficiency audit of spend and posts across the public sector to link spend with real benefits realisation. In my opinion and experience, there are a substantial amount of public sector posts which provide no real benefit to the public.

The government just needs to have the courage to implement such a radical audit. What the current UK government lacks is courage and toys with tinkering with policies such as immigration and benefits when what is really required is significant and radical change.

Sadly, I am yet to be convinced that any party has the level of courage required.

Posted on 19 December 2009 21:29 by James

The government needs to stop subsidising the defence industry too; Eurofighter, Eurocopter and BAE.

Posted on 20 December 2009 18:54 by Jonathan

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