''The MoD is not able to reform, it must go''

15 June 2012

The current defence budget could be made to go a lot further if the military and MoD were subjected to radical reforms, argues UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom

National defence is very much like the annual insurance premium on the family house. Most folk rarely claim, houses rarely burn down or have their entire contents stripped by burglars. However, it is the responsibility of the head of household to ensure the premium is paid. So it is with the state's primary responsibility - defence of the realm. In recent years, this fundamental priority has shifted. Government no longer believes this is a priority. The new priority is protection of the banks, industries too big to fail, social and corporate welfare and an energy policy built on junk science and political manoeuvring.

Yet the defence budget is adequate in itself, the failure is the apportionment of that budget. Since the Great War, the tax allocation to defence has not been based on primary or even secondary threats to the United Kingdom but a systematic subsidy transfer to the British defence industry – compounded in recent years by a flawed commitment to European defence industries.

Procurement is, and has been, the downfall of a strategic policy since the last war. There are pitifully few politicians of any party who understand defence or even have a military background; the Ministry of Defence is not regarded as a step on the ministerial promotional ladder. As the choice of second division politicians, it is bottom of the barrel stuff. This is why we found a £40bn hole in the budget. Something I flagged up in a paper to the National Defence University in Washington six years ago.

How can we put this right? How can we sort out decades of incompetence and neglect? We must be ruthless, in order to do so we must form a cross party authority. The Liberal government and Conservative opposition worked together through the Haldane reforms in the early 1900s so there is a strong precedent for joint party solutions. The MoD is not able to reform, it must go. It should be replaced by a procurement agency taking its briefing as directly as possible from the Chiefs of Staff. We must get away from senior service squabbling over ships, soldiers or aeroplanes. Away from 'either, or'. There are enough top senior civil servants, who are capable of driving this through within the MoD already. They need a free hand and motivation to bring the new agency into being as a matter of urgency. Civil servants and service personnel acting as officials need culling on an unprecedented scale. We really cannot disband infantry regiments to maintain Whitehall warriors.

Notwithstanding the howls of protest from the defence industry in marginal seats, military hardware must be at the right place on time for the right money. We do not need to pay £100,000 for Army trucks, £60m for combat helicopters, £1bn for all-singing, all-dancing super multi-role fighters. The procurement motto must be 'off the shelf', wherever possible. I am afraid this will have to mean a policy of heavily buying American. Certainly, weapons platforms and airplanes. We can fit our own weapons systems where they can be developed at the right price and they must work.

The UK's prime defence capability has to be at sea and in the air. We have never traditionally had a significant standing army like the continentals. It is not credible that the British Army should fall below 100,000. Four divisions, air portable. The reserve to be made up of a further three divisions of territorial troops. The brilliant Haldane set out the blueprint for this, as sound today as it was 100 years ago. The infrastructure is already there. To make this work, there must be an uncompromising social commitment. Pensions, bonuses, family healthcare, our commitment must be total. Too often, we have failed our military post-conflict.

There are plenty of radical ways we can retain expertise. City-style warrant options, for example, based on service - not just length of service but type of service. Counting blankets at RAF Snodsbury is not the same as patrolling Helmand Province. We must also close the gap between Admiral Snooks on £200,000 per year and Marine Atkins on £300 per week. If potential long-term career officers want big salaries, choose a different profession. Warrants and bonuses for regulars and territorials should be significant. Recruitment should never be an issue, not with 24 per cent youth unemployment. Carrot and stick please. As Churchill would have said: 'Action this day'.

This article first appeared on sister site PublicServiceEurope.com.

HAVE YOUR SAY

15 June 2012

Godfrey Bloom doesn't understand the civil service nor service chiefs, the MOD isn't about defence, rather than what can I get from it for myself, sod the ordinary service women and men, we can always get someone to do the fighting as long as we get our perks.

I do disagree that we should buy more from the US 'off the shelf', however if British industry wants orders for equipment it should for the price of the equipment at a realistic price and not an over inflated one just because it's for the armed services.

As for the standing army- why not just go back to conscription then, in his own words we should be strong in the air and at sea so why have a regular army( this comment by the way is me being slighty sarcastic as why not go even further and say get rid of the royal navy, build lots of coastal forts to stop any invading army and line the coast with pillboxes,trenchs and such like then call up recruits to man them when needed)

Getting rid of the MOD as it is at present does need to happen, replaced with a better system with fewer armchair warriors and accountants running it, however you also need an oursight committee that represents all parties to agree what the mission plan will be for the armed forces, decide what equipment is required to carry out the plan and then finance it correctly and stop changing the specs on equipment once ordered.
Also make the manufacturer liable for some/all of the cost overruns if they are to blame. Only then will budgets be controlled. ( I don't hold out much hope here either )
JC - UK

15 June 2012

Hang on Godfrey. Just before the last UK general election, UKIP said the current defence budget was nowhere near enough - and now you think it is adequate. David Campbell Bannerman, writing in the Defence Management Journal said: "An extra 1 per cent of GDP should be spent on the British Armed Forces as we believe they need better support and that the economy would benefit. This is an increase of 40 per cent on the current defence budget." That's not making more out of what you have. That is increasing the budget - plain and simple.
Mike Rocksteady

15 June 2012

I really do wonder if foreign suppliers would indeed be cheaper if they found themselves subject to the endless meddling in specification and quantity that British suppliers are subjected to. We want 12 ships... No we want 8... Wait a minute we'll have six... but we want capacity for a 155mm gun... and then we don't... and can it carry Harpoon... Oh wait, skip that... And can we have 21 maritime reconnaissance aircraft for x price? No wait, we'll have 18. No wait, we'll have 12. On second thoughts we'll have 9 because no one in the public knows what they can do anyway, wait a minute we'll buy them and we'll scrap them... Yeah right! Lions led by donkeys governed by morons...
Michael - Hertfordshire

15 June 2012

Michael,

Brilliant comment. You only forgot the bit about only ordering any of these things every 30 years and expecting capabilities to be built from scratch!
Chris - London

15 June 2012

"We must also close the gap between Admiral Snooks on £200,000 per year and Marine Atkins on £300 per week."

MEPs are paid an average £83,000 per year, compared to MPs in Britain, who have an annual salary of £65,738. They also receive a daily "subsistence allowance" of £265, they can be refunded up to £3,600 per year for other travel outside their own country, and be reimbursed for up to 24 return journeys within their own country. Members also receive up to £242,000 annually in staff salaries and office expenses and benefit from a generous health care and pension system. It is estimated that an MEP can cost around £400,000-a-year. Bloom and his colleagues make even Admiral Snooks look like pretty good value.

"If potential long-term career officers want big salaries, choose a different profession."

MEP, perhaps? Oh, sorry: that hardly counts as a "profession".

"Recruitment should never be an issue, not with 24 per cent youth unemployment. Carrot and stick please."

Ah, the young unemployed are to be hounded into the Services. Not exactly a recipe for quality armed forces.

"We do not need to pay....£1bn for all-singing, all-dancing super multi-role fighters. The procurement motto must be 'off the shelf', wherever possible. I am afraid this will have to mean a policy of heavily buying American. Certainly, weapons platforms and airplanes. We can fit our own weapons systems where they can be developed at the right price and they must work."

As he's presumably referring to the F-35, where does he think it originates? And he doesn't understand what a "weapon system" is: what a surprise.

"As Churchill would have said: 'Action this day'".

Of course, the obligatory quotation from (and implied comparison of Bloom with) Churchill. Well, a quick search on the net reveals one proclivity which they allegedly have in common, and Churchill, too, laboured under the delusion that he possessed a far greater degree of military expertise than was actually the case. Other than that, I struggle to see the resemblance.
Stan - York

15 June 2012

Stop writing blank cheques would go a long way to solving the MOD's procurement problems. The aircraft carrier fiasco was a good example. Already absurdly expensive - then a bank cheque for a new and unproven catapult system. Followed by surprise about the cost increases. NOT ONE MORE BLANK CHEQUE.

'The MoD is not able to reform, it must go'. Agreed.
Jeremy - Newcastle

18 June 2012

"Four divisions, air portable." How many more C-17 squadrons would that require?
It appears that Mr Bloom is advocating spending an even greater proportion of the defence budget on staffing than at present. And American weapons systems "developed at the right price and they must work" - don't mention the F-35.
Brian - Coventry

18 June 2012

"Counting blankets at RAF Snodsbury is not the same as patrolling Helmand Province". But both jobholders would qualify for UKIP's "National Defence Medal".
Brian - Coventry

18 June 2012

Not just the budget; the unacceptable differential between not just Snooks and Atkins, but a bloated, overpaid venal public sector and Atkins. So 'lay down your life for a pittance as parasites increase their remittance'. MoD staff should live in damp dilapidated barracks on a regular exchange basis. A string of lousy defence secretaries should be strung up. UKIP MEPs (should) be working for their own redundancy, once the criminal EU is dismantled
jeremy ross - london

20 June 2012

So Mr Bloom advocates obliterating one of the largest tax revenue streams the Exchequer has and in doing so decimating our engineering expertise? I'm afraid that this gentlemen doesn't know how complicated the issue is and at what long-term cost it would be to our country.
Richie

02 July 2012

JC wrote "Godfrey Bloom doesn't understand the civil service nor service chiefs …". He went too far. Godfrey Bloom doesn't understand, full stop.

He doesn't understand MoD and what its full job is (not just procurement), defence requirements, defence industry, etc. He doesn't understand that buying American is usually more expensive than buying home-grown when one looks at life-cycle costs, you never quite what you want when you want, you always have to tweak it and/or do things another way, and you are always a second-class customer.

He talks about then fitting UK weapons if they can be developed at the right price and if they work, without understanding weapons are developed with the user and weapons are increasingly integral to the platforms they are on.

And the figures he quotes: £100K for a field-capable truck — good price, I'd say; £60M for a combat helo — must be talking the latest Block III Apache straight from the US; and £1Bn for the latest fighter, is he referring to the F35 perchance.

Yes, MoD needs reform, but least most of them are hard-working and know what they are doing. They are badly led and organised, but that's politics and politicians for you, and here is Godfrey Bloom, pontificating from the outside, demonstrating how little they know.

Other commentators have picked up some of the other discrepancies and flights of fancy in Mr Bloom's thinking. Please, if you are going to invite guest contributors, find ones who know what they are talking about.
MaxE - Surrey