Hi, I agree with you, I am 86 and have served 20 years in different armies and kit + weapons have always been a problem. Mind you my grandfather served as a Dragoon and he said that they had some terrible hacks during his service! No wonder that so many Britons left when the Roman Legions evacuated! Cheers mate. Harera
@@pierevojzola9737 As seen in the letter tablets discovered in the forts along Hadrian's wall. Dear granny, we need socks. And it also seems the mail service hasn't improved.
Always easy to be sarcastic from the outside mate. But trying to change the Civil Service mindset is like trying to change course on a 200,000 tanker. I saw it up close and personal in another industry and its like walking in treacle.
@@1chish True that mate, the Civil Service aren't fit for purpose, the National Audit Office has reported that the DWP have lost £11 billion in fraud and over payment on Universal Credits in the past 2 years.
@@aking-plums6985 Would love to see your source for that - does it include the mass of money chucked away during covid? Plenty of fraud and dodgy contracts going on then. Perhaps chump change though vs the bonanza in tax being lost to rich individuals and companies avoiding the paying of their fair share every year.
The first change that needs to happen is to bring recruitment back in house. Thousands of people give up trying to join the forces due to Capita’s incompetence- or has Capita been told to deliberately delay recruitment to allow the Government to reduce force numbers ??
Having a huge staff of unrealistic "specialists" demanding equipment meets specific standards that make very little operational difference, cause delays and tie the UK into a small sunset of suppliers has always driven up cost and delayed programmes massively. It doesn't help industry or the end users, all it means is the tax payer gets a bigger bill and the users get less kit and late. Source - I've worked in defence for 25 years.
He talks about our nuclear deterrent being so important and a fine example of our defence capabilities, but in the last two missile test's it has failed. So i ask him what deterrent are they giving us if they have failed? We need much more conventional capabilities to be able to deter our enimies from starting any type of war with us. A strong armed forces deters, a weak armed forces invites war. Surely he has the ability to look back at our history (1938 appeasement) and see how wars begin. They don't start if you are strong. We have invited trouble by being weak yet again.
I hope they also remember that it takes properly trained and motivated personal to use these new kits when your service members are not happy or you don't have enough it's all a waste
I am not a Tory voter and I am very cynical, as an ex UK service person, of promises made by politicians re defence. For example increasing defence spending when the state of the economy allows. This (paraphrased) example is just another exercise in 'kicking the can down the road!' For all of this personal cynicism I have to say the minister in this interview sounded candid and someone whom had genuinely done their homework and thought things through prior to delivering such a new policy paper. Huzzah!!! I desperately hope and wish this minister success in achieving the goals outlinded.
I once had the pleasure of meeting James Cartlidge in a social environment. It confirmed my view that he is a thoroughly genuine and effective politician, and a very pleasant person - a rarity in political circles these days !
People who wasted so much money for decades should be in prison instead of collecting fat pensions. He's describing the "fail faster" technology development approach... should have been implemented 20 years ago.
It sounds ok, only that stuck out to me was intentional supply chains are out of our control. I would disagree sort of. If we built our own kit in house wouldn’t that make us more secure. As supply chains seem to be a target at the moment.
I assume he’s talking about raw materials. Everyone knows we don’t produce much steal, copper, aluminium, etc. in the UK. We don’t manufacture computer chips or other computer components either. We’re reliant on the international supply chain for all of that stuff.
Procurement is ultimately about timely delivery of kit that works. It’s not always about supporting British industry. For example is it really sensible to have a uk made battle tank when most European countries just buy leopards? Maybe not a good example given German reluctance in Ukraine but it can’t make any economic sense for us to spend billions on tank development when our army is small and doesn’t have a need for many of them.
As stated several times, this is the rationale for export ready products so that manufacturers do not rely on UK spending for all their revenue. France and Israel were mentioned as countries who do that better. Obviously the elephant in the room is USA who supply much of the defence products that Europe buys. It will not be easy to develop products of high value but that is what sovereign capability means, along with a supply chain that is also not USA dependant.
I'm afraid we have heard it all before Minister. Nothing changes. MOD is in a hole, but to dig itself out, the services are told to find yet more efficiencies or delay vital programs. What bit of your job do elected politicians not understand?
Take civil servants out of the equation. This is where the real delays and overspends occur. Idiots making decisions about equipment that they know little about and would would never have the balls to be in a position to use.
So what I’m taking from this is that there is a culture within the MoD that could stop this working. So early on he is not promising results and if it does fail it’s someone else’s fault! If they know what the problem is, what have they done about it? I guarantee nobody has lost their job. It’s only taken the last 25 years to realise that COTS is the way forward in procurement, and we can upgrade as we go. The fear here though is that kit will remain ‘fitted for, not with’. Plus we are going to need a lot more bodies if we are going to be doing any significant fighting.
You wouldn’t be surprised to hear that defence procurement is a tad corrupt the reason Ajax went ahead at all is because the company who procured it or at least designed it a prominent Tory politician most likely had shares in the company.
Manufacturers willing to invest in COTS product development need a forward order book that justifies such investment. So Industrial Strategy is required to enable that.. We seem to have made strides in the shipbuilding but that is only one domain and many others require similar action.
UK MoD procurement directly employs 22,000 people. For comparison, Israel’s equivalent department (with maybe more on their hands to deal with) employs less than 1,000. Any ideas?
Got loads of sad stories that are live and ongoing.. The UKMOD procurement is beyond pathetic and costs the UK tax payer billions and billions.. Not forgetting about the soldier who has to suffer..
The MOD has no choice but to receive AT LEAST DOUBLE IT'S CURRENT LEVEL OF FUNDING, considering that the world is heading towards major conflict once again.
Well, you talk a fairly good talk with your pre-prepared answers, but can you & your team walk the walk and actually deliver? I hope so - we shall see...
Absolute waffle, we need to ban former senior officers and ministers joining these wealthy arms companies. Also banning then from having stock shares in these same companies that they have an influence in their winning contracts. Our Soldiers have always been hampered by the "good & great" getting rich while we get the cheapest, worse equipment!
12:33 I'm hoping begging that he's talking about the medium lift helicopter for the army and Raf, it's desperately needed with the retiring of the puma and just as a capabilities standpoint too.
I do wonder about this - it sounds like a more complex process, with more different bodies putting in their two cents. That could lengthen a procurement process that is already slow moving. For many equipment systems we don't have a large enough military to give the economies of scale needed for tailored development, which makes export unlikely. In those cases we could just buy off the shelf. We wouldn't need to go into development hell over more than a decade (as we did with Ajax), and we'ld get top end, proven systems (like the CV90) much more quickly. Plus we'ld need fewer expensive MOD civil servants, all trying to justify their jobs.
you geta new house with a 10 year guarantee if you kit new kit for the armed forces and it dose not work the mod pay out more not say to the builder sorry not fit your problem not ours no money hand over till the kit is fit for purpose a pig ear is still a pigs ear even in cammo
I'm afraid you're being overrun by events. If you read the Samson Option, adopt and adapt it, we've got a problem... The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy is a 1991 book by Seymour Hersh. It details the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program and its effects on Israel-American relations. The "Samson Option" of the book's title refers to the nuclear strategy whereby Israel would launch a massive nuclear retaliatory strike if the state itself was being overrun, just as the Biblical figure Samson is said to have pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and thousands of Philistines who had gathered to see him humiliated.
I am 75. I cannot recall how many times I have heard politicians and ministers say that MOD procurement needs reform.
Hi, I agree with you, I am 86 and have served 20 years in different armies and kit + weapons have always been a problem. Mind you my grandfather served as a Dragoon and he said that they had some terrible hacks during his service! No wonder that so many Britons left when the Roman Legions evacuated! Cheers mate. Harera
@@pierevojzola9737 As seen in the letter tablets discovered in the forts along Hadrian's wall. Dear granny, we need socks. And it also seems the mail service hasn't improved.
So you’re going to start buying equipment that is cutting edge, works and is fit for purpose? What a great idea!
Always easy to be sarcastic from the outside mate. But trying to change the Civil Service mindset is like trying to change course on a 200,000 tanker.
I saw it up close and personal in another industry and its like walking in treacle.
@@1chish True that mate, the Civil Service aren't fit for purpose, the National Audit Office has reported that the DWP have lost £11 billion in fraud and over payment on Universal Credits in the past 2 years.
@@aking-plums6985 You forgot everybodys personal details
More Knife's and Folks Again what on earth do they do with them all?
@@aking-plums6985 Would love to see your source for that - does it include the mass of money chucked away during covid? Plenty of fraud and dodgy contracts going on then.
Perhaps chump change though vs the bonanza in tax being lost to rich individuals and companies avoiding the paying of their fair share every year.
The first change that needs to happen is to bring recruitment back in house. Thousands of people give up trying to join the forces due to Capita’s incompetence- or has Capita been told to deliberately delay recruitment to allow the Government to reduce force numbers ??
Having a huge staff of unrealistic "specialists" demanding equipment meets specific standards that make very little operational difference, cause delays and tie the UK into a small sunset of suppliers has always driven up cost and delayed programmes massively. It doesn't help industry or the end users, all it means is the tax payer gets a bigger bill and the users get less kit and late. Source - I've worked in defence for 25 years.
He talks about our nuclear deterrent being so important and a fine example of our defence capabilities, but in the last two missile test's it has failed. So i ask him what deterrent are they giving us if they have failed? We need much more conventional capabilities to be able to deter our enimies from starting any type of war with us. A strong armed forces deters, a weak armed forces invites war.
Surely he has the ability to look back at our history (1938 appeasement) and see how wars begin. They don't start if you are strong. We have invited trouble by being weak yet again.
I hope they also remember that it takes properly trained and motivated personal to use these new kits when your service members are not happy or you don't have enough it's all a waste
I am not a Tory voter and I am very cynical, as an ex UK service person, of promises made by politicians re defence. For example increasing defence spending when the state of the economy allows. This (paraphrased) example is just another exercise in 'kicking the can down the road!' For all of this personal cynicism I have to say the minister in this interview sounded candid and someone whom had genuinely done their homework and thought things through prior to delivering such a new policy paper. Huzzah!!! I desperately hope and wish this minister success in achieving the goals outlinded.
I once had the pleasure of meeting James Cartlidge in a social environment. It confirmed my view that he is a thoroughly genuine and effective politician, and a very pleasant person - a rarity in political circles these days !
People who wasted so much money for decades should be in prison instead of collecting fat pensions. He's describing the "fail faster" technology development approach... should have been implemented 20 years ago.
It sounds ok, only that stuck out to me was intentional supply chains are out of our control. I would disagree sort of. If we built our own kit in house wouldn’t that make us more secure. As supply chains seem to be a target at the moment.
I assume he’s talking about raw materials. Everyone knows we don’t produce much steal, copper, aluminium, etc. in the UK. We don’t manufacture computer chips or other computer components either. We’re reliant on the international supply chain for all of that stuff.
Have the well-rested dolts doing current procurement work been fired yet? Well?
It wouldn't surprise me if they got promoted rather than fired =(
Procurement is ultimately about timely delivery of kit that works. It’s not always about supporting British industry. For example is it really sensible to have a uk made battle tank when most European countries just buy leopards? Maybe not a good example given German reluctance in Ukraine but it can’t make any economic sense for us to spend billions on tank development when our army is small and doesn’t have a need for many of them.
As stated several times, this is the rationale for export ready products so that manufacturers do not rely on UK spending for all their revenue. France and Israel were mentioned as countries who do that better. Obviously the elephant in the room is USA who supply much of the defence products that Europe buys. It will not be easy to develop products of high value but that is what sovereign capability means, along with a supply chain that is also not USA dependant.
I'm afraid we have heard it all before Minister. Nothing changes. MOD is in a hole, but to dig itself out, the services are told to find yet more efficiencies or delay vital programs. What bit of your job do elected politicians not understand?
Take civil servants out of the equation. This is where the real delays and overspends occur. Idiots making decisions about equipment that they know little about and would would never have the balls to be in a position to use.
Abbeywood...
Stop wasting money and our protection. Buy off the shelf because we can’t build anything anymore.
So what I’m taking from this is that there is a culture within the MoD that could stop this working. So early on he is not promising results and if it does fail it’s someone else’s fault!
If they know what the problem is, what have they done about it? I guarantee nobody has lost their job.
It’s only taken the last 25 years to realise that COTS is the way forward in procurement, and we can upgrade as we go. The fear here though is that kit will remain ‘fitted for, not with’. Plus we are going to need a lot more bodies if we are going to be doing any significant fighting.
You wouldn’t be surprised to hear that defence procurement is a tad corrupt the reason Ajax went ahead at all is because the company who procured it or at least designed it a prominent Tory politician most likely had shares in the company.
Manufacturers willing to invest in COTS product development need a forward order book that justifies such investment. So Industrial Strategy is required to enable that.. We seem to have made strides in the shipbuilding but that is only one domain and many others require similar action.
UK MoD procurement directly employs 22,000 people. For comparison, Israel’s equivalent department (with maybe more on their hands to deal with) employs less than 1,000. Any ideas?
No more £7,000 toilet seats ?
Got loads of sad stories that are live and ongoing.. The UKMOD procurement is beyond pathetic and costs the UK tax payer billions and billions.. Not forgetting about the soldier who has to suffer..
People like me don't get invited anymore to any type of procurement seminars, why because they don't tolerate disruptors who speak thier mind..
Ok so now we accelerate delivery and remove hurdles.
In ten years people will be screaming because there was not enough governance or external review.
The MOD has no choice but to receive AT LEAST DOUBLE IT'S CURRENT LEVEL OF FUNDING, considering that the world is heading towards major conflict once again.
Which UKMOD services uses ft and yrds and which one uses cm and m??
The issues are as basic as that..
It’s the contracts we need to focus on all the contracts we have are so bad the navy just bleeds money because of poorly written up contracts
Well, you talk a fairly good talk with your pre-prepared answers, but can you & your team walk the walk and actually deliver?
I hope so - we shall see...
Absolute waffle, we need to ban former senior officers and ministers joining these wealthy arms companies. Also banning then from having stock shares in these same companies that they have an influence in their winning contracts. Our Soldiers have always been hampered by the "good & great" getting rich while we get the cheapest, worse equipment!
hold on.... THIS government doing something that makes sense?
12:33 I'm hoping begging that he's talking about the medium lift helicopter for the army and Raf, it's desperately needed with the retiring of the puma and just as a capabilities standpoint too.
I was wrong
I do wonder about this - it sounds like a more complex process, with more different bodies putting in their two cents. That could lengthen a procurement process that is already slow moving.
For many equipment systems we don't have a large enough military to give the economies of scale needed for tailored development, which makes export unlikely.
In those cases we could just buy off the shelf. We wouldn't need to go into development hell over more than a decade (as we did with Ajax), and we'ld get top end, proven systems (like the CV90) much more quickly. Plus we'ld need fewer expensive MOD civil servants, all trying to justify their jobs.
All I heard was buzzwords and sound bites - situation no change!
you geta new house with a 10 year guarantee if you kit new kit for the armed forces and it dose not work the mod pay out more not say to the builder sorry not fit your problem not ours no money hand over till the kit is fit for purpose
a pig ear is still a pigs ear even in cammo
Good luck to him.
And the sixth one, HM Treasury she say no.
I'm afraid you're being overrun by events. If you read the Samson Option, adopt and adapt it, we've got a problem... The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy is a 1991 book by Seymour Hersh. It details the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program and its effects on Israel-American relations. The "Samson Option" of the book's title refers to the nuclear strategy whereby Israel would launch a massive nuclear retaliatory strike if the state itself was being overrun, just as the Biblical figure Samson is said to have pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and thousands of Philistines who had gathered to see him humiliated.
He looks Chinese to me? CCP asset? AI ?
They've only just realised lol
Can the procurement process be turned over to AI?
No, a.i doesn't exist. What's wrong with ppl these days? Is it all those darpa videos ? Or the rise in chat bots?
Same old story.. Blah blah blah