Mick Smith - Times Online - WBLG

The Yes Minister Manoeuvres Used by MoD Civil Servants to Force Drayson Out

The full story behind the decision of Lord Drayson to quit as defence equipment and support minister can finally be told, having been covered up to prevent further embarrassment to Gordon Brown. A number of defence and industry sources said last week that Drayson had stormed out of the MoD after a series of rows with its most senior civil servant over his attempts to revamp defence procurement. His departure followed a testy meeting with Des Browne, defence secretary, who refused to back him in the rows with Bill Jeffrey, the MoD’s permanent under-secretary. The truth behind his subsequent departure contains all the elements of a classic episode of the BBC television series Yes Minister.

How Drayson Came Close to Doing a Hezza

Fresh detail of the shock resignation of Lord Drayson has been passed to this blog, revealing quite how close he came to stomping out of the MoD in fury at what he saw as the refusal of Defence Secretary Des Browne to back his plans to revamp the pathetically useless MoD procurement system. Less than a week after Drayson quit, Bill Jeffrey, the MoD's most senior civil servant, was told off like a naughty schoolboy after trying to bounce his department's performance report past the Commons Defence Select Committee. The two traumatic blows to the MoD's already tattered reputation have left the department in turmoil.

The Cheap and Tawdry Way Our Veterans are Treated

One line stood out for me in our report today on the potential increases facing soldiers for the insurance they have to take out when they serve on operations abroad. They have to buy the insurance to make up for the inadequacy of the MoD's own compensation scheme. The premiums could be effectively doubled for many soldiers from January 1st to provide adequate cover for soldiers and their families in the event of their being severely injured or killed. But in its own way, it was just as shocking to learn that soldiers going to war have to insure their own kit. If they lose it in combat, it seems, they have to recompense the army for the cost and then claim it back from the insurance policy. How petty and parsimonious can the MoD bean-counters be? No don't answer it we know...

Nimrod report identified 'critical' fuel problem

The scandal of the deaths of 14 servicemen on board Nimrod XV230 continues. I am bound to say that I believed long ago that there couldn't be any more bad information coming out. But the release under the Freedom of Information Act of a report by QinetiQ, the defence company, on the extent of the leaks on board the Nimrod fleet and in particular the six aircraft flying over Afghanistan and Iraq simply beggars belief. The leaks represented a "critical" structural problem. Civilian contractors at RAF Kinloss were not only not required to pass on the substantial information they had on the leaks and how to deal with them to the Integrated Project Team which oversees how the Nimrod fleets is run, they were not required to tell the RAF technicians working on the aircraft at Kinloss that the Air Publications they were working to were out-of-date and of "little, if any, value". The problems with the leaks dated back ten years but were exacerbated by the "intense" schedule flown by the six Nimrods equipped with special video surveillance equipment fed back directly to commanders on the ground. Since these leaks were largely being caused by pressure from the aircraft's air-to-air refuelling system, never part of its original equipment and fitted as an emergency measure during the Falklands Conflict, they could not be replicated on the ground. "QinetiQ were unable to establish a clear impression of how these non-detected leaks are addressed," the report said. Or put another way, they couldn't be found so they couldn't be fixed. But so essential was the real-time video surveillance equipment to troops on the ground that the RAF had to keep the aircraft in the air quite literally, and tragically, at all costs.

Read more about the QinetiQ assessment here