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.

A £2bn “black hole” in the defence budget is at the root of the problem. It means major programmes will be axed or face damaging delays while cuts to all three services are now inevitable. But that's not all. In an attempt to save as much money as possible, the MoD has scrimped on spares forcing troops to cannibalise spare parts from tank or ground attack aircraft to keep another going. The forces' equipment has been effectively trashed by five years of fighting through heat and dust.

Small wonder that 42 per cent of the armed forces are reporting "critical or serious" problems getting to the point where they are ready to go on operations and 35 per cent can't even be sure of fulfilling their basic peacetime requirements. Small wonder too that the MoD held that data backfrom MPs until the eve of the hearing.

James Arbuthnot, chairman of defence committee, left Jeffrey in no doubt of the MPs anger at the way the data was sprung on them. He cancelled the hearing and told Jeffrey and MoD Finance Director Trevor Woolley they must return when the MPs had had time to read the data. But Jeffrey was just the whipping boy. The real villains of the piece are of course the politicians and in particular Gordon Brown, wno has starved the armed forces of cash at a time when they are busier than at any time in recent history.

That of course is also the real reason behind the sudden resignation of Lord Drayson who it seems quit following a stand-up row with Browne over the way his attempts to revamp the MoD’s procurement system had been blocked. Drayson came close to “doing a Heseltine” but was persuaded by the Prime Minister to leave quietly under the pretext that he wanted to go off and race cars, senior defence sources said. The resignation came after months of bitter acrimony between Drayson and Jeffrey over the tortuous procurement process. If Jeffrey was relieved by his departure, it wasn't long before the acrimony started all over again.

During last Tuesday’s brief meeting of the defence committee, MPs demanded Jeffrey tell them when he realised the MoD could not meet its key readiness targets. A clearly flustered Jeffrey initially claimed it was a few days earlier, before later admitting it was closer to two weeks. That tallied with the day on which Drayson discovered there would not be enough money to implement the second part of the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS), his attempt to revamp the procurement system.

“Drayson was furious at the lack of funding for DIS2 and what he saw as Des Browne’s failure to stand up and support him," one said. “He came close to doing a Heseltine and storming out right then,” the source said, in a reference to Michael Heseltine’s 1986 resignation from the Thatcher cabinet. Heseltine, then defence secretary, walked out of a cabinet meeting in a row over the future of the Westland helicopter company.

Sources close to Browne dispute this, saying that Drayson and Browne were the best of pals. But the welter of sources saying the row took place suggests otherwise and that the shortage of cash to implement DIS fully was the reason Drayson resigned. There is of course no chance of the current part-time Defence Secretary resigning over the dire state his department has been allowed to reach, he is after all only picking up the pieces of those who preceded him - both Labour and Tory. He is also of course only doing the Prime Minister's bidding.

Comments

[William29]

I well remember the hype during the "options for change" after the "cold war" was deemed to be over. A leaner meaner fighting machine was the future, a well equipped smaller force - it was lies then - now it would, in any walk of life, be considered a criminal act to send people into danger ill equipped. Perhaps it is time that crown immunity was challenged in the european courts. Charges of corporate manslaughter should be laid at the door of British government.

[edradour]

Drayson's Defence Industrial and Defence Technology Strategies were not the panacea people think. The former pandered to companies who have let MoD down time and again. The latter is nothing more than a dogs dinner of DSTL aspirations to keep research people going. Some good ideas mixed in with very old work which was, disingenuously, presented as new. The common denominator in both strategies was that nowhere did they talk about implementation. Nor did they discuss "pull through" (the act of taking research output and applying the science to improve operational capability). This needs funding. It wasn't mentioned.

A strategy without resource or political will can never become policy.

The article mentions the "pathetically useless procurement system". I'd present the argument another way. For every procurement disaster there are many more programmes, some far more complex than those which fail, delivered to time, cost and performance. If the system is so useless, how can this be? It's not luck, believe me. It's the application of long years of experience and training - something that MoD lack in abundance. If Drayson wanted to get to grips with the procurement system, this should have been his starting point. He should have asked for a list of ALL projects over the last 15 years (so encompassing MoD(PE, DLO, DPA etc), the outcome (in terms of time, cost and performance) and who the project managers were. Then, having identified who had a successful track record, used this experience. And got rid of those who consistently failed. And if that just happened to be half his executive board, so be it.

[The 3rd Column]

Mick,

Well, Des Browne seems to have been "revamping the MoD" but on the 'sly'.

DESO was abolished last Sept with a skeleton structure of the former DESO being hauled away to Trade that didn't want anything to do with defence sales at all, perhaps out of conviction or simply because they don't know what defence sales are all about.

Don't really know whether the abolition of DESO would dent British defence sales but if you look across the the Channel, Pres Sarkozy has just created a "war room" on to re-enforce the DGA (Direction Générale des Armaments) in their capacity as overall defence sales overseer and military procurement office while UK govt are hell bent on staying inert both counts at best.

[Chuck Unsworth]

Bill Jeffrey's lamentable performance before the Committee was a remarkable confirmation of the state of affairs. No one seriously believes Drayson's apparent desperation to spend more time with his toys. What would that say about his personal integrity? To abandon his responsiblity to the Ministry, the nation, to play with his Aston Martin?

Jeffrey's approach was entirely defensive. His dissimulation was palpable. What the Committee should be asking itself is why this particular Civil Servant finds it so necessary to adopt an entirely political stance. Clearly the Ministry now finds itself being attacked by its own masters. How long can that go on?

Browne is either overstretched - a delicious irony if this is so - or out of touch. My money's on the latter. He's never shown himself to be on top of things. He may be politically adept, but he's certainly not up to the rigours of good administration. Anyway, can a nation actively fighting two wars really afford a part-time Minister?

As to the hole in the budget, why is it that Browne and his master, Brown, feel it so necessary to indulge in major and unusable capital projects whilst depriving those on the ground of even basic items of kit? Is it possible that such decisions might revolve around constituency considerations?

Let's not forget that this government (I use that term in its loosest sense) has been in office for more than a decade. What has it been doing all this time? And now it is asking for yet more time in office. To do what, exactly? If it has not been able to sort things out in ten years and more, how much longer does it think it might need? A lifetime or a century?

[William 29]

I believe the aim of the government is to reduce the capability of the British forces to such an extent that it becomes logical to argue, that we become a part of a European defence force under European command. At least we can be sure that our servicemen would be home for tea !