24 October 2007

MoD Job Cuts

News that the MoD is to cut one thousand jobs should be welcomed. It is a few years since my time at the MoD (before my conscience got the better of me), but from what I am told things haven't changed. It is over staffed and many Civil Servants build careers by empire building, so it is about time there was a cull.

That said, the Public Commercial Services Union have a point in their comment. I saw loads of restructuring and reorganisation during my 14 years, but rarely, if ever, saw jobs cut at the highest echelons of the Department.

I would actually like to see this taken a bit further. The MoD went through a ruthless process of civilianisation - getting rid of many of the jobs of servicemen simply because it was cheaper to employ civilians. One of the impacts of this is that our troops postings became more and more focused on the front line and added to the pressure they were under; we are seeing some of the effects of this now. It also has the potential to impact on the effectiveness of the front line.

As a logistician, keeping the front line supplied is the be-all and end-all of your job in theatre. Having first-hand experience of the way the supply chain works from back to front has to have an impact on your ability to find solutions when equipment shortages arise, so we should make sure there are posts in our HQs for forces personnel so that they can use that experience when it matters.

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12 April 2007

That's Two Browns With Doubtful Futures

Gordon Brown seems to be on the skids and, it seems, may have recognised that he is likely to be contested, hence the purchase of an appropriate domain name.

Des Brown, on the other hand, is just downright lucky. His decision not to stop Sailors and Marines from making money from being captured was probably the worst decision to affect the MoD since, well, some of his cronies told a few porkies to get support for sending troops to war. He should no longer be in his job, but New Labour are in too much trouble and will stick by him for their benefit at the expense of the best interests of Britain.

If Des Brown was a man of honour he would recognise the massive offence he caused the families of those who have lost loved ones and resign.

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07 December 2006

Is the MoD a reflection of Government as a whole?

Anyone with an interest in the British Military will welcome General Sir Mike Jackson's comments yesterday. I am sure the naysayers will be asking why he wasn't making the same case whilst he was CDS, but he answered that point admirably when he said:

"It's not a question of whether I say things or not, it's a question of whether you say things publicly or not".

If he had spoken out publicly, he would have lost his job and British troops would have lost a champion at the top echelons - and he was a champion.

He quite rightly questions whether the MoD at the centre truly understands the ethos of Armed Forces and the importance of the team. He is right to make that point, because the constant rejigs and re-organisations that the MoD has suffered from top to bottom since 1997 (and to a lesser extent before) harm that fundamental ethos. As soon as a team is established and starting to knit after one reorganisation, they teams are ripped apart and reshuffled once again.

This also creates an empire building culture (the single biggest failing of Civil Servants), where people build and develop power bases through organisational structures in order to better position themselves for the next reorganisation.

But this is a reflection of what Government does as a whole. Govenment bodies are never given the opportunity to bed down, to make the corrections that a command structure in its infancy needs to allow itself to bed down, because of the dreadful belief that re-organisation is the only route to improvement.

The shame is that it is what more and more of our money is being spent on. Less and less getting to the people that need it on the ground and more and more on heirarchies. The culture is made worse as Ministers increasingly justify re-organisation as progress.

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