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Aviation History
1969
1969 - 2542.PDF
184 reliable information about the key tech nical problems before the competition between potential contractors ends, time and money may be saved. The com mittee further urges that this analysis before a contract is placed should be seen to follow logically from a constant review of alternative defence and foreign policy options. Decisions to start full development should not, as a rule, be made until the technical and cost information available is firm enough for the contract to go ahead with reasonable certainty in the minds of all participants that the weapon will be produced. There should be no need to use the technique of holding contracts, in order to keep a technical team in being while decisions are taken. If the decision process is open and con scious, so that all the potential partici pants in the development and production contracts have access to all relevant documentation, then the commercial con tractors can independently form their own judgment about whether they wish to remain in the competition or not. Government defence research estab lishments have a very important role to play in this stage of decision-making. Whilst access to the procurement authori ties by industry should be established at the earliest possible stage, the DREs should also be encouraged to put up proposals and to evaluate on technical grounds the submissions from industry. If it is considered that for a certain type of technology of weapon there are too few potential contractors in Britain for it to be feasible to conduct an open competition, then the DREs should be used to find foreign sources of competi tion, by evaluating potentially licensable technologies, by testing weapons which might be imported, and by placing sub contracts outside Britain for items for which it is not strategically vital that supply sources be located nationally. The committee accepts that, in various ways, the defence departments do attempt to follow the process described in the foregoing paragraphs. But its im pression is that the process is not suffi ciently based on a deliberate structure of informed decision-making. Nor is it sufficiently accessible to all the potential participants. In particular, it is very hard to see where projects come from, and upon what exchange of information, between headquarters, the DREs and industry, weapon proposals are based. Similarly, although the evidence suggests that projects are carefully and constantly reviewed, it was very difficult to find evidence of a project which was merely rejected as a failure at a medium or early stage. When the committee asked for an example, it was presented only with a case of reference back for further con sideration by the sponsor. The SCST suspects that the decision making process is not at present effec tively designed to cause project proposals to compete, and that the committees which are represented as evaluating weapon developments are more likely to be putting a formal seal upon decisions already made through informal and un observed processes. Indeed, it was shown no mechanism for allowing project pro posals to compete with each other. The evidence it received from and about the Treasury in particular also indicates that the present process might be improved were the Treasury obliged to become more involved in the decision making stage. Once the decision had been taken, the Treasury should then be able to devote more effort towards furthering each project as effectively as possible, rather than causing delays, in evitable when its main role is largely confined to financial monitoring. It must be stressed that the success of this approach will depend on better scientific and commercial knowledge amongst Treasury officials. From the evidence presented to the SCST about the composition of the various committees, it noted that (a) in dustry is not represented, (b) overlapping membership of committees reaches the point where the WDC and the DRC (weapons development and defence re search committees, respectively) have a common chairman and eleven out of sixteen common members. The select committee was concerned to find that the Operational Analysis Committee and the Defence Operational Analysis Establishment did not appear to have an integral function in the decision system. It was told that their advice is frequently sought, and that they are always supplied with the fullest political background. The Operational Analysis Committee, of which the director of DOAE (Defence Operational Analysis Establishment) is a member, has scientific, political and civil service repre sentatives from the Ministry of Defence, as well as the chief scientists of the three Service Departments. Thus the views of DOAE can become known, and they can draw the attention of other members of the procurement system to the work they are doing. But the committee concludes that DOAE, while it has some effect on weapon types and disposition of forces, does not have a determining influence on defence policy. FLIGHT International, 31 July 1969 The SCST does not doubt the com- pentence of all concerned in stating their need for weapons, in evaluating the various proposals and requirements which emerge, in preparing specifications and finally in producing what is ordered. But the choice of which defence project to develop appears to be a process of gradual and unconscious approach to a consensus of what should be done by filtering out the unpopular projects. It does not look like an open and con scious process in which financial and time-scale constraints are set against alternative forms of weapon system, force structure and strategy, and against a clearly understood background of defence and foreign policy objectives. The background of objectives appears to be the least stable element in the whole system. It must be very difficult for the people on whom the consensus depends to know what objectives they are work ing towards. The select committee recommends that the future planning of defence research and development should be carried out by using a very wide range of the tech niques known as strategic studies, force structure and weapon system studies and operational analysis. It further recom mends that the Defence Operational Analysis Establishment should be expanded and provided with the neces sary facilities to pursue these studies. Arrangements should be made for this expanded establishment to obtain from the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet a comprehen sive range of complementary and com peting defence and foreign policy objectives. The new DOAE would then have the responsibility of translating these objectives into their implications in terms of weapon systems, force struc tures and operational requirements on the basis of information provided by the Defence Research Establishments, in dustry and Services, in advance of the decisions being taken, and subject to the contraints of the money available. The director of the establishment would report to the Secretary of State for Defence. The staff should include people with the appropriate experience and qualifications drawn from other research and development establishments and from industry, seconded for periods of two or three years. Now co//ed Sportdcus: XR369, one of the four aircraft of 53 Sqn, RAF Air Support Command, which were named on July 4 when the Squadron received its standard at Brize Norton. All 53's ten Belfasts are to have names, following ASC practice % % FORK. MR %MWi
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