The long, slow withdrawal...
The present Government would, of course, recoil from any suggestion that the aim of its proposed reforms is to follow the recent Canadian example of unifying the rival Forces under a single command, and doing away with centuries of military tradition in the process.
Announcing his reforms this week, Dr Fox said that the main aim was to undertake a wide-ranging reform of the “bloated and dysfunctional” Ministry of Defence, which, a full year after he assumed responsibility for the department, is still struggling to provide him with an accurate assessment of just how large its overspending really is.
If I was a British Admiral right now, I'd be sorely tempted to imitate Rear-Admiral von Reuter. Better do it yourself than let the Chancellor.
I think he is correct that the Ministry of Defence is highly inefficient but a merger of the armed forces is most definitely not the answer. It is a real pity how things are going in Britain as I had had real hope for the Tories a year ago, Gerald Warner and Peter Hitchens seem to have been largely correct about Cameron.
ReplyDeleteI can see merging the flag officers to streamline things; the trick is to maintain the distinct identities- and the Esprit De Corps resulting therefrom- of the units doing the actual work.
ReplyDeleteIn Canada, it was little more than a Pearson-led initiative to make the CF "distinct" and less "colonial". It was an assertion of the pseudo-nationalism that the Liberals have so long clutched so tightly. Pragmatically, it didn't save any money. Merging flag officers doesn't streamline anything. Each service keeps its own officers right up until the CDS, so what's there to merge? You still have the same number of people, so you still have to have the same number of officers to lead them. In the CF, administratively, the LOG, MED, MP and INT branches are classified as all-element, but that's neither here nor there. If you need 1500 drivers, you need 1500 drivers, and the colours of their berets won't change much. If you want to cut costs in government, the best place to start is to cut waste, because that's the biggest money-gobbler. If you restrict spending to mission-essential items, you'll save a good chunk of change. The problem is that every level thinks its spending is mission-essential. In other words, nobody wants to admit to spending budget on junk they don't need because if they don't use their budget this year, they won't have it next year. Even though pretty much everybody does it. You want to save money? Have an auditor estimate how much money the MoD needs to operate this year, add 5% just in case, and call that their budget for next year. This is your budget, you're not getting more, so spend it wisely. Of course, it would be much better for them if they did it themselves, instead of having a solution imposed on them by the Minister, but the way they're going, the government is going to do just that, and judging by the Minister's reaction, it could be a drastic solution. You can blame the Vichy Tories for implementing absurd cost-cutting measures (and I do), but at the same time, by dragging their heels on giving an account of their overspending, MoD has their part of the blame to share as well.
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