EDITORIAL COMMENT
Carrier report makes sober reading
Good progress is being made on building the carriers but the UK will not have an operational vessel until 2020.
A
t the end of November the Commons Public Accounts Committee in the UK published
its 56th report of Session 2010-12, on the basis of evidence from the Ministry of Defence (MoD), a report that provide a bleak review of the UK Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth class carrier programme. Te Right Honourable Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, said: “Once again, a major MoD project will be completed much later, cost much more and offer less military capabil- ity than originally planned. “Changes to the aircraft carriers and
the aircraſt flying from them in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review have changed the risks and costs involved in ways that are not fully understood. Rather than two carriers, available from 2016 and 2018, at a cost of £3.65 billion, we will now spend more than £6 billion [US$9.4 billion], get one operational carrier and have no aircraft carrier capability until 2020 – almost a decade. Te second carrier will be mothballed, while the operational carrier will be available at sea for only 150 to 200 days a year.” On top of that, said Mrs Hodge, the
technology to enable the new aircraſt to fly from the carrier is untested, and the newly constructed ship will have to undergo immediate modification. Te costs of this will not be known until December 2012. In preparing options, said the report,
the department concentrated on short- term affordability and the need to make cash savings, and did not focus strongly on long-term value for money. While the department believes the decision will save £3.4 billion, only £600 million of this constitutes cash savings, with the other 80% simply deferred costs. “It is of deep concern that our ability to hold the department to account was
Warship Technology January 2012
hampered by the Cabinet Office’s decision to withhold from the National Audit Office [NAO] all the information it requested to make a judgement on value for money,” said Mrs Hodge.
“We welcome the
subsequent decision by the Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretary to make the papers available, following pressure from this Committee and others.” The 1998 Strategic Defence Review
committed to replace the Royal Navy’s three existing Invincible class aircraft carriers with two larger, more versatile, carriers capable of carrying a more powerful aircraſt. By the time the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) started, the Department had signed manufacturing contracts for two carriers with an estimated cost of £5.24 billion and delivery dates of 2016 and 2018. Te construction of the carriers by the Aircraſt Carrier Alliance is going well. Te majority of build targets have been met and the project is on track to be within budget. Te Department entered the 2010 SDSR
with an expected deficit in its equipment programme over the next 10 years of up to £38 billion. Decisions taken as part of the review significantly changed the way the United Kingdom will deliver its carrier strike capability. The UK will have no carrier aircraſt capability from 2011-2020. While two carriers are still being built, only one will be converted to launch the aircraſt that have now been selected, and the other will be mothballed. Te UK will only have one operational carrier with a significantly reduced availability at sea when carrier strike capability is reintroduced in 2020. Tat carrier is being built according to the old design and will have to be modified to make it compatible with the requirements of the new aircraſt. Te SDSR decision to change the aircraſt flown from the carriers from the short
take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant of the Joint Strike Fighter to the carrier variant changed, but did not necessarily reduce, the balance of risks and uncertainties to the programme. Whilst the strategic policy decision to
re-focus investment in both the carriers and the linked combat aircraſt was well informed, it will only become apparent whether the department can secure value for money in implementing the strategic policy decision when it fully develops and costs detailed delivery plans to support robust investment decisions, probably in late 2012. “As we have commented before,” said
the committee, the department’s singular failure to manage its equipment programme within affordable limits has had damaging consequences for both military capability and value for money. It meant that options prepared by the department to support the SDSR were heavily influenced by the need to make cash savings and by short- term affordability. “Te accounting officer confirmed that
a policy decision was taken in the SDSR to have aircraft carriers and we do not question this. However, decisions on how to deliver this capability were operational judgements with major cost and value for money implications. “We are concerned that the NAO did
not have access to all the information it requested to prepare and conclude on value for money in its report of 7 July 2011 on this project,” the Committee said, noting that what it called “systemic issues” that have appeared in other recent defence reports continue to arise. “In making our recommendations we have built on what we have said in past reports and focussed on two key areas: strategic decision- making and delivery of capabilities,” the committee concluded. WT
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