Leader
Welcome to your first issue of the new, bi-monthly CBRNe World. It may be slightly smaller than you are used to, but since we have increased our frequency by 50% you will still be getting far more information over the course of the year. Other changes mean that, with the advent of our Directory, there will be no more Roundups planned for the back of the magazine. We know how popular they are, and this is not a step we have taken lightly. But since the Directory is both comprehensive and stuffed full of roundups – for all matters CBRN and C-IED – to retain them seemed like unnecessary duplication.
On the subject of things getting lighter, it came as little surprise – with defence budgets being what they are – that the UK MoD cancelled their CBRN Sector Transformation (ST) Programme. ST has been around for a long time – since 2006 – and has delivered stunningly little. It has not been beloved by this magazine: we were concerned that it would not represent the interests of the SMEs (both Subject Matter Experts and Small to Medium Enterprises) and be an extra layer of bureaucracy between purchaser and provider. CBRNe World has been given a document that shows that, as of the 17th of January 2012, this programme was recommended for closure by the Sector Transformation Governance Group, a recommendation that was accepted. As the document goes on to state, the assessment phase showed that “key events led to a significant reduction in the scope of the project. These included cuts to the CBRN programme, and the decision to move away from the transformation of CBRN capability in its entirety to a phased approach commencing with project delivery only.”
In addition to the Strategic Defence & Security Review lopping funds off faster than body parts in a Jacobean tragedy, the demise of the UK’s Joint CBRN Regiment has also been a ‘key event’. As Dan Kaszeta notes in his Olympics article, the move to an RAF CBRN Wing leaves the UK as the sole army in Nato to have no specialised CBRN capability. It is amazing how quickly the MoD has shed this capability, from being a leader in European military capability (perhaps not at the level of the Germans and Czechs, but a remote third) to competing with Iceland for bottom place (we have been invited to see the new CBRN Wing, and how a wholly professional force can do more with less for the next issue – we look forward to it).
We put in a request for more information to the UK MoD’s Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) Press Office, asking for confirmation of the issue and what it meant for the UK’s future CBRN capability. The written
reply was succinct, and disingenuous: “Sector Transformation (ST) was borne out of the MoD’s requirement to improve and refine the mechanism for efficient and effective delivery of CBRN Protection Capability. We are currently considering ways to do this, including partnering with Industry. A decision will be made in due course.”
Admittedly, there is no final decision as to what the future path will look like but, as the response circumnavigates, ST is not going to be included. Sector Transformation was a Category A project – the largest of all procurements, valued at £400 million and above – and Key Strategic Partner (KSP) contracts had been awarded to Qinetiq, Serco, and Kellog Brown and Root. The exact value of ST is sensitive, but whatever the total amount, it is not just the MoD that is out of pocket but industry too. The ST was supposed to be a partnership, with both sides investing in it. This was one of the reasons we were so negative about it: that companies that have invested in it are supposed to award contracts to companies that might not have. Significant investment has been made in ST by all strata of CBRN industry in the UK, not just the KSPs, their boards must now be asking stiff questions of what that investment has delivered. Equally it is hard to see where the MoD goes now, having tried the largely military IPT, and the largely industry ST – neither of which managed to provide the cost savings required – there seems to be a shortage of paths forward.
This is not time to do a ‘told you so’. We have a lot of respect for the time and effort that the Integrated Project Team Leader, Phil Strudley, and the rest of the team have put in. This is the time to wonder what is left of UK CBRN capability? Whatever emerges out of the rubble of ST cannot be as good as that which preceded it. Notwithstanding ST’s faults, it had a lot of money and goodwill behind it, and that will not be said of its progeny.
ST Mk2 will be plagued by a shortage of investment, from both government and industry, and be producing product for a capability that no longer exists. The demise of ST is effectively a moth-balling of UK military CBRN defence capability – the RAF CBRN Wing will do great service, but there are not enough of them to have an impact, and their procurement needs doesn’t need a team and will scarcely have a budget. DSTL has its funding capped, and will continue to limp on doing good work under austere conditions, at best it can be described as maintenance of a capability, at worst it is a slow death. The lights were already off in the MoD’s CBRN Store and you should be under no doubt that ST’s death is the shutters coming down.
www.cbrneworld.com CBRNe South America 2012, 13-14 March, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. More information on
www.icbrnevents.com
February 2012 CBRNe WORLD
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