Katherine Ziesing | Canberra
As this edition of ADM goes to print, it remains to be seen what effect the First Principles Review (FPR) has had on Defence in a substantial way. There are superficial changes that can be seen from the outside; everyone gets the new black Defence lanyard (eventually), email signature blocks get updated and there’s the massive changeover of letterheads for rebranded agencies. Superficial changes perhaps but they are the visible face of the FPR in many ways.
A new organisational chart provided by MediaOps fails to put names to roles. Yet there have been plenty of changes at the top levels of Defence with well-known faces leaving the organisation. These have not been announced in any tangible way apart from the rumour mill. Even the Defence website still has all the old DMO and CDG faces and reporting lines; or worse, dead links to nowhere.
The lightning fast change timetable that the FPR outlined in its high-level implementation plan has yet to be seen. More committees have been formed in order to carry out the FPR. This, to me, seems counter intuitive when one of the aims of the FPR was to reduce the number of committees and bureaucracy . . .
As a refresher, these are the big changes that the FPR outlined:
1. The new Associate Secretary Group subsumes the current Chief Operating Officer Group and its subsidiary parts.
2. A new Policy and Intelligence Group will be formed by combining the current Strategy Group and most of the existing Intelligence and Security Group.
3. DMO is disbanded and a new Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG) has been established.
4. CDG is disbanded and most of its functions divided between the services and Vice Chief of the Defence Force (VCDF) Group, with some additional elements going to CASG and Policy and Intelligence Group.
"A good review is one thing, and the FPR is a good review, but putting it into action is another task entirely."
The dissolution of CDG means that requirements-setting will be transferred to the service chiefs (for land, sea and air proposals) and to the VCDF (for joint proposals). The responsibilities and accountabilities outlined under the FPR do not seem to meet up in many ways. Service chiefs are still in charge of the ‘raise, train and sustain’ paradigm but lack the oversight and authority to actually control the inputs that make that possible. How this will operate in an everyday sense is still unclear.
Decreasing the number of layers in the organisation, along with other changes already in motion, will result in workforce efficiencies. Around 1,000 fewer civilians and 950 fewer military personnel will be required in CASG, and around 650 fewer civilians and 100 fewer military personnel will be required elsewhere in Defence.
But who will do the work that is needed by the machinery of government and the legislative framework in which Defence, particularly in procurement and sustainment, operates? The hiring freeze that wasn’t a hiring freeze in the public service is now at an end. Defence was one of the biggest advertisers for new people when the ‘Claytons’ ban was lifted only last month. Details on where the jobs are coming and going are few and far between.
Reviews and their relative success live and die by their implementation or lack thereof. A good review is one thing, and the FPR is a good review, but putting it into action is another task entirely.
The blunt nature of the document gave me high hopes that perhaps this time it would be different, that there would be concrete positive change on the horizon for Defence. There was optimism that there would be more to the FPR than superficial changes to letterheads, lanyards and the layout of who sits where. That optimism is still firmly in place but it is less enthusiastic than it initially was when the FPR debuted earlier this year.
Will I be pinning my hopes on the new White Paper, updated Defence Capability Plan, a new shipbuilding strategy or updated industry policy? Kind of. I’m optimistic but not delusional.
ADM would like to apologise for an error in reporting on P8 of our July edition. We referred to MAJGEN Gus McLachlan when it was in fact PAUL McLachlan in regard to Land 400. Nor is either gentleman to be referred to as GWEN.