Defence Minister Senator John Faulkner has released ASPI's report in the level of information provided to defence industry for planning purposes.
The report made 10 recommendations to improve the Defence Capability Plan (DCP) under four broad headings:
* Increasing the range and precision of information;
* Enhancing the flow of information between Defence and industry;
* Improving the reliability of information; and
* Providing more useful information about industry priorities.
"I agree with the ASPI report that greater fidelity is not only possible, but appropriate," Faulkner said.
"This is especially the case for ACAT One projects - the most complex DCP projects - which hitherto have been cost banded without an upper limit as ‘greater than $1.5 billion dollars'.
"In the future for ACAT One projects, we will include four cost bands, instead of only one."
Happily, the next version of the DCP will increase the number of cost bands overall from four to nine.
"It is also important to acknowledge that Defence's understanding of options is refined and improved as the capability development process progresses," Faulkner said.
"To reflect this, the next Public DCP will aim to provide both more detail and more precision - such as possibly narrowing to single-year schedule bands - for those projects approaching Second Pass decision.
"We will also provide new information for industry in the form of forecasting a timeframe for Initial Materiel Release (IMR).
"An IMR is generally of more relevance to industry than Initial Operating Capability or IOC, as it relates to the planning date for equipment to be delivered to or accepted by Defence.
"In the same vein, Defence will establish a ‘one-stop shop' website, which will provide links to Defence capability and acquisition programs.
"From that one page, users will be able to easily navigate to the relevant DCP page, and from there through to specific details that relate to that project," Faulner explained.
"Users will be able to link to pages for existing approved projects, to Minors Programs run by various parts of Defence, as well as the Major Capital Facilities Program run by the Defence Support Group."
This site is currently being designed and part of its functionality will be up and running by the time that the next, improved version of the DCP is uploaded in September.
It will then be progressively enhanced and updated as more documents are added and updated.
Full details of the DCP updates can be found at http://www.minister.defence.gov.au/FaulknerTranscripttpl.cfm?CurrentId=10499 while the ASPI report can be found at http://www.aspi.org.au/publications/publications_all.aspx