Major Projects Report 2008

Over the past ten years, the Ministry of Defence has introduced a number of reforms to the way it procures defence equipment, but its performance on Major Projects remains variable. As part of its annual report to Parliament, the National Audit Office examined twenty of the largest defence equipment projects.>> The report found that, during the 2007-08 financial year, forecast costs for these projects rose in aggregate by a further 205 million over their original budgets and forecast in-service dates slipped in aggregate by an additional 96 months.>> On current forecasts a quarter of these projects will not achieve all of their key performance objectives.>> The Ministry has worked with its industrial and commercial partners to deliver urgently needed operational requirements and made sensible decisions to prioritise where this is appropriate. The Watchkeeper unmanned aircraft is not due to come into service until 2010, so the Ministry worked with the contractor to fast track the delivery of an interim capability by mid-2007 to meet pressing operational needs. The Department has also used the Urgent Operational Requirements process to buy 13 High Mobility Engineer Excavators from JCB for 6.2 million, upgraded to a standard suitable for deployment on current operations, to replace the delayed Terrier armoured engineering vehicle project.>> The Ministry of Defence changed the delivery programme for the Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile to deliver it when it was needed and at the lowest cost. The Ministry has adopted a two-stage delivery programme to build the missile and demonstrate it before integrating it with a specific aircraft type. The second stage will see the missile integrated with the Typhoon aircraft as part of the Typhoon Future Capability Programme. The changes to the project, including the increased duration, have led to a 111 million overall in-year cost increase.