Third of Iraq defence equipment delivered late
Only two-thirds of the defence equipment required by the armed forces for the start of the Iraq war was delivered on time, according to a committee of MPs.
Better planning and information would enable the Ministry of Defence to be more confident of meeting its requirements in future, says the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee.
The committee examined the process, known as urgent operational requirements, whereby the MOD supplies the additional equipment required for specific operations such as the war in Iraq or military operations in Afghanistan.
It reports that £811 million was spent on the urgent operational requirements for Iraq, and £148 million was spent in Afghanistan, delivering equipment such as MAMBA artillery locating radar, Stormshadow missiles, Minimi machine guns, underslung grenade launchers for SA-80 assault rifles, and head-mounted night vision goggles.
Despite these large sums of money, the MOD does not have a dedicated staff responsible for overseeing urgent operational requirements – something the committee says should be reviewed despite the impressive performance of staff in recent operations.
The committee also criticises the MOD for lacking a system for comprehensively recording whether equipment was delivered on time, and how effective it proved to be.
Committee chairman Edward Leigh said: “When it comes to the crunch, staff at the MOD often show a verve and elan which gets the job done. But the fact remains that only two-thirds of urgent operational requirements were fully delivered in time for the start of fighting the war in Iraq.
“Better planning and better information would mean that the MOD could be more confident of meeting its requirements in the future and better demonstrate to taxpayers that they are getting value for money.”
But overall the committee concludes that the department performed creditably in processing requirements, and calls on it to apply such an approach to its mainstream procurement activity, which has been beset by cost overruns and delays.
Mr Leigh added: “If only they could apply this ingenuity to their mainstream procurement activities, we might not in future see the annual cost increases and time overruns with which my committee has become wearingly familiar.”
Defence Secretary John Reid said the report showed “how impressively MOD staff have performed”.
But he felt it could have made more of the fact that 93 per cent of urgent operational requirements were delivered in full or in part ahead of the start of war fighting, and 98 per cent were assessed as effective or highly effective – “facts to which the PAC report perhaps did not give sufficient prominence”.
