In the prior chapter, problems deriving from a set of conflict planning premises that most view as increasingly out-of-date are described. The equipment requirements that these assumptions entail lead to continued programming of the replacement or upgrade of capabilities carried over from Cold War scenarios. The cost of successive generations of these major platforms has continued to increase significantly faster than inflation51, in the face of a procurement spend that that has been growing comparatively slowly52. Even with significant reductions in numbers of platforms, an increasing proportion of the EPP expenditure must be allocated to these capabilities to meet defence guidelines.
The Department's future capability planning is still dominated by a relatively small number of very large and long running projects53. Although there are several large and troubled projects that most would argue are not representative of more recent programme and project thinking, nonetheless, the proportion of larger, longer cycle time projects, changes little over the medium and longer term EPP, which includes many "successor" platform projects, particularly across sea and air.
On top of these 'legacy' platform projects, the recognition of the need to equip our forces with the capability to fight the kind of asymmetric battles foreseen in the last strategic defence review twelve years ago means that a series of other projects must also be undertaken. Together, these conflicting requirements result in an overload to the EPP, which is designed to deliver capabilities for at least two very different scenarios without the funding to match.
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51 See Appendix F.
52 See Appendix A.
53 Spending on the 10 biggest projects constituted 57% of near cash spend in 2009/10 and 52% over the next five years. Average latest forecast duration from Initial Gate to ISD for these projects is 16.4 years.