To provide clarity around what could be gained from altering the structural options the Review team considered that the following desirable outcomes should be facilitated or reinforced by any changes that are made.
Greater independence
• Organisation to deal at arms length with customer.
• Organisation designed so military has no "control" or career influence over top management or key staff responsible for project delivery.
• Cost and technical feasibility inputs / advice to be scrupulously independent of the Capability Sponsor and influence from the military and industry.
• No role (other than advisory) in IAB project approvals.
Better skills
• Project and programme management personnel with commercially "benchmarked" skills for the scale and complexity of work being undertaken (including flexibility on pay, recruitment, etc.).
• Consistent and best-practice programme and project management tools to be used across DE&S to ensure quality and transparency of management information, as well as easy migration of staff across teams.
Financial discipline
• "Hard charging" regime: Capability Sponsor / FLCs hold budgets; changes / variations costed and agreed as normal commercial practice.
• Levels of resources and influence of finance function to be substantially increased.
• Resources to be tracked to activity, managed for efficiency and charged to the customer.
Improved accountability
• Key project leadership and team roles to have "event driven" rotation on projects, not "tours of duty"; probably four year minimums in any case.
• Clear project management responsibility, performance monitoring and related reward/incentive structures, as typical practice in major commercial project management firms.
These objectives mirror most of the recommendations from Chapter 8. The structural options discussed here are viewed as the means to achieve them with greatest certainty and sustainability.