There is also a potentially feasible approach available whereby the MoD contracts with an expert private sector organisation as a strategic partner to bring in private sector experience and methodologies in project and programme management at project, programme and organisational levels. The strategic partner would not manage DE&S directly and would act only in an advisory role.
With the changes described earlier to the role and responsibilities of DE&S in any event (i.e., simplification of scope, improved management focus and clarification of the customer / supplier boundary with an upgraded Capability Sponsor) the core procurement activity is envisaged as more straightforward to operate. There should, therefore, be an adequate number of suitably qualified programme management organisations to support a credible competitive letting process for the position of strategic partner.
However, there are a number of significant potential drawbacks to attempting a strategic partnering approach to address the issues identified with DE&S:
• there is a danger that by being only in an advisory role, the advice of the partner will be ignored if DE&S management are not actively engaged in driving a change agenda. In all likelihood, because the underlying incentives (remunerative and structural) for DE&S personnel would not be altered in this arrangement there will be a predisposition to take very little risk in implementing the reforms and processes advised by the strategic partner which will impede both the speed and extent of change possible; and
• the business models of the most credible candidates for selection as strategic partners (i.e., those with successful track records in large, complex, novel project delivery) are not generally based on providing consulting services, but rather on taking responsibility for delivery of results in complex and risky project or programme management roles. This could undermine any partnering approach by having implicit incentives to give the MoD the less capable staff (as more capable staff may be deployed to better effect elsewhere in the partner organisation).