UK Ministry of Defence, The Chief of Defence Materiel, General Sir Kevin O’Donoghue, has written to all staff in MoD Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) to set out the organisation’s strategic direction and priorities in a Business Strategy 2008-12 and a Blueprint for what DE&S will look like and how it will operate in 2012.
Under the Blueprint in some instances there is little need to change from where DE&S is today. For example, the high-level business model remains valid with the three pillars of Chief Operating Officer, Chief Corporate Services and the Chiefs of Materiel already making a real difference to the through life management of equipment and support to our Armed Forces.
In other areas, where it has been decided how the organisation should develop, DE&S is putting plans in place to implement this. Many of these changes will take place over the next financial year, but in some cases it will take a number of years to deliver the new processes and organisation that Defence needs.
General Sir Kevin said in his letter to staff:
“It is now nearly nine months since we merged the Defence Procurement Agency and the Defence Logistics Organisation to form Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S).
“As I am sure you will remember, merger was but one aspect of a wide-scale change in Defence Acquisition across MoD and our initial objective, amongst others, was to bed-in the organisation as ‘fit for purpose’.
“We have already seen the benefits of merger in our support to our two major operational theatres and indeed the feedback we have received demonstrates the very real improvements we have made in support to the front line.”
General Sir Kevin added that he believes staff must work together to embed changes over the coming years, and continue to find even more ways to improve how DE&S does business to meet the inevitable challenges that will arise. He wrote to all staff in October 2007 about the challenges ahead and the need to further improve DE&S’ service to our customers whilst delivering value for money to the taxpayer.
Detailed plans had been developed by cluster leaders for how each part of the organisation would contribute to achieving the Blueprint. These plans were all aimed at improving how DE&S does its business and enabling people to do their jobs better.
In addition, DE&S has created a team under Steve McCarthy, Director General Change, to manage the coherent delivery of these plans within a single change programme, PACE – Performance, Agility, Confidence and Efficiency. Our ultimate goal is to be a more effective organisation, capable of achieving its mission of equipping and supporting our armed forces for operations, now and in the future.
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