As part of the 2009 Defence White Paper, the Government committed to fundamental and extensive reform of Defence business to improve accountability, planning and productivity in the organisation.
The Secretary of Defence, Mr Nick Warner, and the Chief of Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, released the blueprint for taking forward that reform – Defence Strategic Reform Program – Delivering Force 2030.
The Secretary and the Chief of the Defence Force confirmed their commitment to ensuring Defence does its business more effectively and efficiently so the Australian Defence Force has the equipment it needs to deliver the maximum capability for the tax payers’ dollars.
The Strategic Reform Program – Delivering Force 2030 booklet sets out the details of the Strategic Reform Program and shows how the gross savings of around $20 billion over the ten years to 2019 will be achieved.
This money will be reinvested in Defence to deliver stronger military capabilities, to remediate areas where there has not been enough funding in the past and to modernise the Defence enterprise ‘backbone’, which is essential to support the fighting force.
After support to current military operations there is no higher priority for Defence than to deliver these reforms.
Defence is committed to delivering the headline savings figure of $20 billion over the next ten years. But the evolving and long-term nature of the Program means that Defence needs to have sufficient flexibility to modify intermediate steps and identify promising new areas for making savings and efficiencies as the Program develops. Defence will be striving to overachieve in each savings stream.
