UK's largest defence projects hit by 40 years of delays, says MP

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	South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon, a member of the Commons public accounts committee, has said it is unacceptable that a total of 40 years’ worth of delays have been added to 18 of the UK’s 20 largest defence equipment projects since they were approved.
The Nimrod MRA4 aircraft is one of the MoD's 20 largest projects

Mr Bacon said: “In the last twelve months, 20 of the MoD’s biggest equipment projects clocked up eight years’ worth of new delays, the largest slippage of forecast in-service dates since 2003. A total of 483 months have now been added to the forecast in-service dates of all but two of these projects since they were approved, equivalent to over 40 years’ worth of delays.

“What’s more, on current forecasts a quarter of these projects will not meet all of their key user requirements, meaning they won’t be able to do everything our soldiers, sailors and airmen need them to do.

“This is unacceptable. Both the MoD and the defence industry need to show they have learned from previous projects and do far more to keep a lid on spiralling time and cost delays.”

Mr Bacon was speaking as the National Audit Office published its report into the Ministry of Defence’s 20 largest defence equipment projects. The report finds that during the 2007-08 financial year, forecast costs for these projects rose in aggregate by a further £205 million over their original budgets while forecast in-service dates slipped in aggregate by an additional 96 months, equivalent to eight years’ worth of new delays. This is the largest slippage of forecast in-service dates since 2003. The report also finds that, on current forecasts, a quarter of these projects will not achieve all of their key performance objectives.

The in-service dates of the 18 projects for which time performance can be reported are, in aggregate, 483 months later than expected when they were approved. This is a 36 per cent increase in their expected timescales and equivalent to over 40 years’ worth of delays overall.

The following projects were covered by this report; Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile, Terrier (armoured engineer vehicles), Soothsayer (electronic warfare system), Nimrod MRA4 (aircraft), Support Vehicle (cargo and recovery), Advanced Jet Trainer, Astute Class submarine, A400M (aircraft), Future Lynx (helicopter), Type 45 Destroyer, Modernised Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilots Night Vision Sensor, Merlin Mk1 Capability Sustainment Programme, Sting Ray torpedo, Watchkeeper (unmanned aerial vehicle), Falcon (communications system), Future Joint Combat Aircraft, Typhoon Future Capability Programme, Typhoon (aircraft), Next Generation Light Anti-Armour Weapon, Naval Extremely High Frequency/Super High Frequency Satellite Communications Terminals.
Slippage of forecast in-service dates since 2003:

Year	Aggregate in-year slippage of forecast in-service date (months)
2008	96
2007	38
2006	33
2005	45
2004	62
2003	144

(Source: National Audit Office Major Project Reports 2008-2003)

The National Audit Office analysis of overall timescale performance is based on 18 projects. The remaining two are excluded for the following reasons:

Future Joint Combat Aircraft is part of the United States’ Joint Strike Fighter programme and is aligned with its acquisition lifecycle. The current approval is for the cost of the System Development and Demonstration phase only and further approval will be sought for the cost and In-Service Date of the main procurement phases.

The Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile project is excluded from the analysis because of the changes that have been made to the definition of the In‑Service Date.

483 months expressed in years is 40 and a quarter years (i.e.
483 ÷ 12 = 40.25). Similarly, 96 months expressed in years is 8 years (i.e.
96 ÷ 12 = 8).

18 December 2008

See also::

NAO REPORT: Major Projects Report 2008

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