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Updated: Sun Aug 29 16:43:38 UTC 2010
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APA NOTAMS ISSN 1836-7135
THE PROUST DEFENCE MANAGEMENT
REVIEW
-SYMPTOMS
OR SOLUTIONS?-
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Air Power
Australia - Australia's Independent Defence Think Tank
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Air Power Australia NOTAM
24th July,
2007
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| Contacts: |
Peter
Goon
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Carlo
Kopp |
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Mob:
0419-806-476 |
Mob:
0437-478-224 |
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The report
of the Proust Defence Management Review was released just before
Easter, long awaited by those who felt that the Defence organisation
was dysfunctional and hopeful that there may be a breakthrough in
fundamental management reform. Unfortunately, the review was
constrained by its Terms of Reference not to look into those areas
where the major fault lines exist. The review did, however, lift the
blanket on one area that had been excluded –the Secretary/Chief
of Defence Force diarchy, but the blanket was snatched back by the
Defence bureaucracy, or perhaps by the 'defensive bureaucracy'. The
review certainly aired the debilitating culture that has been allowed
to develop unchecked within Defence since the Tange changes of 1974.
Defence's
response to the review, unsurprisingly, followed the 'party line'
established to handle the criticisms of previous reviews: agree with
everything possible, give the illusion that things are in hand or
being considered, and make promises to correct everything, despite
the fact that the entrenched organisational and management problems
highlighted dictate against those promises being achievable.
In summary,
the report is most useful in that it identifies and scopes many of
the cultural, organisational, and management problems inherent in
Defence, but unfortunately not all because of the limitations of the
Terms of Reference. From Defence's demonstrated limited ability to
respond to the many reviews that preceded this one, expectations from
this review should be limited, except where it is used to justify
additions to the already bloated numbers and functions in the
bureaucracy.
Why should
this be so? Firstly, the seeds of our problems with Defence's
competence were sown with the changes introduced by Sir Arthur Tange
during 1974. Ostensibly aimed at improving joint Service
coordination, the changes were really aimed at entrenching public
service supremacy over the Services. Dr T. B. Millar at the time
warned, with good foresight, that the move would: "result
in a giant step along the road to Public Service (as opposed to
Parliamentary) control of the armed services."
'Designed
for peace, but adapted for war', the Tange bureaucracy flourished,
too busy expanding its areas of influence and control to obtain from
Government the resources so sorely needed to maintain even minimum
core Service capabilities, but at least the Services' structures and
skills, all born of hard won experience over decades, remained
substantially intact, if under immense strain.
However,
this was to change rapidly under the combined effects of the
Commercial Support Programme (CSP), Defence Efficiency Review (DER),
and its hurriedly conceived sibling, the Defence Reform Programme
(DRP), which imposed revolutionary changes with any input from the
Services blocked by the weight of career-driven conformity with the
wishes of the 'party line'. Despite continuing reviews and reports,
the resulting inefficient bureaucracy has been permitted to grow
without check.
Today, we
have a ponderous and defensive Defence bureaucracy addicted to form
over substance, a bureaucracy removed from the reality of defence
matters, merely giving an illusion of adopting progressively
contemporary management practices and ideas; a bureaucracy unable to
reform itself because its organisation, its organisational attitudes
and its behaviour are fundamentally flawed. Unfortunately,
government and parliament have been unable or unwilling to impose
those traditional checks and balances needed to direct the required
structural reforms.
This is not
a criticism of those working within the bureaucracy. People are only
as effective and productive as the organisation within which they
work allows, and their management encourages.
The major
structural flaws within Defence have been well identified by the
well-respected Australian Defence Association, as follows:
- A
long history of inefficient ministerial supervision. Compare
the current arrangement, where there is but one minister
organisationally divorced by the bureaucracy from the Services, with
the pre-Tange days when each Service had a minister who understood
and had a good working relationship with his Service, and was
represented by his Secretary who was a member of the Service Board of
management.
- Constitutionally
and professionally improper arrangements for managing civil (not
civilian) control of the Military by Ministers.
- No
statutory governance mechanisms such as management boards
incorporating clear lines of responsibility and accountability.
- No
clear separation between administrative and policy organs of the
Department on the one side and the strategic-level Military
Headquarters on the other.
- Institutional
pervasive and grossly improper civilian bureaucratic interference in
professional military matters, with some degree of an equally
improper reverse situation.
The impact
of these structural problems has been aggravated by the failure of
Defence to establish feed-back loops in its management processes to
detect and rectify problems promptly. These are the really important
matters which any serious review of Defence management would have to
face.
In short,
management of Defence and the Services by the public service is both
improper and inappropriate. A fundamental review of the organisation
of the Services, the bureaucracy, and their proper relationship with
civil control by government is long overdue. The Proust review adds
good fuel to the fire, but provides no way of putting out the flames.
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Footnote:
Ted
Bushell, AM is a retired Air Commodore with 35 years experience in
RAAF engineering, maintenance and new project management.
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Air
Power Australia Website - http://www.ausairpower.net/
Air Power Australia Research and
Analysis - http://www.ausairpower.net/research.html
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