§ The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr. Adam Ingram)The Ministry of Defence has recently completed a detailed review of the way in which we provide logistic support to land and air forces (including naval air and the royal marines). The End to End Review (E2E) was prompted by the recognition that today's expeditionary operations demand enhanced flexibility and responsiveness in the support of joint forces. Experience form various operations over the past decade, most recently in Iraq, has shown that there is scope to provide better logistic support to the front line.
The E2E Review is a fundamental and wide-ranging piece of work examining the totality of logistic support from industry to the front line. The process of assessing and implementing its recommendations is now under way but it is essential that we maintain momentum to ensure that the front line is supported most effectively and efficiently within the resources available.
As the work progresses there will be full consultation with the Trades Unions and any proposals which impact on civilian jobs or which require major investment will be subject to investment appraisal to establish costs and benefits of the options before decisions are taken. Changes to operational logistics will be tested before implementation. The ability of our forces to deliver operational capability remains paramount.
27WSThe E2E Review proposes that our future support strategy should configure logistic support for the most likely operational scenarios, but retain the flexibility to meet other eventualities; concentrate support materiel and resources to best effect and maintain and improve the effectiveness and reliability of the supply chain, whilst streamlining processes.
To achieve this a number of key changes are needed:
Support infrastructure in the air environment must be concentrated in key locations and rationalised from four to two levels of Forward and Depth support.Support activity in the air environment should be concentrated where it can be carried out most effectively. This means some Forward support activities can be moved back into Depth support decreasing deployed infrastructure.Land environment logistic support must be tailored for two states; peacetime support in barracks and deployed logistics, with robust arrangements for transition between the two.A better focus is needed to ensure the arrival of materiel in the theatre of operations in the right order, at the right place and at the right time. A permanent, joint organisation is needed to establish and prioritise a joint supply chain that will be driven by the needs of the joint commander of operations.Our approach to contracting must improve to maximise the role that industry can play and realise the benefits of competition.The cost of logistic support must be made clearer to budget holders who should own the corresponding funding. The Chief of Defence Logistics must own the process from industry to the front line.A summary of the conclusions of the report has been placed in the Library of the House. This is a wide ranging set of conclusions and more work is needed in some areas to determine how best to achieve these goals. The House will be kept fully informed of progress.