Douglas Carswell's Blog

Lord Levene's defence reform - hope at last?

News that Lord Levene is to propose far-reaching reform at the Ministry of Defence has to be a Good Thing.  The bolder the better. 

Sitting on the Public Accounts Committee, I used to despair at the catalogue of incompetence that is MoD spending.  It wasn't endless instances of MoD paying over the odds for kit from an already overstreached budget that I found most depressing.  Nor even the suspicion that the defence budget is often spent on what it suits protectionist contractors to supply, rather than what our armed forces need.  What I found most dreadful was the way no one was ever held properly to account - just an endless succession of watery-eyed officials spouting clichés and excuses .....    

Levene is rumoured to want named individuals at MoD to be made personally answerable - hopefully to the Defence Select Committee - for delivering on certain procurement projects.  No longer will the top bods at MoD be able to hide behind various boards when, for example, asked to explain why a certain helicopter contract was never put out to competitive tender.

Levene is also supposed to want to dramatically slim down the top heavy structure at MoD.  If you think it is wrong that we apparently have almost as many admirals as we do ships, you'll probably think this is a Good Thing, too.  

If you happen to be one of the vested interests that Levene is taking on, you probably won't.  Indeed, many of the donkeys and dinosaurs Lewis Page described in his best-selling book will hate it all. 

Expect lots of anti-Levene briefing.  Ignore it.  Levene's reforms are twenty years over due.

Back to all posts