Wayne Mapp on Defence overspending?

[Dave Homewood]

I didn't catch the whole thing but I just saw part of a news item on TV3 news where National's defence spokesman Wayne Mapp was talking about the Ministry of Defence overspending on the NH-90 helicopters. And he said the Auditor General is investigating ten recent purchases by defence.

What's all this about?

They also showed the old Stout Street buildings where the Defence Force HQ used to be. Doesn't TV3 realise they shifted down the road over a year ago? ;D

[corsair67]

Maybe the new building is part of the overspending problem?

[vgp]

don't know about the NZ nh90s but the naval version seems to have a problem:

Eurocopter says some problems with naval NH-90

Tue Jan 22, 2008 PARIS, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Eurocopter, the EADS helicopter unit, said on Tuesday some problems remained on the naval version of the NH-90 military helicopter but that the overall programme was on track.

"It's a complex helicopter, the only fly-by-wire helicopter in serial production. Yes, we have had some problems in managing this complexity but we are now well into the delivery said Chief Executive Lutz Bertling.

"This programme is back on track. There are still some problems to overcome on the naval version, but the majority of the programme is back on track and deliveries will continue this year," he told a news conference.
uk.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUKL2244294520080122

YT Commentary box added a month ago.
MRH-003 still sitting on the ground in Brisbane. Same problems since the start of the year. Australian Aerospace deserves a medal for trying! At least they are thinking about it. Maybe they need to send a number of Managers over to France to solve the problems.
nz.youtube.com/watch?v=43Dga6A5IvE

[Peter Lewis]

There is a family connection between my partner and Wayne Mapp.
Despite his PPL and ownership of the KAT, Wayne seems to know remarkably little about aviation.
He now seems to rely on her aviation knowledge, gained since she has been flying with me, for his 'expert input'.
Eeek!

[Dave Homewood]

As defence spokesman, does he have any military background or knowledge?

[beagle]

Jun 16, 2008 19:28:13 GMT 12 @vgp said:

nz.youtube.com/watch?v=43Dga6A5IvE

note in the back ground ozjet and NZ registered 737's . is the blue one owned by Toll, operated by airwork on their rego.

not quite the same iroquois noise hey.

[nzompilot]

Jun 16, 2008 21:52:10 GMT 12 beagle said:

note in the back ground ozjet and NZ registered 737's . is the blue one owned by Toll, operated by airwork on their rego.

100% correct

[30sqnatc]

Jun 16, 2008 21:41:01 GMT 12 Dave Homewood said:

As defence spokesman, does he have any military background or knowledge?

From Dr Mapp's wesbite, 'joined the Territorial Armed Forces (3rd Battalion, Auckland and Northland) where I attained the rank of Captain. ' so at least he has some understanding and has a demonstrated commitment to defence. He is a lawyer by training.

[pablo]

I wrote to Wayne Mapp regarding his party's "vision of defence" and I can say that I was TOTALLY underwhelmed by his knowledge. He did not seem to have any idea what he was talking about.

He mentioned a white paper to investigate the present needs of the defence force. He said, or course that he did not support a combat wing. Despite his party getting loads of miles over Labour when they ditched back in 2001.

At least with Phil Goff we have someone who is intelligent and actually has a good working relelationship with defence and who tries to push for a few new toys:)

[flyinkiwi]

Jun 16, 2008 18:41:38 GMT 12 Dave Homewood said:

I didn't catch the whole thing but I just saw part of a news item on TV3 news where National's defence spokesman Wayne Mapp was talking about the Ministry of Defence overspending on the NH-90 helicopters. And he said the Auditor General is investigating ten recent purchases by defence.

What's all this about?

I saw the whole thing. While on the outside it appears to be some political issue National are championing to help their cause in the upcoming election, I did like the reporting of large scale bickering and lack of respect between the NZDF and the MoD. Apparently one anonymous Officer was quoted as saying the MoD is "full of pimply 25 year olds with a Public Policy Degree and no experience in defense issues."

I believe Mapp was mooting for the MoD and NZDF to be merged if National won the election. Now this idea has plenty of implications for all concerned, I was wondering what you people with much closer ties to the military than I have think about that proposal?

From my limited experience, it would be a double edged sword. Firstly procurement of large items would be much more streamlined and there would be more transparency as far as blame for poorly managed acquisition projects are concerned. The other side of things might be the general perception of a lack of public oversight on defense spending.

[Dave Homewood]

Interesting. Thanks flyinkiwi and welcome to the forum.

I'm not sure how much better it would be but I'd imagine if military officers were handling their own spending and procurement probably it'll be a lot more efficient and cut down on waste of space public servants.

From what I gathered of the little I saw Mapp was moaning that the NH-90 has doubled in price from the first estimate. A lot of this will be down to the Government's procrastination while the exchange rate was good probably (I still don't see why the US dollar should affect a NZ purchase from Europe but apparently it does). Perhaps his attitiude to overspending may be a signal that National won't intend to purchase more helicopters later?

[flyinkiwi]

Mapp said that the Auditor General had been investigating no less than 9 large defense acquisition projects that had gone grossly over budget which included the NH90 and A119 deals among others like Project Protector for the RNZN.

[Dave Homewood]

The rest must be the ships they've bought. There seem to be a few lemons among that lot already.

By the way when i said welcome to the forum it was because in my haster I looked at your karma which read one and thought it was your no. 1 post. I should have realised you'd been here a while. Sorry about that.

[skyhawkdon]

Jun 20, 2008 14:29:09 GMT 12 Dave Homewood said:

The rest must be the ships they've bought. There seem to be a few lemons among that lot already.

That's what you get trying to build Naval ships to commercial (civie) specifications to save money. Having to build 6 ships and stay within Labour's $500M budget cap was never going to happen. MILSPEC costs more for a reason...

As for the cost blow outs on the Air Force helicopter contracts - they need to be scrutinised and explained. There seems to be some gold plating in there somewhere...

[flycookie]

At the risk of tripping into the too-political realm here, would there be any possibility of Heather (surname forgotten, sorry) being a part of a new government? Maybe in some junior defence role?

Apologies if this over line.

[Dave Homewood]

She is ACT Party, so probably very unlikely. They are not even near 1% in the polls and need 5% to get anywhere as I doubt people will vote in Hide again, nor his nazi master Herr Roger von Douglas.

[vgp]

looks to be nothing sinister here.

Appendix 1: Our proposed performance audit work programme
Annual Plan 2008/09.

Proposed performance audits and studies in 2008/09
The Auditor-General proposes to conduct the following performance audits and studies in 2008/09.

The proposed performance audits and studies marked with an asterisk (*) have not previously been described in our annual plans, and are described in more detail on the following pages.

The actual work programme we deliver in 2008/09 may differ from this proposal. Our proposed annual work programme is necessarily determined many months in advance of the year to which it relates. As time elapses, we may need to alter our priorities. For example, other urgent work such as an inquiry may intervene, or government policy or the circumstances of a particular entity may change so that a particular audit is no longer relevant. The reports for some audits that will begin in 2008/09 may not be presented to Parliament until 2009/10.

For context, we also provide a list of work due to be completed in the remainder of 2007/08.


*Ministry of Defence and New Zealand Defence Force - Major acquisition project monitoring and reporting systems

*New Zealand Defence Force - Defence Sustainability Initiative

Ministry of Defence - major acquisitions

Ministry of Defence and New Zealand Defence Force - Defence Sustainability Initiative

In May 2005, the Government announced the $4.6 billion Defence Funding Package. This is a 10-year programme of additional funding for the Ministry of Defence and the NZDF. The Defence Sustainability Initiative (DSI) is a major component of the Defence Funding Package, and is aimed at rebuilding the NZDF and the Ministry by addressing shortages in personnel, equipment, and management capability.

In our report on the results of the 2005/06 audits for central government agencies, we indicated that we would monitor the progress of the DSI. This proposed performance audit will look at progress towards achievement of the original objectives of the DSI, taking into account the various programmed internal and external reviews of the DSI.

Ministry of Defence and New Zealand Defence Force - major acquisition project monitoring and reporting systems

This performance audit will examine how well the Ministry of Defence and the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) meet the information requirements of internal and external stakeholders, including Parliament, for major acquisition projects. We will examine the Ministry’s and the NZDF’s project monitoring and reporting systems to identify what improvements may be necessary.

www.oag.govt.nz/annual-plan/2008-09/appendix1.htm/?searchterm=defence%20projects

[flyinkiwi]

And here's the latest update:


Defense Ministry defends price blowout

"The Defence Ministry says it has information detailing why cost blowouts in its major equipment purchases occurred, but it is not in an easily accessible form.

Auditor-General Kevin Brady yesterday said defence agencies' monitoring systems were so poor he could not say whether the $390 million cost overrun on 10 major acquisitions was justified or not.

The Audit Office embarked on an investigation into defence agencies' monitoring and reporting last year.

But in an interim report, released yesterday, Mr Brady said the agencies' reporting systems were so poor his office had been forced to abandon the audit.

The report found major problems with the ministry's cost estimates to Cabinet.

"Although the defence agencies' guidance states that cost estimates should be robust when they are submitted to Cabinet for approval to commence acquisition, in practice they are not."

It said defence agencies had said their initial estimates were "intelligent guesses" because they had not yet refined the exact capability required or tendered for the item.

But the report said there was no reason defence agencies could not contact suppliers for information before they submitted estimates to Cabinet.

In some cases price rises were inevitable, but information explaining the rises was difficult to prize out from the agencies' systems and needed to improve.

Defence Secretary John McKinnon today said he accepted the criticism the ministry could provide better information.

Agencies would work with the Auditor-General to develop stronger reporting systems, but most of the information sought was already held by the Defence Ministry.

"We have a lot of information and we report it regularly under the Public Finance Act and other reporting mechanisms of financial audit.

"The Auditor-General was looking for a range of other information which was not in the template that he thought would be most useful," he said on Radio New Zealand.

"We have the information. It's very profuse and rich, but it's not in the form he would find useful."

He said estimating costs of defence purchases before the tender process was difficult, but once a tender had been agreed cost changes had been tiny.

National's defence spokesman Wayne Mapp yesterday said the current monitoring systems were a "disgrace" and serious questions had to be asked about why Mr Brady's investigation had been hampered.

But Defence Minister Phil Goff yesterday welcomed the recommendation for more transparent reporting systems.

He said he was pleased the Audit Office was not asserting negligence by defence staff and it had acknowledged that large defence projects worldwide were prone to delays and cost increases."

[Dave Homewood]

There was a piece this morning on nine to Noon on Radio New Zealand National, where an ex-Chief of Naval Staff talks about the situation (he mentions a bit about the Air Force, not just ships).

You'll be able to hear it later on today from this page
www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon

Also interesting on the programme today was a former Road Knight gang member who's now an international opera star! He's also been a farmer, deep sea fisherman, actor and stuntman, quite a career.

[vgp]

here everything you wan't to know here bypassing all media contamination on the subject:
Interim report follows on from the foreword on link below:

Foreword
Reporting the progress of defence acquisition projects.

Projects to acquire defence capabilities involve large amounts of public money and attract much public and political interest. Experience here and in other countries suggests that these types of projects are prone to difficulties, delay, and cost increases.

In my 2005/06 Annual Plan, I indicated my intention to carry out a performance audit to identify and report changes to costs, time frames, and essential user requirements in selected defence acquisition projects. It is inevitable that there will be changes during such projects, particularly in their early stages. Sometimes, these changes will be significant. The purpose of the audit was to improve the quality of reporting by the defence agencies, not to assess the quality of the decisions made in managing the projects.

My staff were unable to complete the audit as originally intended. A lot of the detailed information that I expected the defence agencies to have was not readily available. Also, my staff and the Ministry of Defence disagreed on the point in the acquisition process from which changes should be monitored and reported. Although the defence agencies' guidance states that cost estimates should be robust when they are submitted to Cabinet for approval to commence acquisition, in practice they are not.

This interim report does not make any conclusion about how well the defence agencies are managing specific projects, or on the causes or justifications for changes in forecast costs and time frames. As noted, the focus of our work was on the quality of the monitoring and reporting systems, not the quality of the decisions being made.

The defence agencies are adamant that they manage acquisition projects well. They are often questioned on this. In our view, they must be able to report better and more complete information to demonstrate how well they are managing defence acquisition projects. Better reporting will enable greater accountability to Ministers, Parliament, and other stakeholders on progress with these major acquisition projects.

I am committed to working with the defence agencies to find a way for them to provide effective assurance to Parliament on this area of spending. I am pleased to note that the defence agencies are similarly committed to providing Parliament with the necessary information for such reporting.

www.oag.govt.nz/2008/defence