Pritchard has called the privatisation of military training " a privatisation gone too far."

latest article from http://www.defencemanagement.com/news_story.asp?id=7335

No DTR announcement, delays inevitable
13 October 2008

The MoD has been accused of further delaying an announcement on the Defence Training Review (DTR) after armed forces minister Bob Ainsworth avoided confirmation of the move of package 1 to St Athan, Wales.

Last month Defence Management saw a leaked MoD memo confirming that despite resistance by staff to the move to rural Wales, cost overruns and fears over privatising defence training, the MoD was pushing ahead with the first part of the training- known as package 1. Ainsworth was scheduled to make an announcement last week, but avoided doing so when he came under intense questioning from one of the chief opponents of the move.

MP Mark Prithchard questioned the rising costs of the programme which have ballooned by £1bn in less than a year to £12bn. Ainsworth defended the programme, but admitted that even the cost of the alternatives was now escalating.

"We still have an affordable package that is far cheaper than the alternatives, and that has been worked on over the summer. We will be able to go ahead with defence package 1 and get value for money out of those proposals," Ainsworth said.

Later though he admitted that no financial agreement would be in place until next spring, a delay of a year since the package 1 was awarded to Metrix and by six months from the most recent target date for an announcement on the progression of package 1.
The PCS Union has been a staunch opponent of the DTR’s move to Wales and the privatisation of military training. Officials pointed out that the MoD had now admitted that the cost of package 1 and its alternatives were growing out of control. An unofficial PCS blog made it clear the union would continue to resist the DTR.

"This is another first for the DTR programme in suggesting that the "fallback posistion" is more expensive than the proposed move to St Athan !! No wonder the Department needs to give Metrix another six months grace to rearrange costings to fit. PCS will continue to campaign against this looming financial disaster," PCS Shropshire said.
PCS Branch Manager H O’Harney said that the non-announcement was not a surprise, considering that RAF Cosford staff had already waited six months: "A £12 billion PFI carrying on in this current financial crisis seems ridiculous given the risks and affordability issues. Our members at Cosford have made it clear that they have no intention to move Wales and the risk to the training of the Armed Forces is still real. It would appear that the MoD want to privatise at all cost despite the huge risks."

The crumbling economy and the downturn in the property market have taken their toll on the DTR. The Metrix consortium originally planned to fund the new training centre in Wales through the sales of excess MoD estates that would be freed up when staff moved to St Athan. But the downturn in the property market threw off the entire business plan and financial support for the programme, forcing Metrix officials to examine another way to fund the programme.

To add to the programme’s woes, civilian trainers from RAF Cosford, the base which lost out to St Athans for the training contract, have been resistant to moving from the suburban West Midlands to rural Wales. There have also been concerns over the preservation of the military ethos since the training will be privatised instead of being run by MoD staff and military personnel.

Pritchard has called the privatisation of military training " a privatisation gone too far."

Ingram &, EDS begging for money

a friend writes ...
I thought you might be interested in the well being of our old friend Mr.
Ingram.

As you know the architect of Collocation, FDSCi, 13,000 job cuts, mass
privatisation and pay cuts was the man who did not "give a shit" about Civil
Servants. Sadly he stepped down from Ministerial duties last year. He is much
missed by PCS members.

Fortunately, our loss has been others gain.

As well as being appointed Chair of the Prospect Parliamentary Group (lucky
Prospect members), the Guardian reports 3rd Sept "Congratulations to Adam Ingram,
who stepped down after six selfless years as defence minister, for he has
received the green light to become a consultant to EDS, one of the MoD's largest
and most controversial suppliers".

The article goes on to say that "The advisory committee on business
appointments, which regulates these things, said Ingram "should not become
personally involved in lobbying UK ministers or crown officials, including
special advisers, on behalf of his new employer for a year".

Incidentally - and completely coincidentally - I stumbled across the following
press cutting from 2006 whilst looking at this story:

The details of a financial settlem ent given to EDS by the Ministry of Defence
have been withheld from British taxpayers because corporate America likes to
keep its cards close to its chest.

EDS said in March it was seeking "adjustments" to compensate for the "financial
impact" of changes made by the Ministry of Defence to its requirements for its
£2.3bn Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) project.

Neither EDS nor the MOD would provide details after they reached an agreement
over the contract change in May. But EDS said its second quarter results,
released this month, would.

However, when the results were published on 1 August, they failed to mention how
much the MOD had paid EDS.

The matter has been raised in Parliament by Mike Hancock, Liberal Democrat MP
for Portsmouth South, last month. He wanted to know precisely how much more had
been paid to EDS.

The £2.3bn contract, according to analysts at Ovum, was expected to deliver the
MOD £170m of savings in its first three years, with £43m of this expected to be
gleaned in the first year.

MOD Minister of State for Armed Forces Adam Ingram refused to answer Hancock's
Parliamentary question, saying the details were "commercially sensitive".

Neither EDS nor the MOD would elaborate on why the payment was confidential.

A source close to the deal said EDS would be upset if it were to reveal the
payment details. EDS has already attracted flak over20compensation payments and
confidentiality arrangements with the British government.

In April, MPs on the Treasury Committee said a £71.25m payment EDS was ordered
to make in compensation for its delivery of a shoddy tax credits computer system
had the "appearance of impropriety".

Their problem was that £26.5m of EDS' payment was contingent on the firm winning
more government business. This detail had been hidden by a confidentiality
clause. The National Audit Office cited it as a reason why confidentiality
clauses should be banned from government contracts.

I am sure PCS members will be delighted to learn that Mr Ingram will no doubt be
back at MoD lobbying for EDS in 12 months time. I am also sure PCS members who
were privatised under DII and are now threatened with compulsory redundancy will
wish to welcome the new employee in an appropriate manner.

Credit crisis squeezes defence training

By Sylvia Pfeifer, Defence Industries Correspondent

Published: August 29 2008 03:00 | Last updated: August 29 2008 03:00

Fresh concerns have been raised over an £11bn training programme for the military - one of the government's largest private finance initiatives - after the fall-out from the credit crunch raised its cost by nearly 10 per cent in less than 20 months.

The Defence Training Review (DTR) will centralise all non-military technical training for army, navy and air force personnel in one academy, at St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan.

The first part of DTR, a 30-year PFI programme to train military engineers, was awarded to a consortium called Metrix, led by Qinetiq, the defence research group, in January 2007.

But the economic downturn has contributed towards increasing the cost of the programme to £12bn. The Ministry of Defence said the increase "is due to the impact of inflation and borrowing costs and the current economic climate, not just directly associated with cost growth".

Separately, Charles Barrington, chairman of Metrix, told the Financial Times that the turmoil in the credit markets had forced the consortium to abandon its original plan to raise up to £1bn through a bond issue.

"The bond market is not conducive at the moment so we are looking at a bank solution," he said.

The project had, however, already secured the support of a group of banks in principle, he stressed.

A final decision on which funding route to go down would not be made until the programme was closer to completion.

Mr Barrington expected the MoD to give its final sign-off on a full investment decision early next year, later than originally expected.

Concerns about the affordability of the programme, given the MoD's severe budget crisis, persist. Last month Bob Ainsworth, armed forces minister, admitted to MPs that "this is taking longer than is ideal". He added that "financial appraisals have thrown up some difficult issues".

Mr Barrington said Metrix was working hard to give the MoD "a project that will meet its affordability gap under its constrained circumstances".

"The MoD is operating not only in an operational environment it has not seen for a generation, but also operating in a budgetary environment that it has not seen for a generation," he said.

There was no indication the programme would not happen. "This is a nationally important project. You only need to consider the value of trained personnel to the current operational army to realise how important technical training is."

The programme has proved highly political since its inception. The competition pitted Wales against the West Midlands to secure the main base for the contract. A bid from a rival consortium would have based its training at RAF Cosford and some of its personnel will now have to move to Wales.

The consortium received a pre-contract award of £9.5m from the MoD in the spring, which is being used to develop a transition plan and start work transforming the training courses.

At any one time, some 6,000 students are going through training and around 1,100 courses are taught every year. There are currently nine different training sites.

Public consultation for the planning process started a few weeks ago. Construction at the site is due to begin in 2009 and be completed in 2013.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

EDS keeps MOD schtum over

By Mark Ballard →

21st aug 2006

Corporate America clouds British transparency

The details of a financial settlement given to EDS by the Ministry of Defence have been withheld from British taxpayers because corporate America likes to keep its cards close to its chest.

EDS said in March it was seeking "adjustments" to compensate for the "financial impact" of changes made by the Ministry of Defence to its requirements for its £2.3bn Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) project.