Department of defence to spend $2 million to find out how its cost-cutting is going

The Defence Department will pay up to $2 million to hire a private company to tell it how it’s doing saving money and cutting costs.

The bids from companies, which would also recommend further reductions at DND, are due next Monday. The work is to be done in Ottawa.

The call for a private contractor to assess how cost-cutting measures are going at the Defence Department and in the Canadian Forces comes as DND states that it will get almost half its savings from cutting the number of private contractors it uses.

The military and department have stated they will cut $1.1 billion over the next three years. Of that amount, $445 million will come from cutting private contractors. The rest of the savings will come from reducing civilian public service jobs, cutting the number of reservists who are doing full-time jobs, slowing down the future growth in numbers of military personnel, cutting some training of foreign troops and improving how procurement of equipment is done.

The cuts are being made as part of the department’s strategic review, or SR, and the government’s Deficit Reduction Action Plan, or DRAP. DND and Canadian Forces “requires expert(s) to conduct an independent review to advise and recommend solutions for planning, management, oversight and reporting of departmental transformation initiatives, based on but not limited to SR and DRAP,” companies were told in a listing for the proposed contract.

The winning firm would analyze the DND programs, assess the department’s capability to deliver on its transformation initiatives, advise management and identify “areas with substantive potential for improvement, and make recommendations for change.”

The amount spent cannot be more than $2 million but what the contract will ultimately cost taxpayers at this point is not known.

The Defence Department could not comment.

Privately, some in the defence community have questioned why an outside firm is needed to make recommendations for change.

In 2011 a Canadian Forces team, led by Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, produced an extensive report on how the Canadian Forces and the department could save as much as $2 billion.

Leslie, who has since retired from the military, recommended cutting headquarters, which had become bloated over the last decade. His report detailed how headquarters staff had grown significantly, outpacing the increase in the number of front-line troops. There were 46 headquarters employing 12,576 personnel at an annual cost of $3.1 billion, his team found.

Leslie’s team also recommended cutting the ranks of senior management in the department’s civilian public service as well as military. In addition, the general recommended cutting several thousand public servants and moving 3,000 regular force personnel now in non-front line organizations back to operational units.

Leslie’s report, however, met strong resistance from public servants and those in uniform, although some of his advice was followed.

Retired general Rick Hillier, who brought in many of the changes in the command structure that led to increases in headquarters staff, warned that if Leslie’s report was followed it would “destroy the Canadian military.”

In the summer Prime Minister Stephen Harper voiced his concern about the lack of substantive cuts at the DND and Canadian Forces. Harper told Defence Minister Peter MacKay that there was still too much overhead and that not enough of the defence budget was going to operational needs.

Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: DAVID PUGLIESE