CASR

Canadian
American
Strategic
Review

Canadian Forces Transformation  –  CASR Op-Ed  –  September 2011 LGen Leslie's Report on Transformation 2011:  $1B in Admin Cuts but Will we see Geniune Bureaucratic Reform or Just Sacked Tea Ladies? Stephen Priestley, CASR Researcher In his Report on Transformation 2011, LGen Andrew Leslie notes the tendency of  senior staff at DND  –  both in and out of  uniform – "to argue for the preservation of  the status quo."  The result, he says, is for  bureaucratic organizations within DND to use allocated  funds to preserve themselves at the expense of any deployable front-line unit. LGen Leslie claimed that DND's responses to all earlier reports on CF Transformation were a predictable series of  institutional  reactions – these ranged "from waiting until the team [responsible for the report] disappeared, to conducting lengthy reviews of the recommendations and, finally to classifying [a Transformation Report] to an extent that only a few could see it." So that is the peer review from the top ranks of  the Army. Average citizens also seem to have noticed  DND Brass' bag of  obsfucation tricks – or at least the lingering after effects. A DND- requested Ipsos-Reid poll Views of the Canadian Forces: 2011 Tracking Study revealed that "many participants seemed  to feel  that they were under-informed about the Canadian Forces' role in Afghanistan". Well there's the rub with spinning positive-positive PAffo blat or crying 'OpSec' whenever there is bad news.  Eventually, even the interested audience stops listening. Still, no news-worthiness in revealing NDHQ as a paranoid organization, reserving its greatest hostility for the citizens it is meant to represent. The real surprise comes when genuine efforts at reform are aired publicly by a former Chief of  the Land Staff  ( June 2006-to-June 2010 ) still in uniform. Obviously LGen Leslie wanted to make his next job as the Chief of  Transformation for the Canadian Forces to truely count. Canadian citizens owe LGen Leslie a debt of gratitude (beyond his years of uniformed service) for his Report on Transformation 2011. He has made very public what,  in the past,  has always been successfully pushed under the rug by NDHQ. Fortunately, the main target of  LGen Leslie's  Report on Transformation 2011  is that bloated bureaucracy at NDHQ. He's not the first soldier to note the excess of desks and consultants at DND.  But this time is different. Past Governments were just as likely to pay lip-service to cuts as NDHQ. An uncertain economic future has this Federal Government  more highly motivated. "We don't need slimming down!" Cutting the fat as part of Canadian Forces Transformation LGen Leslie's report has 43 key recommendations, most aimed at reducing DND's duplicated – and often self-cancelling – organizational tangles while slimming both NDHQ bureaucrats and paid consultants who are largely responsible for this present state of affairs.  Proportionately, the group with the largest numbers cut are the Canadian Forces Reserve Force (Res F) –  4500 members compared to 3500 civilian employees of  DND and  3500 Regular Force personnel cut or reassigned. As was noted, a number of those full-time Reservists work at NDHQ in Ottawa. There was a reason for all those full-time Reservists at NDHQ – the pay scale.  A decade ago, it was decided that all  'Class C' Reservists at NDHQ –  ie:  those full-time Reservists receiving full, equivalent-to-Regular Force pay – were to be reclassified. 'Class C' would be applied only to deployed Res F members.  NDHQ Res F personnel were reclassified  'Class B',  earning only 85% of  Regular Force pay.  Reducing wages resulted in a Reserve Employment Opportunities (REO) boom. In other words, using Reg F personnel at NDHQ was an attempt at cost-savings. Ottawa was happy to pocket the savings resulting from changes to Reservists' pay grade but the policy-makers failed to notice that, even as REO numbers grew,  NDHQ kept crying that it hadn't enough people. The result was hiring binges; the problem was a lack of a numbers cap. CF Transformation: "Expecting the unexpected would be kind of paranoid, don't you think?" Canadian columnists mused over whether LGen Leslie would have published this report were he not on the verge of retiring from the Canadian Forces. This says rather more about an over- developed sense of self-preservation among newspaper employees than it does a soldier with a proven willingness to put himself  in the line of  fire. The pundits also predicted an outraged response from the top Brass, including the Chief of  the Defence Staff, Gen Walter Natynczyk. Turns out that Walt Natynczyk has a bit more tactical game than anticipated  by journalists.  With the predictable route already mapped out  in  LGen Leslie's report,  the CDS went cross-country instead. Nothing was off the table he said. If $1B in DND administrative costs had  to be chopped, so be it. The CDS was on side with cutting back full-time Reserve Force personnel. He was on side with reducing $2.7B spent annually on contractors and consultants saying:  "what we have to do is ... go through all [of ] those contracts and say,  'What don't we need anymore?'." Gen Natynczyk assigned most of  the blame for both DND's  burgeoning bureaucracy and  the contract-employee hiring binge on a combination of  the 1994-95 defence budget cuts and  the 'operational tempo' of  the Afghanistan deployment. Well,  'Nat' was a Dragoon, so you expect a bit of slash and manoeuvre. First transfer responsibility to a previous government (who, let's face it, were quick to seize those NDHQ pay-grade savings without sweating a hiring cap) and then link these earlier defence cuts to a required hiring of gap-filling, lower-level support staff. Specifically mentioned of  former military jobs contracted out to the private sector were cooks and Air Force flight instructors. Such Alternative Service Delivery contracts were intended to save funds that could then be reallocated for use at the 'sharp end'. According to LGen Leslie, that never happened.  Instead, the monies saved  helped plump the bureaucracy while combat troops made do with the leavings. Does this sound like a consultant or bureaucratic problem? Were it fiction, at this stage, Sir Humphrey would be tabling a plan to cut back the number of Departmental tea ladies. But  DND's problem is systemic. Bureaucracies are extremely good at protecting themselves and measure their success in departmental growth not in acheivements. Only outside of  that  bureaucratic culture  is the waste and stupidity evident.  Gen Natynczyk won't solve much by getting rid of  contracted cooks. He must outflank the bureaucracy itself. If the CDS wishes to "demonstrate the discipline and the rigour" to reform, that's the real goal. Oh, and about those citizens ... administrative savings weren't really at the top of their priority list. By all means, go through the contracts, save the $1B, and spin the  positive-positive. But, in the end, citizens will still want accountability for the Billions spent on military procurement.