Cutting the CF/DND HQ bloat - Excess CF Sr Leadership, Public Servants and Contractors

[SeaKingTacco]

And yet, sadly, Edward is probably right.  It will have to be done quickly and brutally and without much analysis if there is to be any hope of success.  In my experience, a HQ will fight to the death (and it's very last subordinate) before it will cut itself.

 

[GnyHwy]

OK, assuming that we cut several HQs by a couple LCols, a handful of Majors, and a crapload of Capt/MWO/WOs. 

Where do they all go?  The units aren't short those ranks.  Arguably, the Capt/MWO/WOs are doing an easier job at the units.  Going to the field and getting your boots dirty does not directly equate to a hard job.

Many of the aforementioned ranks that have been in staff postions for a long time are probably still learning the job.  Like any other job in the military, you get good at it around th time you are being moved out.

Persons who either volunteered or were voluntold to go to HQs, did so by losing their field pay, which for guys with a lot of time equates to about 12K a year after tax.  Since the creation of field pay, less unit soldiers are volunteering to take the leap. 


Edited to add: I could agree with topping up the national schools with with experienced staffers; this would increase the level of training.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Gnyhwy-
There are really two issues: PYs and actual bodies.  Freed up PYs can be redistributed to units and purposes that need them more.  As for the actual bodies- you are correct in that it may create a largish pool of senior people with no jobs.  This can be fixed by use of career gates ( people have forgotten that we used to use these regularly in the early 90s and before) or simply by having CDS direct the bottom 5 percent of a given occupation at certain rank ( for all I know, that may describe me) 

The bottom line is- we all serve at the pleasure of the Crown...

 

[Brasidas]

OK, assuming that we cut several HQs by a couple LCols, a handful of Majors, and a crapload of Capt/MWO/WOs. 

Where do they all go?  The units aren't short those ranks.  Arguably, the Capt/MWO/WOs are doing an easier job at the units.  Going to the field and getting your boots dirty does not directly equate to a hard job.

Many of the aforementioned ranks that have been in staff postions for a long time are probably still learning the job.  Like any other job in the military, you get good at it around th time you are being moved out.

Persons who either volunteered or were voluntold to go to HQs, did so by losing their field pay, which for guys with a lot of time equates to about 12K a year after tax.  Since the creation of field pay, less unit soldiers are volunteering to take the leap. 


Edited to add: I could agree with topping up the national schools with with experienced staffers; this would increase the level of training.

They get retirement packages and get hired three years down the road at higher pay as experienced civilian employees, consultants and contractors?

 

[GnyHwy]

Gnyhwy-
There are really two issues: PYs and actual bodies.  Freed up PYs can be redistributed to units and purposes that need them more.  As for the actual bodies- you are correct in that it may create a largish pool of senior people with no jobs.  This can be fixed by use of career gates ( people have forgotten that we used to use these regularly in the early 90s and before) or simply by having CDS direct the bottom 5 percent of a given occupation at certain rank ( for all I know, that may describe me) 

The bottom line is- we all serve at the pleasure of the Crown...

I could definitely agree with the shift in PYs, especially to the schools.  The schools constantly run courses with only a fraction of the instructor bill; and sometimes those same guys are running 2 courses concurrently.  As for the units, you would have to create entirely new units to make the positions.  As well, you would be asking a senior HQ soldier to go back to a unit and be employed in a job that he already did 5 years ago.  It would the same as telling a Sgt that his unit is overborne in Sect Comds, so we are going to move him to another unit where he will be a 2i/c.

As far as the bottom 5% goes, those would be the newly promoted inexperienced unit soldiers, not the experienced/waiting for promotion/used to be units soldiers in HQs.  To throw away many years of experience in the name of cuts, doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[Edward Campbell]

It shouldn't - we are a profession for a reason.

I was in NDHQ, in a modestly senior capacity, in the '80s and '90s; we went through reorg after reorg and cut after cut after cut, most accompanied by expensive (and useless) consultants' reports. Cuts are hard: no one likes making them, no one likes being cut; professionalism doesn't really enter into it, good, solid professionals can and do disagree about how the CF should be organized and how the staff should work ... it appears, to me, as an outsider looking in, that you, the CF, have too many HQs and some (many? most?) of them are too large and that results in unproductive 'busywork' - reports and regular returns on the number of reports and returns be made. The consultants just bother everyone by making them all fill in a new report on reports and returns.

In my opinion it is better for one, thoroughly bloody minded, very senior officer - who really doesn't much like his colleagues and who really doesn't want to be CDS - to take the proverbial bull by the horns and restructure the C2 superstructure. (It would help if he was the VCDS and had an explicit remit from the MND to do slash and burn.)

I recall a senior officer, back in the '60s, who told us about the massive reorg of CFHQ in the mid-'60s ... he told us that on leaving his office for a meeting he said to his secretary, "If the boss calls, get his name." Reorgs are neither easy nor tidy.

 

[GnyHwy]

They get retirement packages and get hired three years down the road at higher pay as experienced civilian employees, consultants and contractors?

Yes that is a possibility but, won't they be the first ones to be cut; they may cease to exist.

So in essence, with this solution, you are replacing uniforms with suits that get paid more money.

 

[GnyHwy]

In my opinion it is better for one, thoroughly bloody minded, very senior officer - who really doesn't much like his colleagues and who really doesn't want to be CDS - to take the proverbial bull by the horns and restructure the C2 superstructure. (It would help if he was the VCDS and had an explicit remit from the MND to do slash and burn.)

I could buy into this for sure, but it can't be a suggestion, or a study for all to read; it also cannot be a vision or "way forward".  It must be an order that is followed through and executed.

Perhaps create another HQ to pull this off. 

 

[Infanteer]

I could buy into this for sure, but it can't be a suggestion, or a study for all to read; it also cannot be a vision or "way forward".  It must be an order that is followed through and executed.

...and you have to institute some organizational discipline to prohibit such bloat from happening again.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...and you have to institute some organizational discipline to prohibit such bloat from happening again.

Wait ... you want to move from the just barely doable to the downright miraculous. I called for a bloody minded senior officer, not a messiah. 

 

[GnyHwy]

Don't get me wrong, I'm one of the biggest proponents of cutting needless positions and organizations - not for the sake of efficiency but because much of the literature points to the reality that leaner staffs are more effective (i.e. timely and responsive).  But first it needs to be determined exactly what effective is - Armyvern and Loachman have brought some interesting examples up.  Once we have this, we can start taking an objective look at processes to determine what needs to be cut and what doesn't.  Effectiveness should be based upon the two tasks of the staff.

I agree with this, and it is easy to argue against this with simple dollar signs.  Yes it will cost a lot of money, but without it the cost may be much greater down the road; and you won't be able to measure it in dollars.

 

[Infanteer]

Wait ... you want to move from the just barely doable to the downright miraculous. I called for a bloody minded senior officer, not a messiah. 

If you believe, he will come....

 

[Old Sweat]

In his memoirs Sir Arthur Harris wrote about his experience as Vice Chief of the Air Staff before he moved to take over Bomber Command. The staff of the  Air Ministry was extremely busy - 15 to 18 hours days six and seven days a week was the norm - and nothing was being accomplished. Harris was constantly receiving urgent pleas for more and more staff positions in the headquarters, but he took another tack. Sir Arthur ordered an immediate 40% cut across the board at all rank levels and in all directorates. Suddenly the work load dropped to manageable proportions, morale soared and the productvity took off for the stratosphere. He may or may not have embellished the story, but as others have noted, smaller headquarters seems to work better and quicker.

 

[mariomike]

In his memoirs Sir Arthur Harris wrote about his experience as Vice Chief of the Air Staff before he moved to take over Bomber Command. The staff of the  Air Ministry was extremely busy - 15 to 18 hours days six and seven days a week was the norm - and nothing was being accomplished. Harris was constantly receiving urgent pleas for more and more staff positions in the headquarters, but he took another tack. Sir Arthur ordered an immediate 40% cut across the board at all rank levels and in all directorates. Suddenly the work load dropped to manageable proportions, morale soared and the productvity took off for the stratosphere. He may or may not have embellished the story, but as others have noted, smaller headquarters seems to work better and quicker.

That's exactly the man I was thinking of when I first read the title of this thread.
"Bert Harris was the sort of buccaneer whom Churchill particularly liked."
Quoted from, "Churchill and Morton" by R.W. Thomson page 44

From what I understand, this quality also endeared him to his aircrews, even though they almost never saw him.

 

[armyvern]

OK, assuming that we cut several HQs by a couple LCols, a handful of Majors, and a crapload of Capt/MWO/WOs. 

Where do they all go?  The units aren't short those ranks.  Arguably, the Capt/MWO/WOs are doing an easier job at the units.  Going to the field and getting your boots dirty does not directly equate to a hard job.

Many of the aforementioned ranks that have been in staff postions for a long time are probably still learning the job.  Like any other job in the military, you get good at it around th time you are being moved out.

Persons who either volunteered or were voluntold to go to HQs, did so by losing their field pay, which for guys with a lot of time equates to about 12K a year after tax.  Since the creation of field pay, less unit soldiers are volunteering to take the leap. 


Edited to add: I could agree with topping up the national schools with with experienced staffers; this would increase the level of training.

Something I already visited earlier in this thread. The ratio of Capts to troops is amazing. There's too many. Retire them and re-invest those PYs into boots-on-the-ground troops (ie Ptes/Cpls). Bases gave up PYs (in many cases were forced to give up) thus SWE in order to fund/build all those staff positions at the dotcoms.  You are forgetting that that staff came from somewhere (troop positions and SWE converted into HQ staff posns/SWE) and it can be put back where it is required and should never have left from in the first place.

I imagine we will see this happen when the empires freeze over.

Throwing away them and their experience? Come on, their "spots" exist now precisely because we tossed critical boots on the ground PYs and SWE aside to fund them in the first place.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

And yet, sadly, Edward is probably right.  It will have to be done quickly and brutally and without much analysis if there is to be any hope of success.  In my experience, a HQ will fight to the death (and it's very last subordinate) before it will cut itself.

At LFWA when the new COS arrived in 2010, he apparently took one look at the structure of the HQ and decided that it was too large and too cumbersome.  He did not have to hire consultants to reorganize the HQ.  He convened a meeting of 10-12 pers from across all rank levels in the HQ and included two of the main formations (customer reps if you will) and sat over a few pitchers of beer and a whiteboard, and re-designed the HQ from the bottom up.

Not surprisingly, he did away with the four (four!!!!) ACOS's, amalgamated the G and J staffs, and developed a flat continental system from G1 to G9.  The net impact was to allow the creation of a 4 person G5 cell (planning horizon of 180 to 365 days) and a two man G7 cell (One year plus).  The HQ is now more agile, and has shrunk by about 20 pers over the last two years.  I have heard that the COS would like to make the HQ even smaller (on the principle that HQs get busier because they are bigger, and not vice versa), and that he plans to amalgamate the 5 and 7 shops at a savings of another PY or two.

All of that to say that change is possible, and that it does not have to be a drawn out process.  I will acknowledge Infanteer's point about ensuring that the structure is defensible, so that "the new guy" can't reorganize at a whim.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Edited to add: I could agree with topping up the national schools with with experienced staffers; this would increase the level of training.

Ugh.  Before we add one more PY to the schools, it is time to review the sheer volume of Individual Training that we have imposed on ourselves.  If i was Boss for a day, I would take available PYS and:

• give back the 100 PYs taken from the 3 Light battalions
• buy back the two Armoured Recce Squadrons we cashed in over the last two years
• Flesh out the combat support platoons (Pioneers first)
• Establish an anti-armour capability again
• Create an additional FSG in each of the Service Battalions (325ish PYs each

I would NOT establish 144 man ASICs.  I would NOT increase the size of Bde HQ.  I would NOT invest PYs in Individual training.

The Field Force is on its knees.  Time to look after it.

 

[Old Sweat]

Ugh.  Before we add one more PY to the schools, it is time to review the sheer volume of Individual Training that we have imposed on ourselves.  If i was Boss for a day, I would take available PYS and:

• give back the 100 PYs taken from the 3 Light battalions
• buy back the two Armoured Recce Squadrons we cashed in over the last two years
• Flesh out the combat support platoons (Pioneers first)
• Establish an anti-armour capability again
• Create an additional FSG in each of the Service Battalions (325ish PYs each

I would NOT establish 144 man ASICs.  I would NOT increase the size of Bde HQ.  I would NOT invest PYs in Individual training.

The Field Force is on its knees.  Time to look after it.

There was a surge of robbing units in the late eighties in order to staff the project management staffs that were created for all the kit that supposedly was going to flow from the 1986 White Paper. The army was actively planning a division that would periodically concentrate in Germany for exercises, including reactivation of the Fort Garry Horse as a recce regiment and the creation of a MLRS regiment for the gunners. No extra tanks, by the way. The Leo 1s in Germany, including the reserves, would be divvied up into two regiments, each of two squadrons. The plan came crashing down in late Spring 1989 in the early weeks of RV 89 when an announcement of hefty defence cuts was made. I wonder if we are going to see an encore. It would be nice to see the manpower that went to various headquarters redirected back to the front line, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it happening.

I commented above about the creation of the CFTS bureaucracy. We went from a relatively simple system in the army where even the paper required to plan and conduct a fairly senior course went from a document maybe a half inch thick called a Block and Detailed Syllabus to a shelf full of three ring binders. A bunch of people obviously had to create these. Now think how many good people vegged away writing documents for one course and then take a look at the massive and diverse training load each year.

 

[fraserdw]

I would remove everyone from training that does not have at least 1 tour in the trade core functions.

 

[fraserdw]

The biggest issue with HQs is that they re-org everytime a new CO or COS is posted in.  HQs needed to be written doctrinely and kept that way.  That writting should allow for flexibility not immobility.