The Central Staff, headed jointly by the VCDS and the 2nd PUS, is the policy core of the Department. It is over 2000 strong and located mostly in London. It came into being as a result of the Defence Costs Study, through the amalgamation of the largely, but not exclusively, military Defence Staff under VCDS, and the Head Office elements of the almost entirely civilian Office of Management and Budget under 2nd PUS.
Under Ministers, the Central Staff is responsible for the three fundamental aspects of Defence policy and planning:
* What are the Government's security and defence aims and what do they imply for the missions and tasks of the Armed Forces?
* What sort of military capability and equipment will best achieve these aims?
* What resources are necessary to sustain the Government's policy and how can they best be allocated?
When British military forces have to be used, elements of the Central Staff play the leading role in the strategic direction of operations, as a component of the Defence Crisis Management Organisation, described in the Crisis Management section.
Finally, it is responsible for formulating management policy applicable across Defence or to all three Services, such as that on pay, and for providing various kinds of Defence-wide support, such as information and communication services.
Within the new structure civilian and military staff are integrated in single hierarchies wherever this best meets our needs. The seven officers and officials in the Central Staff at the three-star or 'deputy' level and their staffs work flexibly together in support of the needs of all members of the Defence Council. Of the seven, three are military (Deputy Chiefs of the Defence Staff or DCDS) and four are administrative civil servants, (Deputy Under-Secretaries or DUS). Below them many civilians have military bosses and vice versa.
The success of the Central Staff depends on providing Ministers with clear, objective advice on a Defence-wide basis so that they can take decisions and discharge their collective responsibilities within Government. Two things are critical: one is civil-military integration; the other is the role we expect the military staff officer to play.
CIVIL-MILITARY INTEGRATION
This is based on working efficiency and the premise that pol-mil business needs pol-mil staff. The MOD's civilians bring to bear policy-making, financial and administrative skills, as well as an understanding built up over many years of political and Parliamentary considerations, which is essential in a Department of State. Military officers are trained, at considerable cost in time and money, to be expert professionals and commanders; they are sent to the Ministry of Defence because it must have available the knowledge and experience which these military skills bring. Both sets of skills are vital to the good management of Defence. Click here to see a table of typical MOD post titles and functionally equivalent ranks and grades.
As a principle, this civil-military integration is not new but we have taken it further than ever before. In many areas it has been highly successful in concentrating expertise as we have steadily reduced the numbers in the centre of the Department. In others, changing long-standing attitudes takes time. In some areas it is simply not appropriate because of the level of military or civilian expertise needed.
We have also loosened the rigid reporting lines which existed within the MOD in the past to allow teams to be put together easily at any level as work demands. Thus in the Policy/Commitments area there are a number of flexible links for different aspects of business. This makes it easier to deal with questions, such as participation in peacekeeping operations, which have a political dimension - should we do what the United Nations wants? - and a military dimension - can we do what the United Nations wants?
THE 'PURPLE' APPROACH
All military posts in the Central Staff are regarded as tri-Service or 'purple' posts, even if they deal only with business specific to a single Service or are always filled by one Service in particular. When officers join the Central Staff they have to adopt a Defence-wide perspective. They do not stop belonging to their Service but their job is not to promote its interests in a narrow sense. It is to ensure that the Central Staff is able to reach a balanced overall view on any issue. In many cases their work may be closely focused on single-Service business, for example at working-level in the equipment areas, but more often it is broader. We have emphasised this principle in our organisational structure for ten years and it has won widespread acceptance.
WORKING METHODS
The MOD needs to harness to the full the quality of its staff and the excellent relationships between military and civilian colleagues. Success is built on:
* Clear expectations from above: senior staff and Ministers expect all advice to be accurate, objective and reflect all aspects of an issue, and for as much as possible to be resolved at the working level.
* A sense of common purpose: everyone is seeking to achieve the best possible mix of military capability within the resources made available by the Government, and to support Ministers and senior advisers in determining and delivering what Government policy requires.
* Mutual recognition of each other's contribution: nobody must believe they can do everything on their own. Civilians need to understand the realities of military life and operations; military staff must understand the needs of Parliament, Ministers and the Government's policy-making and administrative machinery.
* Mutual confidence built up over time: the current arrangements have been absolutely central to the MOD for the last ten or eleven years.
* Physical proximity: desk officers share rooms, directorates are often on the same corridor and their directors are often in adjacent offices. The Secretary of State's office has the PUS's on one side and the CDS's on the other.
CENTRAL STAFF COMPONENTS
The Central Staff is organised into the following blocks or areas (click here to see an organisation chart):
* The Policy/Commitments area is responsible for the formulation of Defence policy in the widest sense, both long and short-term, and for the actual or potential commitment of British forces to crises, operations and exercises. The civilian Policy Director and the military Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Commitments) (DCDS(C)) lead this area.
* The Resources, Programmes and Service Personnel area formulates policy on service personnel issues and financial systems and regulations, and runs the MOD's resource allocation process, known as the Long-Term Costing (LTC). It is led by the DUS (Resources Programmes and Finance) and the DCDS (Programmes and Personnel).
* The Systems area, under the DCDS (Systems), is responsible for identifying the equipment capabilities needed by the Armed Forces, and for formulating the Operational Requirements, or specifications, for the military equipment. It also manages the Applied Research Programme.
* The Scientific area, under the DUS (Science & Technology), provides scientific advice to the MOD HQ, especially to the Systems area, and manages the Corporate Research Programme.
* The Administration and Civilian Personnel area, under the DUS (Civilian Management), formulates policy for the MOD's civilian personnel and for a range of support functions including security, policing, accommodation and health and safety. It also provides some of these support services centrally.
Some posts straddle these areas or operate independently in the Central Staff. The Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Logistics) (ACDS(L)) provides a single focus for logistics issues, both in relation to the support of operations and on wider value-for-money questions throughout Defence. The Director-General for Information and Communications Services (DGICS) does not report exclusively to any of the three-star posts in the Central Staff but acts to ensure the best use of information throughout Defence through the cost-effective exploitation of communications and information technology. The Press Secretary and Chief of Information deals with the external presentation of Defence matters and relations with the media, which involves a particularly close working relationship with Ministers.
DEFENCE INTELLIGENCE STAFF
The Central Staff works very closely with the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS), which is the most important of the Departmental support services collocated with the MOD HQ.
The tasks of the DIS are to give policy-makers and planners throughout Defence and commanders in the field an accurate view of world developments, timely warning of impending crises and informed reporting on areas where British forces are or may be deployed. It analyses material from a variety of sources, including open literature and classified reports. Its assessments range from studies of weapons systems held by potential opponents, to analysis of the influences at work in any part of the world where the United Kingdom has important interests. The DIS is a mixed organisation of military officers and civilian research staff, scientific staff and linguists, headed by the Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI). The DIS is also an essential element of the Government's central intelligence machinery.
 |
 |
 |