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

[aesop081]

Policy exists but its not always applied.

Thats an entirely different problem and still doesnt relate to HQ bloat.

 

[REDinstaller]

If you post them all to the same HQ then it would. >

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Stay on topic gentlemen.
I personally would like to see more rational well thought out ideas like dapaterson's post and rebutals to them.

...and is puckchaser   right?

 

[Old Sweat]

I would suspect that Dapaterson and Puckchaser have hit on two of the features of bureaucratic reorganizations which ultimately cancel one another out. I often despair at the prospect of another reorganization which in reality is like moving scrabble tiles around before the start of a new game. The challenge is that there are any number of ways to divvy up the functions and duties. Moreover any highly motivated and intelligent individual can come up with a novel organization which will eliminate positions and redundancies throughout the CF. The trouble is that the real world ain't like that, no matter how often we try to make it so.

You see, it is terribly difficult to eliminate headquarters pys, or convert them into "field" pys. Oh to be able to take say, two or three LGens and all the other folks in their pyramids required to keep them happy and busy and productive, and put them in a box and push a button and, voila, a couple of thousand or so worker bees appear. It doen't work that way. First, unless we wish to arbitrarily release them regardless of how they stack up against their peers, we have to find things for them to do. It doesn't matter what, but unless we just send them home and pay them until CRA, we have to find things for them to do. And that means some new headquarters, whether we are talking about three LGens or three hundred RMS Clerks. And that may or may not be the aim of the exercise. Eventually their positions are convertible, but in the meantime they are in the system, blocking pys.

 

[Spanky]

So what you are suggesting is that it must be a long term "evolutionary" change.  Eliminate the positions through attrition, and replace them with those who can work the coal face.  This would be a very difficult thing to do given that future administrations would have to buy into it.

 

[old fart]

Fat reduction UK style....

Sacked via e-mail....by the Brit MOD, affecting those on the Long Service List.  Warrant Officers who are soldiering on year to year having completed their 22 years of colour service:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/3411906/38-senior-Army-heroes-including-one-on-the-Afghan-front-line-are-sacked-by-email.html

Usual Brit bureaucratic bullshit......followed up by the inevitable apology:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12461211

 

[old fart]

I find this article entertaining as I drop off my DEUs at the Drycleaners for the 1 Can Div "Red Patch" parade next month.......

What goes around comes around............if they run out of patches before they get to you....I will mail you a very slightly used one.

Chimo...and all that....

 

[Edward Campbell]

Further to what Old Sweat said: we need some HQs, some of them quite large and complex. DND is a major department of government which must be managed as such; the CF is a separate and unique institution with its own laws and regulations and it needs to be commanded and controlled - anywhere in the world. The CF must, constantly, generate and train forces and then employ them in a wide variety of tasks. DND must equip those forces and provide facilities and resources for them. Military people must be recruited, trained, employed, cared for, released and, now and again, buried. It all has to be managed somewhere, by someone - and the management needs to be "smart" and efficient,

Maybe the best route for LGen Leslie is to convince "senior management" that the higher HQ "infrastructure" (those HQs above brigade/wing) must be limited, in military PYs, to n% of the uniformed strength of the CF - as the CF shrinks HQs must, by regulation, shrink too; as the CF grows HQs may grow, as necessary.

I don't know what n is = maybe it's 8 so that for every 25 people we have in ships, units and squadrons we can have two in various HQs; maybe it's 6 or 12 or 4 or 16.

My :2c: anyway.

 

[Infanteer]

First, unless we wish to arbitrarily release them regardless of how they stack up against their peers, we have to find things for them to do. It doesn't matter what, but unless we just send them home and pay them until CRA, we have to find things for them to do.

You phase them out.  "In three years, this MGen position will become a Col and positions X, Y, and Z will be cut".  This gives DGMC - and people filling the spots to be cut - time to adjust.  There are holes where everyone from Pte to Major can be sent - many holes are being filled by Class B reservists or done by a comparable civilian position and even more are simply unfilled.

As for senior Officers and CWOs without jobs, put them on the ATL.  They should take the hint at some point; if not, institute a FRP for rank levels that bring us over the new TES requirements.

This is not unique.  In the U.S., General Ray Odierno - a successful 4-star - took command of a Command that was told it was closing down.  He will oversee the transition and moved on in a military with 1 less 4 star billet.

 

[T19]

Well this is an interesting topic.  DND/CF has a real problem in that it cannot do anything because of tons of rules, regulations and legislation.  I want to hire 10 civilians to replace high paid IBM/LMC contractors and save the dept $4.3 million.. but there is a hiring freeze.  Now they want to reduce prof services contracts by 5%... keep in mind these people are supporting the IT systems that Commands use to make critical decisions.  I would love to replace some of these civilians with some of these old retread Capts and Majors to keep an operational focus on things.

Add to how we spend money... ADM(IM) gets 1/2 the IT budgets, but the Commands get the rest and skunk work things with software the department cannot support because of procurement laws.  Thats were there is true waste.

The department had one of every BI tool, but no Enterprise lic to reduce costs.  We have SW and Tools at the Enterprise level, yet the Army, Navy and Air Force go off with one offs paying 3X the costs for something the department cannot deploy across lines of business. (ie SAP is the underpinning of FMAS(Finance) and MASIS(Materials) and now form DRIMIS... but we have to pay 2 times the lic fees because they were bought wrong)

And frankly, it takes X number of people to run a HQ, regardless of your combat forces size.  Thats todays reality, thanks to all the new rules and regs that the CANADIAN people want us to follow. 

 

[ArmyRick]

I remember in Rick Hillier's book "Soldier First" he talks about not being too impressed with the bearocracy at DND. He was apprently offered by the MND at the time an oppurtunity to separate the CF from DND and make it answer only to elected officials such as the PM and the MND.

He also mentioned that he did not like the bloat, empire building and heel dragging on important issues these beaurocrats did.

Maybe they are the first to be done away with?

 

[Old Sweat]

Edward may be better able to address the topic, but it seems to me back when the CF tried to reduce the number of generals, the civilian side of the department converted the "surplus" positions from general/flag officers to senior executives in the public service. Any transformation that transfers resources to "the field" would be a long term process, and would require the active participation of the central agencies of the public service.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Splitting the CF from DND is somewhere between impossible and just plain silly. Separating military operations from e.g. policy/strategy, equipping the forces and budget matters can, and, perhaps, should be done more than is now the case.

One problem is that, from time to time (think about the 1970s and '80s), military leadership might be a good deal less than stellar and the top level civil servants will be tempted, and able, to step in to "make things happen" when military commanders are timid or a little less than brilliant. Remember, please: we live in a "closed" system and every system makes mistakes. The much larger, much more ruthless civil service is able to bury its mistakes in a long, long, long list of departments and agencies, few of which do anything really important. The CF doesn't have that luxury and it has been, traditionally, reluctant to cull its own herd. Sometimes we actually welcome bright, able civil servants who bully their way past weak and reluctant admirals and generals; sometimes (but more rarely) they welcome some real leadership from the uniformed side.

Broadly, both sides, DND and the CF have equally important roles to play - often those roles are almost exclusively civilian (policy, strategy and finances) or almost exclusively military (operations) but in many areas (equipment procurement and life cycle management of systems) there is considerable overlap.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Edward may be better able to address the topic, but it seems to me back when the CF tried to reduce the number of generals, the civilian side of the department converted the "surplus" positions from general/flag officers to senior executives in the public service. Any transformation that transfers resources to "the field" would be a long term process, and would require the active participation of the central agencies of the public service.

A bit of that happened but, as far as I can recall, the civil service did its own empire building inside DND - on a par with a fairly general "fattening" of the executive and senior executive levels of the public service, overall.

My personal recollection is that "we" shot ourselves in both feet: we reduced a few general and flag officers from places where they needed to be to assert real authority and "independence" and we kept too many in Ottawa where "we" thought we needed them to counter the growing number of senior executives in the public service. I seem to recall that while we were reducing flag and general officers by n% DND added two assistant deputy ministers (VAdm/LGen equivalents) with the requisite number of new DGs (one and two star equivalents) and directors (Capt(N)/Col) to NDHQ. But I don't think the public service was able to "convert" MGens to ADMs - I'm pretty sure not even Bob Fowler could "work" the  system quite that well!

 

[Edward Campbell]

My favourite example of "growth" is in the Public Affairs (Communications) field.

I well recall, back in the '80s, when we had, in NDHQ, a Director of Public Affairs (or something like that). He, it was a he, was a colonel. Then it, PR, became more important and we got a Director General Public Affairs or Public information or something like that - it was an infantry BGen named Terry Liston, in fact, and he was a pretty good DG - so good that he was soon replaced by a civilian in a two star equivalent slot and ADM (Policy) become ADM (Pol and Comm) (Comm = Communications = Public Affairs) then, after a small scandal or two, the Associate Assistant Deputy Minister became a full fledged ADM with her (it was a her) own Branch - Col to BGen to MGen (equivalent) to LGen (equivalent) in about ten years.

Is public affairs more important than it was in the '80s? Yes, clearly. Is it four times more important? I don't know. Is ADM(PA) doing four times as much as that Col did 25 or so years ago? I don't know that either. Nor, I suggest, does anyone else. I do know that Mme. Touchette, the ADM(PA) has been, since mid 2010, assisted by BGen Blanchette and (I read somewhere) about 400 other people.

 

[Old Sweat]

I stand corrected on the detail and the process. However the public service did step in to fill the holes with a resulting failure to reduce the size of NDHQ.

There always will be bloat and people busily writing/messaging one another to no good purpose. The question is how much real harm do they do. The vast majority of the people in NDHQ perform useful functions, even if the functions themselves are imposed as controls or feel good activities by a central agency of government. I guess the question is in the vertical nature of the decision cycle from the CDS to the deployed unit and the number of steps on the ladder. There is a niggling little idea in my tiny mind that asserts itself from time to time, and that is that CEFCOM, CANADACOM and COSCOM were created to cut NDHQ (read the mandarins uniformed and not) out of the detailed command and control process.

 

[daftandbarmy]

My favourite example of "growth" is in the Public Affairs (Communications) field.

I well recall, back in the '80s, when we had, in NDHQ, a Director of Public Affairs (or something like that). He, it was a he, was a colonel. Then it, PR, became more important and we got a Director General Public Affairs or Public information or something like that - it was an infantry BGen named Terry Liston, in fact, and he was a pretty good DG - so good that he was soon replaced by a civilian in a two star equivalent slot and ADM (Policy) become ADM (Pol and Comm) (Comm = Communications = Public Affairs) then, after a small scandal or two, the Associate Assistant Deputy Minister became a full fledged ADM with her (it was a her) own Branch - Col to BGen to MGen (equivalent) to LGen (equivalent) in about ten years.

Is public affairs more important than it was in the '80s? Yes, clearly. Is it four times more important? I don't know. Is ADM(PA) doing four times as much as that Col did 25 or so years ago? I don't know that either. Nor, I suggest, does anyone else. I do know that Mme. Touchette, the ADM(PA) has been, since mid 2010, assisted by BGen Blanchette and (I read somewhere) about 400 other people.

I wonder how that number compares to the number of 'bayonets' on the ground in our BG in AFG? On the other hand, if I knew the answer, from that point on I'm sure that my food would lose it's flavour and the sun would not shine as brightly as before.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I want to repeat: we need some HQs and some of those HQs will be large and complex and they will do things that few of us understand. The question is: roughly what % of the CF should be in the higher level (above brigade/wing level) C2 and management business? If we LGen Leslie can answer that question, and not worry too much about the organization of all those people, then the job LGen Leslie's job becomes easier.

 

[McG]

Top general fights to cut the fat in the Forces
By MERCEDES STEPHENSON, Parliamentary Bureau
25 Feb 2011
http://www.calgarysun.com/news/canada/2011/02/25/17415176.html

Of course, there are redundancies, inefficiencies and even superfluous HQs.  There is room for streamlining of the institutional structure in order to find PYs for essential structures and essential work.

Inevitably, these threads on the structure of the organization seem to delve down to the weeds of "how many riflemen belong in a section, and what weapons should they have."  As LGen Leslie is working a national strategic level review, he should be looking at the L1s & L2s ... and maybe the occasional L3.  (For those unaware, the three ECSs, each .COM, every ADM and a handfull of other entities constitute the L1s) .... if the general is playing with the structure of battalions & regiments and of wings & brigades, then he is too far down in the weeds.

The Level 1 Organizations
I think the immediate action is to consolidate CANOSCOM, CANADACOM and CEFCOM into a single CANOPCOM and return the PY savings to the ECSs.  (Some elements of CANOSCOM may be better fitting if fully removed and put into ADM(Mat) but that’s deeper in the weeds than I am looking right now).  Eliminating CANOPCOM (if that is the goal) could then be looked at on future bounds with a new DCDS.

Since the creation of the .COMS, I have seen three options presented on this site for the potential macro-structure of the CF as far as FE/FG is concerned: [list type=decimal]
[*] Force Generators (LFC/Air Com/MARCOM/SOFCOM) get tasked with missions and are also the Force Employers
[*] Force employment is done by an NDHQ staff (the old DCDS model)
[*] Force employment is done by a dedicated operational command (either the current .COM model or a single unified CANOPCOM)[/list]
I do not believe we should be distracting deployed BG commanders with the management & operation of strategic lines of communication and all the various CF elements in country and external to the BG (SOF, LOs, ETTs/OMLTs, etc).  I think the same applies at the strategic level - it is better not to distract the guy responsible for the fight by cluttering his plate with work related to generating the force and sustaining all the institutional "stuff" that we have back here in Canada (bases, depots, schools, etc, etc).

I also feel that running of operations should not be a staff function - it should be a command function.  Perhaps it is semantics, but I would think a unified CANOPCOM is preferable to the DCDS model

It would seem to me that in the next step there must be room for rationalization somewhere in this group:

• ADM (Finance & Corporate Services)
• ADM (Information Management)
• ADM(Policy)
• ADM (Public Affairs)

I suspect ADM(Pol) would not be an option for elimination or amalgamation as it is the strategic staff of the DM.  However, IM & PA really do sound like things that might be tossed under the title as a ‘corporate service’ – or management support work.  If Fin is ‘too important’  to burry in a general purpose ADM, then split things out so that we have ADM(Pol), ADM(Fin) and ADM(CS).  ... As suggested by Edward above, the PA and IM elements become downgraded (in both rank & empire size) to DGs.

And why not roll the Finance and Corporate Services mantle onto the Vice Chief, with a "Chief Financial Officer" under the VCDS in the hierarchy, but with a dotted line to the Deputy Minister?

That is definitely another way to do it.

CF/DND Human Resource Management (and 2 more L1s)

Maybe roll the Chief of Military Personnel and ADM Human Resources - Civilian into a single Chief of Personnel, with associates for Military and Civilian.

2.  Human Resource Management ideas must be fixed - critical is this is the use of Class B/Civilians in roles they should have never been used for.  Expensive overuse of these positions means the CF can get away with poor pers management, creating extra positions that aren't feasible under the current strength.  We need to figure out which full time military positions are important and which can be cut (at all ranks).

Both these points are bang-on!  The current stove-pipes for our human resources processes are an outline for disaster.  There is an excellent LFCO on HR management that identifies the importance of holistic HR planning and the necessity of identifying whether work/positions should/must be military or civilian and Reg or Res.  Unfortunately, I have never seen this actually followed within the Army  ... in fact, I have seen the full opposite where it does not matter that I have demonstrated a position needs to be a Reg F or Civi, but higher demands a request for a new Cl B/A position because those are the flavour of the moment.  In NDHQ, I have seen Cl B/A and civilian indeterminate positions permanently created to compensate for a temporarily vacant Reg F position.  One approval pipe for the creation of Regular Force, Reserve Force and Civilian positions would go a long way to cleaning the management of our HR.  A consolidated HR L1 is probably essential to allowing such a single pipe.

Now as far as Fed Govmnt employee (Civy) filling in as RMS clerks, could we not hire more RMS clerks? Replace those people as they retire so there is no uproar.

Where a military member is not required, it is often cheaper to have a PS.  At the same time, there is a limit on the number of military personnel the CF can have.  This means some balancing is required.  Some offices in higher HQs are mostly civilian with a handful of military scattered in to ensure the military perspective is not lost.  The trick is ensuring the military and civilian resources are properly balanced and in the right places of our force structure.  Again, this points to the requirement for an integrated HR management system.

The Land Staff
I have very little familiarity with the two other ECSs, so I will allow others to tread there.  I am not displeased with the DCOS Ops side of the Land Staff, so I will leave that alone now too.  Where I see problems is within the capability development side in DCOS Strat.

The whole force development process in the Army is structurally impaired against being done right.  Creating and maintaining capabilities requires drawing on concepts, equipment, doctrine, and force structures - all of these things need to be deleloped in concert.  Doctrine will only be marginal (at best) if it fails to consider & exploit the potential of modern technology.  At the same time, equipment that is incompatible or ill-suited to doctrine will weaken the overall force.
While the force development & requirements folk are not in the same building, at least they are in the same city (basically).  However, with DLCD and doctrine in Kingston, the two halves of the Army's force development brain are not even close enough to sit together over coffee every other week & ensure they are working in the same step.

With equipment it stands out more because the wrong answer gets dumped on the troops & they have to make it work (or there is nothing & the troops still have to make things work).  When the doctrine side is missing, the troops make their own (which is a lot easier that fabricating vehicles, weapons & other kit in the field).  However, it seems to me that signs of the doctrine ball being dropped are plenty to be found.  The Infantry platoon & company doctrine is so badly out of date that it is hidden and not even available on the AEL.

Where capability/force development is not properly synchronized, we see things like the VCDS killing major projects like ALAWS because the army has no coherent doctrine around which to explain the purchase.  Where capability/force development is conducted across separated stovepipes, we see DLR pers drafting junk doctrine to justify equipment or DLFD pers directing the procurement of equipment with no explicable role.

When the field army runs into problems that require a fast & coherent response from the national headquarters, the solution is to create new ad-hoc organizations (like the CF C-IED TF) with PYs to do what should already be happening in existing staffs ... except that it is not because those staffs are so physically separated that good communication is not happening at the working levels.

If we are ever going to get to the point of effective capability development, then the Army's force development efforts need to be put under a single roof ... that means DAD belongs in the Land Staff under COS(Strat) and not in LFDTS.  Little empires like the C-IED TF need to be dissolved and replaced with tiny staffs that draw on the permanently established functional experts in DAD, DLR, DLCD, etc.

Level 2 Organizations
Again, I will keep my ideas focused on the Army here.  I think there are three different potential Army structures at the L2 level:

• Geographic Structure - Everything is placed under L2 command according to geographic location
• Functional Structure - Everything is placed under L2 command based on role/function (Field Force, Training Command, institutional support command)
• Hybrid strucutre - this is what we have with a training command, and then the field force & institutional support being divided into geographic commands

There is plenty of room to debate.  I think the current structure works, but I think a functional structure may also have some merit.  Though, 1 Can Div remains as a bit of a question mark.

The more bureaucrats you have, military or civilian, the more bureaucracy is created. Ever expanding HQ creates more bureaucrats, military and civilian, who create more bureaucracy.

I am not entirely in agreement with your conclusions, but there is some particular merit to be pulled from this statement.  Every time we introduce a new layer of HQ, we introduce new work that only exists because that new HQ exists - it the layer of HQ is superfluous, then we have burdened ourselves with mandatory superfluous work.

The units and formations of the field force need to look & function like an Army (with the traditional hierarchy structures which that entails). Conversely, the static formations of the "institutional force" should look more like successful major corporations - large flat organizations with greater responsibility placed in many independent operating units.  Wal-Mart is probably not a good model for the field force, but it may be exactly what we need to consider for the non-deploying institutional structure of the CF.

The Army could benefit from such a structure within LFDTS.  I have, at times, found myself wondering why CTC exists as a Bde sized formation (and recently with 4 to 5 LCol in the HQ).  Realistically, all of the schools could report directly to LFDTS with significant economies of effort and the freeing of staff PYs to fill more important functions.

AITA (the useful & necessary element of CTC HQ) would have to be elevated up into LFDTS HQ, and a few other PYs would have to reinforce the LFDTS G1 and G3 staffs.  Most of the HQ PYs could be re-invested directly back into the schools.

I anticipate that opposition to the elimination of CTC HQ would anchor itself on the argument of span of control.  However, my earlier proposal to move DAD to COS Land Strat would help mitigate against this.  Further, if throwing a whole Div HQ onto the plate of Comd LFDTS does not result in an unmanageable span of control, why is it that the elimination of a superfluous layer of intermediate HQ would  result in the Comd being overwhelmed?

The broader-based pyramid structure may also be suitable to a grouping of the bases and support system where multiple similar static establishments offer the same services in the same manner in multiple locations across the country.  Every Army ASG across the country could report to a single Army Support HQ.  This would diminish the requirement for Area HQs to the point that all the PRes could be rolled under a single Army Res HQ.

 

[McG]

Here are some related comments that I made on the topic of base closures & base consolidations:

There would be savings in TD (as the frequency of things being somewhere else reduces), SWE (as one-of positions are eliminated on closed bases and staffing efficiencies are realized on larger bases), PLD (assuming movement is from high-cost to lower-cost places), PILT (again, assuming movement is from high-cost to lower-cost places), and relocations (as more no-cost moves become possible).

However, I see the biggest savings being in PYs which can be reinvested from bases into operational organizations. 

Where elements of the institutional structure (bases, stations, depots, schools, static support units, non-deployable HQs and any other organization outside the field force, operational air units and the fleets) are superfluous, those elements self-generate superfluous work.  In the case of superfluous HQs (even unit & base HQs) the reports & returns, information tracking, information processing, planning efforts, etc are all unnecessary consumption of effort - often the amount of work that goes into this effort is used to justify growth or retention of PYs.  The CF and DND also has a vast array of work that is mandated of every unit and formation - this is more work that only exists because a unit/formation exists.  Here again, growth is justified in order get the mandated work done but no discussion occures as to whether there is even a requirement for the organization who's existence creates the work.

So, if one eliminates a base (or an intermediate HQ) then there is a lot of work that simply disappears with the organization.  Granted, there will be a requirement for PYs to reinforce bases that become the new homes to the lodger units of closed bases.  But, there will also be PYs freed for reinvestment into operational units and schools/training centres.

This is not to say that there should be a wholesale elimination of bases and intermediate HQs.  It might be an irreversible mistake if a base closure results in a CF wide training area shortage for land operations, and it would take years to recover from the effects of closing an HQ only to discover that is necessary.  Instead this is a suggestion bases and intermediate HQs should be deliberately assessed for thier value-added and necessity.  One could then ask, what is the opportunity cost of keeping a base (or intermediate HQ) as opposed to reinvesting the PYs.