OK, so lets imagine that I am the VCDS for a while :
The MND calls me to his office; there I meet with him, that DM and the CDS and a few hangers on.
"Ladies and gentlemen," says the Minister, "the Department seems, to cabinet anyway, to be, as our American friends say,
'all hat and no cattle'. There is a perception that we are badly organized and that we founder about because we have too much bureaucracy and not enough at the
sharp end. I don't mind telling you that we received a lot of mail in the wake of the Leslie report, almost all of it demanding that I force deep cuts in the HQ superstructure and staff. When the CDS declined to follow through I got even more critical mail.There is a perception, in cabinet and in the public, that we, you, actually, have too many people in too many HQs doing so much busy work that you and I lose sight of the aim; it appears that we don't talk to one another, here in DND, and that, consequently, the Associate Minister and I and, indeed, even the PM are embarrassed as events unfold for which we are unprepared."
"On the other hand," he went on, "Canadians, the media and the government remain mightily proud of the work our men and women in the fleet and the regiments, battalions and squadrons do whenever there is a crisis. So, we appear to have two militaries: one in ships, armoured vehicles and airplanes that works hard and well; and one that sits behind desks and works neither hard enough nor well enough."
"I want the command and control and management of DND and the CF overhauled. VCDS I am appointing you to lead this work - reporting directly to me if you run into problems, which I am confident will be few and far between. Some principles and contraints:
1. There are some sensible limits to what you can do to the Departmental staff,
per se. The Deputy still
must have ADMs for e.g. policy, finance, human resources and so on in order to fill his, and my, constitutional and legal mandates;
2. You are not going to make major changes to the National Defence Act - the CF will remain a
unified force, there must still be a Judge Advocate General and so on;
3. CSEC is off limits to you. It's mandate, operations and reporting relationships will remain unchanged;
3. While I expect some savings in PYs and dollars that is not the primary aim. The aim is to ensure that I, through the Deputy and the Chief, receive the best possible advice and information so that I can persuade cabinet to do what is best for Canada and that cabinet can, with confidence, make strategic decisions and send the CF into battle whenever and wherever necessary. But I hope that we will be able to
recycle several hundred people out of HQs and into ships and units. Of course we understand that ships and units are not in need of 50 year old lieutenant commanders and warrant officers so, once your reorganization plan is complete the government will approve a "buy out"plan to allow us to move quite a few people into early retirement and then hire new, young people to fill the slots in the fleet and the field force;
4. I expect the organization to be clear and simple - I want every sailor, soldier and RCAF member to understand, clearly, how tha chain of command works and I want everyone to know how they get their orders and support;
5. The CF is to be a
joint force, able to plan and conduct
joint and
combined operations on short notice; and
6. Although you may not, of course, direct any changes that go beyond DND we, cabinet, will listen to recommendations re: e.g. defence procurement and staffing."
I went back to my office and told my EA to arrange a conference call to most of the high priced help in Ottawa and to the commanders in the field. Meanwhile I took a blank piece of paper and began to
doodle.
A few hours later I told the assembled (in a 13th floor conference room and on the video conference unit) multitude:
1. In brief, what the MND had told me earlier this morning; and
2. That I intended to disband the "dot coms," retore NDHQ as one, big, central HQ and replace the existing commands with four, geographically based
joint or
unified commands plus a Special Operations Group, controlled from NDHQ and an Expeditionary Force Group consisting of a HQ, with signals support and some support elements. The new
joint commands would be responsible for fleets, brigades, wings and bases which would remain, largely, unchanged. Three service chiefs - professional heads of service - in Ottawa would
manage single service doctrine, equipment requirements and training, including schools. But the schools would be part of their geographic
joint commands. There would be a single,
unified military personnel centre in Ottawa that would
manage recruiting, education and
some, common to all services, individual training. ADM(Mat), a civilian, would
manage the third and fourth line military support functions.
I then named a "tiger team" of five navy captains and army/RCAF colonels,* and two senior civil servants, all hand picked by me, who would be posted, ASAP, to Ottawa and who would, in a matter of weeks (12, at the most) produce an outline plan for the MND's approval. I estimated that the MND would need several days, maybe even a couple of weeks to consult with his cabinet colleagues before approving something very near to what I had proposed. I then proposed to name the new commanders and principle staff branch heads in NDHQ (to an
absolute maximum of 15 commanders, staff branch heads and ADMs) and my "tiger team" woud then work, for 12 more weeks, with similar teams named by each of them to design and staff the various HQs down to commander/lieutenant colonel and civilian equivalent level. After that six month planning period we would "fire the shot heard 'round DND and the CF" and implement the new structure.
I gave a few new principles:
1. Initially I was not overly concernbed about the size of HQs, except that -
a. I expected an overall savings of many hundred, possibly even a few thousand PYs - which would be converted into new PYs for ships, units and bases; and
b. I wanted a significant downranking in all HQs - specifically I told them that the new
joint commanders and major branch heads in Ottawa would be read admirals/major generals and the new rank of military "directors," in Ottawa, equivalent to the first level of executive in the civil service, would drop from captain(RCN)/colonel to commander/lieutenant colonel. I told them I expected the "tiger teams" to build appropriate HQs around these general. I told them that I had assurances from the minister that he would fight hard to readjust the CF pay scales to ensure that compensation matched responsibilites;
2. I wanted
coherent organizations - I was prepared to accept that we needed more people in logistics and support units in order to allow them to be properly aligned with the combat organizations they serve; and
3. Despite the huge battles ahead, I intended to use this as an excuse to rationalize the army's reserve structure.
Finally, I handed out/E-mailed a quick, hand drawn sketch (see below) of where I was headed and explained that this was not final because I was quite prepared to be argued away from it by my hand picked "tiger team."
Edit to add: I have also attached a sketch of my CF outline organization showing the four regional
joint commands and, in two of them, the basic internal breakdown. There are also two other
field organizations, a Special Operations Group and an Expeditionary Support Group (A HQ with supporting Signal and Logistic elements). One issue with my CF organization is that I do not separate force generation from force employment. I
believe that each commander can do both, except for major overseas operations where the Expeditionary Force HQ will be deployed and units will be assigned to it.
_____
* There was considerable moaning and groaning as senior military commanders and ADMs told me that I was, case by case, taking away their very best people. I knew that, that's why I picked them!