- Building Tomorrow’s Air Force today
DCAF, Air Commodore Gavin Howse
By DCAF, Air Commodore Gavin Howse
It’s hard to believe it’s nearly Christmas time again.
With just a couple of months left this calendar year, it's worth taking time to reflect on what our priorities are now - and what we'll continue to focus on in the New Year.
The Royal New Zealand Air Force and the wider New Zealand Defence Force are experiencing an unprecedented amount of change - and this will continue well into the New Year. The focus is very much on Defence Review 09 and the Defence Transformation Programme (DTP), with both programmes of work really starting to take shape and ramp up. While that sounds like a lot in itself, the Air Force also has two other equally important priorities - to deliver our Capability upgrades, but also to keep delivering capabilities today. It’s our job to ensure that we mesh these four priorities together, as all four will determine our success.
A changing environment, such as the one we are currently operating in, brings with it a great deal of uncertainty and even some stress. At the recent Air Force Leadership Forum, it was made clear that people want to know exactly what changes are going to be made within the RNZAF and across the NZDF. To help address this, CAF and I are committed to keeping you all informed of what is happening - as it happens. But the difficulty we face is that we don't always have all the answers immediately. When a large organisation goes through major change, as we currently are, we have to wait for the detailed design to be developed before we have the real answers. I know this is difficult, as we all want to know exactly what Defence Review and DTP will mean for us, but please bear with us as we work through the design.
Delivering our four priorities requires a major commitment from us. We’re taking this commitment seriously to ensure we build an Air Force that can operate successfully, both today and in the future. Our Capability projects are already resourced appropriately, and we have to make sure the same can be said for the DTP and Defence Review. We’re now starting to release some of our key people to work on these programmes, as have the Navy and Army.
In addition, we are reprioritising some of our plans and putting some of our non-core work into abeyance. Members of the Senior Management Group are currently working out what can stop in the short term. I expect to be able to communicate this to you soon.
So as you can see, there is a lot happening in our organisation. The leadership is aware that everyone is working really hard - and we thank you all for that. As we head into the silly season, take some time to look back on how far we’ve come this year. I know it hasn’t been an easy year, but I am confident we will start to see some of the benefits of this hard work early next year. We are indeed building tomorrow’s Air Force today.