Defence-Wide Focus Keeps Eye on the Prize
New teams delivering Defence Force-wide support services are set to dramatically improve the way the Defence Force supports its frontline staff.
Dedicated Human Resource Management (HRM), Logistics and Headquarters centres are being established in the latest phase of the Defence Transformation Programme (DTP).
Colonel Al McCone, recently appointed the head of the Defence Force’s new Training and Education Directorate, says the Defence Force-wide focus of his team is essential to meet the challenges of the future Defence Force.
“We’re a unique organisation that needs to meet the special challenges that come from operating in hostile environments; we have to grow our own people with highly specialised sets of skills. The way we do this is through a variety of different mechanisms, of which our training is the mainstay.
“The technologies we use and the wars we fight are different from even a decade ago. In addition, the people we recruit now have different expectations of how they will be trained, so we need to be at the top of our game to make sure we are agile enough to cope with these changes now and into the future.”
COL McCone says the opportunity to work Defence-wide on training strategy, policy and increasingly on delivery of training, frees up resources to focus on leveraging new training techniques and technologies:
“There’s some very good individual work going on in each Service. Pooling that expertise in a Defence Force Training and Education Directorate gives us the opportunity to focus on how we can do the things we all have in common, in a common way. Eliminating unnecessary duplication also ensures we are delivering greater value for money.”
Air Commodore Peter Guy, who is leading the new Defence Logistics Command (DLC), echoes the need for a Defence-wide focus.
“I get people at all levels talking to me about ideas that could generate dramatic improvements in how we deliver logistics. But when you’re up to your neck in business-as-usual work it’s incredibly hard to implement any change,” he says.
“A dedicated consolidated logistics organisation gives us the opportunity to build world-class level systems and processes. We’ll understand our costs better, generate savings, and implement innovative and creative solutions to our many logistical challenges. It’s a chance to go from good to great.”
During this phase, the following new Defence Force-wide support services will begin:
- A Training and Education Directorate will deliver Defence Force training, strategy, and policy
- Chaplaincy services will be delivered from a Defence Force Chaplaincy Directorate
- Civilian payroll will be delivered from a centralised unit
- Workforce planning, recruitment, psychology, and strategy and policy will be delivered from a centralised Human Resource unit
- Logistics strategy will be delivered from the new DLC
- A unit within the DLC will be responsible for Defence Force wide strategic procurement and contracts
- Planning Branch will become the NZDF Office of Strategy management (OSM), and selected elements of the single Service OSMs will co-locate with the NZDF OSM in Defence House
Transformation Roadmap
| Early Gains |
Setup for Success |
Realising Benefits |
Embedding Change |
| Jul 09 – Jan 10 |
Jan 10 – Jun 10 |
Jul 10 – Jun 11 |
July 11 – 2015 |
| Do-able, high benefit projects and enablers |
Complete design, enablers in place, main structure changes begin |
Personnel changes, IT systems, shared service becoming the norm |
Follow up benefits delivery, mature technology enablement, ongoing continuous improvement |
DTP Delivers $84m in Savings
To date, the Defence Transformation Programme (DTP) has saved over $84 million—$45m in financial year 07/08 and $39m in 08/09. These savings were generated across a number of areas with the major contributions being:
| Initiative |
FY07/08 |
FY08/09 |
Total
FY07-09 |
| Reduced travel |
$7.5m |
$7.5m |
$15m |
| Rationalisation of Information Technology contracts |
$2.7m |
$5.5m |
$8.2m |
| Rationalised training |
$3.1m |
$5.5m |
$8.6m |
| Superannuation funding process improvements |
$17.1m |
$7.5m |
$24.6m |
| Improved service contracts, e.g. clothing, insurance, catering |
$4.4m |
$8.5m |
$12.9m |
| Small cost saving initiatives* |
$10.2m |
$4.8m |
$15m |
| Total |
$45.0m |
$39.3m |
$84.3m |
*A raft of smaller cost saving initiatives across a range of areas typically generated savings of less that $500k each, but brought process improvements in such areas as: recruiting, HR policy, reprographic usage, and small-scale property rationalisation.
The DTP has now entered the next phase of activity with a more strategic focus looking at the potential benefits of significant structural changes. While the detail of this analysis is still being worked through, we expect that rationalisation of key functions such as Logistics and Human Resource Management will result in simpler and better ways of doing things within the organisation, generating a further $50m–$100m of savings per annum for reinvestment in front-line services.