The Nimrod Review - Official Documents

The Nimrod Review
Realpolitik
13.101
380
MR HADDON-CAVE QC: But you could have said, “I’ve now examined the background
documents, I’ve seen that it has been going off track in the last two years, because it’s
proving to be very difficult to deliver and I’ve read McKinsey and these other documents
that have come onto my deck. I see looming Iraq and other challenges. It’s clearly time
to take stock and move much more cautiously, because this is proving to be very, very
difficult and I’m not going to commit to delivering this in the timescale that’s been handed
to me.”
SIR MALCOLM PLEDGER: I don’t think I could have done that to the House of Commons
Defence Committee, having been appointed as the new CDL, could I? I mean, surely
I would have had to go to the PUS and say, “Thank you very much for this great honour, sir,
but I am not taking the job”, and “under these conditions. Can we negotiate”? And if the
answer to that was “No”, you know, “Which employment are you going to look actively
for your next few years, Pledger?”
Because I couldn’t — if you have been appointed to a job, you have got to do it. Salute
smartly and get on with it.
MR HADDON-CAVE QC: But I thought you told us earlier that there wasn’t a defined
condition imposed.
SIR MALCOLM PLEDGER: No, not in writing. No.
MR HADDON-CAVE QC: In your paragraph 4. If it wasn’t in writing, where was it,
then?
SIR MALCOLM PLEDGER: Well, as I also said to you, I was invited to a very senior meeting
in the Ministry of Defence, a couple of months before I took over, to sit on the side and
watch the Ministers debate the current arrangement progress within the organisation.
Clearly the purpose of that was to leave me in no doubt as to what was expected.
...
MR HADDON-CAVE QC: But even after two weeks of IMD, you, with the best will in the
world, couldn’t be sure, particularly given the background and the fact it had stalled, that
this was deliverable.
SIR MALCOLM PLEDGER: I had no idea. I am not sure that impacts on anything there,
other than I had been posted to complete the job, to be CDL.”
I am satisfied this latter explanation reflects more closely the reality at the time: Sir Malcolm Pledger took
the path of Realpolitik. Faced with what he may have seen as the fait accompli of the 20% Strategic Goal
already in place, he chose not to rock the boat but to get on with the delivering the ‘Strategic Goal’ and
other rolling ‘efficiency’ measures. He admitted to the Review that achieving a one-fifth reduction in output
costs meant that costs would have to be ‘cut’ and that redundancies and re-organising the business would be
‘one outcome’. Unfortunately, he does not appear at any stage to have questioned the wisdom of seeking to
enforce the Goal within the timescale envisaged, or at the pace required, notwithstanding: (a) the situation
which he found when he arrived in post at the DLO in September 2002, namely, that the DLO ‘Business
Change’ programme was already coming off the rails and great difficulties were being encountered in
achieving the scale and pace of ‘Cuts’ and ‘Change’ required; and (b) the new operational situation which
was rapidly developing, namely, preparations for the invasion of Iraq (see above).
Criticisms of Sir Malcolm Pledger
In my view, however, Sir Malcolm Pledger, did have a number of options and duties
13.102 on taking up his
appointment as the new CDL which he did not avail himself of or fulfil.