Managing the Defence Estate

Managing the Defence Estate
Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2005-05-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780102932768

This report looks at the management by the Defence Estates Agency, of the land and property owned by the Ministry of Defence. The estate is worth some £15.3 billion, and costs £1.3 billion to run, with the MoD as one of the largest landowners in the UK with land covering some 240,000 hectares. The Estate itself consists of such facilities as barracks, depots, aircraft hangers and naval bases, as well as training grounds and ranges. Also the MoD has direct managerial responsibility for 200 sites of special scientific interest, along with responsibility for over 1600 listed buildings and monuments. The NAO recognizes the operational challenges of managing such a large utility, but commends the MoD for developing a strategy that saw contractual arrangements deliver higher quality and estate rationalization, along with improved customer satisfaction. There had been a deterioration in the estate due to shortfalls in spending, and the use of traditional methods in the procuring and managing of estate services. The selling off of surplus land has earned the MoD £1.2 billion, and five new regional contracts have been signed to improve the estate. Insufficient funding due to conflicting defence priorities may hamper long-term efficiencies, and that there is more to be done to consolidate recent cultural changes in the organization of contracts for running the estate, especially the move towards large centrally-managed contracts.

The work of Defence Estates

The work of Defence Estates
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Defence Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 90
Release: 2007-09-14
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9780215035936

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is one of the largest landowners in the UK, with a total estate (including land and property) valued at around £18 billion. Defence Estates (an Agency of the MoD until April 2007 and now re-integrated as part of the MoD) has responsibility for managing the defence estate, with an annual budget of £1.15 billion. The Committee's report examines the work of Defence Estates, focusing on the standard of accommodation for Service personnel and their families. The report highlights concerns about sub-standard accommodation, particularly in relation to the operation of the regional prime contracts for single living accommodation and the maintenance of service families accommodation under the housing prime contract. It argues that the provision of good quality accommodation for Service personnel and their families, modern and efficient office accommodation, and a well-maintained training estate, play a vital role in contributing to the effectiveness of our Armed Forces, particularly important given the current high tempo of operations. Overall, the report finds that although Defence Estates is doing much good work, there are considerable challenges ahead. A substantial increase in investment in the defence estate is required and the MoD must resist the temptation to take from the estates budget when the defence budget is stretched.

Defence reform

Defence reform
Author: Defence reform Steering Group
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2011-06-27
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9780108510663

The Defence Reform was launched in August 2010 as a fundamental review of how Defence is structured and managed. Many of the issues are not new and have been noted by similar reviews. The Steering Group believes an effective MOD is one which builds on the strengths of the individual Services and the Civil Service and does so within a single Defence framework that ensures the whole is more than the sum of its parts. A key driver for this review has been the Department's over-extended programme, to which the existing departmental management structure and management structure and behaviours contributed. Many of the Steering Group's proposals are designed to help prevent the Department from getting into such a poor financial position in the future and to put it in the position to make real savings. There are 53 recommendations the key ones of which are: to create a new and smaller Defence Board chaired by the Defence Secretary to strengthen top level decision making; to clarify the responsibilities of senior leaders, including the Permanent Secretary and the Chief of the Defence Staff; make the Head Office smaller and more strategic, to make high level balance of investment decisions, set strategic direction and a strong corporate framework; focus the Service Chiefs on running their Services and empower them to perform their role effectively with greater freedom to manage; strengthen financial and performance management throughout the Department to ensure future plans are affordable; create a 4 star led Joint Forces Command; create single, coherent Defence Infrastructure and Defence Business Services organisations; manage and use less senior military and civil personnel more effectively, people staying in post longer, more transparent and joint career management.

An Environmental History of the UK Defence Estate, 1945 to the Present

An Environmental History of the UK Defence Estate, 1945 to the Present
Author: Marianna Dudley
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2012-05-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1441120254

This book brings to attention the history of places that have traditionally remained under-the-radar in discussions of war and the environment, through site-based studies of five training areas in southwest England and Wales: Salisbury Plain, Lulworth, Dartmoor, Sennybridge and Castlemartin. At these sites, the big events of the twentieth century are written into landscapes that absorb their impact and reflect change in intriguing ways. Here, however, environment is more than a canvas on which historical forces play out; it has an agency of its own, as the depiction of the surprising nature and robust habitats of the training areas recognises. An Environmental History of the UK Defence Estate, 1945 to the Present critically examines the gradual 'greening' of the MoD as it developed policies of military environmentalism. It includes the histories of the ghost-villages created by forced evictions, and charts the rise and fall of anti-military protest movements. It depicts heated confrontations, mass trespasses, and demands for public access alongside conservation work and training activities, situating the human histories of these sites within their environmental history, and taking the reader behind the barbed wire in the first study of its kind.

Military Geographies

Military Geographies
Author: Rachel Woodward
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2011-07-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 144439987X

Military Geographies is about how local space, place, environment and landscape are shaped by military presence, and about how wider geographies are touched by militarism. A book about how local space, place, environment and landscape are shaped by military presence, and about how wider geographies are touched by militarism. Sets a new agenda for the study of military geography with its critical analysis of the ways in which military control over space is legitimized. Explores the ways in which militarism and military activities control development, the use of space and our understanding of place. Focuses on military lands, establishments and personnel in contemporary peacetime settings. Uses examples from Europe, North America and Australasia. Draws on original research into the mechanisms by which the British government manages the defence estate. Illustrated with maps, plans and other figures.

Australian Contributions to Strategic and Military Geography

Australian Contributions to Strategic and Military Geography
Author: Stuart Pearson
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2018-03-08
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319734083

Drawing from military geography’s spatial roots, its embrace of dynamic systems, and integration of human and biophysical environments, this book helps in understanding the value of analyzing patterns, processes and systems, and cross-scale and multi-disciplinary ways of acting in a complex world, while making the case for a resurgence of strategic and military geography in Australia. Here, leading experts demonstrate that geography retains its relevance in clarifying the scale and dynamics of defense activities in assessments of the international, regional, national, and site impacts of changes in physical, cyber and human geographies. The cases presented show Australia contributing to a growing strategic and military geography.

The Strategic Defence and Security Review and the National Security Strategy

The Strategic Defence and Security Review and the National Security Strategy
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Defence Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2011-08-03
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9780215561138

This report notes mounting concern that UK Armed Forces may be falling below the minimum utility required to deliver the commitments that they are currently being tasked to carry out let alone the tasks they are likely to face between 2015 to 2020 when it is acknowledged that there will be capability gaps. The Committee is concerned that UK Armed Forces will be continually operating at the maximum level envisaged by the Defence Planning Assumptions. The Committee is not convinced that this aspiration can be achieved by co-operation with our allies given the challenges of aligning political with operational needs. The SDSR identified seven military tasks and the Defence Planning Assumptions that underpin them. However the Review fails to show how decisions such as those on the Aircraft Carriers and Nimrod MRA4 will lead to the Armed Forces being able to undertake those military tasks. The Committee has serious concerns over the realisation of what is called "Future Force 2020", the Government's intended shape of the Armed Forces from 2020, particularly as the provision of the necessary resources is only a Government aspiration, not Government policy. The MoD must reform, and ensure substantially improved transparency and control over, its finance and budgetary practices. When committing to undertake new operations the Government should state from the outset where that operation fits in the Defence Planning Assumptions and which of the military tasks it is meeting. The Committee is concerned that the Government seems to have postponed the sensible aspiration of bringing commitments and resources into line, in that it has taken on the new commitment of Libya while reducing the resources available to MoD.

Treasury minutes on the third to the thirteenth reports from the Committee of Public Accounts session 2010-11

Treasury minutes on the third to the thirteenth reports from the Committee of Public Accounts session 2010-11
Author: Great Britain. Treasury
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2011-02-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780101801423

The reports published as HC 470 (ISBN 9780215555106); HC 440 (9780215555144); HC 471 (9780215555205); HC 439 (9780215555243); HC 538 (9780215555434); HC 424 (9780215555496); HC 553 (9780215555502); HC 503 (9780215555571); HC 573 (9780215555595); HC 610 (9780215555656); HC 594 (9780215555717), session 2010-11

Current Good Practices and New Developments in Public Sector Service Management

Current Good Practices and New Developments in Public Sector Service Management
Author: Commonwealth Secretariat
Publisher: Commonwealth Secretariat
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2002
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780850927122

This is an update to the 1996 portfolio and continues to provide a framework for building and sustaining effective public service organisations, based on current good practice and the wide experience of senior public sector managers throughout the Commonwealth. The second edition contains much of the original material, now up-dated together with several new sections. The Portfolio update is designed to be used as a companion resource to the Public Service Country Profiles which, together, can be used as a basis for benchmarking to compare activities and best practices across different national settings.

Managing Built Heritage

Managing Built Heritage
Author: Stephen Bond
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2016-03-03
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 111829873X

This new edition examines management of built heritage through the use of values-led decision making, based on an understanding of the significance of the cultural asset. It considers how significance is assessed and used as an effective focus and driver for management strategies and processes. The authors consider key policies and procedures that need to be implemented to help ensure effective management. The book will be useful for specialists in built heritage - conservation officers, heritage managers, architects, planners, engineers and surveyors - as well as for facilities and estates managers whose building stock includes protected or designated structures or buildings in conservation or other historic areas. describes management strategies and tools for a wide range of built heritage assets a reflective and informative guide on current conservation management explains how understanding and using conservation values (significance ) is essential to the protection of the built heritage uses real-life examples to draw out best practice