Observing the Royal Navy’s part in the conflict from a distance, Conley had noticed that the warships operating in the north Persian Gulf near the Iraqi littoral, where there was a threat from both Iraqi naval forces and mines, were either American or British. Vessels of other navies were generally deployed well to the south, out of harm’s way. However, the first force to land in Kuwait from the sea was a French mine-clearance contingent and while the French tricolour was very evident, there was no sign of a British white ensign as Royal Navy mine clearance was being conducted well offshore; indeed, there was little visible presence of the British in Kuwait at all, the situation the British ambassador to Kuwait encountered soon after being reinstated.
The crisis organisation at the Ministry of Defence wound down during March, and the 31st, which happened to be Easter Sunday, was the final day of the Ministry’s Granby organisation and Conley’s last day of duty. Anticipating a quiet, anticlimactic day, his reading of the Sunday newspapers was interrupted by the receipt of an urgent telegram from the ambassador pleading that a battalion-sized British battle group of infantry be deployed to Kuwait forthwith. The diplomat was very concerned that with no ‘boots on the ground’, lucrative post-war reconstruction contracts were bound to go to America and France, both of which still had substantial ground forces in place. The ambassador also pointed out that since Prime Minister John Major was intending to make a statement in the House of Commons that there would be no new deployment of British forces to the Gulf, there was a real urgency in this situation.
With the help of his two assistant watchkeepers, a wing commander and a lieutenant colonel, Conley contacted the key members of the MoD hierarchy, most of whom had just enjoyed a substantial Easter Sunday lunch by the time he managed to speak to them. Armed with their verbal support, he succeeded in rapidly putting together a brief to the prime minister’s office, strongly recommending the immediate deployment of a battle group to Kuwait. Two days later it was of some satisfaction to Conley that he heard on the radio the prime minister announcing that a battle group of infantry would immediately deploy to Kuwait. Never again would he experience such sensible, rapid and emphatic MoD decision-making.
During his brief spell of duty in the MoD, Conley had learned a little bit about the military/political interface and had observed how, in an emergency, major decisions could be made quickly. Nevertheless, he was about to join an organisation which was on the whole risk-averse and where the approval and decision-making process could be very ponderous.
Having moved his family to a new home in Wiltshire, in April 1991 Conley reported to the Commodore Naval Ship Acceptance (CNSA) organisation in Foxhill, Bath. This small section, part of the Ministry’s Procurement Executive (PE), consisted of about a dozen officers with their supporting staff. As its name suggested, it was headed by a commodore who was responsible for formally accepting ships and submarines from their builders on the completion of construction and successful sea trials. The section was also charged with advising when new weapon systems had met their MoD specification — defined as the ‘agreed characteristics’ — and that they were fully ready for operational service. This seemingly straightforward process was, to Conley’s chagrin, full of pitfalls. These often arose from flaccid and imprecise specifications, the bane of any procurement programme, or worse, there could be a significant mismatch between the Ministry-endorsed detailed specification and the actual content of the contract placed by the PE. When this occurred there were inevitable disputes, and no available money to remedy voids or deficiencies.
Conley found the Foxhill site depressing. It consisted of a sprawling complex of single-storey brick buildings which had been built in 1944 as a temporary hospital to receive the anticipated high level of casualties from the D-Day landings. In the event, it was never used for this purpose and instead became home to the rump of the Royal Navy’s division of the PE. This, in turn, came under the eye of the Controller of the Navy, an admiral who served on the Navy Board. With the Procurement Executive responsible for the design and procurement of ships and submarines, along with their weapon and command systems, a separate entity, known as Chief of Fleet Support, ran ship and submarine maintenance and stores support and it was also quartered in Bath.
Not only did Conley find the environment at Foxhill dejecting, but he found its culture weird and very difficult to assimilate. He was one of only a handful of seamen officers in a very large organisation dominated by the Civil Service and the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors, the MoD’s naval architects and ship equipment designers. Despite a cadre of weapon and marine engineer officers in senior posts, and whilst there were several naval constructors with whom the new captain worked well, Conley perceived a strong vein of arrogance running through the establishment, manifested by a degree of disdain for the Royal Navy’s seamen officers. If he thought that his extensive operational experience and knowledge of sonar — including state-of-the-art American systems — would be of value, Conley was to be disappointed. Instead, he discovered an organisation which was more focused upon processes as opposed to outcomes. Moreover, and significantly, in view of the challenges confronting the modern Royal Navy, many of his weapon engineer officer peers in the organisation lacked operational experience. Typically, they had undertaken only two sea appointments, yet they would be key in providing their particular projects with front-end user input. It was evident to Conley that the United States Navy’s ‘line officer’ system, where the majority of mainstream officers had both warfare specialisation and engineering experience had real advantages within the procurement ambit, and that absence of any comparable system at Bath was damaging to the procurement process of the Royal Navy.
It was clear to Conley that within the overall procurement organisation there were groups of individuals pulling in different directions, be it politicians perversely directing contracts to underperforming firms in areas where they had historic political support or obligations, or civil servants charged with slowing down the whole process to meet annual budget targets. These problems were compounded by many important individuals, particularly Service personnel, normally being in post for only two or three years, an unacceptably short period of time when compared to the length of modern procurement cycles. With a lack of ‘process ownership’ and responsibility, this practice had a debilitating effect upon both continuity and accountability. To this woeful situation was added the MoD’s inclination to demand unnecessary sophistication and/or capability in new projects that, within the set-price contract, was unattainable by British industry. Finally, in many areas the prevailing project management competence was very weak. In sum, it was little wonder to Conley that whilst it had had its highly commendable successes, the PE had an ongoing history of complex projects running into severe problems of overspend, underperformance and overrunning.
Conley had plenty to do when he joined CNSA. The Cold War might have been over, but the final submarine of the Trafalgar class, HMS Triumph, was nearing completion at VSEL Barrow, while the first of the huge Trident-class SSBNs, HMS Vanguard, was progressing well in the same shipyard. Meanwhile, on the Mersey, the final three diesel boats of the Upholder class were completing at Cammell Laird shipyard at Birkenhead.