CASE STUDY - CHINOOK CAPABILITY SUSTAINMENT PROGRAMME

The Chinook Capability Sustainment Programme joined the GMPP as part of the 2021 review set up to ensure all relevant projects were included in the portfolio, but had been running since 2017.

As such, it has the rare honour of being a newcomer to the portfolio which is already rated green, since it is already at an advanced stage with robust governance, finance, and solutions in place.

The programme aims to ensure the UK’s fleet of Chinook helicopters – currently comprising 60 aircraft – will remain in action until the 2040s.

In the first tranche of the project, the oldest helicopters in the fleet will be retired and replaced with new models procured from the US government. The 2020 Defence Command Paper described this process by saying the UK government would be “investing, alongside the US, in newer variants of this operationally proven aircraft, enhancing capability, efficiency and interoperability.”

The £1.4bn contract for these 14 new helicopters was signed in

May 2021, and they are expected to be delivered from 2026 onwards,

Alongside the purchase of new models, the Chinook CSP will see newer craft in the fleet updated to contain the latest technology developed by manufacturers Boeing, and the fleet is expected to reduce in size to around 51 craft. The programme has a budget of £1.52bn to the end of 2030, when it will formally end – though the total cost of keeping the Chinook fleet in action until 2050 is expected to be £2.15bn.

The programme was originally budgeted to spend around £30m in 2021-22 but by the time the MoD data was gathered it was forecast to spend over £103m – a huge overspend which the department said was the result of “the bring forward of long lead time item and the confirmation of requirements against the existing agreements”.

Long lead time items are those which will take the longest to design or build and which should therefore be ordered as soon as possible to avoid delays later in a project.

Accordingly, the

MoD information suggests that overspending in 2021-22 to bring forward this item “is expected to reduce cost growth in later years”.

Chinook helicopters, with their characteristic double rotor blade, have been in action in the RAF for over 40 years, and the story of their arrival in the UK demonstrates that challenges in defence procurement are nothing new. The UK government first ordered 15 Chinooks in March 1967, only to cancel them 10 months later in a round of defence budget cuts. Another order was placed soon after, but cancelled again in 1971.

Finally, a successful procurement began in 1978 and the UK’s first Chinooks arrived at RAF Odiham in 1981, seeing action just a few months later in the Falklands war.