Babcock & MoD Announce Support Arrangement for Landing Craft

(February 2, 2010) -- The Ministry of Defence and Babcock have finalised a ground-breaking continuous engineering support (CES) arrangement for the long term support of Landing Craft.

The Royal Navy operates a flotilla of 33 craft made up of Landing Craft Utility (LCU) and Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVP) operating from the Amphibious Capital Ships HMS Ocean, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark.

Under the new CES agreement, Babcock will undertake all LCU and LCVP support period activity, and will be making a more proactive contribution to the work required based on its knowledge and experience, working with the MoD to develop the maintenance requirements jointly. In the past Landing Craft have been the poor relation within the support community, and the implementation of the CES solution pulls together a single team in Devonport working alongside the end user, the Royal Marines, to deliver significant improvements in landing craft materiel state and availability whilst also delivering significant savings in through life costs.

The initiative has been established in quick time, progressing from initial concept to implementation in 10 months. Key to enabling this has been establishing a single plan, a single budget and a co-located team of engineers dedicated to the delivery of support to the landing craft.

Chief of Materiel (Fleet), Vice Admiral Mathews, CB FREng, officially launched the arrangement at HM Naval Base Devonport yesterday (1 February). At the event Capt Graeme Little, OBE, RN, Capital Ships In-Service Ships Team Leader, commented: "This is a turning point in the provision of engineering support to the Royal Marines and is a further demonstration that MoD and industry can work together extremely effectively to deliver in an increasingly tight financial climate. The initiative will see a significant increase in craft availability and is a real success for the amphibious surface manoeuvre community. We also see this as an important stepping-stone in the drive for further improvements as part of the wider joint initiative between MoD and Babcock to develop Devonport as the RN Centre for Amphibious Support Excellence."

Babcock Warships Director (Devonport), Chris Tomkins said: "This is an exciting opportunity for us. We are confident of delivering significant benefits and improvements in the maintenance of these important vessels under this new arrangement. It is an opportunity to provide demonstrable evidence to the MoD and our RN customer that we can support platforms in a more cost-effective and efficient way, underpinned by a strong Babcock/MoD partnering ethos."

Source : Babcock International