Bernard Gray

Bernard Gray is a former special adviser to the Labour Party, based in the Ministry of Defence (MoD). In December 2010 he was appointed to the role of chief of defence materiel in the MoD, leading the defence equipment & support organisation. He replaced General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue.

Background

Gray began his career with five years in investment banking for Bankers Trust and Chase Manhattan in London and New York, before working for almost ten years as a journalist on the Financial Times Group.

From 1997 to 1999, Gray was special adviser to former Secretaries of State for Defence George Robertson and Geoff Hoon, where Gray directed the 1998 Strategic Defence Review.

From 1999 to 2001, Gray was Strategy Director of the UK publishing and events division of United Business Media, CMP Information. He was heavily involved in the proposed Carlton-UBM merger. From January 2003 to July 2006, he was a non-executive director of Cable and Wireless. He was also Chairman of the Remuneration Committee from January 2003 to 31 March 2006. He has also served as non-executive director for the UK broadcaster Five.

In October 2005, Gray was appointed as Chief Executive of TSL Education Limited (publishers of the Times Educational Supplement) when it was acquired by Exponent.

2009, Gray's defence procurement report

In 2008, the former Defence Secretary John Hutton commissioned Gray to undertake an independent review of defence acquisition published in October 2009. Although publication was initially moved from July 2009 until after the general election - prompting The Spectator to suggest that it had been "suppressed" - the confidential report was leaked to The Sunday Telegraph in August 2009. The Times highlights some of the more "damning" extracts from the report:

• The department is running a "substantially overheated equipment programme, with too many types of equipment being ordered for too large a range of tasks at too high a specification".
• the MoD is "harming our ability ... to conduct difficult current operations".
• "The problems, and the sums of money involved, have almost lost their power to shock, so endemic is the issue."
• "It seems as though military equipment acquisition is vying in a technological race with the delivery of civilian software systems for the title of ’world’s most delayed technical solution’. Even British trains cannot compete."
• "How can it be that it takes 20 years to buy a ship, or aircraft, or tank? Why does it always seem to cost at least twice what was thought? Even worse, at the end of the wait, why does it never quite seem to do what it was supposed to?"
• "Agile enemies such as the Taleban are unlikely to wait for our sclerotic acquisition systems to catch up".

Contact, Resources, Notes

Resources

• Review of Acquisition for the Secretary of State for Defence: An independent report by Bernard Gray, October 2009