Ministry of Defence: Defence equipment and support
Corporate Accreditation case study
Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) is the crucial trading arm of the Ministry of Defence that procures and gives lifetime support for the equipment that the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force need to protect the UK and meet a complex range of threats and challenges in a rapidly changing world.
As well as ships, submarines, aircraft, vehicles, weapons and supporting services, DE&S is also responsible for food, clothing, medical supplies and temporary accommodation. It manages inventories and supports the British Forces Post Office and the Submarine Dismantling Project.
DE&S’s priorities are to provide the best possible support to the Armed Forces and to secure best value for money for taxpayers. The DE&S transformation programme underpins this challenge and, it is through this, that DE&S will become a recognised leader in Defence acquisition and in-service support.
"DE&S took the opportunity to work in conjunction with APM and assist in developing the APM Competence Framework over the last 24 months. As part of moving to a balanced matrix, DE&S has now embedded these competencies at the heart of the five cross-cutting competencies, which underpins the DE&S Professional Competence Framework. Using a professional body, and adopting an industry benchmark that is recognised internationally, enables us to develop our P3M community in their professional excellence.”
As part of its progressive improvement process, the organisation has moved from taking APM competencies as a reference to wholeheartedly adopting the APM Competence Framework. Every project management, and supporting role, at all levels has the required APM competencies built into the newly implemented role profile. Individuals will then be assessed against this, as part of their twice yearly performance assessment, to assist in highlighting opportunities for professional development and identifying the future career pathway to realise future aspirations and achieve professional excellence.
"Achieving corporate accreditation is great news for DE&S and the function. With APM Corporate Accreditation, we stand out as an exemplar in the development of project management professionals – helping us attract, develop and retain the best talent in the country and reaffirm our position as a world-class delivery organisation and partner of choice for our customers and suppliers.”