My reflections on these questions are based on both my own experiences as a business owner in the industry and as a prematurely retired officer, as well as by observing the effects on healthcare, with a staffing situation partially affected by the model of hired personnel. My perception of the current state within total defence is that we have a market where there are both consultants who provide specialist expertise for the development of products or operations, and consultants who constitute pure staffing.
I do not believe that staffing consultants for longer assignments are the right solution for total defence, both economically and from an availability perspective in crisis and war. Here, operations need to employ their own personnel who can be developed and placed according to the needs of the operation. Regarding the procurement of staffing services, it also feels strange that it could theoretically be cheaper to have a supplier, with subcontractors, who must aim to make a profit, entirely according to the rules for obtaining an F-tax certificate. In other words, it is probably a better long-term societal investment to offer employment conditions within total defence actors that somewhat correspond to the individual's conditions as a staffing consultant.
The consultants needed within total defence for a time-limited effort as specialist expertise will likely continue to be needed, both as individual consultants and larger assignments in the form of service products. The need may be a result of quickly obtaining and implementing external knowledge in one's own organisation, for example, to utilise open innovation. If consultants are important to the operation, the client also needs to analyse the risks that arise from using external personnel. This is fundamentally nothing other than the management of supply chains of human resources and can, for example, be done by requiring the supplier to report results from availability control at the Swedish Defence Recruitment Agency. This allows the socially important operations within total defence to assess the risk of the person needing to leave the assignment urgently in the event of increased readiness, including Home Guard alerts.
The fact that we today have a consultancy market within total defence is possibly the product of a combination of the need and resources such as retirement or early departure of agency personnel and a number of individuals who want to contribute to a robust society. The fact that competencies are available on the market to a relatively large extent is probably also the result of total defence cutbacks from the 1990s until 2015, which created career transition needs for surplus personnel and an initially relatively favourable competitive situation for customers. This still gives total defence, and for a limited number of coming years, the opportunity to utilise good experience and competence on how total defence can be shaped, but at the same time with a risk regarding how resources can be ordered and delivered when the crisis or war comes.
We therefore need to develop the view of the consultancy industry within total defence and security, regarding both society's need for availability and economy. The dimensioning requirements of availability should be increased readiness, which means that consultants need to report whether they can continue to deliver after, for example, readiness increases. Security protection is a given today, but the robustness of delivery security needs to increase. This should mean that orders should not be made for single competence without suppliers and customers striving to create groups of people with equivalent competence.
It is not reasonable to believe that there will be a surplus of total defence resources in the coming ten years. This means that competence-creating efforts need to be made together between customers and the consultancy industry's suppliers without competition through, for example, salaries and benefits distorting the relationship between the parties. Higher education within total defence cannot be more or less limited to one educational institution, the Swedish Defence University, but needs to be expanded according to, for example, the same model as the Police Academy's commissioned education at several educational institutions on a full- or part-time basis. This can contribute to creating more available opportunities for general competence within the total defence area and provides the opportunity for quality-assured further education for students from other main areas, especially for the competence required for Sweden as part of NATO.
A robust consultancy industry within total defence should be able to continue delivering important services during crisis and war, which places demands on a loyal relationship with customers in exchange for long-term market regulations. We should not end up in a situation where staffing consultants take economic resources from the build-up of total defence or where consultants with single competence risk availability in the event of illness, accidents, or Home Guard alerts. It is up to the industry to support this and not just aim for maximised economic profit in the year's results.
Fredrik RuudaOwner and senior consultant, Ruuda Consulting AB
Former professional and reserve officer (major)