The Navy on Jan. 30 established a council to oversee reforms and recommendations stemming from the reviews spurred by deadly Navy mishaps, the service said Feb. 2.
The Navy is establishing the Readiness and Reform Oversight Council (RROC) “to oversee and ensure the implementation” of the Comprehensive Review (CR) and Strategic Readiness Review (SRR) recommendations.
The RROC is an expansion of the initial oversight board the Navy stood up to oversee changes recommended by the CR.
The Comprehensive Review, led by head of U.S. Fleet Forces Adm. Phil Davidson, was tasked with reviewing the systemic causes that led to the deadly collisions of the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) and USS John S. McCain (DDG-56). That first report was released last November (Defense Daily, Nov. 2).
Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. John Richardson tasked Vice Chief of Naval Operation (VCNO) Adm. William Moran to oversee the initial monthly oversight board to implement the CR recommendations (Defense Daily, Dec. 6). Moran will now co-chair the new RROC with Under Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly.
The SRR report was released in December and focused on problems larger than individual mishaps and problems just in the 7th Fleet. It focused on readiness, better matching supply and demand in naval forces, streamlining command and control structures for better accountability, and fostering a culture as a learning organization (Defense Daily, Dec. 14).
The new RROC charter says its purpose is to assess the overall effectiveness and health of Navy Department efforts to reform and improve readiness. It will provide a foundation to integrate and prioritize recommendations from top Department leaders, internal and external assessments, and “underpinned by the Navy’s broad analytic community,” the charter said.
The council document also said it plans to see reforms through to completion, which should “guard against similar future trends and challenges” that could impact naval readiness.
Organizationally, the RROC will set up efforts along functional lines of effort reported on in the SRR: command and control, operations, manning and training, budgetary and fiscal, governance, and industry best practices in learning. The Navy clarified CR and other report recommendations will be organized along these lines.
Recommendations in the RROC structure will be prioritized to guide Program Objective Memorandum (POM) resource allocation. Current policy and other governance restraints will be identified for removal, change, or improvement by a layer of review existing below the RROC, the Readiness Reform Steering Group (RRSG).
The Navy highlighted that “each reform will be underpinned by data analytics and metrics.”
As co-chairs of the RROC, Modly and Moran will have responsibility to assess the overall health and effectiveness of readiness reform tasks, approve closure of recommendations, modify priorities, and resolve conflicting objectives or efforts.
The RRCOV will then report assessments to Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, the CNO, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC) “on a frequent basis.”
The full membership of the RROC will also include the commanders of Fleet Forces (currently Davidson), Commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet (currently Adm. Scott Swift), and Director of the SRR Office.
The RROC charter also directs two layers of groups reporting to the RROC heads themselves: the Readiness Reform Steering Group (RRSG) and Readiness Reform Working Groups (RRWG).
The RRSG will be responsible for approving implementation plans, approving changes in ownership of recommendations and reforms, presenting proposed recommendations to the RROC, identifying policy/resource barriers, and vetting and incorporating additional reports and analysis for review.
The RRWG heads are responsible for recommendations under their purview, establishing implementation metrics and plans, and tracking recommendations. They will be divided into command and control, operations, manning, training, budgetary and fiscal, governance, and learning culture and industry best practices.
While most of those group responsibilities fall under various Deputy Chiefs of Naval Operations (DCNO) offices or assistant secretaries of the Navy, the learning culture/industry best practices group will be led by the Chief of Naval Reserve and co-leads designated directly by Spencer.
All groups above working groups will meet monthly, while RRWGs will meet as determined by their leads. The RRSG will also report to the RROC monthly.
The Navy said it expects to provide a report to Congress on the RROC progress in 2018. The charter said this report starts April 18, 90 days from Jan. 18.