Senior responsible owners (SROs) have responsibility for ensuring a programme meets its objectives. SROs oversee governance of programmes and steer them through key decision points, assisted by a delivery team. The NAO’s analysis showed that the median time in post for an SRO was 22 months, against median programme length of 77 months, reflecting the career path requirements of the senior officers who fill most SRO roles. A recent departmental survey found that many SROs did not feel empowered to carry out their roles, while some felt least competent in areas important to the effective management of suppliers.54 We asked the Department what it is doing to ensure that the role of SRO becomes an important part of the CV for military officers. The Department claims it has a good record of putting SROs through Major Projects Leadership Academy 49 C&AG’s report, para 17 and Figure 7 50 C&AG’s report, paras 4.6–4.7 51 Qq 83–84 52 Qq 85–86 53 Q 103 54 C&AG’s report, para 4.11 Improving the performance of major defence equipment contracts 17 training,55 but some of its own survey respondents reported difficulty in accessing it.56 The Department was non-committal on the actions it plans to take, but said that it is looking at personnel policy to ensure project and programme delivery are recognised as military trades in their own right. It also aspires to ensure that SROs spend at least 50% of their time on programmes and said it has experience of some personnel staying on programmes for longer than a traditional military appointment (‘double touring’).57 We also asked whether, for military SROs, the Department had thought about moving towards a model whereby the SRO stays in post throughout the term of a particular contract, and promotion is dependent on the successful delivery of that contract. The Department said it had experience of “double-touring” people to get longer terms in office, and that there were examples where it would be happy to see military SROs promoted ‘in