Multinational Headquarters (MNHQ)
In order to meet the Chief of Defence Staff’s directive to provide the core of an Operational HQ (OHQ) and the core of a Force HQ (FHQ) for European Union-led military Crisis Management Operations (CMOs), a MNHQ facility has been developed at Northwood.
The facility is located in Bldg 410, in the same building as PJHQ, and part of it has already been activated to provide an OHQ for command of the EU-led Counter-Piracy operation (Op ATALANTA). The whole facility provides essential infrastructure for a multinational staff based around a PJHQ Key Nucleus and is provided with a direct secure communications link into Brussels.
Commander-in-Chief Fleet
The flag of the Commander in Chief Fleet has flown over the Northwood Headquarters since its transfer from the Portsmouth-based depot ship HMS TYNE in 1960 in the guise of CINC Home Fleet.
By 1971, this had grown to encompass CINCFLEET (Commander-in-Chief Fleet), and the RN (Royal Navy) took over responsibility for the whole site. The principal aim of the Commander in Chief is to prepare and operate the Fleet in both war and peace, delivering operational capability and providing maritime advice and services to other Government Departments.
To this end, he exercises full command of all the Royal Navy's surface ships, submarines, aircraft, Fleet Auxiliaries and the Corps of Royal Marines - in total some 33,000 RN personnel and over 4,000 civilian staff.
In April 2002, as a result of the 'Fleet First' initiative, most of CINCFLEET staff moved to Portsmouth, and the Northwood site became the tri-Service establishment it now is.
CINCFLEET himself, and a residual core of staff, have remained at Northwood so that he can carry out his parallel NATO job of COMNAVNORTH (Commander Allied Naval Forces North).
ISS REPRESENTATIVE ORGANISATION (IRO) MISSION
“To understand the Customer and enable ISS to deliver to Defence priorities”
What is the IRO?
The IRO is critical to establishing a more effective and coherent route into ISS with the key component being the new, single ISS Representative (ISS Rep), whose main task is to establish a strong working relationship with ISS’s customers and reaching back into ISS on their behalf. The IRO is comprised of five Regions operating throughout the UK and overseas. IRO Region 5 is responsible for Northwood and overseas sites with the HQ element and local ISS Rep operating from the Northwood site.
What is the IRO responsible for at Northwood?
We are the ISS Customer facing component covering all customers at site level.
The IRO is charged with providing consistent and coherent Front Door services to ISS customers, through a series of customer-facing processes and procedures. The commitment of ISS to these processes is set out in its Customer Charter, which includes key targets.
The successful delivery of these Front Door services is dependant upon effective and close working relationships with ISS's delivery teams and other business units supporting the activities necessary to meet customers' needs and to inform and manage their expectations.
Alongside the Defence CIS Single Point of Contact (owning the relationship between ISS and its end users) and the Programmes group (owning the relationship with the Sponsor), the IRO owns the relationship between ISS and its customers.
ISS INTERNAL SERVICE PROVIDER (ISP) MISSION
“To deliver operational support providing the right services at the right time”
What does ISP do?
Deliver Support. The ISP is the in-house service delivery arm of Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) Information Systems and Services (ISS). The primary focus of ISP is to provide support to military operations worldwide, involving the delivery and assurance of integrated information services to the front line and the business components of the Department.
ISP contributes to the delivery of customer-focussed Information Services to users worldwide. These services are provided on behalf of ISS Delivery Teams (DTs) who are the primary customers of ISP. The outputs of ISP include:
- Direct support to operations, e.g. the design, build, installation, commissioning and complex project management of bespoke military comms systems in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
- Indirect support to operations, e.g. comms aspects support to strategic and tactical ISTAR systems such as Reaper which support live operations.
- Support to CPM, e.g. project management of the ICS aspects of particularly complex major MOD accommodation / relocation projects, such as the Streamlining Accommodation Project and PRIDE (Programme to Rationalise and Integrate DIS Estate).
- The provision of High Grade Messaging services, including transmission of operational orders and notification of casualties.
- Support to UOR and UOT e.g. by working with the UOR / UOT centre of ISS to ensure Eng Ops / DSG / SAI and other elements of the ISP deliver the best support.
- Provision of SCIDA, providing configuration control of site infrastructure.
- Deployed System Support, e.g. support to JOCS, from PJHQ to operational theatres.
- Maintaining an enterprise view of all networked hardware/software CIS elements and CIS gateways through the Exploiting the Baseline (EtB) capability.
- Support to legacy IT, provision of unified IT hardware and audio-visual maintenance service through Single Source Maintenance Contract (SSM).
- Head of Establishment Services, management of St. Vincent facility.