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The UK plans to overhaul the way it buys military equipment as ministers seek to break with a legacy of disastrous defence procurement that has repeatedly led to multibillion-pound weapon programmes dogged by soaring cost overruns and lengthy delays.
The changes announced on Wednesday will see the Ministry of Defence prioritise considerations such as the export potential for new equipment as well as forging closer relations with industry.
The department would also seek to use so-called “spiral development” that would allow troops to start using the kit sooner with about 80 per cent capability, which would then be built out while it is in service.
Announcing the reforms, James Cartlidge, defence procurement minister, told MPs that the “narrative of our acquisition system has long been dogged by major programmes that were variously: over-complex; over-budget; over time”.
Among the “long-standing weaknesses” of defence acquisition was a “tendency to ‘exquisite’ procurement . . . potentially too bespoke to export, leaving industrial capacity vulnerable”, he added.
The overhaul is the latest attempt by successive governments to fix a system that has come under fire for wasting billions of taxpayers’ money on equipment that has been delivered late and over budget. High-profile examples in recent years have included the troubled £5.5bn Ajax armoured vehicle programme.
The parliamentary defence committee last year concluded that military procurement was “well and truly broken”.
In a damning report published in December, the National Audit Office, parliament’s spending watchdog, warned that the MoD’s 10-year budget for weapons and equipment of £288.6bn was facing a shortfall of between £16.9bn and £29.8bn.
Maria Eagle, Labour’s shadow defence procurement minister, welcomed the intent of reforming the system but said it was unclear how the changes would have prevented recent procurement disasters or would tackle the “waste, poor value for money and delays that appear endemic”.
She questioned whether the changes would “speed up or slow down” the time the MoD takes to specify and tender for contracts, citing the three-year delay in inviting bids for a new medium-sized transport helicopter for the army and air force.
Defence analysts were also sceptical about the scope of the reforms. Francis Tusa, editor at Defence Analysis, said the proposal to pursue spiral development was “not new”. The MoD’s procurement arm “has been suboptimal for the last 15-plus years. If all of these reforms are so obvious, why were they not done in the last 14 years?” he asked.
Labour, separately, outlined a series of defence reforms the party would implement if it won the next general election expected later this year. These included creating a post of national armaments director to offer fresh “strategic leadership” in procurement, said John Healey, shadow defence secretary.
He also unveiled plans to give more power to the chief of the defence staff, Britain’s most senior military officer, over the heads of each of the three armed services and over investment decisions.
Speaking at the think-tank Policy Exchange in London, Healey warned that Britain’s current defence arrangements were “not strong enough” to deal with a “much more threatening world”.
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