Procurement struggles to match the ambitions of UK's defence policy

THE UK’s defence procurement is ambitious on paper, underpowered in practice and often at war with itself.

- By Marco Giannangeli

The 2023 Procurement Act shone a light on the Ministry of Defence's £17billion buying arm, Defence Equipment & Support. While its 12,500 personnel work hard to deliver equipment for Ukraine, its structural failings still need to be tackled.

As one senior industry source put it, the current environment is “an accountability vacuum — lots of new mechanisms, few clear outcomes”.

Meanwhile, reform bodies such as the Single Source Regulations Office have come under pressure for being too narrow in scope and too slow to intervene when costs spiral.

The Act’s emphasis on “value for money” has also had the unintended effect of encouraging short-termism.

Defence chiefs are caught between Treasury pressure to control budgets and the MoD’s need to respond to fast-evolving threats such as hypersonics, cyberwarfare and drone swarms.