Change needed, but progress being made to procure kit for Armed Forces, says official

Change is needed – and fast – in order to speed up the procurement process for the Armed Forces, National Armaments Director Rupert Pearce has insisted.

"Inherent in the defence industrial strategy is working with industry to speed up and simplify our procurement processes," he said.

Mr Pearce, who was speaking before the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee, said progress was being made.

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Words matched by action

"I think there are a lot of good green shoots going on," he said. "We are looking to take our big platforms down from an average of six years... to two.

"We're looking to take our systems down from three years' average to one – and everything else to three months.

"And we've got metrics to track that and the team are working very, very hard to get there."

Defence Secretary Wes Streeting added: "And I can say, because I've not been around long enough to take personal credit for that, on major platforms that's already come down from six years to just under five years since the publication of the SDR [Strategic Defence Review].

"So there's definitely more to go at, but it shows that words are being matched by action."

Exquisite or good enough?

The National Armaments Director explained how the kit procured for the Armed Forces was a mixture of high end and adequate – and that was the correct approach.

"We need to procure in more ambitious and well-calibrated ways," he said. "We have a tendency to over-procure.

"We have a tendency to design for the exquisite as opposed to the good enough.

"And in some areas, we want to be exquisite still, because it's a key capability to overcome our adversary.

"In other areas, good enough is by definition good enough, and that's what we need to procure for."

Mr Pearce said he wanted to highlight the practical steps that are already being taken.

"We're trying to simplify our procurement, we're trying to take layers out of it," he said.

"We're trying to engage much earlier with industry, in inviting them in to figure out how we can solve these problems.

"And above all, we're trying to stratify our procurement. So yes, those big platforms require a lot more planning and design, but why take the same approach for everything?

"[If] we stratify our procurement and we develop proper commercial pathways for different types of procurement, then we can really shorten things dramatically."