Tri-Service

MoD Military Contracts "Not Fit For Purpose"

Investment in large-scale defence projects such as the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers is unsustainable, according to a cross-party think tank.

In a new book by Civitas, defence experts have urged the Ministry of Defence to reduce its reliance on major programmes delivered by a few prime contractors, if it's to meet the UK's security needs within the limits of a much tighter budget.

A lengthy report released by Civitas outlined the following:

• Acquisition processes, no longer compatible with a smaller budget, are "in an impossible mess", say defence experts.

• Priorities must shift from large, expensive equipment to flexible research and development that can rapidly meet specific weapons requirements as needed.

• Politicians are falling prey to a "positively dangerous" illusion that Britain is as powerful as a decade ago.

Read the report, 'Defence Acquisition for the Twenty-first Century', here.

Forces TV spoke to Bernard Jenkins MP, the author of Defence Acquisition for the Twenty-first Century:

They went on to identify partnerships with prime contractor defence companies such as BAE Systems as “no longer fit for purpose” which incur “massively unnecessary costs”.

“A process of reducing forces to support ever-smaller quantities of ever higher performance equipment, plus the ever-increasing ‘labour cost’ of the soldiers, sailors and airmen and women trained to use this equipment, has brought us ever diminishing returns over the last 20 years, to the point at which defence today is no longer sustainable on this basis,” the report said.

Rather than depending on large and expensive programmes that provide "standing capability", Britain must develop a research and industrial base which is able to respond rapidly to the specific demands presented by different campaigns as they arise.

The Ministry of Defence should "evolve away from the idea of big defence equipment programmes, dependent upon the very few defence prime contractors" and step up research and development funding for small and medium sized enterprises.