New procurement system seeks to transform delivery of kit to UK's Armed Forces
The Ministry of Defence has unveiled a new procurement system that it says will vastly speed up the time it takes to provide new equipment.
Defence Procurement Minister James Cartlidge told MPs that the current system for getting new kit is often over complex, over budget and over time.
Under the new system, future kit will be supplied much earlier in the design process with the military helping to develop it.
In response to the announcement, shadow defence minister Maria Eagle said defence procurement was "a mess" which needed "deep and major reform".
She also accused the Government of "failing British forces and failing British taxpayers" as she claimed £15bn had been wasted due to mismanagement of defence procurement programmes.
Speaking in the Commons, Mr Cartlidge said that Britain's adversaries are ramping up their procurement and technology "at a frankly frightening pace", to which the UK needed to embrace "this deep relationship with industry, this constant feedback loop on data from the frontline and wargaming".
He outlined the five key elements of the new Integrated Procurement Model, as: 1) a joined-up approach 2) new checks and balances 3) prioritising exportability 4) empowering industrial innovation 5) using the spiral development.
Mr Cartlidge said: "From the second week of April, the integration design authority will be formally delivering its new oversight function in support of the integrated procurement model.
"For major new programmes starting after that date, newly formed expert advice will be made available to ministers ensuring we thrash all the hard issues at the beginning of a major procurement, locking down the key policy decisions, so that our SROs (Senior Responsible Owner) and commercial functions can deliver at pace from there on in."
Existing projects would continue under the current model for "contractual reasons".
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