Reform of the MoD Taken from the 2023 Defence Command Paper, it stated that additional resource alone would not be sufficient to meet the challenges faced by the MOD, and that reform is necessary, particularly in relation to procurement. Two current reforms that will need focus are:
The Strategic Defence Review for 2025
Acquisition reform, anticipated following the launch of the Integrated Procurement Model in February 2024, which “set out procurement reforms to increase the pace and agility of equipment acquisition, including, for example, by reducing bureaucracy and embedding ‘spiral’ development, whereby projects deploy a minimum capacity more quickly and iterate the design over the project life”. It is critical that the SDR will evaluate that approach “with the aim of building on them to drive more pace and better value for money in equipment acquisition in future years”. Enhancing international partnerships , with the government emphasising the need to enhance the UK’s defence partnerships, which includes planning for a UK-EU security pact. Existing international programmes including AUKUS, a trilateral security partnership between the UK, the US, and Australia, and the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), a partnership with Italy and Japan to build a next generation fighter aircraft, have also received explicit support from the new government.
The Strategic Defence Review (SDR) announced by the government is due to be published in the first half of 2025 and promises a “root and branch” review of UK defence. There are several key trends and issues that it anticipates either becoming or remaining prominent within UK defence:
Shifts in investment strategy The government has committed to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence where economic conditions allow it. UK authorities have noted “it is likely that these increasing resources will be invested differently to the past”, with lessons to be learned from the war in Ukraine, and “the need to move away from basing acquisition primarily on large, multi-year physical equipment ‘platforms’. Instead, investment should be prioritised in software as much as hardware, including cutting- edge technologies (e.g. autonomous vehicles and direct energy weapons) and research (e.g. Artificial Intelligence), as well as in the new domains of cyber and space capabilities”.
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