Select committee: Defence Committee
Conclusion 6
Ninth Report - It is broke — and it’s time to fix it: The UK’s defence procurement system
Published 16 Jul 2023
Paragraph 96
Defence Committee All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
DE&S does not allocate enough resource to legal and commercial talent. DE&S should have a greater appetite for, and access to, use of external specialist contract lawyers to support its work. We believe this would be money well spent to ensure that costly programmes (especially category A programmes) do not experience costly contractual disputes later in their life, to the taxpayer’s disadvantage.
From: Defence Committee, Ninth Report - It is broke — and it’s time to fix it: The UK’s defence procurement system (HC 1099), paragraph 96, 16 July 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 20 September 2023 (deadline 16 September 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government does not agree that the procurement system is broken, but accepts "the need for reform" and sets out reform work already under way across Defence.
- On the Committee's P75 recommendation, it agrees there is "a strong argument" for higher probability figures for schedule approval of complex programmes, and has issued guidance making P70 "the norm on schedule" for Government Major Projects Portfolio programmes. It says approval at a higher P value "will not improve project performance".
- It agrees on the need for more consistent dialogue with industry and on "an increased emphasis on time", but says it "would therefore not be desirable" to use the Urgent Capability Requirements approach across the whole defence portfolio.
- On accountability, it "recognises the need to clarify internal accountabilities", and says this will be addressed in the Defence Operating Model review. It says "active consideration" is being given to the CEO of DE&S joining the Defence Board.
- On SRO tenure, it notes there is "no formal mechanism" to keep an individual in post for five years, but says it continues to explore how to use available levers such as performance pay and pivotal role allowances.