As the giant DSEI arms fair gets underway in east London, Iain Overton catalogues 10 instances demonstrating the problems with Government defence procurement
On 14 September, the British Government-backed arms fair, Defence and Security Equipment International, (DSEI) was launched in London. A biennial defence and security trade exhibition that in 2019 welcomed 1,700 exhibitors from 58 countries, it has been the source of much criticism arising from concerns that a British-backed arm trade helps fuel human rights abuses worldwide.
Despite such ethical concerns, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) sent General Sir Patrick Sanders, the UK Strategic Commander, to launch the event. In so doing, it indicated that the Government was there with a seemingly open cheque book. After all, Sanders stated that “in the last 12 months we [the British military] have been given the means to modernise with a historic funding settlement”.
One of the main themes of the fair, Sanders said, was to “create and close kill chains”. These kill chains had to apply “machine learning and AI to exploit data, support decision-making and enable expendable autonomous systems and swarming”.
The Government also, Sanders said, wanted to create what it called a ‘Digital Backbone’, “to prosecute hard strike, at extreme range, to destroy carefully selected targets”. And he asked the industry to help them with this, offering untold public funding to do so.
As the General said: “We need your help with this. In all humility. But we urgently need to go further and faster together.”
But going further and faster in creating the kill chain raises concerns. Moral ones, of course. But also concerns about the rising costs of this energetic transition from mechanisation to digitisation in the MoD, with the independent spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, rating its equipment plan as “unaffordable” for the past four years.
The NAO estimates this year’s plan’s shortfall could be as much as £17.4 billion between 2020 and 2030, leaving the Public Accounts Committee “extremely concerned.” This plan does not include an estimated £2 billion required to develop future military capabilities, which the committee states is “highly destabilising for defence”.
With billions of pounds set to be exchanged hands in London’s Docklands in arms sales, it is worth noting that both the NAO and the Public Accounts Committee has been highly critical of the MoD’s recent reliance on financial management strategies that result in higher overall costs and restrict the MoD’s ability to respond to new opportunities or threats.
Though an additional £16.5 billion of funding over the next four years was announced in November 2020, even this would not cover the worst-case scenario projected by the NAO – not to mention that much of it will likely be used to fund future projects rather than MoD’s current portfolio.
This short-term thinking has been aided by a lack of leadership in MoD procurement. Already under Boris Johnson’s premiership, there have been three Ministers for Defence Procurement, two leaving office after less than six months.
Neither were removed for issues related to poor management of MoD projects. Anne-Marie Trevelyan was appointed Minister for the Armed Forces after her first five months in office, before being promoted to a short-lived stint as International Development Secretary. James Heappey was reshuffled as the Armed Forces Minister after only two months in the position.
Such a lack of leadership raises further questions about whether the DSEI fair will witness huge amounts of public money being spent in the name of defence, without proper fiscal accountability.
After all, Byline Times has identified 10 programmes of interest – listed below – often with a specific focus on the digital future of warfare, which illustrate widespread programme management challenges, schedule delays and mounting costs. As Sanders said today, the British Military does not actually “have the diversity and skills needed to be competitive in the digital age… I have more need of Q, than I do 007 or M”.
In the absence of such personnel, there is a very real chance that significant amounts of British public funds could be wasted at the newly-opened trade show.
Ten Challenging Examples
Warrior Armoured Vehicle Upgrade
The Warrior Armoured Vehicle Upgrade programme was primarily concerned with the fitting of a new turret to accommodate a cannon supplied under a separate contract. A total of £430 million was spent on the project up to its cancellation as part of the Integrated Review of 2021.
2,000 jobs at Lockheed Martin UK and its supply chain – which is 80% British – are now at risk, as is the £1 billion gross value to the British economy that the project was expected to bring.
Ajax Armoured Vehicle
The aim<