Persistent Challenges in the UK Defence Equipment Acquisition
Abstract
Equipping the armed forces to deliver their outputs is one of the most important, challenging and complex tasks faced by the UK government. There are few, if any, public sector investment programmes that involve such levels of uncertainty, complexity, technical risk and expenditure. Often, acquisition programmes experience one or more of the challenges associated with such large investments: cost growth, schedule slippage and performance shortfall. This affects value for-money, as well as the overall ability of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and armed forces to deliver the defence contribution to achieving the UK's National Security Objectives (NSOs) - meaning that the UK's security, prosperity and influence suffers as a result. For decades, the National Audit Office (NAO) has been monitoring and evaluating the performance of defence acquisition programmes. The NAOs reports and analyses, such as the Major Projects Review and Equipment Plan as well as focused studies, are publicly available. Over the years, the NAO has examined both individual equipment programmes and the overall acquisition system. It has identified many of the reasons behind poor programme performance and provided both general principles and specific recommendations that will allow the MOD to improve programme delivery. For example: NAO (2004); NAO (2005); NAO (2021). For example: Gray (2009); Levene (2011). In January 2021, the NAO commissioned RAND Europe to prepare a short discussion paper to help shed light on the underlying causes of equipment procurement problems and the reasons why they persist despite repeated efforts to learn from the past. Part of the global RAND Corporation, RAND Europe is a not-for-profit research institute whose mission is to help improve policy and decision making through objective research and analysis.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1137713
Entities
People
- Ben Williams
- James Black
- Julia Muravska
- Lucia Retter