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Press Release- Strategic Defence Review
As the leading “new generation” defence contractor in the United Kingdom, Roark Aerospace welcomed the decision of the new Labour government to conduct a “root and branch” review of the UK’s military capabilities.
Roark wholeheartedly agree that the UK’s armed forces are “not currently optimised for warfare” a situation we have been ringing the alarm on for over 2 years.
Our initial response to the SDR is one of cautious positivity. We have long felt that the biggest inhibitor to the modernisation of the UK military is the procurement process. The current processes for the acquisition of hardware are vastly bloated with needless steps and bureaucracy for bureaucracies sake. The conflict in Ukraine has shown the world that a decentralised development-procurement-deployment system with low barriers to entry is the path to enabling an on-going edge in conflict. The current UK system is overly centralised, prohibits startups from raising capital and favours a cabal of military primes, this has to change. We therefore are delighted to see the suggestions made to address this. Our own belief is that procurement should be decentralised to a regimental level for supply contracts up to £10M but, the proposed process is a step in the right direction providing the barriers to entry for new contractors are reduced. Should these proposed processes be implemented with a lowering of entry pain points, startups will likely be able to access more private sector funding and thus increase the availability of new technology to the UK military. Page 52 of the SDR gives perhaps the most telling insight in to the current issues face by the UK Military
On the subject of accessing private funding, the SDR states a commitment to allocating £400M per annum to the UK Defence Innovation fund. Based on recent funding rounds, including our own, this figure will barely scratch the surface. Roark’s belief is that the £400M should be allocated in to private funds with a core defence-tech focus that are managed by professional VC/PE’s. Left to bodies such as the DTSI, the funding will continue to be a wasted resource, funding projects only to TR-6 and with such convoluted award process/criteria and burdensome intervention from public bodies that not only will the funds not actually produce tangible output in the near-term, they will actually dissuade start-ups from seeking this funding. The very best way that the government can encourage investment in the sector is to give reassurance to investors that end-products will actually have a chance at being deployed, and not as part of a “future contracting opportunity” but as soon as the product is ready. The government should use caution when creating “industry-backed” schemes if these schemes are heavily weighted towards existing defence primes.
Roark note with interest comments made in the SDR regarding “Reconnecting defence with society” with a “renewed focus on home defence”. The proposal to increase the cadet force is positive although this should focus on recruiting cadets engaged in activities that lend themselves to the future of warfare. More pertinently, Roark note that no comment is made in respect of applying defence assets to the ongoing migrant crisis and border issues. A quick win for the government would be to deploy advanced assets such as USV’s and UAV’s to help in the battle against border incursions in the same way that the US have deployed 10th Mountain Division and advanced drone detection technology to their Southern borders.
One of the core belief’s at Roark is that the future of warfare is in the delivery of disposable technology, this means mass output, low cost and low production times. With this belief in mind we cannot agree with the SDR’s recommendations for allocation of funding to long-range strike weapons & submarines, we do not see a need for these in future conflict, the costs to acquire are significant and the lead-times vast. Should the UK military be engaged in conflict they will find themselves fighting tomorrow’s war today and this does not align with the allocation of funding, either now or in the future to these areas. Furthermore, the creation of new munitions factories is a necessary step although the exact types of munitions will determine if this is a positive or negative. Munitions that are used in modern conflict such as air burst 30mm or lightweight payload’s for the attachment to one way effector UAV’s/USV’s would be a good use of new munitions factories. Allocating resources to the build of new Javelin’s for example would not. The government should also consider opening up these designated munitions factories at no cost to start-ups, this would have the effect of encouraging a wider variety of startups who are limited in development by the lack of access to tooling and production lines.
What is more pertinent in respect of creating manufacturing facilities is developing sites that address supply chain issues for example lithium batteries for UAV’s or outboard motors for USV’s. Onshoring the supply chain reduces the dangerous reliance and would make the UK military a self-serving economy within itself.
Overall, some good and some bad, the issue of course is the age old adage of “resistance to change”. The MoD is an institution and it’s processes are institutionalised, effecting change in a time-frame that ensures fast battle-readiness remains an impossibility.