This report does not pretend to be exhaustive, or to offer solutions that will cure all ills. There are some important issues, such as the relationship between the Requirements community and Front Line Commands, or the detailed consideration of support cost management, which have been deliberately left to one side because of the pressure of time and resources.
In the way of life, this report dwells on areas where there are problems, not with the intention of saying that everything is broken or that the system as a whole is bad, but simply because it was asked to assess what might be done to improve the process. Inevitably, this leads to a focus on what needs to be fixed.
The Review team would like to make clear at this point, as it has at others, that much good work is going on within the MoD, that the Department is better at many of these activities than other government departments. It is also true that the UK's allies are by and large complimentary and in some cases envious about what the UK has done to drive reform in this area. Equally, the systemic behaviours described in this report are not the result of bad behaviour by individuals, but of a structural series of incentives that encourage principled individuals to act in a way that does not maximise the outcome for the Ministry of Defence as a whole.
The Review team are full of admiration for many of the people seeking to do their best under such difficult circumstances and while they are at the same time trying to support our Armed Forces in current combat.
What this report does propose to offer, however, is a considered and coherent package of reforms that are specifically designed to improve the efficiency in the delivery and support of defence equipment in the interests of defence as a whole.
It is the strong view of the Review team that these measures would need to be taken together as a package and implemented in full if substantial progress is to be achieved. The incentives causing the current problems are strong and deeply entrenched, and reform could be delayed at many levels within the system, and in many different areas of activity.
It would be possible to improve the situation at one point, only to see the logjam move downstream to the next obstacle. It cannot be said clearly enough that the measures are a package designed to work as a whole. Cherry picking will not resolve the web of entrenched interests.
Ministers and the MoD staff need to give careful consideration to the implementation mechanisms associated with this report, since vested interests will not welcome these changes and may seek to undermine them in the implementation and over time. It will be important to know how the Department would intend to implement these reforms to ensure that they become properly entrenched.
If the difficulties are great, the prize is greater. It is a primary duty of Government to defend the nation, and the provision of an effective and coherent set of Armed Forces is an essential prerequisite to discharge that duty.
At any time, making the most of the money going into defence is important. It is all the more so at a time when the challenges facing the UK are substantial, where we stand at a strategic crossroads in defence policy, and where economic conditions severely limit the resources available for the task. If this report, and the actions it engenders, succeeds in transferring resources from the operation of the acquisition machine to the front line, it will have been worth all of the difficulties and sacrifices that reform requires.