The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MOD) spent £2.1 billion on IT and communications in 2023-2024 – but faces a serious cyber skills “pinch”.
So said a new report by the National Audit Office (NAO) on October 9.
The report gives an overview of MOD for the new Parliament and breaks down the department's £49 billion running costs for 2023-2024.
It was published after the new government in July announced the launch of a “root and branch” review of UK Defence, to conclude in 2025.)
NAO’s report also flags that a troubled MOD information technology programme, “MODNET Evolve” remains rated “Red” by government authorities – suggesting ongoing serious issues over its delivery.
MODNET Evolve is one of the programmes in the Government Major Projects Portfolio or “GMPP” (the “most complex and strategically significant” projects). It was described in 2022 as “one of a series of programmes… designed to allow Defence to exit a complex contract delivered by a consortium of private sector companies led by DXC."
NAO said: "Over many years, MoD has regularly experienced difficulties delivering many of its projects to required performance, cost and time.
It added: "Among the causes of the problems are supplier under-performance; weaknesses in MoD programme, contract and financial management; MoD and suppliers underestimating project scope and technical complexity; and MoD prioritising short-term solutions..."
MODNET Evolve: Red's not all bad
But oral evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee 23 months earlier saw MOD officials defend progress of MODNET Evolve.
MOD permanent secretary David Williams told MPs: "A red marking for a programme overall does not mean there is not good progress on a range of sub-programmes or sub-projects within that.
"In terms of MODNet Evolve... there are 19 programmes, 16 of which have either delivered or are on track. There are three still to go, which we will see delivered over the course of the next 18 months or thereabouts. The New Style of IT Base, which is really the precursor contract, may be showing red because we have not gone back and reset critical dates, but it is the programme that allowed us to do that Covid rollout of new IT, with laptops, communications and so on. Even in red there can be value..."
The latest annual Government Major Projects Portfolio which would update on progress appears to be delayed with publication due soon.
What is MODNet Evolve?
An appointment letter welcoming a new senior civil servant who was put in charge of delivering the project in May 2024 described the policy intent as supporting "military commanders across Defence in making informed and timely decisions enabled by agile Communication Information Systems, by providing:
a) Future Operational Service Management - Provide Central Service Desk support for users and core Service Management services the MOD needs to track and manage incidents and resolve ICT service problems across the MOD ICT estate.
b) End User Services - Provide new user service provision of Official devices across the Defence estate, core service management of workplace & foundation services, provision of Software Services and Service Management, test and continuous improvement.
c) Managed Print Services - Provide new multifunction devices to all fixed base locations operating on the MODNET Official network.
d) Records Management. Provide a compliant and user-friendly service for the long-term storage and exploitation of records.
e) Productivity and Collaboration services - Provide the administration and support services to the Microsoft 365 Cloud Product required for users to access and exploit the Office365 functionality and features that provides the all-core software tools that users need (including word processing, spread sheets, presentations, document storage libraries, conferencing, and collaboration software, etc.)
f) Secret Base ICT Services - Provide the same functional capability for users who will operate at SECRET. These SECRET services will have a similar functional capability to those available at OFFICIAL.
As of March 2023 MOD had 52 projects listed in the GMPP according to its most recent published data,including five “ICT” programmes.
There are 21 total ICT programmes in the GMPP list across government worth over £22 billion. These programmes, says the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), typically take eight years to deliver.
Fresh MOD data published this month meanwhile showed that BAE Systems remains HMG’s largest defence supplier by a huge margin – and that the vast majority of its contracts are not competitively awarded.
BAE Systems received over £5.7 billion of total MOD spend in 2023/24.
See also: UK defence facing a “step-change” in how adversaries use digital and data: “Attitudes, culture” must change
As a statistical publication released by MOD on October 3 noted: "MOD’s biggest supplier, BAE Systems, has historically been primarily paid through non-competitive contracts, though over the past decade the company has seen significant changes in how this is split between competition indicator.
Competitive contract payments dropped as low as 4% in 2019/20. There were at 10% of total MOD BAE contracts in 2023/24 the paper showed.
Among the important projects that BAE Systems is working on for MOD is delivery of a new tactical Wide Area Network (WAN) known as ‘Trinity’.
The £89 million contract, awarded in 2023, will see BAE and partners work to "enhance front-line connectivity for military personnel, linking small reconnaissance drones, combat vehicles, fighter jets, aircraft carriers and military commands... sustain battlefield awareness and intelligence sharing through a myriad of adversarial attacks."
NAO's report meanwhile noted that MOD "faces challenges in recruitment and retention... At the end of March 2024, there were 116 whole-force skills pinch points assessed as significant or above. MoD has identified workforce challenges in priority areas including nuclear, digital, and cyber, commercial, science technology engineering and mathematics (STEM), medical and health, programme and project delivery," it added.
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