Acquisition Focus - The Defence Industrial Strategy: An Objective Overview

1 Aug 2006

The Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) was published in December last year after a remarkably short period of preparation. It is rather more of a ‘stepping stone’ to a strategy than the finished strategy itself. The newly formed RUSI Acquisition Focus met to discuss the major issues arising from it. We agree that it is a most worthy document, tackling many of the key issues that have been left in the pending tray for far too long and that it should be welcomed. Indeed, it is a commendable attempt to change a long period of deterioration, even though there are inconsistencies in the fullness of its treatment of different sections. But, as with any positioning document, significant questions arise and we are concerned as to how many of them are to be tackled. There are too many of these issues to cover in one meeting and our plan is to discuss most of them in future meetings. At our first meeting, we discussed four topics.

Partnering
Implementation
Role of the End-User
Value for Money
The Bottom Line

The members of the Focus are John Weston (Chairman, Spirent), Tim Banfield (National Audit Office), Bob Barton (co-chair of the MoD/industry Equipment Capability Group), Vice Admiral (retd) Jeremy Blackham (recently EADS UK President), Professor Christopher Elliott (GD UK), Air Marshal Lord Garden (House of Lords), Graham Jordan (formerly DG R&T, MoD), Major General (retd) Bill Robins (formerly DGICS MoD), Bill Kincaid (author of the Dinosaur books on acquisition).

Add your comments

Index