Learning from Canberra: A Smarter Vision for UK Intelligence and National Security

In October 2025, The Times revealed an internal Home Office report which accused the UK’s intelligence agencies of ‘failing to keep pace’ with threats to national security. It accused the agencies of being poorly coordinated and highlighted a disconnect between the National Security Council and the departments which oversee the intelligence agencies.

Whilst this Home Office report appears to be a couple of years old, and we have no idea what response there was from the agencies to it, some of the charges it brings against the intelligence community are chronic, particularly those of cooperation and the intelligence-policymaker relationship. The question is, therefore, what can be done to finally resolve those issues?

This author argued last year that the UK would benefit from taking some inspiration from recent reforms in Australia – namely the creation of its Office of National Intelligence – regarding how to improve cooperation and capability building in the UK intelligence community. By all accounts, the threat and operational landscape in which UK intelligence operates is changing rapidly.

Domestically, in addition to the enduring threat of terrorism from a variety of actors, state threats are rising sharply. Looking overseas, there is a return to Great Power conflict, the threat of hybrid warfare from hostile states, and the recent shaking of the foundations of the ‘rules based international order’ as we knew it. The rapid evolution of the technological environment creates as many challenges as it does opportunities for the intelligence agencies, not least the challenge of how to fund the investment required for intelligence to keep up with technological developments in the outside world. To respond to these challenges, it is vital that the UK government takes a strategic and holistic look at our intelligence capabilities, including taking inspiration from others – like Australia – when considering how to set UK intelligence up for success in the coming decades.

Cooperation and Collaboration – the Never-Ending Challenge

From a historical perspective, the UK’s intelligence agencies – MI5 (the UK’s domestic security service), the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, the UK’s foreign intelligence service) and the Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ, the UK’s cyber and signals intelligence service) – work together more closely than ever before. Long gone are the days of Cold War-era suspicion of each other. The threat of Islamist terrorism post 9/11 turbo-charged cooperation between the agencies on counterterrorism during the first decade of this century. Reports from the UK’s intelligence oversight body – the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) – detail how the agencies have continued since then to deepen cooperation across issues beyond counterterrorism.

However, we also know from ISC reports that there are consistent challenges with joint working and the sharing of intelligence. Its review of intelligence relating to the 7/7 Al-Qaeda attacks on London’s transport network revealed that improvements to cooperation between different parts of the counterterrorism machine were required (especially between counterterrorism policing and MI5). Eight years later, in its report about intelligence relating to the murder – by Islamist terrorists – of Fusilier Lee Rigby, the ISC raised the same issue: insufficient cooperation on counterterrorism issues. Just four years after that, in its report into the terrorist attacks in 2017 – both Islamist and extreme right wing – the ISC lamented that it was still making the same conclusions about lack of cooperation. This illustrates a fundamental, structural issue, at least in counterterrorism work.

On state threats, the picture appears somewhat better. The ISC’s recent Russia and China reports described the ‘tri-agency’ approach being taken by the intelligence agencies to these threats. Interesting, in its Iran report, GCHQ suggested that on that topic a ‘tri-agency’ plan for collaboration was not required because the agencies had been working effectively on that target for years. This suggests that collaboration is not seamless between the agencies on all topics – at times it still needs to be shepherded. And, as The Times highlighted, perhaps on policy areas – such the proscription of terrorist groups – ‘jointery’ is much more difficult.

The Intelligence-Policymaker Nexus

A worrying insight from this Home Office report is the suggestion of too much distance between the National Security Council (NSC) and those overseeing the work of the intelligence agencies. Created in 2010 in part to improve and professionalise relations between policymakers, including the prime minister, and the intelligence agencies, the NSC has filled an important gap in guiding the strategic direction of the UK’s intelligence and security efforts. Its creation should be seen through the lens of the legacy of misuse of intelligence relating to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in 2002 and 2003.

The criticisms of the official review of intelligence by Lord Butler of Brockwell regarding the informal relationship between former Prime Minister Tony Blair and intelligence leaders at the time led to some deep reflection about what is known as the ‘intelligence-policymaker nexus’ – how close intelligence and policymakers should be: too distant and intelligence can become irrelevant, too close and intelligence can become ‘politicised’. The NSC created a middle ground, continuing the closeness of intelligence to policymakers – which is very much in the British intelligence culture – whilst creating a form of closed-door transparency through the NSC forum.

It is true to say that the way the NSC has been used by governments since David, now Lord, Cameron’s premiership has not been consistent. As prime minister, Boris Johnson, for example, did not use the NSC as it was designed, leaving months between meetings. The current Labour government does make considerable use of the NSC, but has made some structural changes which have created more distance between policymakers and the intelligence agencies. The intelligence-policy nexus is something which should be monitored closely, as it is fundamental to making sure intelligence is relevant, timely and used appropriately by policymakers.

Learning from the Australian Reforms

Australia has conducted regular, independent reviews of its intelligence efforts since its equivalent of the aforementioned Butler Report – the Flood Report – in 2004. These proactive intelligence reviews – in 2011, 2017 and 2024 – have been valuable because they address the challenges facing Australia’s intelligence community in a proactive and holistic way.

Apart from the Flood Report, they have not responded to failures but, rather, looked at how to set Australia’s intelligence community up for success. The most significant changes came about as a result of the recommendations of the 2017 review. This led to the creation of the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) in 2018, which is designed to improve strategic-level management of Australia’s intelligence community, integrate its intelligence efforts more effectively, and build capabilities for its intelligence community as a whole. Whilst there have, of course, been teething problems, and the realities of organisational culture mean that acceptance of new structures does not happen overnight, the 2024 review lauded today’s Australian intelligence community as ‘a more capable and integrated intelligence enterprise’.

Although the UK’s intelligence agencies are working together more closely than ever, they certainly cannot be considered as an integrated intelligence enterprise. This is partly because of the nature of how the intelligence agencies as a whole are coordinated from the centre of government in the UK – through a hodgepodge of roles (like the National Security Adviser), functions (like the NSC and historically the Joint Intelligence Committee, JIC) and mechanisms (like the Single Intelligence Account, the fiscal mechanism which determines how much money the agencies as a whole receive from the Treasury and how that money is split between them). What the UK lacks is any centralised management body for intelligence, like the ONI.

There is much to learn from the Australian experience creating the ONI. For example, coordinating Australian intelligence as a cohesive enterprise is harder to do in reality than it appears on paper. This should not be surprising because it is still a relatively young organisation. The US experience of creating a similar body – the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) – saw the same teething issues, and it took many years after its creation in 2004 for it to gain credibility in its coordination role for the US intelligence community. Creating new bodies in national security structures involves significant cultural as well as business change, and cultural change takes years to fully embed.

Moreover, as it was argued last year, this author does not believe the UK would benefit from creating exactly the same ONI model. When it was created, the ONI subsumed the Australian Office of National Assessments (ONA), the equivalent of the UK’s Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO), which creates all-source strategic intelligence assessments for policymakers. Without any indication that the JIO is not fit for purpose – and there is no such indication – it would be reckless to rock that boat. Therefore, creating a UK equivalent of the ONI should be restricted to collaboration and capability building functions, with an additional element of intelligence community representation to address some of the challenges related to the intelligence-policymaker nexus described above.

This is certainly something which the UK could copy from ONI, whose Director General is the ‘principal adviser’ to the Australian prime minister on intelligence matters. Creating a similar role for a head of a UK equivalent of ONI might go some way to hitting the sweet spot between intelligence relevance and objectivity. Lastly, there is also something to be said about learning from the Australian approach to proactive, holistic intelligence reviews – these are a vehicle for setting the Australian intelligence community up for success, something we lack in the UK context.

Learning from Canberra

From the limited insights of the internal Home Office report as reported by The Times, it is clear the UK should seriously consider learning from Australia’s experience creating the ONI and building something suitable for the UK’s intelligence and national security context. Of course, there is no silver bullet when it comes to resolving some of the issues discussed here, especially not in an environment of fiscal restraint, including the presumed current emphasis on putting allocated funds towards technology above other things. However, technological investments alone will not set the UK’s intelligence agencies up for success. Proactive consideration of structural reform should be part of the plan. The internal Home Office report talked of the need for ‘greater co-ordination of the efforts of the agencies and all other organisations contributing to national security’. This is something a UK equivalent of the ONI could achieve. The UK intelligence system does not need replacing, but it does need a rethink when it comes to coordination, collaboration, capability building and harnessing its existing strengths.

© Celia Parker-Vincent, 2025, published by RUSI with permission of the author.

The views expressed in this Commentary are the author's, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

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