Integrated Review (previously SDSR 2020)

[S M H]

Still sceptical on reduced headcount

If we applied the same reductions to the numbers in the Westminster gas works. With the reductions they have forced on the M O D over the last twenty five years with efficiency drives. We could get more money for defence. But the turkeys that survived Christmas wouldn't spend it on defence. But on Health or a more pressing problem to keep in a job at the next election. As for all the mood music about the present review. I expect that G.C.H.Q. and cyber capabilities will get the only real increase. (they should be outside the defence budget.) The rest will come from one department losing out to fund the other. May be with a small allocation for procurement shortfall. Then if the government does really take its first responsibility seriously and match our defence spending to the requirement they set. This could be the end of our political lemmings defence policy of managed decline.

[Zero Gravitas]

Presumably some of that increased spending will be the £5ish billion for the UK satellite system.

Not sure how much I believe cuts to tank numbers or the size of the Army: the'yre too visible, unpopular and fly in the face of the global Britain narrative. Perhaps it might happen with the decrease in the regulars offset by the same/higher number of reservists so that they can claim the overall number hasn't been cut (perhaps increased). Or, maybe they'll offset the numbers by increasing the RN/RAF numbers as another means of saying that the overall number of service personnel haven't been reduced, merely changes to service numbers to better reflect needs.

Still sceptical on reduced headcount

Sadly, outside of this forum and the odd pub, no one cares about defence.

Having said that, I think they could easily counter any negative press with a narrative of new cyber / space plus something more tangible to the public like upping frigate numbers* or bringing forward F35 purchases*.

*Wishful thinking. Insert your personal fantasy fleet here.

Unpopular opinion: stopping the overall salami slicing of defence by gutting one of the branches (in the form of the Army) would return the UK to its historical defence stance - using control of SLOC via an outsize navy (these days you need an airforce too) to have a disproportionate strategic ability to influence / interdict the reigning continental power(s).

[jedibeeftrix]

Re: tanks and numbers

Wouldn't be at all suprised to see Strike to be branded a roaring success, such that:
1. We'll get three of them now, and **cough** one large ArmInf brigade
2. Strike will be reconfigured - working out the various stupidities we've all been pointing out in the last two years
3. We might finally have the gumption to reduce the number of under-strength Inf bats
4. The cut in numbers will be down to ~75k, and will make official what is already a reality

[ArmChairCivvy]

maybe they'll offset the numbers by increasing the RN/RAF numbers as another means of saying that the overall number of service personnel haven't been reduced

This is likely as the old pledge - that was dropped - was specifically about the (regular) army.

[SW1]

2019 equipment plan NAO report in short damning

https://www.nao.org.uk/report/the-equip ... 9-to-2029/

For the third successive year, the Equipment Plan remains unaffordable. The Department’s central estimate of equipment procurement and support costs is lower than last year, but this reflects a restatement of the affordability gap rather than actions to address the funding shortfalls. The Department has still not taken the necessary decisions to establish an affordable long-term investment programme to develop future military capabilities. It has responded to immediate funding pressures by strengthening its management of annual budgets and establishing controls on future expenditure on equipment and support projects. It is also seeking to develop a more realistic assessment of affordability but has not yet addressed inconsistencies in the cost forecasts which support it.

However, the Department has become locked into a cycle of managing its annual budgets to address urgent affordability pressures at the expense of longer-term strategic planning, and is introducing new commitments without fully understanding the impact on the affordability of the Plan. It is not, therefore, using the Equipment Plan as a long‑term financial management tool, as it was originally designed to be. The Department’s continued short-term decision-making is now leading to higher costs and reduced capabilities. There is evidence that these problems are growing and increasingly affecting the Armed Forces’ ability to maintain and enhance their capabilities. As a result, there are increasing risks to value for money from the Department’s management of the Equipment Plan

[ArmChairCivvy]

the Department has become locked into a cycle of managing its annual budgets to address urgent affordability pressures at the expense of longer-term strategic planning

That's what the SDSRs are for - and you need the right people steering them
- accountants can be helpful
- but not in the above task

[ArmChairCivvy]

Before diving into the report itself, there is a cryptic sentence in the summary (could be relevant to the SDSR process?):

" This report focuses on the scale of affordability challenge that the Department faces[, and its response]. We are carrying out separate work on the Department’s approach to introducing military capabilities."

[SW1]

the Department has become locked into a cycle of managing its annual budgets to address urgent affordability pressures at the expense of longer-term strategic planning

That's what the SDSRs are for - and you need the right people steering them
- accountants can be helpful
- but not in the above task

That’s just it they’re not making the difficult decisions to allow long term sustainability, there sticking there heads in the sand with people making it up as they go along. The efficiency promises are particularly inept, apparently some were agreed to happen only when NAO asked to stress test them, in another a contractor was paid to withhold invoicing in the current budget period.

This bit particularly unbelievable

“ Despite this, the Department’s affordability analysis is less realistic in this respect than it was last year. The Department has assumed that it will achieve £4.7 billion of efficiencies in addition to the more mature efficiencies already deducted from project cost estimates (£7.5 billion). Some TLBs continue to assume that they will deliver some, but not all, of the potential efficiencies. Other TLBs have gone much further and assumed that they will deliver their entire efficiency target. The Department’s affordability assessment
is also based on the assumption that Air Command and Joint Forces Command will find efficiencies equivalent to all known potential efficiencies, and then find a further £1.3 billion of efficiencies.10 Neither these TLBs nor Head Office could provide sufficient evidence to justify this confidence in their ability to reduce costs. Despite recognising that the TLBs had used different assumptions to estimate the efficiencies that they could deliver, Head Office did not establish a consistent approach when assessing the affordability of the Plan.”


Highlights include Argus going with no replacement, the entire mine hunter fleet due to go by 2030 no budget to extend or replace within the current un affordable plan, 5m to investigate the littoral strike ship concept which they estimate will cost 600m to bring into service and for which no budget is allocated in the equipment plan, no further purchase of f35 beyond the 48 in the current unaffordable equipment plan, the sentry awacs fleet to be withdrawn 9 months before the projected inservice date of the e7. It goes on, the ostrich has the head very firmly in the sand.

[ArmChairCivvy]

that [Air Command and] Joint Forces Command will find efficiencies equivalent to all known potential efficiencies, and then find a further £1.3 billion of efficiencies.

Easy! - and this is straight from the report
- JFC says 'crypto' all across costs this much
- investment board says 'nahh - take a good third of a bn off'
- JFC does as they are told; still the 'higher ups' report that everything was delivered "to requirement". Though obviously the REQUIREMENT suddenly became quite elastic

[SW1]

that [Air Command and] Joint Forces Command will find efficiencies equivalent to all known potential efficiencies, and then find a further £1.3 billion of efficiencies.

Easy! - and this is straight from the report
- JFC says 'crypto' all across costs this much
- investment board says 'nahh - take a good third of a bn off'
- JFC does as they are told; still the 'higher ups' report that everything was delivered "to requirement". Though obviously the REQUIREMENT suddenly became quite elastic

Indeed

If you take this report at face value and assume the budget remains as advised at 2% plus increases of .5% above inflation the we’re probably looking at reducing present Capability on a par with sdsr2010 with the hope it’s more strategically aligned to a common clear priority rather than the scatter gun approach.

[jonas]

Sir Humphreys take on the NAO report :-

https://thinpinstripedline.blogspot.com ... -news.html

[ArmChairCivvy]

From the escorts thread "
I don’t think anyone despises the armed forces that sounds hyperbole to me."
- yes, I agree (save for some extreme left fringes)

The thing is that the Tory gvmnts do not have a v good record. The party membership, this time around, from a v low current base spend, will crucify any apparatchiks that will try to direct deep cuts (elected or unelected... won't matter)
- so, blur what the 100% is
- make the pot bigger, grow the total
... and who will know who got money taken from them; only wasteful procurement was cut , afterall

[topman]

I'd expect there to be another fudge/nothing to see here move along review. I don't think there's enough time given the timescales in which to get this done. Plus the jungle drums are saying it'll be more of the same type review.

[SW1]

Hopefully it isn’t a fudge I think that bad for everyone and just stores up more problem for the future. Unless there is a stable footing everybody loses. As mr shankly would say if you can’t make decisions in football as in life then your a bloody menace!

[ArmChairCivvy]

The economy is being triple-vaccinated. If the government can navigate its way through the coronavirus and Brexit challenges over, then there will also be the global slowdown to deal with: 40% down (that is what 1 percentage point from the previous forecast amounts to), before adjusting (further) for COVID19 economic effects.

If borrowing (as announced) will go up to a whopping £66.7bn next year, it will shoot up by £97bn over the next four years.
- the good news: defence will be helped over the line - or rather the hump, the period in which the Successor peak expenditure occurs during the first half of this decade. The world looking like it is for now...

But over the longer term, where can we save substantial amounts?
- the favourite is always army manpower, but a reason for that trick having been resorted to repeatedly is that the effect can be seen faster than that of other type of reductions

We'll hardly cut our nuclear deterrence (by then just having paid for its renewal), but the Astute prgrm is soon coming to an end. What if Putin (first successfully turning himself into a life-time president... it didn't take Mr. Xi that long as there was no need to try and maintain the fig leaf of democracy) does not need to exacerbate the external threat anymore? Russia cans its submarine building programme and concentrates on securing the borders... hence we could use the Astutes as that fleet is whittled down by age-induced retirements as training boats for the boomer fleet.
- that kind of money one would actually notice

Next is combat air (ouch; expensive!). The RAF was a late convert to the benefits of multirole fighter a/c but to be able to live with a fleet of 100-150, that fleet must mainly consist of multi-/swing role fighters
- does the F-35 (in any incarnation) fit the bill?
- or will we stop at 48 (carrier air), use the breather to take off the Boomer pressure from the 4 front-line commands' budgets, and then buy (later that is) 'the' Tempest

A couple of thoughts that the informed folks steering the SDSR will surely have to consider - for and beyond the time scales they are addressing: longer than this Parliament(, but often seen to go 'over the horizon' with the 10th year of the EP).

[jonas]

This answer seems to have the ring of a certain 'Dominic' about it

Asked by Wendy Chamberlain
(North East Fife)
[N]
Asked on: 16 March 2020
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Integrated Security, Defence and Foreign Policy Review
29976
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that there is appropriate transparency, scrutiny and accountability of the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy.
A
Answered by: James Cleverly
Answered on: 19 March 2020

The Integrated Review will report to the Prime Minister, who will be supported by a cross-Whitehall team in the Cabinet Office and a small team in No10. The Cabinet Office will coordinate and drive input from departments across Whitehall, including the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence, Department for International Development, the Treasury and the Home Office. We will also consult experts inside and outside of the Government, ensuring the UK's best minds are feeding into its conclusions and challenging traditional Whitehall assumptions and thinking as needed. We will keep Parliament fully informed during the process as we deliver a review that is in the best interests of the British people across the United Kingdom.

[ArmChairCivvy]

the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy.

perhaps we will get to a catchy acronym in due course... as according to what was on Yahoo news of yesterday, the word 'Integrated' is already falling off:

"The defense committee already called for a delay, and it has questions about how the review is being run.

Tobias Elwood, the recently appointed committee chairman, said the panel is “not impressed” by the initial way the review is progressing. Elwood said at the March 17 hearing that the Army had been told to submit their requirements by Mar 20, before they had been informed by the government what its new foreign policy will look like. The committee met with Army chiefs last week.

The Foreign Office has produced five separate essays on its view of Britain’s role in the world, and the Army had not seen the documents, said Elwood.

One government lobbyist said that Elwood’s remarks showed that Dominic Cummins, Boris Johnson’s special adviser and one of the main proponents for radical change in the defense sector, had settled on an answer even before the review questions had been asked."

[Lord Jim]

https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Ind ... a40ec5eef4
A lot of the answers are a bit long winded but there are some interesting nuggets, one of which is the possible need for the review to look at what capabilities within NATO are we best suited to contribute and which to leave to our allies, moving away for the aspiration of being able to do everything as that has already diluted out military to a dangerous extent. The example given for the Army is speed over mass, most likely referring to the need to concentrate of formations like "Strike" at the expense of traditional "Heavy" capabilities.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Great approach: on the process side, lessons learned from the previous reviews (this bit of work done by the Committee)
+ the normal keeping uptodate about where the review is actually going: any omissions, is the focus right... for a balanced end result etc, etc
= others do the actual work

[ArmChairCivvy]

Is the CSR (autumn budget) the driver?
No!
This bit needs to be ready by July (where have I heard the date of 1 July before ) so that the centralisation to the combined N:o10 & Treasury team can regard "this work" as "mere inputs" and do the ACTUAL review.
... so experts are now redundant even within defence?

Integrated (helicopter view) review should PERHAPS (?) come first, and provide the basis for spending levels and then the actual programming of that spend.
- what foreign policies will ASSURE that we attain/ protect those things that are most important (in the national interest)
- what role do alliances/ capabilities of allies play/ can be relied upon; what do we have to hedge against as for changes over the 10+ years that the review is about

[ArmChairCivvy]

How could be best done?
- thematic; so that the involved depts best share with the others (to see the overlaps and the implications for the review's outcome)?
- e.g. how counter-terrorism has been formulated and developed/ reinforced

"Calling something 'integrated' does not necessarily make it so"

What is the role of technologically understanding which threats matter most... ten or more years into the future?
- does have a great impact on capability planning
- a 'threat-based' approach will still have these types of risks to address (with what level of confidence?) Getting overenthusiastic needs to be tempered by the fact that 'old' threats don't go away: the intro of tanks changed the nature of warfare, but did not make 'the Gatling gun' obsolete... for 'tanks' read 'cyber'?

[albedo]

Isn't this all rather academic now? There's going to be precious little money left for anything by the end of this year. Probably best to postpone the SDSR review for at least a year or two until the damage inflicted by COVID on the nation's finances starts to become a little clearer. No use pretending that there will be a swift return to as you were - the world, at least from the UK's perspective, is likely to have changed dramatically. Maybe defence will have to be pruned back to eg 1% GDP and serious consideration given to abandoning CASD and similar current priorities.

[ArmChairCivvy]

have to be pruned back to eg 1% GDP and serious consideration given to abandoning CASD and similar current priorities.

Agree about the timing; but after that even more so will the review process be important, to get the priorities right.

E.g. retain CASD at the one end (with the brand new P-8s for delousing) and the border force (with more ships) at the other. In between fit
- the two Typhoon bases (by rotating the fleet for just rapid reaction duties we can make it last for a hundred years)
- and rotate the two Albions, with a ready, RM Coy-size force for a sudden NEO, somewhere

[bobp]

Isn't this all rather academic now?

Yes I agree, however this present crisis has highlighted several issues, from lack of ventilators and emergency supplies to the need to use the armed forces to help the community. So yes at the end of the day we will be short of cash, but hopefully it will help the future plans of the country as a whole. Then there is the other issues like panic buying and the me me society that now exists. Hope some good comes of it all in the end.

[Caribbean]

I don't think this has been noted already but, buried in this article by STRN

https://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/mostly ... 19-crisis/

The Commons Defence Select Committee meeting held yesterday seemed to endorse the view that the current Integrated Defence Review will probably be deferred for at least a year.

Inevitable, I suppose