Shaping the future of defence - the UK  Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR)

The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) is the first full-scale review of Britain’s defence policy since 1998, and has sought to balance ambition with funding in a sustainable way for the long term. Together with the preceding National Security Strategy, its recent publication marks the end of the beginning for the review process.

The SDSR has made real progress in terms of identifying and prioritising the threats and challenges, defining the planning assumptions and setting the budgetary constraints. Much now needs to be done in order to bring the defence programme under control, understand the implications for industry and technology, and define how the intended SDSR outcomes can be delivered in practice. 

Setting the new ambition – key themes

In setting the ambition for defence and security, the SDSR white paper importantly signals:

• commitment from the top of government to align accountability with delivery responsibility for each of the national security tasks

• stated intent for collaboration, with a focus on the national interest, and a move to increased bi-lateral partnering, especially with France.

The planning assumptions are not radically different in scope from before, although they are at a reduced scale. Key points include:

• increased investment in soft power and £650m in a new cyber security programme

• some tough but critical policy decisions have been made, including cutting 17,000 posts from the armed forces and reducing the MOD civil service by 25,000 jobs, withdrawing from Germany and reducing the Royal Navy fleet size.

These measures are in line with a post-Cold War restructuring of defence and a mandate for the Armed Forces to shift from a traditional 'military response to military threats' towards a complementary defence contribution to wider national security threats and challenges.

Delivering the SDSR outcomes – next steps

However, the changes outlined so far will not fully close the £38bn gap in the Defence Programme, and there remains considerable work to be done to make the strategy feasible:

• examining more rigorously some of the measures that were raised during the review process, that could not be explored sufficiently in the time available (such as industrial capability and sovereignty of key capabilities)

• resolving the industrial and technological implications of the SDSR and to define how new policies can be delivered in practice. To some extent, the reduced order book for military platforms means that defence industry must also transform. However, there are significant opportunities for defence suppliers to deliver wider national security capabilities and defence equipment support activities which will inevitably be shed by DE&S

• linking wider reform with the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) to strategic industrial transformation. The MOD is expected to remove 25,000 civil service posts in order to become more agile. Incentivising right-sized teams and developing the appropriate professional skills to deliver innovative solutions will now be critical

• elaborating on the detail across all of the national security tasks. Importantly, the challenge of implementing the required 'matrix management' approach to wider security responses must not be underestimated, and new leadership frameworks and changes in culture will be needed across a number of departments.

With the publication of the SDSR, the defence, security and intelligence community are now able to focus on the dual challenges they face: maintaining support to current operations and embarking upon a strategic transformation in order to deliver the future national security tasks for the UK.

To discuss the SDSR, including implications and next steps, with one of PA's defence and security team, or to find out more about our defence and security expertise, please contact us now.