Defence: Industry
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what progress has been made on increasing early market engagement with industry.
Answered by Ministry of Defence
The Strategic Defence Review and Defence Reform set out Defence’s ambition for strengthened and earlier engagement with industry and a greater focus on desired outcomes rather than prescriptive specifications. The Defence Industrial Strategy took this forward through a commitment to provide industry with clearer and earlier demand signals and to establish a coordinating authority for market engagement within the National Armaments Director Group.
Since the Review, the Department has worked internally and with industry, through the Defence Industrial Joint Council, to test, refine and pilot approaches that focus discussion on capability challenges and operational outcomes before requirements are defined. This has included leading engagement in support of Task Force SABRE and applying the approach to complex military requirements through the new capability development process. Defence is also developing common approaches, guidance and tools to support more consistent engagement across the Department.
The intent is to broaden participation, reduce barriers for SMEs, draw in innovation from adjacent sectors and organisations that do not routinely work with Defence, and strengthen the evidence available to inform future acquisition decisions.
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