The MOD will establish a Defence Supply Chain Development and Innovation Programme, leveraging wider
government investment and informed by successful BEIS initiatives in civil sectors, to support the development of a more productive and competitive UK defence sector. This will reduce cost and risk within MOD programmes and support a UK defence sector better able to win domestic and export work.
We want to encourage diversity within our supply chains by enabling smaller and mid-tier companies to grow and
contribute to projects, encouraging innovation and increasing the overall resilience of our industrial base. The Defence Supply Chain Development and Innovation Programme will address this through developing stronger mid-tier defence companies and supporting SME growth across the UK.
Defence and security departments will also work alongside BEIS to support the delivery of ‘Build Back Better: our plan for growth’. This sets out the government’s new framework for how we will support existing, new and emerging industries:
driving growth through significant investment in infrastructure, skills and innovation; and pursuing growth that levels up every part of the UK, enables the transition to net zero, and supports our vision for Global Britain.
Better data will be a key enabler to enhance future decision making and the ability of government to make informed evidence-based decisions.
The MOD will work to ensure access to good quality and timely data on the economic footprint of the defence sector, to monitor the value and effectiveness of prosperity initiatives.
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We will continue to grow and develop the Joint Economic Data Hub (JEDHub) working collaboratively across
government, industry and academia to provide consistent and impartial
economic data on the sector.
We will support a revitalised UK Defence Solutions Centre (UKDSC), jointly
resourced by government and industry.
The UKDSC will provide strategic
planning and development support to the defence sector including delivering high quality market intelligence research to MOD, DIT DSE and industry. The UKDSC will continue to support a wide range of programmes and initiatives within the sector.
Given the global nature of the defence and security markets and the supply chains within, we will continue to work closely with international partners on efforts to promote greater productivity and resilience. This includes continuing to enhance UK involvement in the National Technology and Industrial Base (NTIB), focussing upon improving the sharing of technology and capabilities between participant nations, enhancing industrial cooperation, reducing transactional costs associated with export controls and helping to open up new opportunities for UK companies to contribute to delivering key capabilities for international allies.
JEDHub
In response to the 2018 Dunne Review into growing the contribution of defence to UK prosperity, and as part of the Defence Prosperity Programme, the MOD has been working with industry and government colleagues to develop a Joint Economic Data Hub (JEDHub) within the UK Defence Solutions Centre (UKDSC). The role of JEDHub is to collect and aggregate economic data from across the defence sector. It will provide better, consistent and impartial data than can inform our decision-making processes.
The JEDHub has now reached initial operating capability, having
successfully completed a Proof of Concept pilot in 2020 with DGP
companies that highlighted the value of aggregated data, developed using agreed definitions and methodologies.
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National Technology and Industrial Base (NTIB)
In 2017, the United States, in recognition of the high degree of defence cooperation with Australia, Canada, and the UK, expanded the legal definition of the U.S. National
Technology and Industrial Base (NTIB) to include Australia and the UK – in addition to Canada, which had been included previously. This legislation mandates that the Department of Defense works to reduce barriers to defence industrial integration
between the four countries (including their respective industrial bases) that make up the NTIB.
In order to facilitate such integration of the NTIB, the US Department of Defense and its NTIB partners, the Department of Defence of Australia, the Department of National Defence of Canada, and the UK MOD, working with other US government departments and agencies, are cooperating in practical areas related to our respective defence industrial bases. Such cooperation is intended to provide better support to the war-fighter, strengthen and build resilience in our respective industrial bases, and enhance innovation to facilitate greater integration of the NTIB including on:
- Eliminating barriers to the flow of knowledge, goods, and services between the governments, industry, and academic and research institutions of the United States, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom;
- Consultation and information-sharing for technology and industrial base policies;
- Promoting increased coordination on export control, technology, and industrial base planning issues; and
- Continued regular engagement through bilateral and multilateral engagement pathways.
To date, NTIB achievements have contributed to several shared national security objectives, including close cooperation on measures to resolve specific supply chain issues and for the protection against adversarial foreign investment. This has included sharing of measures on national security screening of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) which supported the exemption of Australia, Canada, and the UK from the US Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA) FDI legislation under the
Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). In addition, companies from NTIB nations operating under a Special Security Agreement are no longer required to obtain National Interest Determination (NID) waivers for certain types of proscribed information, removing a key barrier for trusted and secure companies.
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