BAE Systems has been announced as the preferred supplier for a major new framework contract with the Ministry of Defence.
The Analysis for Science & Technology Research in Defence (ASTRID) framework will be the primary mechanism for providing wide-ranging decision support, analysis and advisory services to the MoD for up to seven years, with a contract value of up to £350m.
The contract was placed by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and will be delivered by BAE Systems’ analytical consultancy, CORDA, which has provided analysis and decision support services to the MOD for over 30 years. ASTRID will be the successor to the £120m Analysis Support Construct (ASC), Dstl’s current framework for defence and security analysis which has been managed by BAE Systems since 2015.
“Under the ASC, BAE Systems manages a 150-strong supply chain of defence companies, SMEs, consultancies and universities to deliver more than 300 separate analysis activities. This approach will continue under ASTRID, with a large, diverse supply chain delivering the majority of the work. The framework will be open to all government departments with defence and security decision support requirements. BAE Systems will source and select the best supplier from its specialist supply chain to conduct analysis and inform decision-making. ASTRID will therefore help ensure, for example, that investment decisions provide the best value for money.”
Suzanne Harrison, Director BAE Systems CORDA, said:
“We are excited to continue in our role as the MOD’s partner of choice for analysis and decision support, working closely with partners across the supplier community to deliver this. It has been fantastic under the ASC to see collaborative teams from across industry and government working to deliver essential support to defence and security decision-makers. Our approach to ASTRID will build on the many strengths of ASC, while bringing in new innovations to keep improving on the successes of the last five years.”
Dstl Divisional Head Rob Solly commented:
“The ASTRID contract will maintain the provision of high quality analysis to underpin decisions across MOD and our partners in wider Government. It will build on the successful collaborative approach of ASC, providing access to the best talent in the UK and overseas. We also aim to progressively and significantly exceed the MOD target of awarding 25% of the work to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) including non-traditional defence suppliers.”
So we pay BAE to advise us if we should give work to BAE?
Haha!
I realise these is a lot more to it than that but the level of ‘outsourcing of decisions’ is why government departments are full of inexperienced cretins that make a balls up of nearly every major defence, infrastructure, transport & energy project across all government departments.
The MOD needs restructuring with experienced, business savvy procurement staff – If that means wages need to go up then so be it – Sack a few Admirals to pay for it.
Exactly what I was thinking! Surely it should be an impartial party?
Hi Weston,
It used to be internal. It was the main role of the old research establishments, which were sold off and became QinetiQ. I started work at the Royal Aircraft Establishment a aloonnnggg time ago and went throught the 10+ years evolution to privitisation (and ultimately redundency!).
Recent NAO reports highlighted on here and on Save the Royal Navy suggest that the MoD is completely deskilled, something that came as no surprise to me given what I witnessed.
I would say that calling staff cretins is to put the blame in the wrong direction. There is a general dislike of Civil Servants which I think is unfair given that most of the poor performance of the public sector is definately down to political yo-yo type interference and incompetence.
I had written a much more detailed response, but it is sooo depressing I have given up and deleted. I suspect you’ll understand what I mean.
On a bright note our carrier is at sea with 617 squadron on board 🙂
Cheers CR
I am certainly not a big state fan but I am certainly questioning the role of government.
It is almost as though they try to abdicate responsibility for everything I care about and stick their nose in to things I consider private. The UK is too small a nation, too small a market and the people on average not wealthy enough to live as though we are a nation like the US – I wouldn’t want us to be. We need collective action, collective purchasing, collective intervention to achieve the economies of scale that we cannot achieve individually.
It is as though – the government feels happy to interfere in family life, to tell our kids they are the wrong sex and facilitate all manner of moral atrocities and to teach them to be good obedient tax payers but they won’t do anything about the housing crisis, they don’t invest in our armed forces, they sell off everything we were once proud of or allow its sale and they don’t do justice at home. Say something contrary to the political norms and you can be dragged off to the gulag for a thought crime. Rape a granny and you’ll get the same or less time.
I’d rather they reversed everything: keep their noses out of families. Lead housing development, build up our armed forces, and compel our companies by law to develop our own 5G etc. and do justice at home rather than perpetuate the status quo.
I wouldn’t care if we were all a tad poorer if justice was done, we had a country to be proud of, the streets were calm and people had enough.
why should the government “compel” companies to develop 5g – why can’t the government do that itself – after all, national security IS the biggest consideration here? However, if I look at it through the lense of post-covid economic support, for those capable companies that have received loans or bailouts, perhaps development SHOULD be a condition of support?
I’ll concede the ‘cretin’ remark was more borne of frustration than anything else, however I have, and currently do deal with some who would fulfil the criteria!
I think you can only blame Government intervention so far – they tend to weigh in on big decisions as opposed to micro manage day to day decisions.
From experience, there is a complete lack of engineering or technical knowledge within the MOD’s procurement teams that allows liberties to be taken by both first and sub-tier suppliers. The civil service in that case is wholly to blame. Middle management specifically – who generally go on to become upper management. Vicious circle.
Millennials ordering part numbers from MRP systems & spreadsheets with little knowledge or interest in what they are ordering does not help, especially when they or their immediate (middle management) gaffers are seemingly not accountable for vast overspends.
That knowledge used to exist…
It wasn’t the civil services fault it disappeared. They actually used to have lots of highly skilled civil service establishments set up specifically to advise and develop everything under the sun. And they did it very well..
But then came an obsession with ‘market forces’ from the political masters (in reality they saw >30% of the UK economy not able to be corrupted or open to their friends to make tonnes of cash). They destroyed this knowledge base by using corrupt ‘consultancies’ who were paid to go in to Government Depts. advise on restructuring, destroy the capability, then hire the redundant experts and charge back to the government at a higher rate….nice work if you can get it.
Blame the politicians, not the civil service…
And everytime you hear some politician saying that there will be ‘efficiencies’ ask them some detailed questions…because they’re inevitably clueless…
One of my big regrets CR. I have followed the history and the structures of our R&D establishments closely for years. ARE, RAE, RARDE, T&EE at Boscombe. All merged into the DRA, then to become DERA. Then good old John Major, ( I think he was the “cretin” at the top at the time, or was it Blair? ) chops the lot into DSTL and QinetiQ.
Wasn’t QinetiQ sold off for peanuts or something? Now the MoD pays them, for things like the LTPA for ranges!
Thank God we kept the DSTL bit, hopefully with the most sensitive bits like Porton.
Have you noticed the latest mergers? The Home Office Scientific Development Branch, which became the Centre’s for Applied Science and Technology, have merged into DSTL.
Of course, the two sites involved at Sandridge and Langhurst will be closed.
Round goes the wheel!
Hi Daniele,
Yeh, QinetiQ was sold off in 2002! By the Blair government, but this was a continuation of the Major governments policies, which as you highlight are still being taken forward today.
Far too few politicians in this country understand technology, be it medical, engineering or any other scientific branch. Having said that there are two areas where the UK government has, so far, stuck with it – the British Antartic Survey and the UK Space Agency. Both I think generate political capital somewhere along the way. The British Antartic Survey is critical to our contested claims in the Antartic and I think the Space Agency still generates Kudos in niche areas with the US. I remember that DRA was doing a small micro-sat series as a training programme for new engineers.
The Satellites were going to carry a small US experiment that depended on the satellite’s unusual orbit. the new CEO cancelled the project, only to seriously upset the American who threatened to cut considerable research funding to DRA. DRA CEO scuttled across to the US, begged forgiveness and the micro-sets were subsequently launched – much chuckling amongst us techies..!
It is the lack of detailed understanding by key decision makers in this country that has so undermined industrial and economic capability. Short term political expediency is the enemy of research, innovation and exploration – all of which are needed to excite imaginations and stimulate economic newal.
OK – that was another meander.!
Greased by the taxpayer at the military s expense.
Why is there a need for the M.O.D. if we have BA E organising military manufacturers to supply our Armed forces with their equipment and supplies?
Is this just a gigantic works scheme or do they intend to give our Armed forces the right kit at a competitive price?
I work in the data and analytics market. It is very specialized and requires some very bright people (I don’t necessarily include myself in that description!) It would cost a huge amount to set up an “in house” team of data engineers and data scientists and MoD would be in competition with the private sector – there is formidable competition for scant skills. Outsourcing it is a fairly sensible strategy as long as the contract is water tight for secrecy, staff retention, quality etc. It is impossible to avoid outsourcing as I can pretty much guarantee that the data platforms used are likely to include Microsoft, Amazon, Google etc which of course are all Cloud systems owned and run by those US companies even though the data may stay in UK for data sovereignty reasons. Amazon won a huge deal with the Pentagon a couple of years ago which probably set the path…I suspect the MoD will have some people embedded within this organization since the technology and data provides the insights but individuals still make the decisions…although some of that could be automated too but I won’t go there!
On the other hand, GCHQ will use many of the same skills and techniques and I think the capability is internal there?
Thanks for your explanation which is a good answer for my tongue in cheek question
However to a layman the whole organisation seems very top heavy