The Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) Protector programme, intended to replace the ageing Reaper remotely piloted air system, has seen its Delivery Confidence Assessment (DCA) downgraded from Amber to Red, according to the latest Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) Annual Report for 2023-24.
The change reflects growing concerns about the programme’s ability to meet its objectives on time and within budget.
What changed?
In the previous financial year (2022/23-Q4), the Protector programme was rated Amber, indicating moderate risks being managed to progress towards milestones. However, as of 2023/24-Q4, the assessment has shifted to Red. This downgrade follows a December 2023 Gateway 0/4 review, which identified delays in securing approval to re-baseline the programme’s milestones.
The report explains that the downgrade reflects challenges in progressing Defence Lines of Development, specifically in equipment, infrastructure, and information systems. While risks were being actively managed, the inability to secure timely approvals was a critical factor in the worsening assessment.
The IPA acknowledged the importance of addressing these delays as part of the path to achieving a Green rating:
“The Delivery Confidence has been moved to Red in response to a delay in receiving approval to re-baseline the Programme’s milestones and provides the route to Green.”
The Protector Programme
The Protector programme is a cornerstone of the MOD’s strategy to modernise the UK’s military capabilities. The system, based at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, is designed to deliver armed, long-range, persistent wide-area surveillance with advanced sensors. The capability aims to remain in service until at least 2040, offering enhanced operational flexibility over the current Reaper system.
Despite the setback, the programme continues to be a strategic priority. The MOD is focused on mitigating risks and aligning the project with its key milestones to meet operational objectives.
Broader context
The Protector programme is one of 27 projects on the Government Major Project Portfolio (GMPP) currently rated as Red. These projects collectively represent £96.8 billion in whole-life costs. The IPA noted that the rise in Red ratings this year is partly due to challenges stemming from inflation, global supply chain disruptions, and skills shortages.
In the defence sector, the report highlights how early identification of issues through DCAs, such as the Gateway review process, can help projects move from Red to Amber or Green with focused interventions. However, for Protector, the current challenges require prompt resolution to avoid further delays and cost overruns.
The government’s commitment to delivering major national infrastructure projects was reaffirmed in the foreword to the report.
“There are 227 projects on this year’s Government Major Project Portfolio (GMPP). This comprises 68 infrastructure and construction projects, many of which are focussing on improving and maintaining the UK’s energy, environment, transport, telecommunications, sewage and water systems, and constructing new public buildings. Elsewhere in the portfolio, we have 89 government transformation and service delivery projects, 44 military projects to bolster defence capability, and 26 information and communications technology projects that aim to transition old legacy systems to new digital solutions, equip government departments for the future, and deliver efficiencies to advance innovation and technology.
Therefore, it goes without saying that we are ultimately delivering some of the biggest public services across the globe. These projects are a catalyst to discovering new and innovative ways to meet our wider targets and commitments, such as achieving net zero, being leaders in technology and creating opportunities for all regions to prosper.
To do this, we need to get the policy right and deliver nothing less than excellence in a challenging landscape. That is why IPA has worked to collectively transform our project delivery professionals’ skills across government, through providing a robust accreditation scheme and powerful guidance and tools to allow projects to thrive.”
Next steps
The MOD now faces the task of addressing the issues that led to the downgrade. Critical steps include securing approval to re-baseline milestones and implementing robust risk mitigation strategies.
The IPA’s support, alongside internal reforms, will be vital in steering the project back towards a more stable trajectory. The Protector programme remains essential to the UK, with its ability to provide long-range surveillance and armed capabilities.
Understanding Delivery Confidence Assessment (DCA) Ratings
The Delivery Confidence Assessment (DCA) ratings provide an evaluation of the likelihood of a project meeting its objectives in terms of time, cost, and scope. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority uses these ratings to identify challenges and provide recommendations for improvement. The ratings are categorized as follows:
- Green: A Green rating indicates that the project is on track to deliver successfully, with minimal risks identified. Any issues are well understood and manageable within the existing plans.
- Amber: An Amber rating signifies that while successful delivery is feasible, there are significant issues that require focused management attention. These challenges could pose risks to the project’s timeline, budget, or objectives if not addressed effectively.
- Red: A Red rating reflects serious concerns about the project’s ability to meet its objectives. Immediate corrective action is needed to address fundamental issues, as the project is unlikely to succeed without significant changes or interventions.
These ratings offer a snapshot of project performance and help ensure that potential issues are identified and mitigated early, improving the likelihood of successful delivery.
Very difficult to interpret this mushspeak but does this suggest in coded form that delays in finance due to the Defence Review is perhaps having an effect? Or am I being cynical about despite Govt claims to want to increase defence spending they are using it to delay spending. If so that would be even more worrying than we thought considering this is a vital platform at the top regions of certainty that needs to be introduced asap.
Re-baselining delays may also be because another department, or even board members are refusing to accept reasons for delay…or cost increases…from the programme or contractor.
No-one ever re-baselines to deliver early or at a lower cost…
I would suggest many departments within the MOD are hiding bad news under the cloak of this blasted Defence Review! Like COVID, it will be raised as a roadblock when asked awkward questions by the media.
It’s taking them too long to get approval for re-baselining milestones. That normally means that the agreed milestones either can’t be delivered in time or their performance criteria can’t be met within that time and budget. Sometimes it may mean that they don’t think the milestone is relevant and they want to change it to something else. If they’re having trouble getting approval, it may be because they can’t convince people that the delay or change in specification is justified, or there are strongly differing opinions about what the solution is and they’re struggling to break the deadlock. Or the project org structure is messed up and no-one has sufficient authority to close out.
Report says it’s related to “equipment, infrastructure, and information systems”, so I presume it’s to do with getting the support infrastructure up and running rather than the drones themselves.
That’s my attempt at translation, anyway…!
Would love to know colour is assigned to the DCA for Hinckley C
The blackest black you have ever seen…
I’m still quite frankly astonished by the lack of anything coming out of BAe in regards to unmanned air vehicles (UAVs). We k is they have a number of large jet based prototypes. However nothing has actually been produced.
UAVs are not going away, all three services require UAVs to meet their peculiar requirement. Therefore, shouldn’t BAe being an aviation designer and manufacturer. Actually be building USVs to meet our services requirements, rather than the MoD shopping abroad?
Therefore the question remains, apart from Typhoon, bits of the F35 and FCAS, what do BAe actually do in the aviation industry?
In the same boat as you! Seems like BAE wont lift a finger unless the govt specifically funds it and asks for a prototype, whereas other companies are not afriad to pony up some of thier own R&D money and just bring something to market and offer it up. Why would the MoD pay BAE to develop aprotottype where there are things like Ghost Bat etc that literally already exist and can be purchased? … BAE too busy paying out dividends to invest in r&d
They are a huge company in capital intensive activities and their prospects for growth outside acquisitions is very limited. They HAVE to pay dividends to hold up the stock price. If they put the 2.6% yield that they pay on divs into speculative R&D the stockholders would clear out the board and replace them with a new crew who would pay dividends.
Yet the Ukraine Armed Forces have shown what can be done with a commercial off the shelf drone, that costs far less.
A commercial OTS Drone operating at low level over the battlefield is a different beast to a large UCAV such as Protector, Reaper, or UAV like Global Hawk and Triton.
Another procurement going to hell. I wonder how much will be lost on this one without anyone taking responsibility. Lucky we have so much money to spare in the MOD budget to waste on these continual cock-ups
I can’t work out from the assessment what the problem is. Is it money, technical? Given how much we have spent on a proven system, why is not working from day one?
Just found the page on the government website.
MoD has:
6 Red; 34 Amber; 2 Green and 2 Exempted projects…
I have also found a list Annex D; of projects with a DCA history. HMT has one project on the list and its rrated RED 🙂
In addition to the Protector program the Future Combat Air System is rated RED. The other RED rated programs for MoD are:
Collective Training Transformation Programme;
Core Production Capability;
E7 Wedgetail;
MODnet Evolve;
Next Generation (fixed) Communication Network;
All the major spending departments seem to be struggling with delivery…
Depressing,
Cheers CR
Found another one for MoD
Spearcap 3 is also rated Red.
Also, Figure 7 in the report says MoD has 6 Red rated programs I have found 8 listed so I am guessing there is a difference in scale between the Table in Annex D and Figure 7 in the main text.
Cheers CR
Yes, I noticed Spear3 as well, last year. I’m not clear how much of that is knock-on from F-35 delays though, as I believe it’s the only platform it’s going on. It can’t be meeting its delivery milestones if integration on the launch platform is delayed.
That said, they shouldn’t be facing any other delays, as far as I’m concerned. It’s been in development for ages and uses bits from a bunch of other MBDA products.
Exempted projects?
Wedgetail was always going to be late because the mission system had been out of production for about 10 years and a significant number of components were no longer produced and manufactures had to reopen long closed production lines or new solutions found. Also the conversion is being overseen by Boeing but implemention by another company with little large scale aircraft systems integration experience. I wonder just how complete the Boeing produced work packages were for implementation by inexperienced contractors. Its also likely that Boeing and Norththrope Gruman had lost expertise just because the passage of time. The MOD were also over a barrel over E3 support costs so they bought the arguement that funding for the E7 could be diverted from the E3 support programme hence the scrapping of the E3s and the RAF taking a capability holiday. It would have been fine if they had met unrealistic timescales adopted to make the whole programme look fesible. Did the RAF really understand what they were committed to and the operational risks they were taking?
AI (UK based), robots, drones and fusion energy research should be the government’s top priority to develop and keep it local to the UK. I know the current government has thrown in a few quid in this direction but it is just not enough. Imagine if we purchased & became reliant on Elon Musk’s (or anyone else) tech and one day he just decided to switch it all off remotely, the UK would be up the swanny without a paddle. This tech is evolving so, so fast and the UK government seems to be stuck in the mud over these issues.
Digging past all the corporate buzzwords, I note that it’s unclear who was not providing the approvals that were the cause of the problem.
Also unclear is why a change to ‘baseline milestones’ was being requested.
Thought this was an off the shelf programme, so why the problems?
We should rename the M.o.D the Ministry of Attack, after all, politics has become the continuation of warfare by any means, we should also sell these attack Drones to the Mohammadans so that they can launch surprise covert attacks on their own weddings and funerals. It would also be good if we could make friends for a hundred years with humanity.
Make peace you imbeciles ❤️☮️
The problem is that there is massive skills shortage in this country, and around the world generally. In Aviation, Avionics, Electronics and real-time software. Money and budgets can’t fix that. In a word, we’re pretty screwed.
I tried to get a project manager job with one of our defence companies, was turned down as too technical. As in I knew what I was doing, knew when people were pulling the wool over my eyes, knew how to achieve what was needed, knew what couldn’t be achieved…. So they employed a kid from school who knows how to lube his backside for the boss