Ministry of Defence
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is the govt department responsible for implementing the defence policy set by Her Majesty's Government, and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces.
Governance
Defence Board
- Gavin Williamson
- Earl Howe PC
- Stephen Lovegrove
- Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Stuart Peach GBE KCB ADC DL
- Vice Chief of the Defence Staff General Gordon Messenger CB DSO* OBE ADC
- Cat Little, Director General Finance
- Sir Gerry Grimstone, Lead Non-Executive Board Member
- Graham Williams, Non-Executive Board Member
- Paul Skinner CBE, Non-Executive Board Member
- Danuta Gray, Non-Executive Board Member
Defence Council
Committees of the Defence Council
Admiralty Board
Army Board
Air Force Board
The professional head of the RAF is the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS).[50] The CAS heads the Air Force Board, which is a committee of the Defence Council. The Air Force Board is the management board of the RAF and consists of several high-ranking officers.[51]
Authority is delegated from the Air Force Board to the RAF's Air Command, headquartered at RAF High Wycombe.[52] This command is headed by the Chief of the Air Staff himself.
- Jun.07.2018: Britain's new F-35s arrive in UK as US.gov auditor sounds reliability warning klaxon. Britain's first permanently based F-35B fighter jets have arrived at RAF Marham in Norfolk – as a US auditor warns that the aircraft won't be deemed "mature" until the year 2021. Gareth Corfield, The Register.
Executive Agencies
- Defence Electronics and Components Agency, Webpage
- Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Webpage
- UK Hydrographic Office, Webpage
Executive Non-Departmental Public Bodies
- National Army Museum, Webpage
- National Museum of the Royal Navy, Webpage
- Royal Air Force Museum, Webpage
- Single Source Regulations Office, Webpage
Advisory Non-Departmental Public Bodies
- Advisory Committee on Conscientious Objectors, Webpage
- Armed Forces' Pay Review Body, Webpage
- Defence Nuclear Safety Committee, Webpage
- Independent Medical Expert Group, Webpage
- Nuclear Research Advisory Council, Webpage
- Scientific Advisory Committee on the Medical Implications of Less-Lethal Weapons, Webpage
- Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees, Webpage
Defence Nuclear Organisation
The DNO oversees all defence nuclear business, excluding operations. Its mission is to:
- continue work on the Dreadnought submarine programme;
- maintain the UK's nuclear warheads and plan for the future;
- continue to build the Defence Nuclear Organisation and develop nuclear skills across its teams.
Atomic Weapons Establishment
Jam every day: AWE plc is wholly-funded by the taxpayer; The Atomic Weapons Establishment Act 1991 provides parliamentary funds to the Secretary of State for Defence to pay for its operations.ref Overview, Business Model, CH, todo, AWE @ National Archives, AWE West Berks, ONR todo, DDG1, DDG2, DDG3. See also the Nuclear Information Service, a not-for-profit, non-govt information service working to promote public awareness and foster debate on the risks and costs of the UK's military nuclear programme.
- Sept.29.2019: Atom bomb factory AWE pays out £82m in dividends. The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston in Berkshire, is run by AWE Management Ltd under a lucrative 25-year contract. AWE Management paid the dividend to shareholders Serco Group plc, Lockheed Martin Corporation (USA), and Jacobs Engineering Group Inc (USA) in 2018. Payouts increased from £70m in 2017, after pre-tax profits rose 15% to £101.4m. The National Audit Office has said that projects to upgrade the facilities were in trouble. Pegasus, a £634m plan to replace a tired building that handles and stores enriched uranium, has been suspended. Mensa, a facility being built at the nearby AWE Burghfield site to assemble and dismantle nuclear warheads, has ballooned in cost from £734m to £1.8bn. It was due to open in 2017 but has been delayed to 2023. John Collingridge, The Sunday Times.
Ad-Hoc Advisory Groups
- Central Advisory Committee on Compensation, Webpage
Other Bodies
- Advisory Group on Military Medicine, Webpage
- Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Webpage
- Defence Sixth Form College, Webpage
- Fleet Air Arm Museum, Webpage
- The Oil and Pipelines Agency, Webpage
- Reserve Forces' and Cadets' Associations, Webpage
- Royal Marines Museum, Webpage
- Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Webpage
- Service Complaints Ombudsman, Webpage
- Service Prosecuting Authority, Webpage
- United Kingdom Reserve Forces Association, Webpage
Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre
The Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre is the Ministry of Defence's think tank. DCDC helps inform defence strategy, capability development, operations and provides the foundation for joint education.
Oddly, the DCDC is not listed as one of the bodies with which the MoD works.
Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee
Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee
- Webpage, Committee, http://www.dsma.uk/index.htm, http://www.dsma.uk/the_system/index.htm, http://www.dsma.uk/committee/index.htm
The Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee oversees a voluntary code which operates between the government departments which have responsibility for national security and the media.
Defence Infrastructure Organisation
Directorates
UKSF: United Kingdom Special Forces
UKSF is an MoD directorate, that provides a joint special operations task force headquarters. See United Kingdom Special Forces.
- https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/directorate-of-special-forces
- https://www.army.mod.uk/who-we-are/corps-regiments-and-units/special-forces-reserve/
- http://www.eliteukforces.info/uksf/
- http://www.eliteukforces.info/
Exceptionally, UKSF is not subject to parliamentary oversight, unlike MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. However, pressure is building to bring them into line with the rest of the military and the intelligence services.[2]
Porton Down
Articles
- Apr.15.2018: Ministry of Defence faces fury over cost of Dreadnought subs. Britain is in danger of another defence spending blow-up after a complex part of the new Dreadnought submarine fleet soared in price. Engineers have told officials that a stability system for the nuclear submarines will cost more than an entire warship. The government is desperate to prevent the £41bn Dreadnought programme joining the long list of defence projects that have blown their budgets. Ministers have created a new arm’s-length body, the Submarine Delivery Agency, in an effort to control costs. The project has a £31bn budget and a £10bn contingency fund. Linkback: BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce. John Collingridge, The Times.
- Mar.12.2018: British soldier kept terrorism manual by Anders Breivik, court told. L/Cpl Mikko Vehvilainen, an army trainer, is accused of membership of National Action, along with private Mark Barrett and a 23-year-old man who cannot be named for legal reasons. Vehvilainen, 33, and Barrett, 24, were both serving members of the Royal Anglian Regiment. National Action "engaged in a campaign of virulently racist, antisemitic, and homophobic propaganda, through which it sought to stir up a violent race war against ethnic minorities and others it perceived as ‘race traitors’". the manual, entitled A European Declaration of Independence, contained “both ideology and methodology of his own attacks” and items on “funding, recruitment, training and armoury for acts of terrorism”. Josh Halliday, The Guardian.
- Feb.27.2018: Military appeals to Hammond for more money. Spending 2% of GDP on the military is not enough in an increasingly dangerous world, defence minister Tobias Ellwood and defence secretary Gavin Williamson said yesterday, in a direct appeal to chancellor Philip Hammond for money. The military faces a funding hole of more than £2bn next year. Deborah Haynes, The Times.
- Feb.15.2018: Internal Discussions Between Ministry of Defence and Regulators on Flying Predator Drones in UK. Details of discussions between the Ministry of Defence and the Civil Aviation Authority on plans to allow the RAF’s upgraded version of the US Predator drone to be flown within the UK have been released following a Freedom of Information request by Drone Wars UK. In Oct.2015, David Cameron announced that a new version of the Predator was to be purchased (re-named 'Protector'). The current armed unmanned aerial vehicle, the Reaper, cannot be flown due to safety issues; the new version was purchased, in part, to enable the RAF to fly its large armed drones within the UK for training as well as security and civil contingency purposes. There is no discussion about the need for proper parliamentary or public debate on the implications or impact of flying large military drones in UK airspace. Once Protector drones are flying within the UK, it is possible that they could be used by what is discreetly called ‘Other Government Departments‘ for security operations within the UK. Reaper drones operated by the UK currently undertake surveillance and reconnaissance operations against terrorist suspects overseas. It is not that much of a leap to imagine them being used in that way here in the UK. It is surely right that the implication of this – and what the limitations are – should be openly discussed and debated. Chris Cole, Drone Wars UK.
- Feb.05.2018: MoD pays £2m to farmers for scaring livestock to death. The Ministry of Defence has paid £1.9 million to farmers to compensate for the distress caused to their hens, horses, cattle, pigs and sheep by low-flying military jets and helicopters. The Times.
- Feb.01.2018: Ministry of Defence not fit for purpose. The National Audit Office described in a withering report how the Ministry of Defence was up to £4.2bn worse off by selling married quarters to the private company, Annington Property. The MoD seriously underestimated the likely rise in house prices when it made the sale and leaseback deal with the company managed by Guy Hands' Guernsey-based Terra Firma group. The MoD was paying rent on more than 7,000 empty houses at a cost of more than £30m a year and some homes had been receiving "the minimum acceptable level of maintenance". The MoD has an appalling record of "outsourcing" work to private companies. It emerged on Wednesday that one of those companies, Capita, was in serious trouble. (more...) Richard Norton-Taylor, OpenDemocracyUK. See also MoD lost up to £4.2bn through sale of military homes, says NAO
- Jan.25.20189: Tories 'raising spectre' of new cuts as ministers reveal plans for a Modernising Defence Programme. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson announced the Modernising Defence Programme, a review to be made available in the summer. Ben Glaze, The Mirror.
- Jan.24.2018: Soldier who died at Deepcut was "shackled and humiliated," inquest hears. Pte Sean Benton, 20, was found dead at barracks in 1995 with five bullet wounds to his chest. Ian Cobain, The Guardian.
- Jan.23.2018: Gavin Williamson wins new defence review and five months to make case for military funding. Gavin Williamson has been given another 5 months to make the case for increased military funding and avoid sweeping cuts, after Downing Street announced a new defence review. The Ministry of Defence will now take control of the new review, in a move likely to be seen as a victory after lobbying by the Defence Secretary. Ben Farmer, The Telegraph.
- Also see W: Deep Cut Barrack Deaths
- HMS Ocean undergoes a refit, then sold for just £84m. Govt have refused to engage on issue of amphibious capability for months, Tories talk a good game but they're consistently hollowing out our defence capabilities, @NiaGriffithMP
- In 2015 we reported that HMS Ocean underwent a £65million refit the previous year, @CarlEveCrime (lots more in this thread on defence spending cuts)
- Jan.12.2018: The MOD have now sold the UK's flagship and only helicopter carrier HMS Ocean to Brazil without any replacement plan. It is another degradation of our navy's capability. @PaulJSweeney, Twitter.
- Also see Brazil announce purchase of HMS Ocean for £84 million from the UK Defence Journal.
- Feb.15.2017: Dispatches: The Great Housing Scandal. Land sold off at silly prices for luxury hotels + marinas with a massive loss to taxpayer; govt promised to sell off enough land for 100K homes; MoD negotiated with the local council for 15% (instead of 35%) affordable housing = 480 fewer houses. More than 50% of the MoD sales between 2011-2015 will have fewer affordable homes than the local council target, overall, less than 25% of homes on former public land will be affordable. The MoD has planned for 2,400 homes on the Prince Philip Barracks, but who is going to build them? Meet Sir Tim Lawrence, he's married to Princess Anne. Sir Tim ran the MoD's vast property empire until 2010. When he left, Sir Tim stayed in the property world, getitng another job at Capita. In 2011 Sir Tim became a non-exec director. He also got a 2nd job as advisor to PA Consulting. Sir Tim's 3rd job is non-exec chairman at property developer Dorchester Group. In 2014, another co. in Capita won a tender to help run the MoD's property empire. In 2015, Dorchester was 1 of 2 cos which won a tender to develop the Prince Philip Barracks, 3/4 bn $s. Conflict of interest. Govt counted land which had already been sold. Have any homes been built? Found some... but defo not affordable. Of all the land the MoD has sold since 2011, we've found 64 homes actually built, costing 3.5m each. (go thru this again + check.) YouTube, Channel 4 Dispatches.
References
- ^ About us. Defence Nuclear Organisation, Gov.uk. Accessed Aug.25.2020.
- ^ Special forces need to face scrutiny from parliament, say MPs. Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, Apr.24.2018.