Held the day before the UK National Spending Review was announced, you could expect a Seawork conference session from HM Government to be a little reserved when talking procurement, but that wasn’t the case at all.
The session, moderated by Mark Albon, director of the Maritime Defence & Security Group (MDSG) at the Society of Maritime Industries (SMI), was held on the first day of Seawork and was an interesting and lively discussion on the support available to commercial marine SMEs now and for the future.
“The last 12 months have once again been a year of uncertainty and change, but the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) is central to achieving UK business potential,” said Cdre Jonathan A Carrigan, deputy director, National Shipbuilding Office (NSO).
“The SDR sets a path for the next decade and beyond to transform Defence with the aim to create opportunities at home and for export abroad for our world beating vessel builds and technologies.”
Supply chain
Key areas Defence is looking to exploit in future include unmanned and autonomous vessels and technology, offshore wind and green technologies, which will help achieve the energy transition.
“Only by seizing these opportunities will we build a strong future for the UK shipbuilding and its supply chain,” Cdre Carrigan said.
The Defence Equipment & Support (DE+S) Boats team were also at the session to talk Defence Reform and how that affects SMEs.
The team currently has around 3.000 boats in service, for which there are 97 classes and work is ongoing to streamline this with the aim of consolidating the fleet.
But Darren Brice-Taylor, senior commercial manager - Ships-Boats, DE&S, said the main challenge is how to work smarter with the boat tender process, not least of all, make it quicker.
“We need to get better with working alongside suppliers making sure both parts of the relationship have a coherent understanding of how the process works. We also need to fully maximise the benefits of new regulation to end the bureaucratic timeframe,” he said.
Nurturing expertise
The UK Royal Navy (RN) outlined plans back in February to exploit developments in remotely operated and uncrewed/autonomous anti-submarine warfare (ASW) search capability for the North Atlantic.
Project CABOT forms a central part of the RN’s proposition in the UK’s Strategic Defence Review and working closely with commercial marine innovation is integral to the plan.
The consensus is the UK needs this capability now, not in multiple years’, time because the current crewed system won’t work going forward - it’s about “getting the best solution in the tent.”
The RN plans to handle procurement for the project differently going forward, the first stage being a call for white papers that will then be shortlisted.
It’s asking for expressions of interest now – interested parties can do this at the Defence Sourcing Portal.
Business support
Another cog in the UK Defence procurement process is “one of the best kept secrets in Defence”, the MOD Defence & Security Accelerator (DASA).
It should be the first port of call for innovative start-ups and technology and has around £400m in funding available to help bring new concepts to market.
“You’re not excluded if you’re not working in Defence at the moment,” said Miranda Morgan, business growth & finance at DASA.
But she explained that there is a registration process. It’s also worth noting that DASA start-up funding won’t take an innovation right through to a contract with the MOD.
“We’re focused on helping SMEs to scale up and become investor ready,” she said.
Mick Essex from the UK Department for Business and Trade started a discussion on the opportunities in decarbonisation that are out there for the whole shipbuilding supply chain.
“Decarbonisation is an enormous opportunity to sell internationally, with 60% of total shipbuilding costs being equipment,” he said.
He added that the support for business is there to support export – for example UK Export Finance.
MOD UK Ministry of Defence One of his department’s focuses is on prospecting, including connecting the right companies to inward trade delegations.
Addressing concerns
One of the main concerns coming from the audience was that most SMEs feel that there is little chance of obtaining a Defence contract and that the system may not be as democratic as it conveys.
Cdre Carrigan accepted this view and said that it is no secret that SMEs struggle with the Defence procurement process.
“We need to better recognise the really important part that SMEs have to play and the importance of a level playing field,” he said.
It was also pointed out that SMEs simply don’t have the time to make an application which can take between four and six weeks minimum to do – big business has time to do that, SMEs don’t.
The speakers pointed towards how the RN plans to handle procurement differently, for example with Project CABOT. It’s hoped that the white paper approach will make the process as easy as possible for all bidders and because ideas will be shortlisted at a much earlier point, far less time will be wasted on applications.
The audience also wanted to get some clarity on how much Defence will be focusing on ‘Britain first’, protecting home contracts and reducing money going abroad.
The collective response from the speakers was that the UK Government takes the view of “UK first but not UK only.”
Emphasis, they said, was on making sure industry is able to compete with international business, for example the European yards. They added there was space though for a refresh of the UK shipbuilding policy.
Project CABOT will of course be bound by legislation and there will be many elements that will be for UK eyes only, which will of course benefit UK suppliers.
As moderator, Mr Albon asked the speakers what else they would be working on to speed up procurement.
Pete Lagden, Boats Team Leader for the UK Ministry of Defence, pointed out DE&S had recently moved to a new Operating Model & People Management Model and was now in “the process of refining work processes to meet our aim of equipping our armed forces with the edge to protect our nation.”
This along with the wider Defence Reform Programme and the recently released Strategic Defence Review, would see a new partnership with Industry. “By breaking down barriers between individual Services, enabling organisations and the private sector, we’ll use market segmentation to allow all sizes of supplier to deliver for Defence and benefit economic growth.”
The take-home message from the session was clear – the UK Government is trying to attract more SMEs, so get your business registered, stay up to date with new opportunities and put yourself forward if you’re the right fit for the job.
And the speakers parting shot? ”Our armed forces are only as good as the industry that sits behind it.”
