Representing 8,000 civilian specialists in the department, Prospect says MOD has so far only paid lip service to the reports and is in a state of denial over the scale of its spending gap and its inability to properly control the costs and delivery of its equipment programme, as set out in the latest House of Commons defence select committee report into the defence equipment programme.

National secretary Steve Jary said: “The analysis in the Gray and Haddon-Cave reports – that cuts and contractorisation have destroyed MOD's intelligent customer capability – has been acknowledged by MOD. But, although it says it has accepted their recommendations, they are being ignored completely by the department. Indeed the ongoing Defence Support Review is, essentially, more of the same flawed strategy of cuts and contractorisation.

“Defence Equipment and Support continues to be driven by savings measures and change programmes which will do further damage to the ability of the department to ensure the right equipment is in the right place, is on time and acquired at the right price.”

Prospect agrees with the defence select committee that MOD’s strategy of ‘save now pay later’ is deeply flawed and is causing significant problems elsewhere in the department.

Jary said cuts to the department’s research budget will have a detrimental affect on the UK defence industrial base. “Spending on defence research is not something that can be turned on or off like a tap. It needs consistent funding if future capability is to realised.”