11

Written evidence submitted by Jag Patel (DIS0023)

Over the last 50 years or so, the naval shipbuilding industry in the UK has become notoriously inefficient and therefore seriously uncompetitive, largely because it has enjoyed protection from governments of all persuasions, on national security grounds.

introduction

1.         As the Scottish Affairs Committee considers the issue of military shipbuilding in Scotland, it is as well to remember that defence is not a devolved issue.  Nor is the procurement of defence equipment, which also falls within the remit of the Secretary of State for Defence in the UK government.
2.         As for the question of how many and what types of naval ships will be built in Scotland in the years ahead – it will be decided not by the Secretary of State for Defence, but by the shipyards themselves, to be specific, the competitiveness of their parent companies in the domestic and in global markets.  What workshare is devolved by group headquarters in England to shipyards in Scotland is a business decision, and a matter entirely for defence prime contractors – it has nothing to do with the Secretary of State for Defence.
3.         But first, domestic contractors will have to come out on top in open competition, otherwise there simply is no way ahead.
4.         There is no getting away from the fact that this government’s policy is to procure defence equipment through fair and open competition to ensure it gets best value for money.  It intends to achieve this by selecting the single, preferred contractor from a choice of industry teams by running a winner-takes-all competition on the basis on a level playing field genuinely open to all-comers, including non-domiciled suppliers.
5.         Whereas there are several naval shipbuilding programmes currently under way at various stages of development, this submission focuses on the restarted competition for the Fleet Solid Support ships – a programme that has captured the attention of Parliamentarians and generated a lot of controversy in Parliament, not least, because MoD is intent on using the instrument of competition as a tool to discriminate between bidders on the basis of price, which some people are disinclined to accept.
6.         But first, this submission looks at what has gone wrong with defence procurement and why defence contractors are scared of competing in global markets.

Scared of competing in global markets

7.         In the immediate aftermath of the UK’s departure from the EU, defence contractors moved swiftly to call on the government to limit entrants in open competitions for domestic equipment procurement programmes to indigenous businesses only – yet they claim to be world-class companies.
8.         The inescapable fact of the matter is that only businesses that compete in global markets and beat peer-level competitors, again and again, are entitled to call themselves world-class players.  It is safe to say that indigenous defence contractors are scared of competing in global markets for fear of losing, not least, because they are notoriously inefficient and therefore seriously uncompetitive – on price, quality of products offered and most important of all, on timely delivery.

Competition-averse

9.         But the real reason why they want to keep foreign defence contractors out of the domestic market is because they are institutionally competition-averse – largely because they are staffed (from the very top to the bottom) by people who were previously in the pay of the State where they never had to face any competition and consequently, have no experience whatsoever of what it is like to “feel the heat” of competitive market forces.
10.      This total dominance of the payroll has come about because the last several decades has seen the transfer of tens of thousands of people in the pay of the State to the private sector via the “revolving door”, in the main due to the resounding success of the policy instituted by Defence Secretaries of all political persuasions – to encourage for-profit organisations in receipt of government defence contracts to take-on people who are just about to come off the public payroll.

Mass migration

11.      This mass migration would explain why the workforce, at every level of the hierarchy within defence contractors’ organisations (right across the full spectrum of defence engineering businesses, government outsourcing contractors and foreign-owned entities, large and small) is now made-up entirely of people who were previously in the pay of the State.
12.      To add to this blunder, the government is inviting precisely these sorts of people into its policy-making forums in Whitehall to try to get a handle on what has gone wrong with defence procurement, because its own civil servants are not up to the job.  So, it will come as no surprise that these unpaid advisers, seconded from the defence industry and treated as “one of us”, will never bring themselves to prescribe more competition as the medicine to the ills suffered by defence equipment manufacturers.
13.      And yet, it is the government’s policy is to procure equipment for the Armed Forces through fair and open competition.  It confirms this stance in its most recent policy statement on defence procurement expressed in the Defence Industrial Policy,[1] where it says:

“We strive to provide our Armed Forces with the capabilities they need at the best value for money, obtaining this through open competition in the global market, wherever possible.  Competitive tension is the greatest driver for innovation, productivity and earning power in any economy.”

14.      However, those lower-down the hierarchy underneath the governing elite, including the administrative elite and military top brass, who are hostile towards competitive markets have fought tooth and nail to prevent this policy from being implemented fully. Reinforced by fierce opposition from vested interests outside Whitehall, there seems little chance of it being applied anytime soon.
15.      So long as defence contractors carry on with the practice of recruiting only people who were previously in the pay of the State, they will continue to be allergic to competition.

market failure in defence procurement

16.      Conventional wisdom has it that competition among vendors in the private sector is the foremost driver of innovation, productivity growth, prosperity and opportunity.  Even the government has bought into this narrative of wealth creation and trickle-down effect.
17.      Indeed, the government has been pretty frank in its Defence Industrial Policy about the role of competition in the defence equipment market.[2]  It says:

“Competitive tension is the greatest driver for innovation, productivity and earning power in any economy. It is our policy to develop and foster competition, and to preserve strategic choice in the market, including over the longer term. There are, nevertheless, particular challenges and constraints in doing this, causing various levels of market failure in defence procurement.”

18.      What’s more, in the very next sentence, the government comes clean and acknowledges that 42% of new MoD contracts by value were placed via open competition in 2016/17, down from 64% in 2010/11 – which leads one to conclude that the trend is towards more of the same.

Deep-seated socialist tendencies

19.      So, it seems that less and less use is being made of the market-based instrument of fair and open competition – notwithstanding its role at the very heart of the government’s policy on defence procurement.  There is a suspicion that senior executives seconded from the defence industry and embedded within MoD, who remain in the pay of their employers, may have exercised their maligned influence to interfere with implementation of policy to serve their narrow commercial interests.  Or is this a clear-cut case of the senior civil servants subverting the will of the party of government, and policy set by Ministers?  One thing is for certain – there is reluctance on the part of some people in the pay of the State in leadership positions to use the instrument of competition as a tool, because it creates winners and losers – reflecting their deep-seated socialist tendencies.
20.      It would explain why the defence industry has failed so miserably to deliver equipment to the Armed Forces which is fit for purpose, adequately sustained in-service and constitutes value for money through-life.

No business sense

21.      One of the “challenges and constraints” cited by government is that it does not possess the capability in the form of intelligent and experienced procurement officials who have an adequate understanding of what it takes (in terms of skill types, funding, tools, processes, materials, scheduled work plan, inter-business contractual agreements etc.) to advance an immature technical solution from its existing condition, to a point where it will satisfy the technical specification requirement within a private sector setting driven by the profit motive and people who instinctively employ sharp business practices.
22.      Consequently, they are not able to establish what the true status of the evolving technical solution is, based upon claims made by contractors.  They have been taught the importance of having situational awareness but not market awareness.  The harsh truth is that, these people have no business sense at all – on account of not having spent a single day of their lives in the private sector and yet, they have been put in charge of spending taxpayers’ money to the tune of £17bn per year to buy defence equipment, outsourced services and labour from the private sector.

State failure precipitated market failure

23.      It is this inadequacy in people underneath the governing elite that led to, what can only be described as state failure, which then precipitated market failure in defence procurement.  State failure has come about because these people allowed the existing defence procurement process to be interfered with by defence contractors who have skewed it decisively in their favour, at every turn.  Most notably, outsiders who have no care or concern for the public interest have been brought into the fold to shape policy, which they have happily done to serve their own commercial interests.
24.      It is hard not to conclude that state failure and market failure will continue to persist as long as people in the pay of the State are unable to step-up to the plate.

A pro-market government

25.      Time and again, this pro-market government has made it absolutely clear that it would like to see the competitiveness of the defence industry improved significantly, both in the domestic market and globally, so that the UK can pay its way in the world post-Brexit.
26.      But this message has simply not being getting through.
27.      Not content with having enjoyed exclusive access to the home market for the last several decades, defence contractors are calling on the government to exclude all potential bidders from elsewhere in the world, by limiting entrants in competitions for domestic equipment procurement programmes to indigenous businesses only.
28.      It is tempting to conclude that these contractors are scared of losing to competitors from abroad in a fair and open contest which cannot be manipulated or skewed in their favour, especially if it is run by a foreign government.  The resultant fall in share price added to the reputational damage they might suffer is yet another reason for this reluctance to pit themselves against the best in the world.

Competition is the essence of the enterprise culture

29.      Those who are convinced that a free market economy is what brings prosperity to all should also acknowledge that competition is the essence of the enterprise culture and that it alone fosters innovation, wealth creation and the winning mindset.
30.      For an economic model that relies on voluntary exchange between buyers and sellers and seeks to deliver goods and services to everyone at a price they are willing to pay, vigorous competition among vendors on the basis of a level playing field is absolutely essential.
31.      This philosophy is as true for the market in defence equipment as it is for the consumer goods and services market.
32.      In Adam Smith’s use, the “free market” is not a market free from government, but one that is free from rents – these rents include distortions borne of market power, privileged access and position.  It is therefore heartening to learn that senior members of this government, including the Prime Minister, are self-confessed free marketeers.

Enjoyed protection from governments of all persuasions

33.      Over the last 50 years or so, the naval shipbuilding industry in the UK has become notoriously inefficient and therefore seriously uncompetitive, largely because it has enjoyed protection from governments of all persuasions, on national security grounds.
34.      Indeed, since joining what was then the European Economic Community, successive governments have gone out of their way to shield domestic shipbuilders from exposure to the full rigours of the free market, that is to say, “feel the heat” of competitive market forces – by invoking an exemption that excluded continental rivals from bidding for UK shipbuilding programmes, which is permitted under Article 346 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU on war-like goods.
35.      The results are entirely predictable.  The shipbuilding industry has failed to satisfy the wants, needs and expectations of its primary customer the MoD, not least because it has become notoriously inefficient on the back of uncontested contracts from government, which it expects to receive in perpetuity – cultivating a dependency culture.  Additionally, it has no incentive to invest in innovation, product research & development, creating intellectual property or upskilling employees because it knows full well that it will be given condition-free contracts, no matter what.

Restoring industry competitiveness

36.      So, to restore industry competitiveness and enhance its preparedness for the post-Brexit era, the government has, in its 2017 National Shipbuilding Strategy, made its policy on domestic shipbuilding absolutely clear.  It says (on page 24):

“Our intent is to compete non-warships in order to maintain UK competitive edge for shipbuilding. By testing UK yards against foreign competition, we will be able to ensure that the UK sector remains competitive ……….”

37.      To ask this conservative government to abandon its default policy of procuring new ships through fair and open competition in the global market is to suggest that it goes back to the tried-and-failed practice of handing out single-source, shipbuilding contracts to one of the Select Few on a preferential basis, which has seen the government being rewarded with appallingly poor performance, characterised by persistent delays and cost overruns for as long as anyone can remember.

The role played by MPs

38.      When one considers that MPs are elected as voter representatives via free and fair competitive elections which they have accepted and tolerated as the only way of getting into Parliament, it is difficult to understand why these people then think it is alright to object to the government’s policy of selecting private sector players to supply goods and services for public use via open competition.
39.      When running for public office they never considered disregarding the election process or breaking Electoral Commission rules, and yet as MPs, they will readily partake in activities that undermine the competition process – by lobbying decision-makers (behind closed doors) in Whitehall to get them to bend the rules of the competition and swing the decision on down-selection in favour of businesses that give them second jobs or are located in their constituencies.
40.      Such are the double standards that govern our elected representatives’ actions!
41.      What MPs should be doing is using their considerable influence with producer interests to persuade them to become much more competitive (because no one else is) by employing talented engineers, problem-solvers, innovators and doers to build-in engineering excellence into their products by tackling technical problems as they arise.  Additionally, getting them to invest their own money in innovation, research & development, creating intellectual property and upskilling employees will enable them to regain market share lost to foreign entities in recent times.[3]
42.      The only problem is that politicians are terrible at picking winners but losers are brilliant at picking politicians.

Preoccupied with subverting the competition process

43.      As for defence contractors, instead of playing by the rules of the game that go with participating in the market as free trading enterprises, they are preoccupied with subverting the competition process and tilting the level playing field in their favour so that they can continue to dominate the market in defence goods and services, at the expense of rivals and new entrants.
44.      It is the lack of confidence in their own capabilities and fear of losing in open competition that motivates them to elicit the services of MPs who, in turn, are all too willing to engage in this plot to protect them from being exposed to the full rigours of the free market, that is to say, shield them from “feeling the heat” of competitive market forces.

using competition as a tool

45.      A highly critical report on MoD procurement published by the Public Accounts Committee in November last year concluded that:

“The Department continually fails to learn from its mistakes.”

46.      One glaring example of not learning lessons is illustrated by the way MoD goes about applying the instrument of competition to select the single, preferred contractor for an equipment that requires design & development work to be performed upon it – bearing in mind that the intent behind using competition as a tool is to test bidders on price by exposing them to the full rigours of the free market, that is to say, not shielding them from “feeling the heat” of competitive market forces.

Still using the “sudden death” competition

47.      Instead of running a multiple-phase, winner-takes-all competition on the basis of a level playing field open to all-comers with the rules of the contest declared at the outset,[4] MoD is still persisting with its tried-and-failed policy of using the “sudden death” competition, which abruptly reduces the field of bidders from several to one, following a one-off release of the invitation to tender – thereby removing the incentive for this single contractor to perform or keep prices down, during subsequent engineering phases of the development programme.
48.      The difference between the “sudden death” competition and the multiple-phase, winner-takes-all competition is that unlike the former, the latter forces bidders to get serious about not only identifying, quantifying and controlling the prime equipment costs, but also its whole-life sustainment costs – a process that begins at the time of preparing the ITT response for the first contract performance phase, and continues until the single contractor is chosen.  Bidders who fail to do so run the risk of being excluded from the next phase of the competition.
49.      Normal commercial pressures and market forces inherent within the context of the winner-takes-all competition will, in themselves, compel bidders to produce and deliver competitively priced, fully compliant ITT responses – not because the government says so, as some people in the pay of the State with inflated egos seem to think, but because of the omnipresent threat from the Competition!
50.      Additionally, the policy of Progressive Elimination – removing bidders one-by-one during the winner-takes-all competition requires that a bidder who scores worst against the selection criteria should be eliminated immediately after MoD has taken receipt of ITT responses and another, who has performed least well, at the end of each contract performance phase.

Fleet Solid Support ships competition – a case study

51.      As an example, consider the Fleet Solid Support ships competition which was restarted in May 2021 (for a second time), after being terminated during the general election campaign in December 2019.
52.      On the basis of responses provided during a prior pre-qualification exercise open to defence contractors around the world, four multi-national industry teams (each fronted by a lead contractor) have been awarded a 12-month, £4.85 million design contract for the Competitive Procurement phase of FSS.  Likewise, on the basis of responses submitted at the end of this CP phase, MoD intends to down-select a single contractor who will be awarded the manufacture contract in May 2023 for the three FSS ships – politics of the domestic electoral timetable permitting.
53.      But the problem with this “sudden death” competition is that it has been rendered ineffective by a major flaw at its heart – procurement officials are completely reliant on warm soothing words and hollow statements of intent offered by bidders in their ITT responses.  MoD’s requirement to submit Management Plans gives bidders’ marketing executives (who maintain tight editorial control) unbridled freedom to incorporate lies, distortions and spin into their submissions, in an attempt to outdo their opponents.  Indeed, the descriptions of the maturity of their evolving technical solutions are so wildly overblown that they bear no relation to the reality on the ground, making it near impossible for contractors’ technical people to bridge the gap during follow-on contract performance phase(s).
54.      Actually, contractors’ behaviour can be likened to water flowing down the side of a hill – the latter automatically runs around any obstacles in its path, like a rock or tree, in the same way as contractors instinctively take the easy way out by manoeuvring themselves around responsibilities and obligations they willingly entered into at the time of signing the contract, but now have no intention whatsoever of fulfilling.

Contractors not tested on price

55.      The Ministry of Defence continually makes the claim that it procures military equipment that constitutes best value for money for taxpayers.  But the fact of the matter is that its procurement practices do not allow it to test contractors on the basis of price, and therefore value for money.
56.      For the last several decades, successive Secretaries of State for Defence have sanctioned the practice of disclosing the budget set aside for the procurement of new military equipment to Parliament, the press and in requirements documentation released to potential bidders.  The narcissistic tendency of elite politicians wanting to hog the limelight with regular public expenditure announcements for the sole purpose of elevating their profile in the eyes of the voting public, not to mention attracting plaudits from the wider party membership has prompted them to act in this reckless manner.
57.      However, in a major reversal of policy, Ministers are now refusing to reveal the total budgeted expenditure figure or associated year-on-year financial funding profile on the grounds that to make the such cost estimates public, would be prejudicial to the commercial interests of MoD.  See this screenshot of an answer to a written parliamentary question provided on 30 January 2020.

Price-fixing

58.      This change has come about because defence contractors have hitherto taken this information as an indication of how much MoD can afford and responded accordingly – by simply taking a commercial decision to price their proposals to match this figure, instead of working out what it will actually cost to execute the Programme of Work to bridge the shortfall between the starting-point for their technical solutions and the requirement, which is what it ought to be.[5] Quoting identical bottom-line selling prices in this way cannot be described as anything other than price-fixing, thanks to the active connivance of the Secretary of State for Defence.
59.      It is not for MoD to tell bidders what the price of the FSS programme should be.  Instead, it is very much the business of defence contractors to tell MoD how much this programme will cost, based upon the prevailing value of goods, services, labour and finance in the free market shaped, not by the interfering hand of people in the pay of the State who always get it wrong, but by competitive market forces driven by the profit motive and winning mindset.
60.      The only way to stop bidders from quoting identical bottom-line selling prices is not to reveal the total budgeted expenditure figure or associated year-on-year financial funding profile in the first place.  Further, to stop it from leaking out, this information should be restricted to a select group of people on a need-to-know basis, accorded the highest possible security classification and treated as an Official State Secret.
61.      Whereas Ministers have learnt from their mistakes, the same cannot be said about front-line procurement officials at MoD Abbey Wood who have continued this habit, first started when the UK became a member of the EEC in 1973 to comply with public procurement regulations then in force, which required disclosure of the budget.  Notwithstanding the UK’s complete withdrawal from the EU on 1 January 2021, MoD procurement officials have carried on with this practice driven by the bureaucratic tendency to comply with rules and regulations assiduously, even when they no longer apply.

Sinister explanation

62.      There is a second, sinister explanation for this unusual behaviour.  Procurement officials are keen to ingratiate themselves with defence contractors in the hope of being rewarded with a job when their career in the public sector comes to an end, by doing them a favour that saves them from being tested on price, which is what they fear most.
63.      In any event, the budget for FSS is £1.617 billion, confirmed by this truncated screenshot of a contract announcement published in bidstats.[6]

64.      By disclosing the budget, procurement officials have defied the will of Ministers who have, in turn, ended up misleading Parliament about what is actually happening on the ground.

Massive disconnect

65.      This case study illustrates perfectly the massive disconnect between Ministers, their parliamentary staff (who draft answers to oral and written questions in Parliament) and front-line procurement officials who are hell-bent on doing what they please, irrespective of changed circumstances.  Indeed, it points to a total breakdown in communication between the top and lower levels, not to mention, failure in the management chain of command.
66.      This is not a trivial mistake.  It has very serious consequences, in that, the FSS Team Leader will now be denied the opportunity to choose the single, preferred contractor on the basis of price competitiveness (and therefore value for money) at the end of the CP phase in July 2022 because bidders will do what they have always done – quote identical bottom-line selling prices.
67.      What is the point of running a competition if you cannot discriminate between contractors on the basis of price?

Teaming up to negate the tool of competition

68.      It has been government policy is to procure military equipment for the Armed Forces through fair and open competition for many years now.
69.      This means that market participants in the defence sector are forcibly exposed the full rigours of the free market, that is to say, contractors are made to “feel the heat” of competitive market forces which they are loathed to put up with, because it puts downward pressure on the price they can charge the government for the products that they sell.

Ingenious idea

70.      So, by way of a countermeasure, contractors have come up with an ingenious idea to negate the efficacy of this market-based tool – they collude behind the back of the Defence Secretary to limit the number of independent players that can enter the competition by teaming up into groups, thereby narrowing the field of contestants and significantly increasing their chances of coming out as a member of the winning team.  However, it means that they have to share the spoils with pier-level players, but such an outcome is a whole lot better than ending up with nothing as outright losers.
71.      Consider again, the example of the Fleet Solid Support ships competition.  One of the four consortia that has been awarded the Competitive Procurement phase of FSS is the so-called Team UK, comprising BAE Systems and Babcock.  These two defence contractors are the largest and second largest suppliers respectively to MoD, measured by the amount of taxpayers’ money spent on them each year to procure defence goods and services.  A casual observer is likely to conclude that these two contractors, whose forward order books extend to tens of billions of pounds, are hopelessly uncompetitive if they cannot pit themselves against all-comers in an international contest on an individual basis.
72.      Such is the poor state of the defence manufacturing industry in the UK today that two of its biggest players haven’t go the confidence to go it alone in a fair and open competition against foreign shipbuilders, on their own turf!

An affront to government

73.      Conduct of this type is an affront to the authority of government and it falls upon the Defence Secretary, as owner of the competition process, to delegitimise such practices.
74.      As it is, the government is struggling with the serious problem of concentration in the defence equipment market and this sort of anti-competitive behaviour only makes the situation worse – in effect, it amounts to an unofficial merger, albeit time-limited, thereby violating the competition provisions of the Enterprise Act 2002.
75.      The Defence Secretary should be intervening in precisely this type of scenario, by making it absolutely clear that he will not tolerate teaming arrangements among top-tier players which deliberately seek to defeat the very purpose of using competition as a tool, to sharpen competitiveness.
76.      If he’d had the foresight to do this before the FSS competition was restarted in May 2021, he would have been able to implement the multiple-phase, winner-takes-all competition (entailing progressive elimination of bidders from five, to three, and finally to one) thereby allowing this single contractor to be selected on the basis of performance measured during previous phases, instead of warm soothing words and hollow statement of intent offered in ITT responses, as is the case right now.

Conclusions

77.      How many and what types of naval ships will be built in Scotland in the years ahead will be decided not by the Secretary of State for Defence, but by the shipyards themselves.
78.      Not only are defence prime contractors scared of competing in global markets for fear of losing, but they are also seeking to keep foreign defence contractors out of the domestic market because they are institutionally competition-averse.
79.      Instead of facilitating a competitive market in defence goods and services, governments have over the last several decades only succeeded in presiding over market failure in defence procurement.
80.      Market failure in defence procurement was preceded by state failure.  It is safe to say that the State does not have the means to provide the Armed Forces with what they need.
81.      Time and again, this pro-market government has made it absolutely clear that it would like to see the competitiveness of the defence industry improved significantly, both in the domestic market and globally, so that the UK can pay its way in the world post-Brexit.
82.      Over the last 50 years or so, the naval shipbuilding industry has become notoriously inefficient and therefore seriously uncompetitive, largely because it has enjoyed protection from governments of all persuasions, on national security grounds.
83.      MPs are undermining the competition process by lobbying decision-makers in Whitehall to get them to bend the rules of the competition and swing the decision on down-selection in favour of businesses that give them second jobs or are located in their constituencies.
84.      No defence procurement programme in recent times has captured the attention of Parliamentarians and generated as much controversy as the Fleet Solid Support ships programme.
85.      The intent behind using competition as a tool to procure the FSS ships is to discriminate between bidders on the basis of price.
86.      Instead of running a multiple-phase, winner-takes-all competition on the basis of a level playing field open to all-comers with the rules of the contest declared at the outset, MoD is still persisting with its tried-and-failed policy of using the “sudden death” competition.
87.      Although Ministers are now refusing to reveal the total budgeted expenditure figure set aside for the procurement of new military equipment, front-line procurement officials are still carrying on with this practice, even though EU rules no longer apply.  With this directive, people should not necessarily assume that Ministerial diktat extends to all defence procurement programmes in MoD’s portfolio.
88.      Not only are procurement officials completely useless at their jobs, they are also stupid enough to defy the will of Ministers who have ended up misleading Parliament.  Indeed, they are part of the problem.
89.      If such basic errors are being made on the FSS programme then the question arises, on which other programmes are contractors also not tested on price?
90.      In the interests of transparency as it relates to the expenditure of taxpayer funds, the value of the final contract should be made public after the main investment decision has been taken and the supply & sustainment contract signed with the single, preferred contractor.
91.      Defence contractors are colluding behind the Defence Secretary’s back to limit the number of independent players that can enter the FSS competition by teaming up into groups.
92.      Such is the poor state of the defence industry in the UK today that two of its biggest players haven’t go the confidence to go it alone in a fair and open competition against foreign shipbuilders on their own turf.
93.      The evidence submitted in this paper points to one irrefutable conclusion; that procurement officials haven’t got a clue about how the private sector works or what its motives are, which means that they are susceptible to being duped by contractors.

May 2022

About the Author

Jag Patel has considerable experience of researching, analysing and solving a wide range of entrenched procurement problems on defence acquisition programmes.