Page 80 - Five Forces of Americanisation Richard Hooke 04072025 final post SDR1

The UK Defence Industry in the 21 Century
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The Five Forces of Americanisation

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In 2018, its former Chief Executive, Sir John Manzoni , offered his perspectives on the process of
transforming the Civil Service and described how this specific point – taking a more collaborative
approach across departments through functional leadership and delivering solutions - was being
addressed right across the Service. Clearly, this work should inform One Defence.
“… a result of progressively outsourcing delivery the Civil Service had evolved to focus mainly on
policy-making … we had lost much of our capability to implement and deliver policies and
services.
“… we needed to begin to break down the silos that existed, learn to work across boundaries, and
take a more collaborative approach ... to move our leadership approach on from a focus on pure
intellect to one that embraced depth of experience: from elegant explanations to delivered
solutions.
“I … set out four priorities to address these observations, aimed at setting us up to be fit for the
21st century:
1. Increase the numbers … with delivery skills, and to offer clear career pathways so that they
would feel valued, and could build their experience within the Civil Service
2. Develop functional leadership across government
3. Build our planning and performance management capability
4. … developing a pipeline of credible, confident, and experienced leaders.
The second of those priorities, functional leadership, is integral to delivering all of the others.”
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(Sir John Manzoni, Chief Executive, UK Civil Service, 1 May, 2018)
One Defence would clearly flourish if it informed government business across departments: not least
if the potential sale overseas of another defence company was referred to the CMA. Even now, the
Secretary for Business & Trade would be aware that the UK DIB is now considered (like steel) one of
the industries targeted for support and growth: “Defence and national security are foundational for
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economic growth across the UK”
The MoD’s announcements in 2025 have addressed the subject of culture change across the
department. Again, this is familiar territory and similar forceful language is used to describe what is
planned. “Driving change” is an important term. This overlooks the results of several capability and
parliamentary reviews which highlight the MoD’s difficulty in accepting or recognising responsibility
and in developing and motivating people. These points are starkly illustrated by the collapse of
government contractor, Carillion plc, in 2018. The firm, which had around 450 government
contracts, went into liquidation after issuing two profit warnings, the first of which was in six months
before its eventual collapse. The government had been criticised for continuing to award contracts
to Carillion despite the warnings. The evidence presented to the Commons’ Public Administration
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and Constitutional Affairs Committee (a fundamental failure to manage supplier performance) made
it clear that even leaders at the highest level of the Civil Service do not always have the technical
knowledge required to apply some of the most basic commercial disciplines. Very publicly, this does
not make them appear credible in driving change. The starting point for change must be an acceptance
that Civil Service executives cannot always be expected to have the technical knowledge required in a
particular circumstance but that they do need to be able to request support. If necessary, from
another department. And not, as a former Permanent Secretary revealed (in responding to an
observation by the author) in 2018: “yes …. we’re not very good at allowing our people to talk to us
about problems or ideas”.
Facilitating change therefore seems a more realistic and durable approach. To be effective, this, of
course, needs to be led by senior civil servants: leaders visibly engaged in the process. Not by special
advisers or management consultants.

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07/07/2025 Richard Hooke 2025