Recommendations

This paper's recommendations are specific and actionable within the current financial year. They are addressed to ministers for action, and to Members for scrutiny.

1. Recommendation 1Make a specific architectural commitment.

   Jointly signed by the Prime Minister, Defence Secretary, Chancellor, and Cabinet Office minister, adopting the five architectural principles set out in Section 3 as the operating framework for the relevant categories of defence technology. Published as a ministerial statement, supplemented by a longer policy paper, and submitted to the Defence Committee for pre-publication engagement.

2. Recommendation 2Establish the Defence Technology Cluster.

   As an arms-length body, jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Business and Trade, and the Cabinet Office, with an initial five-year funding envelope of £1.5 billion, with staffing on terms and conditions outside standard civil service frameworks, and with leadership recruited through open competition with technology-sector credibility as the primary criterion. UK Defence Innovation should be reconstituted within this body.

3. Recommendation 3Build the defence-facing digital foundation.

   A joint programme between the Government Digital Service and Defence Digital, along the lines of the Ukrainian Trembita, with a three-year delivery horizon for version 1.0 and a budget envelope of £200–400 million over the period.

4. Recommendation 4Negotiate a DELTA licensing agreement with Ukraine.

   An intergovernmental agreement on the licensing of the DELTA architecture for UK use, on a hybrid basis that permits UK-owned modules to be built on the Ukrainian platform. This agreement should be pursued with the urgency of a Priority 1 commercial negotiation and should be completed within six months.

5. Recommendation 5Reframe Project ASGARD as the pilot, not the exception.

   Explicitly reframe ASGARD as the pilot case of the new architecture rather than as an exception to it, with its operating model documented and generalised across the other procurement categories identified in Section 5.

6. Recommendation 6Co-develop a Parliamentary Oversight Framework.

   With the Defence Committee, the Public Accounts Committee, and the National Audit Office — with agreed metrics, reporting cadences, and escalation mechanisms, and with public publication of the framework within six months.

7. Recommendation 7Align the Defence Investment Plan to the architecture.

   When published, the Defence Investment Plan should explicitly adopt the architectural principles set out in this paper and organise its category-level allocations accordingly. Absent this, the Defence Investment Plan will not deliver the Review's ambition regardless of its nominal funding levels.