A new team that aims to help small businesses win more defence contracts and make defence an “engine for growth” has been launched by the UK Government.
Luke Pollard, minister for defence readiness and industry, described small business as the “backbone of UK defence” as he announced the establishment of the Defence Office for Small Business Growth (OfSBG).
The OfSBG team will be made up of staff who are policy and commercial experts, who will support small and medium (SME) sized UK firms to bid for and win more defence contracts.
It is hoped the OfSBG will reverse the decline in Ministry of Defence (MOD) spending on SMEs and help deliver on the UK Government’s pledge to increase defence spending with SMEs by 50% by 2028.
Mr Pollard said: “We’re establishing the Defence Office for Small Business Growth as part of our mission to increase the amount of spend that the Ministry of Defence makes with small businesses across the country.
“We currently spend about £5 billion a year, and we want to increase that by 50% to £7.5 billion by 2028, now that’s a huge increase that will create lots of jobs, lots of growth, and make Britain stronger.
“But to do that, we want to make it easier for small businesses to be able to interact with defence, so we can procure faster and quicker, and they can bring their products to market even faster as well.
“So it’s the start of a process about making defence more small business friendly, creating good jobs and growth, and making sure that defence is an engine for growth in every part of our country.”
The team will help to simplify and speed up processes, provide advice to SMEs and encourage private sector investment.
Mr Pollard said the establishment of the OfSBG is important amid the current security climate.
He said: “We know we live in a new era of threat, and we can see the dangers on our TV screens every single day, so bringing more resilience to our industrial supply chain is so important.
“An army, a military, is only as strong as the industry that sits behind it, and as a government, we want to direct more of our increasing defence budget at British companies, both large and small, and to do that, we want to make it easier for small businesses to sell their goods and services into defence so we can support growth in our country as well as making our supply chains more resilient.”
Ahead of the announcement on Tuesday, Mr Pollard was in Renfrewshire on Monday to visit the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland, which backs the manufacturing of innovative technology, and also visited Viper::Blast, based in Aberdour, Fife, which specialises in fast, high-fidelity simulation of air blast, explosive detonations and structural loading.
The OfSBG will act as a central hub for advice and support on engaging with defence, ensuring procurement processes are faster, simpler and more effective.
Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander said: “The creation of the Defence Office for Small Business Growth is great news for Scottish businesses, workers and the economy as it will help boost opportunities and access to investment, supported by our pledge to increase spending with SMEs by £2.5 billion by May 2028.
“Defence is already a key driver for renewal in Scotland, with the Ministry of Defence spending more than £2 billion a year with the sector in Scotland, supporting nearly 12,000 industry jobs.
“Now with our historic uplift in spending to protect our own and European security and this new support for small and medium enterprises, we will further transform the sector.
“As we up our game on defence, Scotland’s world-class industry and supply chain and global demand for Scottish expertise will play a big role in ensuring Britain’s security, deterring our adversaries and driving economic growth for years to come.”
A public-facing web portal and contact centre will initially support 30 SMEs, from carefully selected sectors, ranging from aeronautical engineering to cyber, and covering the whole of the UK from the south of England to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
