UK Anti-Corruption Strategy: Defence deep dive

Earlier this year, the Prime Ministers vowed to make defence and security “the fundamental organising principle of government”. In its new Anti-Corruption Strategy, the UK government sheds light on how anti-corruption fits into this picture. Even though it clearly acknowledges the danger of corruption to defence and security, its proposed solutions are thin – and will unlikely be enough to ensure a credible defence and deterrence. 

The government’s new plan to tackle corruption launches into a changed world. The security threats that the UK is facing in 2025 look very different from those in 2017, when its predecessor came out: they are closer to home, less predictable, and more severe. With the government now focused on putting “security and defence front and centre” – a vision outlined comprehensively in the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) earlier this year –, the Anti-Corruption Strategy could have been an opportunity to define a strong role for anti-corruption in this paradigm shift. Instead, it remains a critical gap. 

It’s not that the Anti-Corruption Strategy does not talk about defence. On the contrary, the government signals clear awareness for the threat that corruption poses to security and stability overseas and at home. It acknowledges the heightened vulnerability of the defence sector to corruption, due to inherent complexity and opacity, and the elevated risk to corruption that comes with record increases in defence spending. It even dedicates an entire case study to corruption in the defence sector. What it does not do though is to dedicate to it many commitments for change and prevention. 

Concretely, the new Anti-Corruption Strategy commits to addressing the risk of corruption in the defence and security sectors through the following actions: 

• investing in the Building Integrity UK Programme
• continuing with the creation of the National Armaments Directorate as recommended by the SDR
• improving the processes and standards in vetting, implementation of a joint vetting centre, and improved data capability to monitor, detect and predict insider risk

The government’s continued commitment to promoting transparency and accountability in defence is commendable. But its approach to addressing it is spread too thin. It does very little to address systemic, structural corruption risks, and makes fighting corruption in this area entirely the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), sidelining the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). 

Even though the Strategy acknowledges that corruption risks in these sectors exist in the UK too, it is still addressed largely as an ‘overseas issue’ that affects British and NATO troops on missions. One does not have to look further than recent investigations by Follow the Money and partners into corruption, bribery and collusion scandals inside NATO’s procurement agency (NSPA) to see that this is a false assumption – and that systemic risks, such as the use of intermediaries, direct awards of contracts, restricted audits, and the revolving door continue to threaten the rearmament ambitions of NATO countries. 

Continued investment in the Building Integrity UK Programme is commendable and important. There is no doubt that the programme, which is funded by the MoD and delivers training and education to foreign security partners, UK government departments, and NATO organisations, does valuable work to build capacity. 

However, training and education alone will not help address more systemic gaps in the defence governance architectures of the UK and its international partners. A sustained commitment to the FCDO’s work on promoting good governance in security sector reform, peacebuilding and conflict prevention work would have been a crucial step towards ensuring the UK’s role in strengthening the defence governance frameworks of its partners abroad. 

The establishment of the National Armaments Directorate (NAD) is an important step towards reducing wastage in the UK’s defence procurement – which is rampant. But wastage does not equal corruption. The NAD streamlines procurement by bringing eight separate procurement budgets together into one, reducing risk of duplication and incompatibility of procured equipment. 

Consolidation also makes it easier to lobby and creates a ‘single point of failure’. With the Directorate working very closely with industry on advancing innovation and delivering the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS), this is a risk – especially as the Strategy is generally thin on strengthening political integrity. 

Recent losses in defence transparency, such as that created by the MoD’s decision to not publish its equipment plan two years in a row and hindering oversight committees and audit offices from producing independent assessments of the government’s defence procurement plans, also remain unaddressed. 

Corruption on the inside is a risk. Improving vetting processes is hence a commendable step. But what about corruption from the outside? Defence procurement is known to heavily rely on intermediaries, brokers and consultants. Reliance on consultants, including former staff, was a major contributor to the corruption investigations into NATO’s procurement agency as mentioned above. Transparency International UK’s research has highlighted the extent of ‘revolving door’ corruption risk in Westminster, and showed that in the defence sector, 81% of post-public roles overlapped with former officeholders’ previous briefs. This does not guarantee that they are lobbying ministers and senior officials for contracts in their new position – it just creates a high risk, which could be managed by tighter lobbying restrictions. But these are absent from the strategy. 

The Anti-Corruption Strategy is a sound starting point for engagement in the defence sector. But it does not offer comprehensive solutions. In a time in which building a strong and credible defence, protecting national security, and building national resilience, are top priorities for the government, as Transparency International Defence & Security, we will continue to work with the government towards solutions that make defence and security institutions watertight to corruption – to ensure that its ambitious defence and anti-corruption agendas can both succeed.