The new office seeks to cut red tape and accelerate procurement with small companies. 

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) established the Defence Office for Small Business Growth (OfSBG) on 27 January to better support small companies and bolster the industrial base. 

The office will become a “central hub” providing domestic and export guidance, networking opportunities, mentoring, and confidential advice for around 12,000 UK defence small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the MoD said.

It appears to have been modelled on the US Department of War’s ‘Office of Small Business Programs’, which was established in 2006 to bolster small business engagement. 

Details of the UK’s office were first disclosed to DSEI Gateway in September, with Harrison Talbot-Brown, the MoD Deputy Director of Industry Collaboration & Strategic Supplier Management, citing historically low SME spending and barriers to entry as primary impetuses for establishing the office. 

Chief among these barriers is the threat of cash-flow droughts, given the defence sector’s characteristically long procurement cycles. This is a key factor causing the so-called ‘valley of death’, where companies struggle to scale their prototypes into commercially viable products.  

With this in mind, the MoD says that the office will implement “a comprehensive programme of change”, powered by a team of policy and commercial experts who will identify areas where regulations and lengthy processes can be cut. 

Additionally, the office will seek to provide greater transparency on upcoming procurements, while also making SMEs more attractive to private sector investment. 

This will be achieved through cross-departmental and public-private collaborations, involving stakeholders such as prime contractors and investors. 

At first, the office will be a web-portal, providing support to a limited “cross section of industry”, comprising 30 companies, that will trial and provide feedback on the service, before a planned expansion at an undisclosed date in the “coming weeks and months”. 

A new GBP20 million military fund is also expected to be part of the office, in a bid to provide accelerated government contracts to UK startups, according to the Financial Times. 

The MoD had not responded to DSEI Gateway’s request for comment on this new fund, when the office will reach full operating capability, or what power the office will have to enact changes at the time of publication.  

Championing the office’s aims, the UK’s National Armaments Director, Rupert Pearce, said that “a more vibrant SME supply chain means better capability for our armed forces, greater resilience in our industrial base, and economic growth for communities across the country”.