A26v2Delivery risk: RedGate: pending
Protect defence sustainment and retention through risk appraisal
A new scope of action A26 (A26v2); A26 itself is unchanged and nothing is inherited from it.
Provisional single-reviewer desk assessment, 6 October 2026.
- Who and where
- Identify priority maintenance, stock and specialist-retention gaps through appropriately protected assurance. (from the 6 October review) Jurisdiction: not defined.
- Result so far
- Range if completed: 11.0–20.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))
- Funded now (baseline)
- Funded baseline not yet stated
- The change assessed (marginal)
- Identify priority maintenance, stock and specialist-retention gaps through appropriately protected assurance. (from the 6 October review)
- Domain home: Defence
- In the national plan: Resilience and sustainability appraisal queue
What the evidence supports—and the next decision
Public expenditure and equipment counts cannot establish readiness. Some required evidence must be reviewed through protected assurance.
AI-assisted analytical follow-up · 8 October 2026. Proposed appraisal design; the attributed scores below are unchanged. No funding or delivery agreement is implied.
- Define the change
- Identify a capability-specific maintenance, stock or specialist-retention gap against an agreed operational requirement.
- Test whether it works
- Availability, sustainment and trained-personnel retention against that requirement, with appropriately cleared independent challenge.
- Establish the cost
- Lifecycle equipment, spares, training, pay, infrastructure and supply-chain risk; compare alternatives and opportunity cost.
- Protect against harm
- Publish what can safely be scrutinised and record where classified evidence was reviewed; absence of public detail is not a zero benefit score.
Read with the outcome evidence and sources in the full assessment. Monitoring proposals are not existing baseline measurements. A numerical benefit or cost score needs evidence for the defined increment, not just the scale of the problem.
Full assessment of Protect defence sustainment and retention through risk appraisal: ten criteria, scenarios, delivery, costs and monitoring
The ten criteria (0–3)
Each criterion is scored 0 to 3 by the reviewer. “Not yet assessed” means unknown: it is never counted as zero.
Scale and severity (Sc)3 of 3 — Severe harm across a broad population
Reviewer’s reason: Problem scale judged from the linked domain evidence; not a population estimate of those helped.
Increment beyond baseline (Ad)Not yet assessed
Reviewer’s reason: Identify priority maintenance, stock and specialist-retention gaps through appropriately protected assurance. Incremental gap requires verification.
Confidence in the proposed action (Ev)1 of 3 — Indirect, mixed, modelled or weak causal support
Reviewer’s reason: Public audits establish concern; classified readiness prevents a reliable public effect estimate.
Expected incremental benefit (Bn)Not yet assessed
Reviewer’s reason: Unknown: no sufficiently supported magnitude for this exact change.
Residual harms (Hm)1 of 3 — Material harm/unresolved mitigation
Reviewer’s reason: Opportunity cost to other capability; classified data cannot be fabricated to complete a public score.
Incremental affordability (Co)Not yet assessed
Reviewer’s reason: Unknown: the proposed increment has not been costed and matched to an approved affordable allocation in this review. Existing programme envelopes are not that allocation.
Delivery capacity (Ca)1 of 3 — Binding scarce resource
Reviewer’s reason: Low public evidence does not imply defence is unimportant or exempt from scrutiny.
Distribution (Fa)2 of 3 — Mixed or broadly neutral with safeguards
Reviewer’s reason: Distribution assessed against the target group and the burdens described here: Opportunity cost to other capability; classified data cannot be fabricated to complete a public score.
Meaningful first outcome (Ti)1 of 3 — More than three but less than ten years
Reviewer’s reason: Timing judgement concerns the first meaningful outcome in: Appropriate readiness and retention assurance, with sensitive detail protected. It does not imply all long-term benefits arrive then.
Readiness (Rd)2 of 3 — Named commissioning/allocation/coordination step
Reviewer’s reason: Require a costed sustainment assessment alongside procurement commitments; publish only safe aggregate assurance. Owner: MOD, Treasury and parliamentary scrutiny bodies.
Four weightings
Normalised as 10 × weighted sum ÷ sum of weights, on a 0–30 scale. Where a criterion is not yet assessed, the range is the lowest and highest result if it were later scored 0 or 3 — not a score, a confidence interval or a rank.
- Equal weights: Range if completed: 11.0–20.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
- Evidence doubled: Range if completed: 10.9–19.1 out of 30. Not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
- Scale doubled: Range if completed: 12.7–20.9 out of 30. Not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
- Cost ignored (the funding gate still applies): Range if completed: 12.2–18.9 out of 30. Not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
Funding gate: Not passed — the cost is not yet assessed or no allocation is committed for this scope. Ignoring cost in a weighting never removes the gate.
Delivery risk and gate
Delivery risk shown: RedReview’s claim: Red. Best the recorded evidence allows: Red.
Review’s reason: Opportunity cost to other capability; classified data cannot be fabricated to complete a public score. Low public evidence does not imply defence is unimportant or exempt from scrutiny.
Why it is not Green yet
- Delivery obstacle: Opportunity cost to other capability; classified data cannot be fabricated to complete a public score. Low public evidence does not imply defence is unimportant or exempt from scrutiny..
- Scope (population, place and increment) not verified against the delivery baseline.
- No verified owner with the powers in place.
- Delivery capacity not verified.
- Lifetime incremental costs not complete.
- No credible funding (a committed allocation for the scope).
- Safeguards not specified.
- Monitoring lacks a metric, a data source or a baseline.
Green needs verified scope, a verified owner with the powers, verified capacity, complete lifetime costs with credible funding, specified safeguards and monitoring with a metric, source and baseline. Amber means appraisal gaps remain; Red means a material delivery obstacle. Red does not mean unimportant.
Gate: Pending — appraisal incomplete (review label: “Pending cost, funding, scope and capacity appraisal”).
Why: Scores incomplete; Funding gate not passed (cost unknown or no credible funding).
The gate is separate from national list membership: being listed does not make an option eligible, and an eligible option need not be listed.
Cost and funding
Lifetime costing: Not established.
Still to cost: Incremental lifetime costs and funding not established. Low public evidence does not imply defence is unimportant or exempt from scrutiny.
Funding status: not established in review.
Owner, powers and capacity
Proposed owner: MOD, Treasury and parliamentary scrutiny bodies. (proposed, unverified).
Powers: needs a decision or allocation. Capacity: binding constraint.
Powers and capacity read from the review’s Rd and Ca anchors; no proposed owner has agreed to act (the review: “Proposed owners have not agreed to act”).
- England:
- not assessed
- Scotland:
- not assessed
- Wales:
- not assessed
- Northern Ireland:
- not assessed
Not defined in the review.
Dependencies, safeguards and risks
Depends on: Low public evidence does not imply defence is unimportant or exempt from scrutiny.
Safeguards
- Identify priority maintenance, stock and specialist-retention gaps through appropriately protected assurance (proposed, not yet specified)
Risks and residual harms: Opportunity cost to other capability; classified data cannot be fabricated to complete a public score.
Monitoring and measured results
Metric: Appropriate readiness and retention assurance, with sensitive detail protected.
Data source: Not yet named. Baseline: Not yet established.
Measures already on the domain page
- Full-time trained strength: latest 122,556 (1 July 2026); baseline not published (United Kingdom).
- UK regular forces (trained and untrained): latest 137,966 (1 April 2026); baseline 191,710 (1 April 2010) (United Kingdom).
A page measure is not necessarily the review’s metric; linking the two is an editorial decision still to be made.
Evidence for the outcome
Outcome: Appropriate readiness and retention assurance, with sensitive detail protected.
Public audits establish concern; classified readiness prevents a reliable public effect estimate.
SWOT points it addresses
- The February 2024 Defence Committee assessment found warfighting readiness in doubt: every service had capability shortfalls and stockpile shortages and was losing personnel faster than it recruited. Readiness data once published are now withheld. (Defence)
- Regular forces numbered 137,966 in April 2026, 28% fewer than in 2010; 122,556 were fully trained at 1 July 2026. A smaller headcount is not a proportionate loss of capability. (Defence)
- A funded four-year plan gives industry visibility: defence spending of £68.3bn in 2026–27 rising to £79.1bn in 2029–30, with capital up from £26.6bn to £34.5bn. (Defence)
- Setting requirements with budget and technical authority together, and funding stocks, maintenance and training first, could turn the rising budget into usable readiness faster. (Defence)
Review record
Assessment status: Provisional single-reviewer desk assessment, 6 October 2026.
Reviewer: Original assessment author (name not supplied). Reviewed: 6 October 2026.
Carried from the earlier domain review (C record): must be calibrated jointly with the G/W/E/NG/NW/NE records before any combined comparison.
Decision route: Require a costed sustainment assessment alongside procurement commitments; publish only safe aggregate assurance.
An editorial screening framework by one reviewer, not a formal appraisal or business case. Proposed owners have not agreed to act.