The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and the headquarters of the British Armed Forces.
The principal objective of the MOD is to ensure the security of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War the MOD does not forsee any short-term conventional military threat; rather it has identified weapons of mass destruction, international terrorism and failed and failing states as the overriding threats to the UK's interests. The MOD also manages day to day running of the armed forces, contingency planning and defence procurement.
Defence policy
The 1998 Strategic Defence Review and the 2003 Delivering Security in a Changing World White Paper outlined the following posture for the UK armed forces:
- The ability to support three simultaneous small to medium scale operations, where at least one is an enduring peace-keeping mission (e.g. Kosovo). These forces must be capable of acting as lead nation in any coalition operations.
- The ability, at longer notice, to deploy forces in a large scale operation while running a concurrent small scale operation.
Senior officials
Ministers
The current ministers at the MOD are:
Permanent Secretaries
The Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Defence (generally known as the Permanent Secretary) is the senior civil servant at the MOD. The Permanent Secretary (since November 2005) is Bill Jeffrey. The Second Permanent Secretary is Ian Andrews. Sir Peter Spencer (also of Permanent Secretary rank) is Chief of Defence Procurement.
Chiefs of the Defence Staff
The current Chief of the Defence Staff, the professional head of the British Armed Forces, is General Sir Michael Walker. It is planned that he will be succeeded by the current Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, in May 2006. General Sir Timothy Granville-Chapman has been Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff since 2005.
Departmental Agencies
Tri-service badge of the UK armed forces
- 1 reporting to the Minister of State (Armed Forces).
- 2 reporting to the Parliamentary Secretary (Minister for Defence Procurement)
- 3 reporting to the Parliamentary Secretary (Minister for Veterans)
Origins
During the 1920s and 1930s, British civil servants and politicians, looking back at the performance of the state during World War I, concluded that there was a need for greater co-ordination between the three Services that made up the armed forces of the United Kingdom - the British Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. The formation of a united ministry of defence was rejected by the David Lloyd George's coalition government in 1921, but the Chiefs of Staff Committee was formed in 1923 for the purposes of inter-Service co-ordination. As re-armament became a concern during the 1930s, Stanley Baldwin created the position of Minister for Coordination of Defence. Lord Chatfield held the post until the fall of Nevillle Chamberlain's government in 1940, but was unsuccessful, due to his lack of control over the existing Service departments and limited political influence.
Winston Churchill, on forming his government in 1940, created the office of Minister of Defence to exercise ministerial control over the Chiefs of Staff Committee and to co-ordinate defence matters. The post was held by the Prime Minister of the day until Clement Attlee's government introduced the Ministry of Defence Act 1946. The new ministry was headed by a Minister of Defence who possessed a seat in Cabinet. The three existing service Ministers, the Secretary of State for War, the First Lord of the Admiralty and Secretary of State for Air, remained in direct operational control of their respective services, but ceased to attend Cabinet. The Ministry of Defence made steady gains in power and control over the armed forces during the 1940s and 1950s, culminating in the announcement of the abolition of the three Service departments on 4 March, 1963.
The Ministry of Defence absorbed the operations of the Admiralty, the War Office and the Air Ministry in 1964.
Buildings and Estate
The Ministry of Defence is one of the United Kingdom's largest landowners, with hundreds of sites (including military training grounds, ranges, storage and distribution centres, barracks, military family accommodation and administrative buildings etc.) across the country. These are largely managed by the Defence Estates Agency. A 2005 National Audit Office report values the MOD's estate at £15.3 billion and puts the area covered at 2,400 km2 (or just under 1% of UK landmass). This figure is much reduced since the Second World War and continues to reduce through rationalisation of bases etc. Of this, a third is classified at "built" and two-thirds "rural" (mostly training areas which are largely unchanged from the natural environment). The NAO also estimates annual expenditure on the defence estate at £1.3 billion.
Henry VIII's wine cellar from the Palace of Whitehall built in 1514-1516 is located within the basement of the Ministy of Defence headquarters (commonly known as "Main Building") in Whitehall, and is used for entertainment. The entire structure was moved a short distance in 1949 in order to accommodate the layout of the MOD building.
References
