Britain’s new £12 billion fighter jet project is at risk of failure, an official audit has warned.
The plans, officially known as the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), are rated ‘red’ meaning ‘successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable’ according to the Government body overseeing UK infrastructure projects.
Known in Britain as Tempest, the project is a collaboration between the UK, Italy and Japan eventually destined to replace the Eurofighter Typhoon.
BAE Systems, which is leading the project, has insisted plans for a prototype of the jet to take off by the end of 2027 are still on track with Tempest expected to enter service in 2035. But doubts about Tempest surfaced last year as Labour launched a defence review, though Keir Starmer has stressed the importance of the programme.
The review, published this summer, recommitted the Government to the fighter jet programme as part of a broader plan to boost defence spending. But some in the industry are looking for more concrete financial commitments to specific projects to be made soon.
FCAS was one of £198 billion of projects given a ‘red’ rating in the latest annual report of the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (Nista). The report said this was due to ‘the programme’s relative maturity, its scale, pace and the complex challenges involved in the successful long-term delivery of a sixth generation combat aircraft’ with its red assessment ‘not unexpected’.
Ambitious: A prototype of the Tempest is meant to take off by the end of 2027
It acknowledges that ‘significant achievements have been made’ in the programme, including international agreements signed by governments and companies involved in the project.
The headquarters for the global combat air programme (GCAP) that will develop the Tempest was also opened in Reading last month and already supports 3,500 jobs.
But the Nista assessment said: ‘The programme remains in the early stages of development, and there is recognition of the scale of the challenges faced to stand up a programme of this nature. ‘Actions are being taken to address this at the start of the programme by learning the lessons of the past and from similarly large and complex projects.’
Nista’s wider report found that 30 projects were rated green, 21 were red and 135 were amber.
Green signals that a project is likely to be delivered on time, amber that it is feasible but ‘significant issues already exist’ and red that it appears ‘unachievable’ with ‘major issues… which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable’.
But Nista also says of projects with the worst rating: ‘It is not unusual for projects to be rated as red earlier in their lifecycle, when scope, benefits, costs and delivery methods are still being explored.’
The FCAS programme was rated amber before being moved to red in 2023 citing factors including a ‘shortage of resources impacting skills and capabilities’.
The Government said it recognised the scale of the challenges posed by the project.
The Ministry of Defence said: ‘This Government inherited a procurement system described as ‘broken’ by the Public Accounts Committee. We are clear procurement needs to be faster and more agile as part of the deepest defence reforms for more than 50 years to keep the country safer and achieve the best value for taxpayers.’
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