Clyde’s defence dividend depends on getting logistics right

HM Naval Base Clyde in Scotland, commonly known as Faslane, has been home to the UK’s submarine service since the 1960s.

placeholder image — HM Naval Base Clyde in Scotland, commonly known as Faslane, has been home to the UK’s submarine service since the 1960s.

Complex logistics honed in the energy industry could serve major new defence developments on the Clyde, writes Rob Wagstaff

Defence spending is under increased scrutiny as rising geopolitical tensions put government budgets under pressure.

The Scottish Affairs Committee recently highlighted concerns about whether funding could match the UK’s defence ambitions, while pressing for greater certainty for Scottish industry.

Scotland should help solve that challenge, not simply by securing investment, but by showing how to make every pound deliver. The Clyde Transformation Programme can be a test of that resolve. Its success should be measured not just in new infrastructure, but in building in capability from the outset to support Scottish supply chains.

It’s a chance to do things differently and move away from lengthy 10-year procurement cycles that can dull competitiveness and restrict innovation.

Clyde’s transformation was announced by the MOD as part of a £26 billion investment package to modernise the UK’s three main naval bases into ‘warfighting-ready facilities that directly improve Royal Navy readiness, availability and lethality’.

It includes docks, training facilities, accommodation and increased maintenance capacity. This is complex construction around critical national infrastructure. Materials must arrive in the right sequence; storage should support delivery and construction has to coexist with operational demands. Logistics cannot be the detail addressed after engineering decisions. It should help shape them.

June’s Defence Investment Plan funding statement left £4.7 billion to be funded at Budget 2026, while identifying savings from other departments, including transport and energy. Earlier this month, Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis highlighted roughly £1 billion a year still requiring funding, alongside domestic and international pressure tospend more.

Those tensions are a warning to every defence supplier: bigger headline budgets will not excuse avoidable costs. Nor should efficiency become shorthand for stripping out resilience. The task is to remove waste while protecting the capacity to respond when circumstances change. Buying the cheapest service is not necessarily the best outcome.

After 30 years as an Army logistics officer deployed in global warzones, followed by work in nuclear infrastructure, I see the value of precision logistics: understand the problem first, then design and deliver the solution. Start with what is held, where it is, its condition and when it will actually be needed. A full warehouse is not evidence of readiness. I’ve witnessed too many cases of mothballed warehouses full of obsolete defence stock, simply taking up space due to a perception that dealing with the problem will cost more than doing nothing.

The National Audit Office’s 2023 defence inventory review recorded around 460 million individual items, with a net book value of £11.8 billion. Without reliable information, the sector risks purchasing duplicates, storing obsolete materials and paying for capacity they might otherwise release.

Reverse logistics matters just as much. That means identifying material no longer required, securing permission to remove it and arranging compliant reuse, recycling or disposal. That can require expenditure today to avoid larger costs tomorrow.

The bottom-line case is straightforward, less unnecessary handling, fewer emergency deliveries or people waiting for materials can protect margins. If you can have easy access to 30 drones when needed tomorrow, it’s better than storing 300 drones today.

To make room for fresh thinking, procurement should engage logistics specialists before specifications are fixed. Judge performance through availability, delivery reliability and whole-life cost, not merely warehouse rates.

At ASCO, we see opportunities to bring experience from complex energy logistics into defence, combining specialist services with clear responsibility for delivery. Clyde’s transformation is an opportunity for the sector to prove that different thinking can turn investment into lasting capability.

Rob Wagstaff is principal defence advisor at ASCO