Chaired by the Permanent Under Secretary, the Defence Board is the main corporate board of the MOD, providing senior level leadership and strategic management of Defence. The Board is made up of the non-Ministerial members of the Defence Council and external, independent non-executive members.
The Defence Board is responsible for delivery of the Defence Vision, which is: "To defend the United Kingdom and its interests, strengthen international peace and stability, and act as a force for good in the world". In order to deliver this vision the Board is responsible for pursuing three high-level Departmental objectives, namely:
- Achieve success in the military tasks we undertake, at home and abroad
- Be ready to respond to tasks that might arise
- Build for the future
In pursuit of these high-level objectives the Defence Board's core tasks are:
- Role of Defence: To help define and articulate the Department's strategic direction, and provide a clear vision and set of values for defence
- Targets and Objectives: To establish the key priorities and Defence capabilities needed to deliver the strategy
- Resource Allocation: To ensure that Defence priorities and tasks are appropriately resourced
- Performance Management: To manage corporate performance and resources in-year to deliver the required results
The business of the Defence Board is clearly in the public interest and as such the Secretary of State has agreed to the routine publication of Defence Board agendas, unclassified summaries of conclusions, meeting dates and lists of papers taken by the board. Links to these documents can be found under the 'Related Documents' heading. You can also find a link there to the Defence Framework which sets out in more detail the framework in which the MOD operates to deliver Departmental outputs.