The Department is not yet able to share and exploit data across the Armed Forces and with partners effectively enough. Recent events including the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine show the importance of responding in a nationally and internationally integrated way. As the character of warfare changes, the Department needs to better integrate its operations and increase its partnering with other government departments, industry, academia and international allies. This was starkly illustrated by the Chief Information Officer admitting digital technology could be a limiting factor in the optional operation of Ajax and Morpheus. How the Department will update its digital systems fast enough so that the operational capacity of any pieces of equipment will not be hampered by the lack of digital systems remains unclear. It is making progress toward this by building a common architecture and set of rules that the whole Department must follow. This could support working more closely with partners and sharing data securely, including at higher security classifications. However, the Department has not yet catalogued all its data and adoption of these common standards is at an early stage. The Department also must work in hostile environments including, for example, at sea with limited connectivity, or where adversaries may be trying to undermine its security or effectiveness. The Department estimates that currently 80% of its effort is on the fundamental technology, people and processes it needs to share data effectively. By 2025, the Department wants 80% of its effort to be on exploiting this data for benefit. For example, the Department is starting to gather data on equipment and people automatically for military planners to better assess its readiness to respond. Recommendation: The Department should set out in its April 2023 update to the digital strategy, how it will measure its progress in creating the ‘backbone’ and track its balance of effort between data enabl