With effect from 1 April 2007 the Defence Transport and Movements Agency (DTMA) will cease to hold agency status. This has been decided as part of restructuring within the supply chain element of the Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO), and complements the future arrangements for the proposed merger of the DLO and the Defence Procurement Agency (DPA).

The role of the DTMA is to provide defence and other authorised users with agreed transport and movements services world-wide in peace, crisis and war in order to support UK military capability, current and future. This role will remain unchanged after 1 April 2007. The agency was created in April 1999 and brought together existing MOD single service transport and movements branches into one organisation. Agency status helped to mould these groups into a cohesive organisation. However, since then the agency has merged with a number of other organisations and taken on a much broader role for the Department, with a greater operational focus.

The DTMA reports directly through the MOD’s supply chain professionals (DG log (supply chain)), and the agency has been obliged to answer for its performance within a tightly defined management framework. This will continue; the benefits originally sought from agency status will not be lost; good management practice will carry on under the new arrangements and removal will not affect the organisation’s ability to meet customer requirements.

I have therefore concluded that agency status for the DTMA should cease and that the organisation should adopt fully the title defence supply chain operations and movements (DSCOM). The chief executive will retain full accountability for the delivery of agency outputs in this final year, including preparing and laying before the House the final reports and accounts.