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The 'Strategy': Frameworks, Plans and Pillars

As set out above, the Committee was told in 2019 that the China Framework lays out the NSC's policy goals, and the China NSIG is responsible for delivering those goals. The contribution of the Intelligence Community is then set out through the IOP process.

Until 2019, the tasking of SIS and GCHQ was carried out under an annual process called Intelligence Coverage (i.e. getting information) and Effects (i.e. doing something which has a real-world impact), known as ICE. Under ICE, NSS was responsible for ascertaining the priorities of the National Security Council (NSC) via a series of country and thematic strategies which were approved by the NSC throughout the year. SIS and GCHQ then responded to these strategies with an 'offer' of the intelligence coverage and effects they believed they could provide in relation to them. NSS then converted this 'offer' into the ICE Plan, resolving any resource or priority conflicts which might arise. This process gave SIS and GCHQ responsibility for allocating their operational effort to find the information which the policy-maker needed or realise an outcome which a policy-maker had requested (usually as part of an overarching strategy).

In March 2020, the process of tasking SIS and GCHQ changed from ICE to the Intelligence Outcomes Prioritisation process.

Under the IOP process, each NSIG sets the intelligence requirements it needs in order to deliver its policy outcomes, and prioritises them in an IOP Plan.

Each IOP Plan is then sent by its NSIG to the Joint Prioritisation Committee (JPC) for discussion. The JPC is chaired by the DNSA and the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) Chair and the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office's (FCDO's) Director General Consular and Security. The JIO assists by examining the policy outcomes within each IOP Plan and assessing what level of understanding can be provided by different sources (including secret, open, diplomatic, academic and business sources). This helps to establish where secret intelligence is vital and where it could possibly be replaced by open source work.

Having reviewed the IOP Plans for the different NSIGs and taken into account ministerial priorities and the potential impact of changes in allocation, the JPC then recommends to the NSC the appropriate balance of Agency effort for the forthcoming year for each IOP. The DNSA told us: