Thank you tucumseh for a far more detailed explanation than I could ever rise to.
squarking 7700, I would only add to tuc's excellent post that the people who broke UK Military Air Safety saw such expenditure as a waste of money anyway. Having just wasted a huge amount of public money themselves they killed two birds with one stone, covering their own incompetence while ridding the MOD of people like tuc who strove to enhance UK Military Air Power by enforcing the Air Safety Regulations. They did such a good job that the Regulations and those who understood them disappeared together, almost without trace. That is still the case and the attempts of the MAA to reinvent the wheel while upholding the Haddon-Cave fantasy of a Golden Period of Military Airworthiness both perpetuates the cover up and wastes yet more precious time and money.
You want to know the cost of not having an independent Regulator and Investigator? Just look at the present day state of airworthiness as its utter dysfunction is revealed in thread after thread on this forum. Just look at the way the cover up seeks new scapegoats, be they JOs, SOs, or private companies, to deflect attention from the corruption at the top. Just look at the way it goes on subverting the great institutions of the land as its canker spreads ever further outwards. All to protect those who perpetrated this sabotage and those who continue to cover it up.
Of course there is no simple panacea, but if Military Air Safety Regulation and Accident Investigation can be removed from the maw of the malevolent and baleful influence that is the MOD, then good and dedicated people can start out on the long road of recovery and make airworthy again that which is now not.