SASLess - Concur. The company took the hit despite the Judge listing eight reasons why they were not guilty of the charge. To my knowledge, no action taken against MoD participants.
Originally Posted by
Not_a_boffin
They'd probably got some people in from the Araldite mafia on the Clyde - who have form for this sort of thing.
From what I've seen - while not condoning what had been done - this is a tertiary element of the system, not subject to pressure, so not a direct safety risk. I'd bet it was executed by a sub-contractor firm to Babcock who probably won't be on the approved supplier list much longer......
I agree with the sentiment - no more contracts for the company involved. Unfortunately these days that's likely to be a political decision. The example I think of is the 2006 total recall and destruction of HF radio batteries (lack of which caused deaths), and the directive to contract the same company for the replacements. That MIGHT have been something to do with an ex-Minister non-executive Director, but I couldn't possibly comment.
But assuming the person, or perhaps the team /shift he/she was a member of, can be identified, what to do? The obvious answer is to, at least, inspect every single bolt, and everything else that person/team has worked on. Who's going to sign-off on anything less? A well-known ploy here is for the company to work out how long that will take, suggest to MoD an unrelated design change (software update is a favourite) that will take slightly longer, agree the contract amendment for that (meaning MoD is liable for delay), and then announce the delay caused by the original problem ('but it's okay, the programme doesn't slip').