“But like someone pointed out in a separate thread, it would appear too many Civil Serpants are feathering their own nest by "procuring crap"....”
A quick look at the structure of the Joint Capabilities Board, Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, his Capability Managers, and their roles, will show there are very few civil servants involved in determining or endorsing military equipment requirements. (Currently two, one responsible for Scrutiny, the other Analysis and Experimentation; they are not afforded the title of Capability Managers, and have no direct input to the requirement).
Military officers (Col/Lt Col/Major level) in the Directorates of Equipment Capability prepare and seek endorsement for their User Requirement Documents, and their Requirement Manager colleagues embedded in IPTs (Lt Col/Major level) prepare subsequent submissions/key documents such as SRD, ITEAP etc. Military ILSMs (Major) determine support requirements for the In-Service Phase. (I have never, ever come across a military equipment Requirement Manager who could tell me his primary role or explain why, by definition, he must be an engineer).
Civil Servants in DPA and DLO are reluctantly engaged by the above once they (the civil servants) have perused the, by now approved, project requirements and quietly advised that most are complete dross or fail scrutiny for a multitude of reasons. In the aircraft world, typical omissions (meaning DEC have not asked for money and years will pass before they get an increase, if at all) include, a simulator (so training and the ISD is delayed), equipment spares (so the a/c is role limited, if not grounded), aircraft spares (grounded), documentation (safety is compromised) - and so on. DEC have a choice – transfer money to these indispensable omissions, don’t buy them, or ditch the program. Normally they abrogate their responsibility at this point and DPA/DLO are left to sort it out. If you’re lucky, this is where efficiency and experience kicks in. I always ask for these decisions in writing. Incredibly, DEC often oblige, and I retain many classics, the best being to the effect that “I want you to buy (kit) for this aircraft, but I don’t want it fitted as my boss has already endorsed something else”. That, friends, is called a scrutiny failure. And, by the time the issue is resolved, it’s too late to spend the money in the desired timescale, and it’s lost forever.
This is not conjecture; I’ve seen it happen on, literally, scores of projects. However, you are correct in that there are serpents of the civil variety – they are the ones who ignore or condone all this in the interests of career progression in the knowledge that they will be supported at the highest level. (And I don’t mean within DPA).