Well, it seems that the chickens are coming home to roost just as I warned...
Contractorisation only works in the short term, it is unsustainable unless the contractor has a guaranteed supply of staff. Which they haven't - they rely on a few people staying with them, but seem blisfully unaware that there is no-one there to replace them when they ultimately retire.
So - the prick who dreamed up the idea doubtless got his promotion and probably his 'K' some years later, but everyone else has to pick up the pieces.
Take the UAS world, for example. In the big picture, it costs cock all. It was an ideal way for new QFIs to learn their craft and gave them a bit of a break from the front line. Their enthusiasm attracted many undergraduates into the RAF who would otherwise never have considered it. But no, some Air Marshal who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing has to decide that He Knows Better. Now there are fewer QFI opportunities, fewer 'rest tours' from Bliar's wars - so more pilots decide FIIQ, pull the B&Y and off to the airlines they go.
Then someone realises that Houston - we have a problem. Sorry, too late. Even squillions of short term cash won't overturn the descent of a once proud RAF into its own high speed spiral dive of destruction, the warning signs of which were there for all to see some 4 or 5 years ago. But the self-perpetuating pillockry were more interested in their next promotions and turned a blind eye - and now it's time to recover. Hauling back on the control column by offering huge bribes won't work - the spiral will just tighten further.
The solution - take a long hard look at the way things were 10-15 years ago, clear out the bull****, tedium and general crap which has crept in ever since, abandon the creeping cancer of contractorisation such as MFTS and FSTA, for example, and get back to an RAF with the high standards of the past.
But I fear it'll all be too late.
Look at the nonsense of JPA and all that goes with it. The last straw for many, I'll bet.