“Ah, but are those the criteria applied to every other type?”
The simple answer is, NO. The main reasons, in my experience, are political imperative and poor leadership permitting widespread inconsistency in the application of process and procedure in DPA and DLO (and Mod(PE) and ASML/AMSO before them). The two, politics and inconsistency, are related.
I would say however that Safeware (whom I don’t know) and his colleagues at Boscombe ARE and always have been extremely consistent with their advice – but as we know, they only advise and recommend, it is for the IPT to decide. I have always believed that if the IPT reject BD advice, they should give their reasons in writing and have the decision endorsed at XD level. That would force a degree of consistency. Others disagree.
As it stands, and I quote a real example, BD can declare a system unsafe, the IPT reject their advice, sign and pay off the contract, and offer an aircraft to the Service which is not airworthy or otherwise fit for purpose. And walk away. Then, another IPT, under the same XD, can be instructed to make the aircraft/system safe, paying the same company again to do what they should have done in the first place, using funds from their own programmes which must, if necessary, be chopped to pay for it. What were the politics? Don’t make waves on certain individuals’ projects, as they have been earmarked for greater things. Or, typically, don’t mess with me, I’m on the fast track scheme and could soon be writing your report.
Now that I’ve moved on to Mk3 (!), what was the political imperative of the day? In my opinion it was (a) Mull of Kintyre and (b) COTS. The Mull thread is full of verifiable facts which demonstrate the airworthiness process was flawed, perhaps due to political imperative. COTS and MAR are, in many ways, mutually exclusive concepts. Same people involved, so is it possible they were overly cautious and risk-averse on Mk3? They would be bricking it in case something they signed for went wrong. I’ve asked people to consider this question before, “Why were far more complex concurrent programmes delivered ahead of schedule, under cost and to a better performance by the same Directorate?” Answer that, learn from the lessons, apply that learning consistently (vitally important – MoD is full of lessons learnt papers, but few are implemented), and many of MoD’s procurement problems would disappear. However, the lessons are politically unacceptable. The main one was, do the proper thing, not what the bosses say. If we’d followed their instructions the aircraft wouldn’t be flying yet, at 3 times the cost. Kind of like Mk3 really.