See also:
http://www.publications.parliament.u.../386/38607.htm
Including;
30. Until a final decision on the way forward was made, the Department had taken a prudent accounting measure in writing down the value of the Chinook Mk3s by £205 million in the Departmental Accounts. The value had been written down to reflect that of usable spares only.[42]
31. The Department had considerable experience of identifying lessons from procuring equipment but failed to learn from this experience when acquiring the Chinook Mk3. The Department said that it had now implemented the lessons from this particular procurement project.[43] These included the clear points of failure in the project such as deviations from standard procures, identifying how Smart Acquisition processes could have made a difference and the way in which the need for Military Aircraft Release acted as a constraint. The Department had formulated an action plan based on these lessons and would review progress in mid-2005.[44]
Given para 30, it would appear the cost of this faux pas is £295.1M, plus the incalculable cost to operational capability caused by the lack of these aircraft.
Para 31 is rubbish. “Smart Acquisition” would have made no difference whatsoever. The key point that is never made is that the same Directorate was concurrently delivering far more complex programmes to time, cost and performance. All they had to do was ask “How?”.