Bootneck - I don't believe a divide does exist - those that have taken my comments on the future of SAR as a criticism of the professional competence of civilian crews are often not in SAR themselves or have wrongly interpreted my viewpoint.
Your comment about fulfilling the contract is exactly my concern over SARH - if the contract is poorly written or monitored then the contractors lawyers can have a field day saving money but fulfilling the contract. I had to endure this at Middle Wallop with appalling Lynx serviceability and Bristows management arguing the toss over what was and what wasn't a serviceable aircraft, failing to deliver what the Army were expecting but incredibly meeting (theoretically) the terms of the contract. Everyone suffered, including the Bristows engineers, except the management who hid behind contractual definitions as an excuse for not delivering.
This sort of thing is made worse when there are 2 or more contractors and sub-contractors - they can each blame the others for failing to meet KPIs while the customer gets screwed.
Tallsar explained quite clearly why the MCA got the bases it did but if they were not there and the need for them was established, then of course the military could provide - we would just spread ourselves even more thinly on the ground without recourse to EU employment law, CAA maximum flying hours or the H&SE to defend ourselves with.
If you don't think the RAF has the best all-round SAR capability (max range, NVG, FLIR turret and almost 360 radar) then you don't know SAR at all. It is that capability that must not be degraded in any future contract but has still to be matched by civilian service providers (and the RN in terms of FLIR).
If the promises of future capability by contractors were always reliable we would have a fantastic Nimrod MR4, Mk 3 Chinooks, a Bowman radio that worked and an S92 that could do 300nm RoA.
Whilst the casualty won't care who comes to rescue him, he might care if he doesn't get rescued because the required capability was 'taken at risk' or subject to contractual negotiations or planned to be implemented at a future date.
Is that clear enough?