Sir George...
Agreed...
The problem you describe (the rise of "business managers" who are there to generate income, are from another industry, who are not thought to need to know the minutiae of the business, and who turn over very quickly) is evident everywhere. It was mentioned by Paxboy as being in telecommunications, and it is certainly starting to happen in my industry. When explaining to these wunderkind that they will face regulatory action and loss of profits or liberty if they compromise on safety, and if you can show through your risk assessment that this is a real possibility, all of a sudden you can compete with cash projects and safety can take its place alongside financial objectives. Because business drivers are leading to the hiring of administrators who dont understand the technical side of the business at the same time that as a society we are moving to a self assessment model for compliance then the corollary is that regular audits and proper incident investigations need to be carried out by people who ARE technically competent. And THAT is why the AAIB report should have addressed the "why" it was permitted to happen as well as the "how" it actually did happen.