Leopold - I can certainly say with confidence that all the Service SMEs are 100% credible and also that they have brought the quality of the bids a long way in the last couple of years. Many pertinent and probing technical questions were asked by them about claimed capability and training and the bidders have had to raise their game significantly.
It isn't a surprise that they might have been asked to sign a contractual waiver and I'm also not surprised that some might have told people to ram it - these guys have been working very hard to improve the future of UK SAR and the MoD doesn't want them so why shouldn't they work for the winning bidder? None of them will allow that to skew how they view and rate the bids because, unlike our politicians and many businessmen, they have integrity.