To be fair to the likes of Drayson, when he made his promises he probably asked junior advisors what Government / MoD policy was. He’d have been told “Acquire source code and establish Software Support Cells. Bidders have to complete a Compliance Matrix – non complaint, no contract”.
But, like so much policy and regulations, it doesn’t keep up with technological advances or reflect reality. Or the fact that for 14 years our leaders have been systematically stripping MoD of the expertise and funding necessary to comply with this policy. Both Gray and Haddon-Cave reports dwell on this.
The last time I had to consider a SSC it soon became blindingly obvious that the only reason it was being pushed by the Service concerned was because the Military ILS Manager happened to be enthusiastic software amateur. When asked for a “sustainability plan” which involved a through-life guarantee of a fully staffed and funded SSC, the system toppled. In other words, a policy is only an aspiration until fully funded.
Yes, they may have set up an SSC, but the moment they had a funding or staffing problem, and a gap appeared in, for example, the configuration control audit trail, then you’d be in deep poo. This is precisely what happened on the likes of C130 and Nimrod; infinitely simpler systems.
This is part of a much larger problem. We, as a country, try to punch far above our weight, and the Government won’t (can’t) feed us enough to balance the scales at weigh-in.