Good, considered posts.
A key outcome of a design audit will, of course, be any required revision of the aircraft data set so that those in the field are working with correct, up-to-date and accurate data. Moreover, it is so important for the staff in the field to feed back to the designers what they find when they carry out the work, be it unapproved repairs, unapproved modifications, new faults or errors in the aircraft data set. Without this whole loop working as one, continued airworthiness cannot be assured.
This was one of the recommendations I spoke of from 2000 (it is all mandated anyway), which repeated those from 91, 92 ......... In 2002 I was asked to present on this to a certain IPT. I was shouted down by the entire IPT, bar one old hand who had worked in D/Air Arm. "We don't do this. A complete waste of money". You've got to get past this ingrained ethos. Some of those who sat in front of me are now quite senior in DE&S (but, hopefully, not in the MAA which would be catastrophic).
To the issues raised by Rigga and BGG. They are complementary. I look at it this way (because I was taught to). There are core airworthiness components that are not volume related - they cost the same whether you have one or one thousand aircraft. Then there are volume related issues, like serviceability of a fleet. The former is a pre-requisite to the latter. A simple example is an accurate and maintained Aircraft Publication (the cost of printing isn't in the core - that delivers Camera Ready Copy, which is the boundary for output regardless of quantity).
It is vital that the monies are kept separate so that, if there is a fleet reduction, then proportionate cuts are not applied to the core.
A simple little concept but absolutely fundamental. The separate pot of money always makes you think - What is this for? Why is it so special that it is kept separate? The questions make you stop and think, daily, about airworthiness.
The basic problem stems from a FY 1990/91 decision to lump the two together, so that the fixed core took a hit every time there was an "efficiency" saving or fleet reduction - of which there have been many. In fact, what happened was the ability to maintain and sustain airworthiness was eroded in a series of large chunks over the next three years.
The MAA needs people who understand these real basics otherwise the "sustainability" is forfeited for short term gains (like caveats in APs). I sincerely doubt if they have anyone remotely junior enough to know all this. Their senior staffs will regard such detail as beneath them. That only washes if you have someone properly trained to delegate the detail to - a concept almost entirely lost on today's managers and leaders, because most of them haven't attained that experience themselves. Unfortunately, you can now count on one hand those in MoD who have direct experience of having done this properly.