Easy Street
The events leading up to the MoK announcement last year clearly illustrated the influence of these retired VSOs. Their media interviews, especially with BBC Radio Ulster, were word for word what the MoD (esp D/Air Staffs) later said. Alcock's claims about the CHART report (that it had nothing to do with Chinook Mk2) were repeated word for word in Ministerial briefings; despite the team's Terms of Reference specifically including Mk2 and the report mentioning it no less than 383 times!
As Alcock was one of only two recipients of the report, and had delayed the start of the investigation while the ToRs were diluted, I'll leave you to decide if his was a genuine mistake or something more sinister. You may recall the Team went beyond their ToRs, which specifically prevented them from speaking to MoD's specialist airworthiness staffs - an astonishing constraint. That is to their credit and it did their careers no good at all.
Fox cleverly circumvented their influence by using the Defence Council and in doing so dented their influence. Certainly, these VSOs have been noticeably silent ever since.